“I want you to understand it isn’t making me a slut that I mind.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
They were walking back in the general direction of her apartment. They were in no hurry to catch a cab. It was a warm evening on the cusp of summer and they encountered many strollers under the streetlamps. Jacob and Ellen were carrying their Blue Devil gift bags, like tourists returning to their hotel after a shopping spree.
“Most of your readers won’t know where you get your ideas. As for the rest, people who know me know I’m not Marcy.”
“Then what—?”
“You hid it from me! It’s not just that you didn’t trust me to understand. You thought I was too stupid to figure out a way to read it. Like I don’t know where to find a drugstore and wouldn’t have a quarter in my purse.”
“I didn’t think it through.”
“You didn’t think, period. You’re not stupid either. So why did you do it? Why insult me?”
They walked a quarter-block before he spoke.
“I was ashamed. I didn’t have the imagination to spin something from whole cloth, so I exploited the woman I love. And I was afraid of losing her.”
“You made up the pawnbroker. You told me that when you started writing the book. That was before you clammed up; which would be just about the time Marcy came in.”
“He’s based on every tough guy I saw in the movies. I’m a fraud. I made such a fuss about research and not inventing anything, when the truth is I don’t know how.”
“Is this a trick? Confess to any piece of claptrap so I’ll forgive you out of pity?”
“How’s it working so far?”
She bumped against him hard. He had to scramble to keep his feet. “You’re such a shit.”
“It’s the truth. I used to be able to cook from scratch: None of those things in my magazine stories ever happened. After I got home, they all seemed so phony I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought I was a writer. Some guys came back missing arms and legs. I left my imagination back in Antwerp.”
They waited at the corner for a street sweeper to gush past, then crossed. She was silent most of the way. Then she steered closer and took his arm. “It’ll grow back.”
They lay in her bed, spent and sweaty. A fan hummed on the sill of the open window, slinging cool air over them from outside as it swung their way. Ellen had a cigarette out, but just to play with.
“I didn’t love him,” she said.
“Who?” He’d begun to drift off.
“Him, idiot! Ann was wrong about that. She got the rest right.”
He sat up. This was it: the Secret. “It must have been hard, though. She said he was killed.”
“Who said he was killed?”
He stared; reached over and switched on the lamp on his side.
“Ann told you I lost him to the service,” she said. “That’s what you said before, and that’s what she’d have said. It’d be a tidy little tragedy if he was killed, but I wouldn’t wish it on him. I did enough to him as it was.”
“What’d you do, break his heart?”
“Don’t make it sound like I wrote him a Dear John letter. That’s cheap.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“His name was Harvey. We grew up in together. We were practically inseparable all through high school: You know, that couple that might as well be married, because that’s how everyone thought of them. Me included. When he enlisted and proposed, I thought he already had. I said yes without giving it any thought. I mean, it was inevitable, right? But I was smart enough to postpone things until he came back. I didn’t want to be a war widow. If this sounds callous—guilty as charged, officer.
“The marines sent him to the South Pacific. Over there he hooked up with a Filipino girl.”
Jacob was silent. The story had taken a twist even a pulp writer couldn’t foresee.
“I’m the one got the letter,” she said. “Pathetic. He scourged himself all through it. ‘I don’t deserve forgiveness; you deserve better.’ I was surprised the paper wasn’t so tear-soaked it fell apart in my hands. And every line was a knife through my conscience. It was almost as bad as if we’d gone ahead with the wedding and lived the lie for the rest of our lives.”
“Well—”
“Hold off on the comforting words. He was torn up with guilt. And I let him be.”
She fumbled her lighter off her nightstand, lit the cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling. “I never wrote him back. Of course he’d think I was angry and devastated. What else could he? I didn’t want to tell him I never cared. I lied to myself that I was sparing his feelings. Telling him would’ve been more merciful.”
“Where is he now?”
“Raising a herd of pearl-divers in Fiji. I get a card every Christmas, with a picture of the happy family.”
“That’s the big mystery?”
“Yup. What do you think?”
“Fuck him.”
“What?”
“If he really believes he ruined your life, he must know he’s twisting the knife every time he sends you a Kodak memory. So he’s either a dope or a jerk. You dodged a bullet either way.”
“I never thought of it like that.”
“Neither did he. Imagine tying yourself to that blockhead till death you do part.”
She took one last drag and stubbed out the butt. He hoped to cure her of smoking in bed.
“Now you know everything,” she said. “Everything I plan to tell, anyway. Think you can get a book out of it?”
“I’m not sure. It depends on how long it takes my imagination to grow back.”
She smacked his face, not really hard enough to sting.
They wrapped their limbs around each other and began the old ritual all over again. The fan reached them in gusts, chilling naked skin drenched in perspiration.