“God, you’re magic,” said Mack, running his hands lightly over Linda’s bare back. They were in bed at the Hilton, a bed they had barely left for two days.
“God, you’re magic,” said Mack, running his hands lightly over Linda’s bare back. They were in bed at the Hilton, a bed they had barely left for two days.
Linda rolled over on her side and ruffled Mack’s hair. “That’s what you keep saying,” she said.
“It’s the way I feel.”
“Yeah, but I think I’m entitled to better dialogue.”
“If I were an electrician would you expect me to rewire your house?”
“Damn straight,” said Linda, kissing him lightly on the lips. “That’s better, by the way. Most guys would have said, ‘If I were an electrician, I’d turn you on.’ ‘Rewire the house’ is original.”
“Glad you like it,” said Mack. “Do most guys say the same things in bed?”
“Sure,” said Linda. “At least in the beginning.”
“Is that what this is? A beginning?”
“Why don’t you answer some questions for a change?”
“For instance?”
“For instance, what do women say to you in bed?”
Mack flashed on the long, dreary line of literary ladies from the Big Ten states. “They say, ‘Why haven’t you published a novel in so long?’ ”
“Good question,” said Linda. “Why haven’t you?”
“I’ve been waiting for a really great idea,” said Mack.
“That’s the official answer,” said Linda. “Now, tell me the real one.”
“What makes you think that isn’t it?”
“Because I’m not a moron. Look, Mackinac, I told you about my life and I told you the truth, every sordid, shitty, scary detail. You asked and I answered. Now it’s your turn.”
“Ah, Linnie,” Mack sighed, “I don’t know what the real story is myself. One day my books stopped selling, the critics turned on me and I guess I lost my nerve. I couldn’t work anymore.”
“Writer’s block,” said Linda.
“People think it’s some kind of a romantic affliction,” said Mack, “but it’s not, it’s like having insomnia. You know how the more you want to sleep the harder it gets, and the harder it gets the more frustrated you are? That’s writer’s block. You get up in the morning and you say, ‘It’s ten, I’ll start at noon.’ At noon you say, ‘I might as well get some lunch first.’ At two you decide that there’s no point in starting so late, you’ll get to work tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, it’s Wednesday, you decide to wait until Monday, get a fresh start with the new week. On Monday you look at the calendar, see it’s the twenty-fourth, and say to yourself, ‘I’ll begin on the first of the month.’ And every single time you know you’re lying, that you won’t start in an hour, or tomorrow, or next month, because when you sit down to write, nothing comes out. You start to hate yourself for lying, and feel sorry for yourself because you know you’re not lying on purpose, you just can’t help it because you can’t force yourself to be smarter or funnier or more interesting than you are. And you start to feel desperate.”
“It sounds awful,” said Linda.
“Yeah,” said Mack. “It is.” In all the years of failure he had never admitted to anyone how scared and miserable he was. He had misgivings about telling Linda, too; he didn’t think she was the kind of woman who liked losers. But now that he was talking, he felt a compulsion to continue. “You remember my dad, right? He used to tell me, ‘Life’s what you say it is.’ That’s what I did, I said ‘Everything’s all right.’ I said it to other people and I said it to myself, and in the meantime I kept drinking and laughing and racing around, trying to drown or placate or outrun whatever it was that was keeping me from writing.”
“I notice you haven’t said anything about women,” Linda said.
“There was a time, just after The Oriole Kid was published and everything was great that I think I was ready for a real relationship.”
“You were what, thirty?”
“Yeah, about that. I hate to admit it but it took me that long to get over you.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Every time I was on TV, I used to think, ‘I wonder if Linnie is watching.’ Sometimes, when the phone rang, I thought it might be you, calling to say you’d seen me or read one of my books and you wanted to come back to me.”
“And what did you say to me?” Linda asked softly. “Did you take me back?”
“I gave you a hard time first, though,” said Mack, grinning to lighten the mood of what was becoming a dangerous conversation.
Linda sensed it, too. “You got over me, though,” she reminded him. “When The Oriole Kid was published.”
“More or less. Anyway, I married a fashion model, which is probably as close as I could come to a quarterback—”
“You’re not blaming me for that?”
“I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just explaining what happened. I got married, I got divorced, there were no kids, it was like breaking up with a girlfriend. Then things started to come apart with my books, I got all blocked up and—” He paused, surprised at his own insight; he had never quite put things together this way.
“And?” Linda prompted.
“I guess I felt like a cripple,” said Mack. “Women who saw it were too painful to be with, and women who didn’t were too stupid to be with. One-night stands were easier.”
“Poor Mack.” Linda rubbed her hand across his shoulders.
“See what I mean?”
“That’s not pity, that’s empathy, you jerk,” said Linda.
“I was kidding,” said Mack. “You wanted dialogue, I gave you dialogue. Anyway, things are different now. I’m not a cripple any more, I’m writing again.” He leaned over and kissed Linda on the neck. “And I’ve got you.”
“Not yet you don’t,” she said pulling away gently.
“Hey, all I meant was—”
“That now you’re okay, you get the girl and a happy ending? This isn’t a novel, Mack, it’s not that neat. I’m here, too.”
“I thought this meant something to you,” said Mack, certain now that his candor had been a mistake.
“It’s great fun. But I told you the other night, I haven’t been sitting around thinking about you all these years and I didn’t know you were, either.”
“Great fun,” Mack repeated.
“Sure, you’re a good-looking guy, still got all your teeth, not bad in the sack. Healthy, I hope—”
“That’s all this is to you, huh? Recreational sex? Nostalgia?”
“I didn’t know until ten minutes ago that it was supposed to be something more. What are you saying to me, Mackinac, that you love me?”
“Yes, goddamnit, I do. I’ve been in love with you just about my whole life.”
“At the risk of being banal, there’s a difference between being in love and loving someone. But let that go for a second. Are you proposing to me? Do you want to get married?”
“It’s crossed my mind,” said Mack defensively.
“Going in which direction?”
“Come on, Linnie, it’s only been a few days—”
“Relax, Mackinac, I’m not trying to trap you. You’re making my point, that it’s too soon to know what might happen between us. You’ve told me something I didn’t know, tonight, that maybe you’d like to have this turn into something serious. Okay, maybe it will. Let’s take it a step at a time, see how it goes.”
Mack lay back and closed his eyes. For a second, when Linda had mentioned marriage, he had felt a surge of panic. Slowing things down wasn’t such a bad idea. “So, what do we do now?” he asked. “Go steady?”
“That sounds all right,” said Linda. “Maybe I can get on Oprah: Middle-aged Women who go Steady with their High School Boyfriends.”
“I think I saw that one,” said Mack. “Writer’s block and daytime TV go together. Speaking of high school, will you be my date for the reunion?”
“What reunion?”
“My class. It’s Saturday night.”
“I think I’ll pass. Sitting around listening to stories about Tuffy Frankling throwing water balloons at Mrs. Staley and how many beers Jerry Campbell drank after the Midland game isn’t my idea of fun.”
“Come on, Linnie, I went with you to your senior prom. You owe me one.”
“Yeah, I suppose I do,” she said. “You were so cute in your white tuxedo. Yeah, okay, it’s a date.”
“Great,” said Mack. “We’ll have fun, don’t worry. I’ll even buy you a corsage. Afterward we can go out for breakfast at the Pancake House. Remember?”
“Middle-aged Women who go to Class Reunions with Their Senior Prom Dates,” intoned Linda. She leaned over, kissed Mack gently on the lips and lay back on the pillows. “I must be out of my mind.”