“DID GEORGE EVER BREAK YOUR HEART?” I ASKED CINDY, the minute we were inside her door. Unfortunately, I was developing a curiosity about her past.
Cindy looked at me as if I were only slightly less dumb than the Pakistani taxi driver.
“Naw,” she said.
She was looking intensely beautiful. She had looked great at the party, but now she looked subtly better. Something had happened to elevate her a notch or two, beauty-wise.
I knew enough about beautiful women to know that when that happens their prospects have changed. A new and better future suggests itself, causing their already excellent cells to radiate at an even higher level.
That must have happened to Cindy. Deep down inside her, some prospect was throbbing. Even as I watched it was being weighed on the scales of her instincts. That was why she looked so detached. I remembered that she had been seated by Spud Breyfogle at Oblivia’s.
She went upstairs without another word. Her new mood left me out to such an extent that I felt a little hesitant about even following her up to the bedroom. I was no stranger to such occasions. Often I had temporarily ceased to have an existence in the consciousness of a particular woman. One minute they’re talking to you, the next minute you could just as well be in Tibet, where they’re concerned. Sometimes you fade back in in a few minutes, other times it might take months.
Once I had followed Coffee into the bedroom, when she was in such a mood, and when she looked around and saw me sitting on the bed taking my boots off she was as shocked as if I had tried to rape her.
The only way to determine Cindy’s attitude, in such a situation, was to go on upstairs, so I did. She had already washed her face, and she came out of the bathroom with her nightgown in her hand. She was neither hostile nor welcoming. She behaved as if she were alone, yet she never registered the slightest objection to my presence.
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked, just to be sure.
Cindy looked at me curiously. She had put on her nightgown.
“Why would I want you to leave?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“You’re really goofy,” she said, turning down the covers.
I sat down on the bed and took off my boots.
“Brush your teeth,” Cindy said.
When I came to bed, Cindy took my hand. She liked to hold hands at night. It allowed her to be sure that somebody was there. We lay side by side, holding hands. There was just enough light from the streetlight that I could see her profile. Her eyes were wide open. While she was holding my hand she was thinking about whatever it was that had happened at the party—the thing that had detached her, and elevated her, beauty-wise.
“I think Spud wants to go out with me,” she said.
I felt touched. She had actually spoken her mind to me. It seemed a considerable act of trust, all things considered.
“I think so, too,” I said. It had been obvious to me at the Embassy party that Spud was interested in Cindy. I had noticed him feeding her a shrimp. Men seldom feed shrimp to women they aren’t interested in taking out.
Cindy sat up in bed and looked at me.
“How would you know about it?” she asked.
“I saw him coming on to you at the Embassy party,” I said. “He fed you a shrimp.”
“Yeah,” she said, startled that I had noticed something she had registered only subliminally.
“You must have a good memory,” she said, rubbing my stomach. “I didn’t even remember that.
“So what, though?” she said. “It was just a shrimp.”
“Feeding people is sexy,” I pointed out. “It’s a form of coming on. If I had a shrimp I’d feed it to you right now.”
Cindy looked at me silently. That shrimp eating could be a form of sex play had evidently not occurred to her. I decided to see what could be accomplished without the shrimp, which proved to be an excellent decision.
“It’s getting better,” she said, in a surprised voice, when we were resting and holding hands again. The surprise in her voice was extremely appealing.
“Do you want to go out with Spud?” I asked, pleasantly.
“Don’t browbeat me,” she said meekly, sounding like a little girl who was about to be sent to bed without her supper.
“I’m not browbeating you,” I said.
She pursed her lips, as if irritated by the complexities life springs on one.
“I like Jennie,” she said.
“Who’s Jennie?”
“Spud’s daughter,” she said. “Jennie’s my friend. I don’t know about Betsy.”
“Is Betsy another daughter?”
“Betsy’s his wife,” she said. “He’s from an old family, you know.”
“Actually, his family is better than Harris’,” she said, again with a touch of surprise in her voice. The thought that a man from a family better than Harris’ might want to take her out had never occurred to her.
Now that it had, the complexities of life were gathering fast. One of them obviously was that Spud had magnetism, while Harris only had a good family. Spud could walk through doors and feed ladies shrimp at Embassy parties.
“Harris is sweet, though,” she said, as if answering a question I had asked. “He takes me to every single Marx brothers movie that comes to town.”
“If you like the Marx brothers that’s got to be a factor,” I said.
“I got too much to think about,” Cindy said. “I hate having too much to think about. I can’t even sleep when that happens.”
“You don’t really have to think about it,” I said. “Spud hasn’t done much yet. Maybe he’s just flirting.”
“He better not be,” she said, indignantly. “He could get me in a lot of trouble, you know.” Her brow wrinkled at the thought of the havoc an affair with Spud Breyfogle could wreak.
“I hope you stick around,” she said.
“Why do you hope so?” I asked, though I was touched that she hoped so, whatever the reason.
“I like you,” she said simply. “If you stick around maybe nothing will happen.”