She ate breakfast at lunch in the library. Franklin Price, deceased nearly twenty years, had amassed a sizable collection of leather-bound first editions—an homage to a youthful fling with late-nineteenth-century literature. He had rarely cracked the books’ pages, and Frances never had, but she enjoyed the room for its scent, and the sense of impenetrability the wall of books gave her. Malcolm entered the room. He hadn’t changed out of his suit and his bloodshot eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. The maid brought him his breakfast and he ate it. Frances pushed her plate toward him and he began eating her remnants. She studied her son with a melancholic endearment.
“Did you drink to the brink of sound reasoning?”
“No.”
“Were you driven to insomnia by the violence of your muse?”
He shook his head.
She laid a conciliatory hand atop his. “Menstruating?”
He winced, and she made a chaste face. She understood what was wrong with Malcolm. “How are things with Susan?” she asked.
“We’re in our holding pattern, as if you didn’t know.”
“Oh, to be youngish and in love–ish.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “When will you see her again?”
“We’re having lunch today, actually.” This was untrue, but he wanted to defend himself against her needling.
Frances masked her displeasure as best she could. In a pinched voice, she said, “I’d thought you were on the wane. Where will you eat?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Even if the lunch plan were a reality, he would have said the same thing, since it wasn’t uncommon for Frances to interrupt his dates with Susan. “Is there room for me here?” she’d say after sitting down, the waiter already fawning at her side. Frances was a virtuosic manipulator of waiters; presently she would bring him in on some teasing game against Susan, a seemingly benign taunt relating to her ordering gazpacho out of season, or wearing her hat indoors. “It’s an indoor hat,” Susan would say—but she would remove it, face flushed, and another loss would be chalked up to the tally. Malcolm would do nothing to defend her, and the waiter wouldn’t understand he was helping to trample Susan’s spirit. Frances would insist on paying the bill.
“Well, I couldn’t join you anyway,” she told Malcolm. “I can’t put Mr. Baker off another minute.”
“What’s he so excited about? Another plea for thrift?”
“Wait and see,” Frances answered, and then became remote, sitting in silence, head side-cocked. Malcolm drifted from the library and to his room. He sat on the bed and watched the phone. It rang and he answered. Susan spoke in an unnaturally deep voice:
“Is your refrigerator running?”
“Hi, Sudsy. Did the cat drag you in?”
“Just now it did, yes. Will you come eat lunch with me?”
“Okay,” he said. Then: “Wait, I’m sorry, I just ate.”
Susan was quiet.
“I’ll watch you eat,” Malcolm volunteered.
“Every girl’s dream,” she said.
They met in a midtown bistro. Malcolm was late, Susan early. She sat alone in the booth, staring out the window. She hadn’t been sleeping or eating and looked poorly, or what passed for poorly for her. She felt very dramatic in the moment, waiting for the object of her desire, the source of her pain. A rainstorm reared up and the citizens of New York dashed here and there to avoid the worst of it. Through the crowd came Malcolm, a slow-walking, solitary figure. He still hadn’t changed his clothes, he had not shaved, he held no umbrella but appeared unconcerned at the fact of his being wet to the skin. His coat was unbuttoned and his bare, ample belly pressed against the see-through dress shirt. It seemed to Susan that each time they met he’d gained five pounds. He entered the restaurant and sat opposite Susan, rainwater dripping from his nose and hair. She removed his sunglasses and folded them onto the table.
“You look awful.”
He held up a spoon and studied his reflection. “I’ve got a certain something.” The waiter appeared and Malcolm, still watching himself, said, “Coffee and a short Scotch.”
“Can I bring you anything to eat, sir?”
“I’ll eat the Scotch.”
The waiter went away. Malcolm lowered the spoon and Susan reached over, pinching his cheek.
“You know she’s getting you fat on purpose, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“Do you think it’s meant to turn me off specifically, or women in general?”
“You specifically. Women in general never cared for me.” Malcolm took his stomach in his hands and sternly slapped it. “Is it working?”
“I preferred you before. But no, not really.”
Susan’s eyes were the color of honey; it hurt Malcolm to look at them, so he didn’t. She watched him disappearing in his seat and wished to hit him, kiss him.
Soon the waiter brought the coffee, Scotch, and a towel for Malcolm to dry himself with. Malcolm drained the Scotch and began patting his hair with the towel.
“I’ve decided to try a new tack with you,” Susan told him. “Would you like to hear what it is?”
“You can’t scare me with a good time,” Malcolm answered, wrapping the towel around his neck.
“Well, normally I ask a series of roundabout questions, approaching the subject, namely you, from seemingly unrelated angles. The answers, taken together, form a portrait of what’s going on in that mausoleum you call a life.”
“Right.”
“I’m not going to do that anymore.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m going to interrogate you directly.”
“I’m ready,” he said, pouring cream into his coffee.
Susan folded her hands. “Has anything changed in regard to your relationship with your mother?”
“No.”
“Do you have any reason to believe it will change within the span of the year?”
“No.”
“Have you told her about our engagement?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I’d be surprised if I did.”
“Have you thought any more about moving out?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“But will you do it?”
“I doubt it.”
She took a moment. “The thing I can’t figure out is whether or not you expect me, or if you even want me, to wait for you.”
“Of course I want you to.” Malcolm slurped his coffee. “But it wouldn’t be very chivalrous to ask, would it?”
“And chivalry—is that an interest of yours?”
He laid the towel fully over his head. “I have many interests.”
“Would you describe yourself as a coward?”
“No.”
“How would you describe yourself?”
“I don’t know that I’d bother in the first place.”
She pulled the towel away from Malcolm’s head and studied his olive-colored, unlined face. How had she come to care for this lugubrious toddler of a man? Love seemed evil at times, and human nature, this need to attain the unattainable, was so banal. Susan folded the towel on the table and said, “I want you to know that I am trying to fall out of love with you.”
Malcolm’s mouth creaked open, and he put his sunglasses back on. His silence conveyed pain, and Susan was pleased her words had had an effect. Still, she knew she had achieved nothing, and that victory was as far off as ever. She’d often wondered what Frances would do if she were in her position; now she asked Malcolm and he stirred, speaking as though he’d worked the question through long ago: “She’d never have found herself in your position in the first place.”
It was always this way. No matter what she said to wound him, the simple facts hurt her more. Frances would never let go of Malcolm, Susan knew this. She asked Malcolm to leave her alone and he stood to go. “I’m going to kiss your forehead,” he said warningly, then he did, and exited the restaurant, forgetting to pay for his Scotch and coffee.
Susan resumed her window gazing. The rain had stopped, replaced by radiant sunshine. Minutes had passed when she noticed Malcolm was standing across the street, watching her. His sunglasses were crooked; steam was rising from his damp shoulders. He was a pile of American garbage and she feared she would love him forever.