Another Marvelous Thing Page 3

  “Oh, how nice to meet you,” Billy said. “You had an article in last month’s issue. Aren’t you the guy who writes about economics and architecture?”

  Francis noticed that her bottom teeth were slightly crooked, and asked her what she had thought about this article.

  “I thought it was a little goofy,” she said. Francis surveyed her further and saw that her shirttail was hanging out on the side.

  “Oh, yes?” Francis said. “Which parts did you find especially goofy?”

  In the ensuing conversation, it was made clear to Francis that she found all or most of his article goofy. She explained why she felt this way, and then she said: “Don’t you think this is the most boring thing you’ve ever been to?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Francis said. “But then I’m considerably older than you.”

  Billy gave him a hard stare—the look of an appraiser at a diamond. This clear, naked child-gaze of hers made it difficult for Francis to guess how old she was. These days it was hard for Francis to tell how old most women were, and Billy could have been anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-nine. She looked older than his oldest son’s girl friend, who was twenty-six, but younger than his wife Vera’s partner in her interior design business, who was forty-two.

  Billy was speaking, but Francis’s attention had wandered. He felt a kind of inward lurch, as if he were having a dream about falling off a ledge. The air in his chest felt sweet as it does after a long laugh or when a headache has finally gone away. He felt as if he and Billy were standing in thick hazy sunshine. He heard the word “husband.” Her husband, Grey Delielle, was at a conference in Switzerland—he was the economic adviser to a small foundation. Francis had heard of this foundation and his head cleared further. Vera was in San Diego redoing a beach house. It occurred to him that Billy might be lonely for company at dinner. He suggested they leave the party and go off to a restaurant.

  “Swell,” she said, and they went to get their coats.

  At dinner Francis discovered that Billy taught two classes a week at the business school, and Billy discovered that Francis had resigned from his banking firm several years ago and now consulted to clients on the telephone. He was also writing a book on the relationship of architectural and financial trends. Billy revealed that she was working on her dissertation, the subject of which was the effect of the medieval wool trade on a Cotswold village. A long conversation about English architecture ensued.

  Francis spoke a little about his wife, Vera—Billy must meet her—and his two grown sons, Quentin and Aaron. Billy said that Grey, her husband, was sort of a genius but she did not say that Francis must meet him.

  It was a lovely night in early May. Francis walked Billy home. She and Grey lived on two floors of a brownstone into which Billy invited Francis for a drink or cup of tea. He asked for tea and it was several months before he realized that he had chosen it over the drink he really wanted because its preparation might keep him with Billy for a few minutes more. He also realized that one of the reasons he had found her living room so ugly was that it is perfectly normal for the lover to hate his or her beloved’s place of legal and habitual residence.

  Francis did not know that he was embarking on a love affair. He went home and slept peacefully, after making himself a strong, bracing drink. In the morning he remembered Billy’s saying that she had been looking for a certain book, a book he owned. He dispatched it to her at once, and she responded by sending him an article he had mentioned which she happened to have in her files. They met, not entirely by chance, at the Journal office. It was just around lunchtime and so they went around the corner for a sandwich. A week later Francis just happened to be near the business school and he just happened to bump into Billy after her class.

  After several months of meetings and luncheons, Francis became familiar with Billy’s uninspired wardrobe and her array of faded sweatshirts, shapeless turtlenecks, and worn corduroy skirts and frayed boys’ shirts.

  One day he said, looking at her brother’s old sweater and a skirt that might once have been olive green: “You’re the one girl, Billy, whom you dread to hear say: I’m going to slip into something more comfortable.”

  It was clearly provocative, and not at all the sort of thing Francis was used to saying. Billy did not bat an eyelash. She put down her pastrami sandwich, wiped her lips with a paper napkin, and said: “No one my age ever says anything like that. We just take our clothes off.”

  A long while later she revealed that she had said this to hurt him, and he did not think it wise to tell her how effective she had been.

  It was months before he kissed her, and by that time the idea of kissing her had turned into an overwhelming desire he was tired of fending off. Reluctantly he came to the conclusion that he was simply looking for an opportunity.

  One evening, after taking Vera to the airport on another of her trips to San Diego, a terrible restlessness took possession of him. The idea of going to a movie or going home to his empty house made him more restless than ever. It could have been said that he was looking for action, but that phrase was not in his working vocabulary. He drove into Manhattan in an agitated state until it occurred to him that he might very well pay a call on that charming young couple Billy and Grey Delielle. They were doubtless at home—Francis had heard Billy say many times that there was no hell more hellish than the hell of social life. She did not like to go out, and she did not like to entertain, either. It was not very late. Francis could easily just stop by, although just stopping by was not the sort of thing he generally did.

  On the other hand, the Delielles might be ready for bed. They might in fact be in bed—a terrible thought. As he neared their neighborhood he wondered what he would do if in fact they were out. He felt it was possible that he might have a fit.

  He found a parking space directly in front of their brown-stone, bounded up the stairs, and rang the bell.

  Billy answered the door, wearing blue jeans and a pair of tasseled loafers that had seen so many, many better days that they were kept together with a variety of duct and electrical tapes. She did not seem surprised to see him. Rather a kind of impish smirk overtook her usually expressionless features. It was almost plain to see that she was repressing a smile.

  “I was right around the corner,” Francis lied. “At a very boring dinner party. I don’t generally drop by, but I was right in the neighborhood.”

  “Oh,” said Billy.

  “I hope I’m not dropping by at a bad time. I mean, you and Grey might have already turned in.” Francis felt his scalp begin to prickle.

  “Grey’s in Chicago,” said Billy. “I was working. Come in and I’ll give you a drink.”

  But she did not go toward the kitchen. Absentmindedly she wandered up the stairs toward her study. Francis followed her. His heart was beating wildly. The bedroom and the guest room were also upstairs, he knew. Where was she taking him?

  He had forgotten how these things are accomplished. Did one grab the girl by the arm, or tackle her by the ankle? Did one pluck at the sleeve of her turtleneck, tap her on the back? Ask? Beg?

  Of course Francis had forgotten that in the case of true love, things simply happen—almost the only circumstances under which they do. People just look at each other in a certain way, and the signal is as unmistakable as the mating behavior of Atwater’s prairie chicken.

  What happened was that Billy got to the door of her study and then turned around, clearly confused. Only later did Francis realize that she had no idea of what she was doing. She looked at him with a puzzled, unfocused aspect that was totally out of character for her.

  “What am I doing up here?” she said. “I was supposed to make you a drink.”

  She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. The realization that he had fallen in love caused his heart first to shrink and then to expand.

  Billy took a step toward the stair which only moved her a step closer to Francis. His chin, he saw, would graze her head. One more step in either
direction—she toward him, or he toward her—and they were in each other’s arms. Francis felt impelled to move: he felt in the grip of a great many involuntary actions. His hand was on her shoulder. It was on her back. His other arm encircled her. He pulled her close. Some other hand—it had to have been his right or left—entangled its fingers in her hair and tipped her head back. Francis felt her arms slowly creep up his sides and around his neck in a gesture that was either tender or grudging. To his amazement he saw that Billy’s eyes were closed. She looked soft and dreamy—quite unlike her usual exasperated self. He was about to kiss her when she opened her eyes. These eyes, generally a hard, unavailing, unsentimental blue-gray, the sort of eyes that see right through a thing, had turned, it seemed to him, one shade darker. Francis felt very like a swimmer about to jump into a deep pool of cold water. It was now or never. He pulled her close again. Their lips met.

  Hers were soft, and tasted of raspberries. Her hair smelled of baby shampoo.

  Of course, first kisses tell it all. They reveal, as it were, the inner man. Billy’s first responses were tentative and noncommittal—as noncommittal as you can be wrapped up in someone else’s arms. She was grudging, and Francis knew that she would always be. But when she really kissed him back, he learned that she felt about him as he felt about her, although he knew it would be rather like breaking rocks ever to get her to say it. He would never hear a whispered endearment from her lips, he was certain. As for Francis, even he knew what he was broadcasting. Relief, guilt, and liberation made him passionate. He was hers entirely, after a manner of speaking.

  Their first actual kiss was a one-celled organism which, after they had been standing on the stairway kissing for some time, evolved into something rather grander—a bird of paradise, for example. Francis was afraid to stop kissing her. He feared that she might vanish as smoke, or throw herself against the wall and accuse him of being a cad, or she might sob out Grey’s name and fling herself down the stairs. But he longed to look at her to see what effect, if any, all this kissing had on her. He took her very firmly by the arms so that she could not vanish or fling, but he was unable to read her expression because she was staring at the floor. This made him angry and he shook her ever so slightly. When she did look up, there was so much on her face he hardly knew where to begin. She looked confused, enraptured, upset, and stunned. He saw desire, despair, elation, surprise, mistrust, and longing. So that was what her determined expressionlessness concealed!

  She looked up and uttered two words.

  “Oh, more,” she said, and this time she put her arms around him. Francis’s heart melted with gratitude. It was one thing to be in love. It was quite another to be loved back. Francis kissed her and kissed her. They kissed with their eyes closed, like teenagers. Finally Billy pushed herself away. She looked disarranged and upset. Any fool, after all, knows that two adults cannot stand around kissing endlessly. Decisions of one sort or another usually present themselves for immediate attention.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” Billy said in an unsteady voice.

  “I wish you’d stop staring at the floor,” said Francis. “It’s very disconcerting.”

  “I can’t look at you,” Billy said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  At this a smile overtook him—a smile of triumph. He pulled her close again.

  “This doesn’t have to happen ever again,” Francis said, lying through his teeth.

  “Interesting,” said Billy, “if true.” With this she slid against him as easily as people slide against each other in a swimming pool and in a very few minutes the decision was made to repair to Billy’s unattractive little study, where, on her threadbare and faded couch, they discovered how ardently and secretly they had waited for one another.

  The first kiss is a snap. It is the aftermath of the first real connection that produces such a mire of unwanted feelings. Billy sat up. The faded quilt she had pulled over them to keep off the chill slipped away. Francis noticed that without her clothes she looked quite chic, unlike most people, who look more stylish when dressed. Perhaps, he thought, it was the contrast between her nice body and her awful clothes.

  Billy stared at the wall, then pushed the hair out of her eyes and scowled her exasperated frown. It was a gesture which by now Francis had seen dozens of times.

  “Gee, I feel awful,” she said.

  “Oh, do you?” said Francis fiercely. He pulled her down, and quickly established that she did not feel quite so awful as she said. Their hunger for one another was quite startling—a subject Francis felt would never be discussed.

  Francis did not know what to expect in the way of an aftermath. He had never had a real love affair before. He had had romances; he had gotten married; and from time to time he had found himself in bed with some old friend or other—nothing serious at all: it wasn’t romance so much as social service or cheering someone up. Next to him Billy lay with her arms crossed on her chest, looking at the ceiling like a child filled with some secret, inner amusement.

  “In bed with Frank and Billy,” she began. “Chapter one. Frank and Billy have just gone to bed. They have been in bed for who can say how long. Doubtless they will go to bed again, and the funny thing is, they’re both married, and to other people! What a situation. How long, they might ask, has this been going on? Who will ask first?”

  “How long has this been going on?” Francis said.

  “That wasn’t necessarily a cue,” Billy said, and silence fell between them.

  Instead, Francis watched his beloved begin to get dressed. As she slipped her clothes over her head, he realized how considerably less gorgeous she was making herself. When she pulled on her tatty corduroys, he saw before him the old recognizable Billy, who like the strange, unclothed Billy was also his.

  When she put on her shoes Francis felt it was time for him to get dressed, too. He looked at the clock. “Good Lord,” he said. “We’ve been on this couch for two and a half hours.”

  Billy gave him a look he could not interpret. Did it mean that two and a half hours was a very long time, or not a very long time by her lights?

  As he put his shirt on, he noticed that some of her mild, sweet smell seemed to have rubbed off on him. He was terribly happy—as happy as it is possible to be under these circumstances, which bring the kind of happiness that is devoid of any contentment.

  It was quite amazing, he thought, that such a welter of complex feeling can arise from the simplest things—the sight of a shirttail hanging out. He had wanted to kiss that deadpan mug’s face the instant he had seen it, he now admitted.

  Billy folded up the quilt. The couch looked as if no one had ever so much as sat upon it. Reality set in, cold as a fog. Vera would have landed in San Diego by now and would be calling in if she had not already done so. How lovely it would be to live in a movie in which lovers have only time, not the telephone calls of absent spouses to worry about. But what about Billy? Did she expect him to stay? Oh, how complicated these things were!

  “Do you want a cup of tea before you leave?” Billy said, standing at the door.

  “Are you so anxious to get rid of me?” asked Francis. He was relieved and sad. The fact that he would soon leave set him free.

  “You weren’t thinking of sleeping over, were you?” said Billy, shocked. She looked about fifteen years old.

  Downstairs Francis sat on a stool in Billy’s kitchen while she boiled the water for tea. In novels, Francis reflected, lovers indulge in some form of afterglow: they beam at one another or smile radiant smiles. It was very clear that only the remotest afterglow was going to envelop him and Billy, but as he watched her set out the cups, his heart began to ache. She looked small in her big serious-looking kitchen, and he knew because she had told him how much she hated to cook. He wondered where she truly belonged. And where did he belong? How torn he felt by his own joy at where he was sitting and the terrible strangeness of sitting there!

  No one, he reflected sadly, ever possesses anyone else. The act of love
can be performed by complete strangers, but it is quite another thing to have access to what someone else actually thinks. Even though they were officially lovers, Francis felt himself tongue-tied and confused. He grabbed her by the arm as she walked by him. He spun her around hard and pressed her to him.

  “I’m in love with you,” he said.

  “I know,” Billy said.

  “Well, what about you?” said Francis. “Or do you always sleep with people when Grey is out of town?”

  “Geez,” Billy said. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”

  “You told me you young people just take your clothes off.”

  Billy gave him a baleful look.

  “I guess I’m a desperate man,” Francis said.

  “Oh, pish,” Billy said. “Why don’t you just ask me instead of filling the air with innuendo?”

  “All right,” Francis said. “Are you in love with me?”

  “Sure,” said Billy. After a long pause, she said, “Watch out. The water’s boiling right behind you.”

  With these words was Francis’s heart set at ease.

  Francis was a thoroughly married man, and had been for many years. He thought like a married person and therefore the aftermath of his evening with Billy filled him with guilt and glee. He did not know what he felt worse about—the guilt or the glee. They existed in equal measure, along with a number of other things he had not felt in quite a long time: he was as excited, hopeful, and confused as a teenaged boy. He was also extremely tired. He made himself a drink and thought he might take a bath, but instead he crawled into bed quite aware of the fact that he did not want to wash the evening off himself so quickly.

  Francis had not slept alone very much in his adult life, but now that Vera traveled for her work, he found that he rather liked being in bed by himself. The bed they shared was enormous—and was covered, due to Vera’s domestic genius and connections in the world of decoration, with a blue and white coverlet of early American design homespun by a weaver in Vermont who specialized in reproductions. It was possibly the largest blue and white coverlet of its kind in the world.