Brian stepped out into a fierce January storm. The rain had turned to sleet, and the gray stone walls of the hospital formed a howling wind tunnel. He pushed against the gale, head down, deliberately choosing the struggle on foot to the crosstown bus. The wind would sweep through his brain, stinging, purging it of Charlotte Converse’s mesmerizing face.
Her hands were pale, delicate as moths. She lay there fragile, exquisite, so close to death. And yet he sensed an energy beneath the frail surface. Once or twice she had forgotten how sick she was and how shy, and then the mellow light in her eyes had flickered with sudden heat.
He turned the corner and started walking up Third Avenue. The wind settled into irritated little gusts, and he relaxed, letting his legs carry him loosely. This is insane, he thought. He didn’t know the woman. She hadn’t said more than a hundred words to him, not that she’d had much of a chance with him running off at the mouth. Must be purely physical attraction. But she was dying. Could that be the turn-on? No, when he had seen her on the bus, he didn’t know she was sick, not when he’d first fastened his eyes on her and decided he’d just as soon go on looking at the lovely face forever.
He imagined her lying there in her white bed back at the hospital, smiling at him, her eyes huge, dark, and frightened. And unmistakably hungry. He yearned to put his arms around her and protect her from any more hurt.
He belted his coat more tightly against the sharp, damp gusts. Maybe he’d stop off at Susan’s apartment on the seventh floor. She was always game for an hour of tennis or an energetic roll in the sack. Her healthy vitality would do him good. But when he rounded the corner and caught sight of the white brick walls of his building he felt reluctant to seek her out. He stood on the cold pavement, blaming his hesitation on a sudden craving for a beer. Instead of entering his lobby, he stepped into Crispin’s, the bar next door.
Holiday trappings still hung from the ceiling, where they would droop until next March, when somebody would finally get around to taking them down. Three businessmen sat at the bar, but the tables were empty, their candles unlit.
Brian perched on a stool, loosened his coat, and stared at the blinking Christmas lights. The bartender appeared, and Brian regarded him gloomily.
“You know, Jim, there ought to be a law about Christmas decorations: all down by midnight, December twenty-sixth.”
Jim grinned and poured Brian a beer. “Just trying to prolong the festive holiday spirit.” Brian reached for his glass. Jim watched him for a moment, then leaned on the bar. “You go to that hometown in the sticks for the holidays? Slimy Creek, PA?”
“Silver Creek.”
“Whatever.” He contemplated Brian. “What’d you do, lose that free-speech case today?”
Brian stared back into Jim’s watchful face and took another long draw on his beer.
“You know, I bet you got more on your customers than the computers in Washington.”
Jim shrugged. “All part of the job. Better’n pumping gas in Queens.”
“You got a talent for this,” Brian said, feeling the rhythm of his speech slip into synchronization with Jim’s. He’d been unaware of the habit until Barbara Kaye pointed out that he did it with everybody. He’d felt like a chameleon and was embarrassed, until Barbara assured him it was a gift many attorneys worked years to acquire—an effective technique for gaining the confidence of clients and witnesses. Speak the same language—no condescension, no mockery, just a slight shift in style.
Jim went off to serve the businessmen, who were discussing the attributes of their secretaries in ever more intimate, ever more boisterous terms. Commuters, all of them, checking their watches to make sure they’d make the next train to Stamford.
Couldn’t do it, Brian thought. New York streets, magnets on my feets. Terminal urbanitis, that’s what I’ve got. And his mind leaped back to Sharlie. He’d never given any thought to the word terminal, not really, and here was somebody younger than he was, getting ready to terminate her life. His mother had died, but that was different. Quick. She was here, she was dead. There’d been no time to think it over.
Brian felt the impulse to call Jim over and say, “Hey, I’ve met this girl …”
Maybe it was just that after spending all day with legal briefs and people who think and talk in syllogisms, whereas’s, and heretofore’s, a dying woman was a nice change. He would just spend tonight thinking about her, trying to get her into some kind of sensible perspective so that he could put her to rest in his head and go on about his business.
Okay, he thought, I won’t see her again anyway, and I’ll just sit upstairs with a bottle of Scotch and figure the whole thing out. And that will be that.