THEN SHE GOT UP one morning in a terrific mood. She was ecstatic.
“I know,” she said. “I know just the thing. We’ll go to New York, the Empire State Building, and meet all over again. Do everything the same. Oh God, it was so wonderful that first moment! Let’s do it, Josh. Oh please don’t be practical or negative anymore. Let’s do it, Josh. Start all over again.
“What room was it, you know, where we had that stupid meeting? Oh I fell for you so hard. That feeling I had. We have to do it, Josh. The same room. Even the same room. What was the number of the room? What floor were we on?”
I said, “I don’t remember. But we can find out.”
“We’ll say the same things, all right?”
“I’m not sure we can get the same corpies back,” I said.
“You’re funny,” she said. “Did I ever tell you you’re funny? Isn’t this a good idea?”
“It’s an idea.”
“Then we’ll ride to the top, of course, and ride through New York to the Algonquin. Remember that? Remember how you got me up to the room? I had no intentions--well, I was really fighting you. But the way you smoothed in. Oh you were smooth. You said, ‘For this kind of money they should have thrown in a room.’ Was that planned, Mr. Smoothie?”
“No, it just happened. That may be a problem if we try it again.”
“There won’t be problems. Not if we don’t want there to be. Okay? Please.”
“Okay.”
“Remember what you said up there?”
“Up where?”
“On the top. You said, ‘I understand on a clear day you can see Camden. New Jersey.’ That was good, Josh. That was such a good line. How could everything have been so perfect? Everything was so perfect.”
The radiance was back. Remarkable how she changed. She went out, got her hair done, bought clothes, teased and flirted.
“What did you get?” I said.
“Clothes, silly.”
“Can’t I see them?”
“Of course not, silly. They’re for New York.”
In fact, everything was for New York.
I had no trouble locating the room in the Empire State Building, and as proof that things were going right again, the room was available and I rented it for an hour two weeks ahead and these were wonderful days, leading up.
At first I had been a reluctant partner in this scheme. You can’t go home again and all that, except that nobody said anything about the Empire State Building. Besides, who makes the rules? I resented people making rules. Joan now had me up there with her. You can’t relive the past. Can’t rekindle a love that has died. Those were also rules--and so what? Let them make their rules their way and we’ll live our lives our way.
We agreed to keep contact between us to a minimum so that nothing might spoil New York.
There was to be no bad talk, no sarcasm, no complaints, even about the weather.
“You’re not eating,” I said.
“I’ll be perfect by the time we get to New York.”
She proudly counted off the ounces she was losing.
“Getting down to striptease weight,” she said, beaming that smile.
Yes, I remembered the striptease that first day.
Her figure had never stopped being sensational and it brought back memories, memories that had died. Some of the old lust began to heat me up. I began to feel rushed about New York.
I remembered the new things we had done--the first day in and out of bed--her saying, shyly but willingly, “Like this?”
Erotic daydreams about her began to occupy me. I thought of even newer things we might do and her saying, “Like this?”
Joan’s fantasies, those she’d admit to, were on the opening scene, there in that meeting room in the Empire State Building. How we sat at the table with the others and flirted by not flirting, except for the occasional glance. How she read my thoughts and covered her knees. How we just happened to be in the same spot during the coffee break. How she had opened by saying, “I know what you’re thinking,” and then all the fun we had at the expense of the corpies.
These (maybe sex, too, she coyly allowed) were her fantasies. All of this, she warned, we’d have to get right, though there’d be no rehearsing. No, it had to be spontaneous.
It had to be fun and romantic and easy and most of all, it had to be the same.
I thought to caution her that this could be very difficult, making things the same--but I thought better. Hadn’t I already decided to hell with the rules? Maybe, damn it, things can be made the same.
I knew a guy in Natanya, after all, whose house had been struck by lightning twice.
I once hit back-to-back exactas at the racetrack, with the same two numbers, nine-two.
Again, yes, we were gambling, only this time there was nothing to lose. There was great risk, however. If we failed in New York, if it didn’t click, the loss would be final, perhaps in more ways than one. There was something of the morning-glory about her exuberance, this bustle and zeal, such frantic high spirits.
We both knew the risk and didn’t talk about it since there was to be no bad talk.
When I considered the odds I also had to factor in the element of streaks. The good run--when everything came up aces and jacks--was always a possibility, especially for a streak player like me. We had had a very good streak, then a very bad streak, and now maybe it was time for the good again.
I liked that thinking and I liked everything about us those two weeks leading up to New York. There was one thing still to be done beforehand, and I knew it would have to be approached with surgical precision.
I said, “I’m going to Atlantic City to withdraw our money. Do you have any objections?”
“No,” she said, and all discussion about this was over. We both understood that the money was never to be mentioned again.