THE NEXT MORNING we were in the shower together and I had already dropped the soap so she would get down and just then I heard the phone ring and she said never mind the phone, but I dashed out naked and dripping, slipping on the tile, and when I got to it the ringing was over and I’d never know who it was. Or maybe I would.
I dialed the operator and she said, yes, there was a message, from Ibrahim Hassan, and he’d be calling later. I felt something between dread and ecstasy.
“Of course I believe you,” she now said, and it was obvious that she did but with reservations, meaning that she did not take it seriously, this great event of last night. She was in one of those sassy moods.
We were having breakfast in the Galaxy Coffee Shoppe, and though it was late morning, we had got ourselves a prize booth facing the ocean and the Boardwalk.
As we gazed out the big windows, the sun was beginning to burn through the clouds, haze still covered the waters and the overnight wind had calmed to a hot breeze. The joggers and bikers appeared and disappeared as if staged, and we were spectators enjoying the show. We were happy. Happy that it was summer and that we were at the shore, in Atlantic City, with the sun and the sea and the gambling so that anything might happen--and last night it almost had. If only I could convey it to Joan. The college boys from England were pushing their white two-seat rolling chairs, seeking passengers, and now the tram, half filled, slowly passed by.
Joan was wearing something loose and pink, bringing out the flush of her face, so fresh, smooth and clear. Her eyes were lit. She was incredibly beautiful. I tried to imagine her old, and could not. Impossible. I banished an image that had deceitfully invaded my mind. Joan dead.
Never! Some people should never die. It wouldn’t be fair.
I told her Ibrahim Hassan had called, at least I got a message from him, and that he’d be calling back. She said, “Is this the same Abraham you’ve been telling me about?”
“How many Abrahams do we know?” I said. “And his name is not Abraham, it’s Ibrahim.”
“Oh. Forgive me.”
“You’re being so smart this morning.”
“I simply don’t understand the fuss, my darling Josh.”
“Guess you had to be there,” I said.
“What does he want?”
“Want? What does he want?”
“Well, you said he’s calling back. Yes, what does he want?”
“Beats me.”
“Well he wants something.”
“Come on, Joan.”
“Where’s your cynicism?” she asked.
“I don’t bring it to Atlantic City.”
“He wants something,” she said.
“I have nothing to give.”
“We all have something to give.”
Strange for her to be so cautious. More like her to be first in her sorority to date a black man (and retain her chastity until she got married), and race thoroughbreds in Virginia, and surf the waves of California and even, once, ride the back seat of a Hell’s Angels motorcycle. That was Joan.
I said, “I brought Ibrahim luck last night. Maybe that’s what I have to give.”
“You say he’s a billionaire, this Abraham...”
“Ibrahim, Joan.”
“This Ibrahim. You say he’s a billionaire--and he needs your luck.”
“Maybe I need his.”
“Aha! Now we’re talking. You want something from him. Admit it, Josh, you do.”
“I do not.”
“You do, too.” She shook her head and then posted loving eyes. “Sometimes, Josh, you’re so transparent. You can be such a boy. Men never do grow up. But then, that’s what charms the daylights out of us poor helpless women.”
“Joan, my life changed last night. That’s all.”
“Oh?” she said, flashing that brilliant smile. “But you look the same.”
There, I thought, she’s into that Main Line tease, devilishly irreverent and playful, making herself a bad girl for the delight of it, savoring the exasperation she provoked.
There was also this--her fear of losing her individuality inside the man she loved. So to defend her uniqueness she rebelled, and not only against me but against anything that suggested authority. There was a story, which she never denied, that when her English professor declared Kafka an overrated talent she--this daughter of Old Money and Protestant ethics--gave him the finger.
“So do we forget the beach this afternoon?” she said.
“Why?”
“I thought we’d stay in our room and wait for Abraham to phone.”
“Not funny, Joan. But yes, I am waiting for his phone call.”
“But you don’t know why.”
“No, I don’t know why.”
“But you are expecting something exciting. Like maybe he’ll crown you prince.”
“In a sense he already has. Like the man who shook the hand of J. P. Morgan on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He said, ‘Mr. Morgan, I would like you to do me a favor.’ Morgan said, ‘I have already done it, sir.’ All right? So that’s what Ibrahim did. Joan, read my lips. I played for millions!”
“But his,” she said. “Not yours.”
“Good guess.”
“Are you really that impressed by money? You shouldn’t be. It’s unbecoming.”
Her remark embarrassed me and I asked for the check. The Galaxy restaurant was getting crowded anyhow, though these were my people. My fellow Americans and my fellow gamblers, here for the cure as I was. As if in Lourdes, here we were, the financially lame. Here to make the correction. There had been a mistake. We hadn’t received it at birth, we failed to earn it by the work of our hands, so we were here to wrest it from Lady Chance. Heaven had forgotten to bless us. Maybe a slot machine or blackjack table would hear our prayer.
Even the rich were here for the same reason. Is anybody rich enough?
We went for a stroll on the Boardwalk as was our custom after breakfast, and it was true that I resisted each step that took me from the Galaxy and Ibrahim’s phone call. What did he want? Was it something good or something bad? Or nothing at all?
“Maybe he won’t even call again,” Joan said, “and you’ll have to go back to life as a commoner.”
I didn’t mind the ribbing but wasn’t nuts about what she had said before, about it being unbecoming, my being so impressed by money. For money, her mother the Main Line matriarch had tried to split us up. Out there in Bryn Mawr, visiting her parents for Christmas, her mother had hustled me aside saying, “My daughter plays tennis and golf. What do you play?”
Play, I thought. Does everyone have to play?
“She rides horses.”
“I once rode a horse,” I said. “His name was Malcolm.”
“Do you belong to things?”
“Nothing at all,” I had said.
“I mean clubs and fraternities and chambers of commerce and the like. Joan belongs to everything.”
“Everything?” I said.
“Everything,” she said.
“I guess that’s possible. Maybe not desirable.”
“What’s your passion?”
Did I dare say Israel on the Main Line? Was it polite? I did and she said, “That’s a country.”
“I know.”
“Have you ever been to Europe?”
“I come from Europe.”
She said, “This won’t last, you know. This marriage. Joan has rich tastes.”
“I know it won’t last,” I said.
“You know?”
“We thought we’d give it a try for a year or two.”
“That’s not funny.”
Her father, he was funny. He told this joke about Jesus, the four ways we know he was Jewish: “He didn’t leave home till he was thirty. He went into his father’s business. His mother thought he was God. He thought his mother was a virgin.”
“Father!” Joan said. “That’s positively offensive.”
To which her father responded, “Babe, nothing is offensive.”
Later I had said, “Father? You call your father Father? Not Dad or Daddy?”
“I love him,” she said, “but we’re not alike. Frankly, I can’t believe they’re my parents. In fact I don’t.”
By this time she had already been disinherited on my account. How much, I asked, was he worth?
“No more, no less than any other flesh.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Oh what’s the difference, Josh? You and money.”
“I want to know. It’s titillating.”
“Fifty million. So I hear.”
“Dollars?”
“It’s all tied up.”
“You gave that up for me? You’re crazy.”
“I have no idea how much of that was to be mine. And I don’t care. Anyway, it would be more like several hundred thousand, so don’t get too high on yourself. Besides, he’d have to die first and he never will.”
Joan never defended her father and only once her mother. A high school principal had complained that Joan was sensitive and her mother had replied, “Exactly, sir. Joan was raised to be sensitive.”
Joan liked that and so did I.
I never told Joan about my conversation with her mother. I also never told her mother that I played hockey and baseball because hockey was not the same as tennis and baseball was not the same as golf. I also never told her that forget horses, I rode camels in Sinai and tanks in Golan.
When we got to Ocean One, Joan sensed the urgency of my mood and we turned back and she said, “Still thinking big thoughts?”
“Listen,” I said, “before this year is out I’m buying you a mink coat. I’m buying us a house. I’m buying you a car. Yes, a car. I’m bound to get hot. I told you, I’m due.”
The car, our one and only car, was a Malibu that had turned thirteen. This machine had a terrible problem--in human terms, flatulence.
The backfiring from the tailpipe was constant, and as loud as machine-gun blasts. The loudest “Bang!” came right after the engine was turned off. Windows shook. People dove for cover.
But as we got close to the Galaxy it was she who brought up Ibrahim, and she did not call him Abraham.
“You say he’s handsome,” she said.
“Oh yes--and there was something else about last night. I proved something.”
“Oh?”
“That I’m not a slave to people like that.”
“Oh?”
“Cut it, Joan.”
“All right. How are you not a slave to people like that?”
“I won all this money for him and he promised to make it worth my time.”
“Maybe slip you a couple of million.”
“You’re not being serious, Joan.”
“He didn’t keep his word, right? Just like an Arab.”
“Joan, you’re being very bad.”
“Well isn’t that the point?”
“No!”
“You don’t hate Arabs.”
“I don’t hate anybody.”
“Even Arabs.”
“That’s another story and we’re not talking about that.”
“That’s right. We’re talking about Ibrahim.”
I said, “He’s so rich he’s not even an Arab anymore.”
She laughed. “So this Arab who isn’t even an Arab he’s so rich...”
“He owns people, Joan.”
“Nobody owns people, Josh.”
“Oh, he does. But last night he didn’t own me.”
“How so?”
“I didn’t ask for the money. It was coming to me but I did not get up on my hind legs begging.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, “like your parents. You’re very sensitive about that still and won’t take a penny that’s not yours--but this wasn’t borrowing, Josh. I’m sorry. You should have been paid.”
“What about self-esteem?”
“If you had self-esteem, Josh, you would have demanded what’s yours.”
“No.”
“Yes. He took advantage of you and I don’t like that. Don’t they do enough of that where you work?”
“I get paid.”
“They take advantage of you, Josh. So did Ibrahim. But you know what I think? I think that’s why he’s calling you. I think he’s calling you to pay you for all you did last night. It’s only right.”
I agreed. He owed me and it was time to pay up.
By the time we got back to our room at the hotel we were very satisfied with ourselves for having arrived at this satisfactory conclusion. When we walked in, sure enough there was the red message light blinking on the phone.
“Don’t call yet,” said Joan. As she slipped out of her clothes I agreed it was unseemly on my part to be overly anxious about Ibrahim. Joan and I made love, even tried something new, and when came the big bang she yelped the big yelp followed by sighs and whimpering, and this, I thought, the sounds--this was more special than anything.
Not like people married for almost three years, we still made love like people in danger. Like beloved infidels.
Then I dialed the operator and she gave me the information.
“Ibrahim,” I said. “Left his number. Wants me to call him.”
“Well?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you were so eager. As if your whole life depended on this.”
“Now I’m thinking.”
I wasn’t sure. I was troubled. I had not told the man where I was staying yet he knew where to reach me. A man like that, of course, had ways. That was not what troubled me.
An ordinary friendship was out of the question. I was not in his league. Not even in the minors. He wanted something from me all right. Even at the blackjack table, enthralled as he was in our game, I felt the press of his attention. He knew me.
Even when I had been a face in the crowd I sensed his pull. He had me singled out. When he beckoned me to join him, the gesture, the raising of the royal hand, the turn of the regal face, was no impulse. He had it planned. The more I thought of it the more certain I was that I was being set up.
For what?
That was a joke, of course--that I brought him good luck. He wanted something else.
“I’m ready for a night out on the town with the world’s richest man,” said Joan. “How about you?”
Joan was ready for anything, always. She lived by the philosophy that everything ought to be tried once. She did not believe in a hereafter. This life was the beginning and the end.
I dialed Ibrahim’s number at the Versailles, the number to his suite, and there was no answer. I let the phone ring seven times before I hung up. Joan was disappointed--but then the phone rang.
“This is Joshua?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for returning my call,” said Ibrahim.
I asked him how he knew I had called. He knew more than that.
“You rang seven times,” he said.
Which told him something, that I was interested. A man did not let a phone ring seven times unless he was interested, and Ibrahim had been there, at the other end, counting, measuring the degree of vulnerability.
“We ended it too quickly last night,” he said. “I never had a chance to repay your kindness. The rudeness completely mine. You were extraordinary, Mr. Kane. I must make amends. Would you and your wife join us for dinner tonight?”
How did he know I had a wife? My wedding ring, to be sure.
“We already have plans for dinner,” I said to win back the advantage of indifference.
“That’s a shame,” he said.
“Thank you for calling,” I said.
“Tomorrow night then. Yes, we’ll have dinner tomorrow night. I insist.”
We made arrangements and after I hung up, I said, “The prince insists.”
Joan was thrilled. She did a pirouette. Then she hugged me--or was it someone else?