He’d invited Ellen to his apartment that night. He spent the afternoon with a mop, carpet sweeper, dustcloth, and Sani-Flush, removing the top layer of bachelor living from a room that, when it came time to make it presentable, suddenly seemed much larger than it was.
Browsing in Woolworth’s for something to spruce up the place, he’d bought tea towels. What they had to do with tea he had no idea, but they were only ninety-eight cents for a package of two, and since he wasn’t serving tea anyway he hung one next to the sink and the other on the handle of the oven door, but the blue stenciled design of a stylized vase of flowers only made the ivory linoleum floor look dingy and the white sink and stove stark, like fixtures in a morgue. He shut the towels away in a drawer.
He’d planned to cook—in tandem with Campbell’s and Chef Boyardee—but the housecleaning took longer than planned, so he overcame past trauma and ordered Chinese.
It arrived in time, brought by a Negro deliveryman wearing a bomber jacket over his apron and a fleece-lined cap with flaps. Jacob took the big paper sack, paid and tipped him, and finished transferring the courses from cardboard to crockery just as another knock came.
He turned on the phonograph, set the needle on a Fritz Kreisler record, and went to the door.
“Something smells delicious. Have you been holding out on me? You’re a chef?”
“Me and Madam Ying. Can you handle chopsticks?”
“On the piano or at the table?”
“Maybe we’d better stick to forks and spoons.”
“No, let’s be adventurous.” She removed her hat and shook loose her hair, transforming the apartment in a flash. The tea towels had never been necessary.
He helped her out of her coat. She wore a blue woolen dress that clung to her (Hurrah, static!) and a scent that reminded him vaguely of something lost. “You look great.”
“I look like Tugboat Annie. I’ve been bent over a desk all day under a twenty-five watt bulb. I’ve got bags under my eyes and a stiff neck.”
“May I be of service?” He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers.
She hesitated. “You weren’t one of those commandos who killed Nazis with their bare hands, were you?”
“I wore gloves.”
She sat in a straight chair while he stood behind her, kneading out the knots where her neck curved into her shoulders. Her skin was so smooth he was conscious of his calluses. Her head swayed with the undulating pressure and she made little contented humming noises.
“So you got the job at the brokerage,” he said.
“Today was my first day. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. They called yesterday. I just had time to buy a couple of outfits. You can’t start a job in the suit you wore to the interview. I tapped out my checking account, but they pay next week.”
“How’s your boss?”
“Okay. He’s got a fat wife and six really ugly kids in frames on his desk. No roving eye, thank God. I’m not so sure of one of his floor men.”
“What’s a floor man?”
“A guy who stands on the floor of the stock exchange and yells at the blackboard. He’s got a little wispy moustache like Doug Fairbanks and a pot belly. But he’s out of the office a lot, so I don’t have to pack iron all the time. Golly, that feels good. Learn this in the army?”
“Actually, this is my first time.”
“You’re a natural. Throw over this writing thing and come work for me.”
They were drifting into harm’s way. He let go of her neck. “Let’s dig in.”
She got up, rotating her neck. “That’s so much better.”
The violin had finished playing. He switched off the phonograph.
“What a beautiful typewriter.”
She was standing in front of a battered metal stand someone had put out with the trash. He’d moved the Remington there from the table.
“All I need’s something to write on it.” He drew out her chair. She sat, watched him set out the bowls and dishes and slip the chopsticks from their paper sleeves.
“Care to talk about it?”
“After I eat.” He had to put something on top of the grappa.
They took a crack at the chopsticks. She was more successful, but when the placemats began to look like Phil Scarpetti’s paint rags, they switched to flatware. The food tasted better than it smelled in The Greenwich Clock.
He told her about his visit with the artist and the appointment they’d made.
“Irish Mickey Shannon, really? Is he as dangerous as he sounds?”
“Not when you consider his real name’s Isidore Muntz.”
She frowned. “I think you should give this one a pass. Write about something you know.”
“I tried that. Nobody wanted it.”
“So write about writing.”
He made a snoring noise.
“Jakey, just don’t go, okay?”
“I like it when you call me Jakey.”
“Don’t think I don’t notice when you try to change the subject.”
“I’m all grown up, Ell. I think I can handle a sawed-off runt with a trick name.”
“You didn’t grow up in this town. You go there, I never hear from you, how do I know you’re not swimming in the East River?”
“What’s this obsession everyone has with the river? Doesn’t the Mob have any imagination at all?”
“You’re changing the subject again!”
They had their first quarrel. It was heated. Forty-five minutes after she arrived, he helped her into her coat without a word and she was gone, no good-bye.
“Oy,” he told the closed door.
Ten minutes later came another knock. He was scraping the dishes into the trash. He opened the door. She came in fast, knocking the knob from his hand, and kissed him so hard his lip was still swollen the next morning.
It was clumsy, the way it always was the first time. He was all thumbs undoing her buttons and the catch of her bra. She helped him out of his clothes; he tried to get her stockings off at the same time, and they butted heads; they laughed like idiots. In the next moment they weren’t laughing at all. They fell into bed in a heap, her teeth prickling his tongue, her nails digging into his shoulder blades, his thigh pressing insistently between hers.
It was over quickly, mortifyingly so for him. But by the time their breathing slowed to normal, he was ready to go again. She made inarticulate noises. They grew louder, and then her breath caught and he felt her shudder as she went over the edge.
Hours later he awoke to find her lying half on top of him, a leg flung across his pelvis, and his arm asleep beneath her shoulder. He left it there rather than disturb her. Let gangrene set in: What was an arm, anyway?
She started awake, lifting herself from his arm. “What time is it?”
His arm was tingling. He shook circulation into his fingers and looked at his watch. “Six-forty.”
“Christ! I’ll be late for work.”
She used the bathroom, hurried into her clothes while he lay on his back watching, hands behind his head.
He got up, put on his robe, and helped her into her coat. At the door she kissed him again, nearly as violently as the first time.
She pulled her face away and took his in both her hands. Her eyes were wide and deep as quarries.
“Please, please, please be careful,” she said.
He reached up and brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. “I’ve got more reason than ever to be.”
She left, her scent remaining. She’d smelled less of the perfume she’d put on the night before and more like him, a humid aroma of stale aftershave, heated skin, and sweaty sheets.
Which was a scent he wanted to remember, and not just because he liked to write the world the way it was, as opposed to the way it appeared in books.