AT 11:30 THAT NIGHT I REMEMBERED BELINDA ARBER, who had been expecting me to come by that afternoon and take her, her mother, and her sister to Baskin-Roberts, as she called it. Of course Belinda was only three and might have forgotten that I was supposed to come, but I had a feeling she hadn’t. Natural winners are not forgetful where their own interests are concerned.
Beside me, Cindy was sleeping deeply, in her pink nightgown, recovering from a long day of sexual awakening. Actually she had gone to sleep with one of my hands squeezed between her legs and it was still there, slowly growing numb. It was already numb nearly up to the elbow. Once I had pulled it out, to give my blood a chance to circulate through it, but Cindy had grunted and succeeded in stuffing it back against her fundament without even waking up.
I felt an inward disquiet, although it was a quiet night, so quiet that I could hear Cindy’s steady breathing. True to her word, Cindy had given me some soup, and I had given her some love. I don’t know that it was an unequal trade. The soup was probably as good on the soup level as the love was on the love level, all things considered.
Cindy took my feeling and swirled it around in the blender of her body, absorbing it instantly, as if it were a healthy mixture of sugar, orange juice, and raw eggs. Sex was the raw eggs. Since she herself didn’t have to bother feeling very much she got the full and immediate benefit of emotion that might otherwise have been doled out over several months of domestic life or social partnership, like a balanced meal.
Cindy didn’t want a balanced meal. Like Belinda, she just wanted a quick trip to Baskin-Robbins.
For the second night in a row, I fidgeted, while my hand went to sleep against Cindy’s cunt. At some point she rolled over and spread her thighs and my hand tingled for about twenty minutes, as it came back to life. While it tingled I tried to imagine the future.
What my imagination prefers to do with futures is furnish them. I see large airy rooms, filled with all my most treasured and spectacular things, and then I see myself and the woman of my immediate dreams living in them.
I lay in bed and furnished a few rooms, but my imagination couldn’t keep Cindy in one of them for more than a tenth of a second. My imagination is more realistic than I am. Cindy wasn’t going to be in any of those rooms. My objects held no interest for her and my towns and roads would bore her.
Though for the moment she was asleep beside me, in her pink nightgown, Cindy really was just waking up. Once she was really awake she wasn’t going to want me around. She would go out into the capital, as Boss had, and pick the men she wanted, from the berry bushes of diplomacy, politics, journalism, the arts, the law firms, or whatever capital bushes she might be passing. The juice of many men would stain her lips for a time, before she reduced them to mulberry-colored pulp.
In the morning she was up at 6:30, and she punched me five times before leaving for her high-level exercise class at 7:30. All five were unpremeditated punches that occurred whenever she remembered that I was going to Middleburg with Boss. She punched me once in bed, once in the shower—which she insisted we take together in memory of our romantic yesterday—twice while we were dressing and once in the kitchen. The last punch caused milk to slosh out of the bowl. She didn’t wipe it up, or explain any of the punches. I might only be the berry-of-the-week but I wasn’t supposed to be anybody else’s berry during that time.
“You better be back here by six,” she said, from the door. “We’re going to Oblivia’s tonight. We have to try and act like normal people.”
“My gosh,” I said. “We are normal people. Even the most normal people in the world are sometimes late.”
“That’s not true,” she said.
“Of course it’s true. Punctuality is not synonymous with normality.”
If it hadn’t been 7:25 I think we would have had a terrible fight. Cindy was itching for one. I wasn’t, but I realized one was practically inevitable, in view of the fact that I had a sort of date with Boss.
The minute she left I dug out a Maryland phone book and called Jean.
Belinda answered on the second ring.
“I’ll get it,” she said, having got it. Then she breathed into the receiver for a bit.
“Who is it?” she asked, having caught her breath.
“That’s not what you’re supposed to say,” her sister said, from somewhere nearby.
There was silence on the line as Belinda tried to remember what she was supposed to say.
“Is this the Arbers’ residence?” I asked.
Belinda wasn’t listening.
“I know what to say, Beverly!” she said.
“Then say it!” Beverly yelled.
More silence.
“Can’t remember right now,” Belinda admitted, though in clear and unrepentant tones.
“Are you Belinda Arber?” I asked. “I’m the man with the big white car.”
“Are you gonna take us to Baskin-Roberts today?” she asked, coming straight to the point.
“You better,” she added.
“Why had I better?”
“You jist better come over here,” she said.
“I just better talk to your momma first,” I said. “She might not want me to.”
“She cried,” Belinda remarked, apropos of nothing.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “When?”
“Two times,” Belinda said. “Are you coming over here?”
“Let me have that phone,” Jean said, from somewhere behind her.
“I’m talking!” Belinda insisted.
There was silence while a struggle took place. I could imagine Belinda clinging grimly to the receiver.
Jean, however, was stronger.
“Hel—” she said, just as we were disconnected.
I immediately called back.
Jean answered. In the background I could hear loud howls. Belinda had lost a round.
“I can’t believe she did that,” Jean said, sounding a good deal strung out. One of the times she cried had not been long ago.
“What’d she do?” I asked.
“Disconnected us,” Jean said. “The little bitch. If she can’t win she makes sure everybody else loses.”
“Did you spank her?” I asked.
“Of course I spanked her,” Jean said. “You think I’m gonna let her get away with that?”
“I couldn’t come by yesterday,” I said. “I just called to apologize.”
Jean was silent for a moment.
“I didn’t expect you to,” she said. “There’s no reason you should rearrange your life just because I have a bossy daughter.”
The howls came closer. The bossy daughter was returning to the attack.
“Don’t you hit me,” Jean said soberly.
“But . . . I . . . was jist talkin’,” Belinda insisted, her voice bubbly with sobs.
“So? There’s no justice,” Jean said, in the voice of a mother who was not very impressed with the tragic little figure standing before her.
“Is . . . he . . . comin’ over?” Belinda asked.
“I don’t know, are you?” Jean asked.
“I was thinking I might come over this afternoon,” I said. “I’d still like to see your antiques.”
It was actually true. I was eager to see what kinds of chests Jean had managed to dredge up.
Also I wanted to see Belinda, Beverly, and Jean—they seemed a likable and promising trio.
“You realize that if you come it means Baskin-Robbins,” Jean said.
“I can live with that,” I said.
At mention of Baskin-Robbins Belinda fell silent. There was a rustling sound, such as a little girl might make when she’s climbing up in her mother’s lap.
“Jist tell him,” Belinda said.
“You don’t tell people, you ask them,” Jean said.
“I’ll tell him then,” Belinda said, repossessing the phone.
“You’re rude, Belinda, you grab,” Beverly said. “I don’t grab, do I, Mom?”
“Nope,” Jean said. “You’re my well-mannered daughter.”
Her other daughter was not interested in such distinctions.
“You come an’ take us to Baskin-Roberts, okay?” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come.”
“I tolded him,” Belinda said.
“I heard you,” Jean said. “I didn’t hear you say thank you, though.”
“No, ’cause I didn’t say it yet,” Belinda said blithely.
Then she held the phone close to her mouth and breathed into the receiver, as if to make it clear that her will had not relaxed one whit.
“Is you the one with the soft car?” she asked.
“I’m the one,” I said.
Belinda giggled. “What’s your name again?” she asked.
“Jack.”
“It’s Jack,” she said, to her mother.
Then she breathed into the receiver some more.
“You’re coming today?” she asked.
“That’s right,” I said.
“Okay, but no forgets,” she warned.
“No forgets,” I said.