FOURTEEN

I could tell from the way he drove that he was in a bad mood, but mine wasn’t so much better that I wanted to talk him out of it. So I sat as far away from him as I could get, looking out into the dark and wondering when he would cut loose. There was no question he would, sooner or later. I knew him well enough by now to expect that much.

The trouble was that other times when we had a fight I could answer him right back, but now I didn’t want to. It was that Marian did it to me. In all the time I knew Egan he never bothered about any other girl, but I could tell he was plenty bothered about her. And I couldn’t see how her being married would stop him from going after her again, if he took it into his head to do it. It never mattered to him that I was married, so why would it be different with her?

That was the first time I ever thought of what it might be like not to have him around, and it made me sick. I even got to feeling sorry for that Marian, the way she was stuck with Claiborne, and the way she must have felt seeing him and Egan against each other. Claiborne was better-looking than Egan and it was a sure thing he had a lot more money, but he was all outside and no inside while Egan was the other way around. It made it kind of tough to be with Egan sometimes, but it was always interesting. I guess that’s why I loved Jimmy so much. He was like that, and Egan was the only other one I ever knew who was the same way.

After a while I couldn’t stand to think about it any more and waiting for him to open up on me. I moved over next to him and put my arm through his and said, “Don’t be mad, Egan.”

“Mad?” he said. “Who the hell is mad?”

“You are. But I don’t want you to be. I’ve got just as much right as you to be mad and I’m not.”

“That’s nice of you. Didn’t you have a good time?”

“Yes.”

“And wasn’t the company delightful?”

“Yes, a lot more than you said they’d be.”

“Then what have you got to complain about? You were the belle of the ball.”

“I’m not complaining. And it’s no fun being the belle of the ball if you want to be a son of a bitch about it afterward. Anyhow, I sure wasn’t your belle of the ball. There was somebody else there meant a lot more to you than me.”

“But not in the same way. Take my word for that.”

As if I hadn’t seen for myself what went on. I said, “There’s only one way a woman like that means anything to a man, Egan, and you know it. And you knew she’d be there, didn’t you?”

“I thought she might be.”

“You sure did. And that’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it? You wanted to be with her and see what she was like now and maybe start something with her all over again. And all that crazy talk about Aunt Hattie’s children and taking me along because of it—that was just being funny, wasn’t it? And all that loving and kissing and sweet talk you try out on me—that’s just practicing for her, isn’t it? You think Claiborne is bad, making passes the way he does? Well, you’re a hundred times worse, because you work at it so hard!”

We were going very fast down this winding road to the highway. He swung off the road so suddenly and jammed on the brakes so hard that the car almost heeled over. Then he got his hand behind my neck and gripped me there, turning my head toward him that way. I tried to pull loose but I couldn’t, and the funny thing was that I didn’t really mind. It was kind of exciting, feeling the way he held me so I couldn’t move, and I liked it, even if I was a little scared.

“You damn fool,” he said. “Do you think everything is as neat and pretty as one of those Technicolor movies your head is full of? Do you think every situation you run into is some fifth-rate script ready for background music and a happy ending? That makes life a real dream, doesn’t it? Now you can work out the story of me and my old flame so that we’re blissfully reunited while you duck out and go have your pipe dreams where nobody’ll bother you with his loving and kissing and sweet talk. That’s what it comes to, doesn’t it? But not this time. Oh no, not this time, lady. You may be dumb and deceitful but I like you. In fact, I more than like you. If you don’t know that by now, you’re a hopeless case, but not too hopeless for me.”

That made me real mad. I said, “I am not dumb and deceitful! Where do you come off to call names like that? You’re worse than Avery when it comes to calling names.”

“Oh, you’re dumb and deceitful all right,” Egan said. “You and your stories about the family estate on Mooney’s Key and all the money in the family. And the interlude with the rich Cuban. Jesus, what an imagination. I can see those waving palm trees now, and the butler standing by the yacht waiting to help you in. Not that it isn’t a lot prettier than a shanty where they serve turtleburgers and lime pie to fishing parties. Turtleburgers! What the hell are turtleburgers anyhow?”

“You eat them,” I said. “Who told you? Avery?”

“He didn’t tell me, he told Guion. They had a prayer meeting in the barge a few nights ago over a bottle of liquor, and he told Guion a lot of interesting things. From what Guion said, your husband is quite a talker once he gets wound up. Well, what the hell, you don’t have to cry about it. It’s nothing to cry about. Don’t you think I knew all along that those fairy tales were a load of crap?”

But I couldn’t help crying, I was so ashamed. And when he put his arm around my waist and pulled me close I didn’t stop either, because I saw he felt bad about it and that made me feel better. Then he started to sweet-talk me so that I was crying and laughing together, and he said, “Well make up your mind. Is it laughter or tears?” and I said, “You don’t know, Egan. Turtleburgers are just awful,” and he had to laugh, too, so I knew things were better between us.

He said, “All the same you’ll have to make up your mind about a couple of things. Like Avery. When do you tell him you’re walking out on him?”

“I don’t know when. I wouldn’t even know what to tell him, Egan.”

“Then walk out without telling him.”

“I couldn’t. It cost him an awful lot to marry me. I guess it cost him almost everything he had. He’d never let me get away with it. You know that.”

“Maybe so, but where does that leave me? Waiting around for something to happen to him?” And then he said, “Or would it be better if I made sure something did happen?”

I didn’t like the way he said that. I told him so, and he said, “Well, what the hell, when you get down to cases I’m more your husband now than he is except for one thing, and that’s the good old-fashioned sexual act. There’s no reason we have to play games about it any more. And don’t be misled by those paintings of nymphs and satyrs in the museum. They might look like they’re only chasing each other in those pictures, but there’s a point to it, and somebody always gets caught. You see what I’m getting at, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“All right, what do we do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to do anything about it.”

He didn’t push me away, but he pulled his arm from around me and that’s how it felt. “What makes you so holy anyhow?” he said. “Your husband’s prayers catching up to you?”

“No.”

“Then what is it? What’s the reason for the great change?”

“What great change?”

“The one in your attitude. From all I heard, you didn’t keep saying no to the boys around Key West before Avery came along.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Not according to Avery. What would be the point of his lying about this and telling the truth about everything else?”

“Because he’s crazy! Because he talks that way and it doesn’t mean anything. I swear to God, I never did it with any boy, Egan. I never did.”

It was awful. It was like being with Lettie all over again when she was having one of her fits about me. But it was worse with Egan. I hated it to be Egan.

And he wouldn’t listen. I said, “Listen to me, Egan,” and I shook his arm, but he was being the old stone face the way Lettie used to be. So I said, “I swear to God, Egan, I never did it with anybody. Not anybody in the whole world. I never even did it with Avery!”

Then he looked at me. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, “here we go back to the butler and the yacht and the seacoast of Bohemia. My error—make that Mooney’s Key.”

I guess that was what did it. It hurt so much that I didn’t care what happened. “All right, Egan,” I said, “you’re so smart, could you tell if a girl ever did it before when you get in bed with her?”

“You want to try me?” he said.

At the end of the road, right near where it turned into the highway, there was a motel, and that was the one we went to. The thing that made it easy was not caring. I let him undress me because he wanted to, and he took all the time in the world over it, and it didn’t bother me. And I lay on the bed looking at him as he reached up to turn off the light, standing there all naked, and I thought, Oh, Egan, are you in for the biggest surprise of your life.

And he was surprised there in the dark, but more than that he was ashamed. I didn’t want him to be. I didn’t want him to stop, because now I wouldn’t have to wonder what it was all about. So I held my arms around him tight and wouldn’t let go, and I said, “It’s all right. It’s all right,” even when I was thinking that it hurt like hell. And I said, “Beloved Husband,” thinking that it didn’t matter if I had a baby. It didn’t matter at all, because it would be like having Jimmy’s baby.

When it started to get gray I took his arm from around me very carefully so as not to wake him up, and I went to the window. There was a wet green smell coming through it from the grass outside, and beyond it you could just begin to see the highway. Now and then a car would come along, just headlights at first and then the noise as it whooshed by, and after that it would be so quiet again that I felt like the only thing alive in the whole world.

My cigarettes were on the little table by the bed. I took one and when I lit the match I saw on the sheet what Lettie had been looking for that last morning I was with her. I didn’t know that then, but now I did. I knew more than I ever thought I could, and I thought, All she had to do was ask me about it.

All she had to do was ask me about it, and now it was too late.