Loving Time

part.’ You say, ‘How’s the weather?’ What am I supposed to think?”

Jason was silent as he struggled with gender differences that sometimes seemed unbridgeable. Was he really so evil if the right words to him were not the right words to her? Wasn’t it the essence of feeling that mattered, the things that weren’t said and couldn’t really be said? Or was he just a caveman, no better than a scruffy, disorganized seventeen-year-old with a Walkman plugged into his ears, who just couldn’t deal, man, with anything else but lust? The silence led him into a contemplation of his working space.

Jason’s office had bookshelves up to the ceiling on two walls. The third wall had two windows facing the side street high above the entrance to the building. These windows were covered with shutters so that no patient attempting to resist treatment could see out and thus be distracted by the weather or the view. There were five clocks in the office. None had chimes. In this room, everything else was old, but time passed without comment.

In spite of the odd array on the shelves and tables of the usually tasteless gifts from patients’ vacations— needlepoint pillows, painted rocks, sculptures made from colored sea-shells, watercolor landscapes, and his burgeoning collection of books and medical journals—Jason’s office had an ascetic, almost hermetical, feeling to it. The two doors that sealed the office off from the waiting room didn’t help. Sometimes even Jason had the feeling of being locked inside. His tour completed, he repressed a sigh.

“You there?” Emma asked after a minute.

“Where else,” he murmured, leaning forward to adjust the minute hand on the nearest clock. “Shall we try again?”

“Good idea.”

“I got your message.”

“Good. What do you think?”

“I think it’s great, Em, really great. You’ve always wanted to work on the stage.”

“It’s a good play.”

“I’m sure it’s a good play, otherwise you wouldn’t want to do it.” He doodled on his appointment book. It was the official one of the APA, with enough lines for every hour of the day. He could see that tomorrow was completely booked, and so was the day after.

“It’s really a comedy. I probably won’t get it,” Emma said.

Jason didn’t counter with his belief that she would get it. For many years Emma had auditioned relentlessly for every part in every play that was remotely appropriate for her, as well as every commercial in New York. She never got anything except voice-overs. She had a great voice and did a lot of voice-overs for people who looked right for such things as Excedrin headaches but didn’t sound right for them. He didn’t dare ask Emma to show him the play script, either. He’d abdicated that particular right when he neglected to read the script of Serpent’s Teeth, the film that brought about her kidnapping and their estrangement six months ago.

“What’s it called?” he asked finally. “The play.”

“Strokes.”

“Ah, another S title. Who’s the author?”

Her triumph traveled east across the country with the speed of sound. “Simon Beak.”

“Wow, no kidding.” Now Jason’s voice registered real excitement. “Jesus, Emma, that’s thrilling. That’s Broadway. That’s—” Big time.

“Look, don’t get too excited. I probably won’t get it.”

“So what. I’m impressed,” he breathed. “I’m really impressed.”

“You didn’t think I was up to it, did you?”

“Yes, I did. You didn’t think you were.”

She didn’t say it took a far-out, trashy vehicle like Serpent’s Teeth for her to get noticed, and he didn’t say it, either. What people had to do to get what they wanted—well, it was more complicated than either had thought. They both knew more about ambition and drive now. Getting ahead in any field was no picnic.

“So, do you have to clear someone out of my bed? Or should I stay in a hotel?” Emma’s voice was light, but she meant it. She could take her lumps. That’s what got her through ordeals that shoved other people into the shredder.

“That’s a joke, right?”

“No. That’s not a joke. It’s no secret that they’re lining up for you, Jason. All those lovely ladies in the caring profession.”

“Ah, now you sound bitter,” Jason said, a little pleased that the wife who wandered away from him was jealous. Many wives of psychiatrists were psychologists or social workers or teachers, sweet, understanding women who didn’t make too many demands lest their busy husbands slap them down.

Whenever Emma met one of these wives, they always asked her if she was in the caring profession. And she always replied, “No, I’m in the uncaring profession.” To which no one ever reacted negatively because that would be aggressive and judgmental. Aggressive and judgmental weren’t politically correct in his field.

“Are we bitter?” Jason asked.

“Just a little. So what’s the story on the bedroom?”

“The story is the sheets are clean. You have nothing to fear on that score. I’ve been saving it all for you.”

“Oh, and what if I didn’t come back? What would happen to it then?”

“Baby, you know what you have to do. Move your things out and tell me it’s over. After that what I do is none of your business. Until then I’m yours.”

“Good, I’ll be home Saturday.”

Jason flipped to Saturday in his appointment book. “Any particular time?”

“I’ll let you know.”

There was nothing written down for Saturday. He scratched at his beard. Emma hadn’t seen it yet. Maybe he should get a haircut and a shave, but maybe he shouldn’t. He pondered: To shave or not to shave, that was the question. “I’ll be here,” he told her.

twenty-two

“Bobbie …”

Bobbie Boudreau heard the soft, muted cry and swung his body around to look for trouble behind him, his hands curling instinctively into fists. Half a block south on Broadway little Gunn Tram was hurrying after him, calling out his name in the noisy, densely populated, brightly lit rush-hour dusk. Bobbie had turned into the wind off the river and now felt the bite of approaching winter on his face. He had important business on his mind, scowled at having to be distracted.

Gunn quickened her small steps. For a second, she looked to Bobbie like an aging dachshund. Her big head and thickening body teetered precariously along Broadway on stubby legs and tiny black-sneakered feet. He didn’t call out to her but remained rooted where he’d stopped so she wouldn’t scream louder and draw more attention to herself.

Finally within hailing distance, she called out to him: “Going to the house?”

“Maybe,” he said slowly.

“Walk with me? I have news.”

“All right.” His eyes wrenched away from her, and he started moving again. He was pained to see this so- called friend in a shapeless pants suit and sneakers. It was embarrassing. It occurred to him that Gunn was letting herself go, was getting to be an old woman now, no longer bothering even with the pretense of carrying a good pair of shoes back and forth to her job in the personnel department at the Centre.

Gunn was sixty-two on her last birthday and joked about changing the dates in her own file so she couldn’t be retired. Not that anyone would think of retiring her, she said comfortably. “I’m the heart of the Centre, the human resource,” she liked to say.

Until recently, Bobbie had always thought so, too. Gunn was kind of saintly, soft on people. She was an