'tell me what's on your mind. That's what we do for each other.'
It was the kind of unpressured relationship she meant to have with him, one in which she intended that he would feel free to behave pretty much as he would have if he had been 'off-duty' with his friends and she had not been present. So far as she knew, he did, but she didn't have it quite right.
He believed he was making more of an effort to please her than he had made for any woman except Sunny Keller. When he was with her he was always on his better if not his best behavior; or intended to be, anyway. His effort was apparent to people who had known him a long time and seen them together. Dan Hilliard warned him he was 'getting somewhat pussy-whipped, you know.' He shrugged it off by saying that he supposed he was, 'a little, but Jesus, a man's gotta calm down some time, hasn't he? I mean, I may say that I'm not getting old here, but I have to admit I've been getting a little winded. Not tuckered out, no; a little tired. It hadda happen, sooner, later, I suppose; I been out raising hell a long time. Takes it out of a man.
'Plus which, even though you wont wanna, I think you gotta admit I could've made a much worse choice to slow down with, you know? I realize she's not your favorite person, and I can't say I blame you.
But what happened between you and Mercy, and how much Diane had to do with it; well, that's something that Diane and I leave strictly out of what goes on between the two of us. I try not to talk much about you when I'm around her not that she would mind because she's told me she likes you okay; she's got nothing against you.'
'Well, for Christ sake,' Hilliard said, 'how the hell could she, have something against me? I never did anything to her; she did something to me. I'm not saying she set out to do it, ruin my marriage, or that Mercy all by herself d never've decided she'd had enough of me, but Diane had a lot to do with what finally happened and when it happened, too, worst possible timing for me. Regardless of whether she meant to or not, everything she did had the result of turning my wife against me. I don't thank her for it.'
'Yeah, I know,' Merrion said. 'But I still do it, just the same, leave your name out of what we talk about. I just think it's better. And I never bring up Mercy's name and Diane doesn't either, much, although I know they're still very thick, very good friends themselves. And as a result, I think Diane and I get along pretty well. She's a real good woman. I like her. She's funny; she makes me laugh, and then she doesn't get mad when I do it. And she's not always trying all the time to reform me, or corner me, either, into getting married. Measuring me all the time.
'I had that happen to me once or twice, Mary Pat would get like that sometimes, and it made me nervous. I didn't like it. And've you got any idea how hard it is to find a woman our age who wont treat a man like that? Who'll just leave him alone and enjoy life, have fun? No, of course you don't. How could you? Your idea of a woman the right age is a thirty-six-C Wonderbra on a setta jugs that haven't even been inside a polling place yet; they don't turn eighteen until next year.
'I dunno, Danny; you, runnin' a college, all that firm young flesh bouncin' around all over the place? All that scary stuff we're always hearing all the time now, sex harassment cases? I worry, something might happen. Yeah, I realize you're an old hand, you could say, been doin' it quite a while now, and so far as we know, at least, you haven't been in trouble yet. But it worries me, Danny; I worry 'bout you all the time.'
He was right in his perception that Diane did not have matrimony in mind. She consciously tolerated more from him than she would have from a man she had been inspecting as a prospective husband. 'Gentleman friends are different from husbands,' she told Sally Davidson, a friend since their freshman year at Wisconsin. 'They don't have to meet the same requirements. The standards're nowhere near high. Be honest: the first thing to look for in husbands is whether they can make sure there'll be a roof over your head and you'll have enough to eat, be taken care of financially, if the day ever comes when they can't continue to provide those things. Walter was a very good husband. He left me very well-off, much better off than I ever dreamed of being.
Even if something should happen to my practice, if I got sick and could no longer work, I'd be quite comfortable. So there's no pressure on me, no reason why I need to find another husband. Furthermore, I don't think I want one. Two weddings ought to be enough for a respectable woman. More'n that and you start to run the risk of looking showy, don't you think?'
'Always wanting to be the center of attention all the time,' Sally said. She laughed.
That delighted Diane; she deliberately tried to say things that would make Sally laugh because the sound she made reminded Diane of the noise made by agitated poultry. 'Uh huh, there they are again. I just heard a bunch of turkeys.' Sally laughed again. Diane said: 'You're not kidding me, you know. You've closed the gallery and started farming turkeys. Don't the neighbors complain?'
Sally laughed again. 'Not a bunch of turkeys,' she said.
'Well, what then?' Diane said. 'What are lots of turkeys? 'Flocks,' like lots of chickens? Crows? Doesn't seem as though they should be, being so much bigger and all.' ''Gaggle,' Sally said, clucking away as she said it. 'My father said a fair number of turkeys was a gaggle. Or was that for geese, and a 'gobble,' that was his collective noun for turkeys I forget.'
Sally had stayed on to finish her degree in fine arts, marrying one of their classmates and supporting him by teaching drawing at Laydon Art School while he went to law school. Both becoming disappointed by the complete departure of excitement from their marriage, they had divorced after two years without rancor, thankful they had not had any children.
With her lump-sum cash settlement, reimbursing her for his keep while in law school, she had purchased a small dark-green wooden building near the campus in Madison and opened a small art gallery: 'Atelier Sally.'
Four years later, while working toward her MFA, she had met and married an industrial designer older than she, also divorced, who'd returned to Madison for a doctorate. They had divorced after eight years; he had been unable to reject an offer of an executive vice presidency with an internationally known firm in San Francisco; she could not bear to sell her business, by then thriving.
Now she was 'semi-living with' an oral surgeon named Tony who was thirteen years younger than she was and did as he was told. She spent almost every night at his house except when he went to conventions, and during school vacations when his two daughters came to stay for visitation. During those periods she lived in her three- room apartment on the third floor of her gallery. 'Yes, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think you're right. Tony's been after me again lately to get married. For the sake of his daughters, he says. He says even though I move out while they're here, they still know we're having sex.
'I'm sure they do. It doesn't seem to bother them. I don't really think it'd bother them if I didn't move out when they come here; it's his ex-wife who'd be bothered. Might haul him back into divorce court again it's what she does instead of jogging. Six years they've been divorced, and still she's got her hooks in him. 'So why get married?'
I say. 'What's the percentage?' ''Well, but on that same reasoning, why not?' he says. 'Then you wouldn't have to move out, even if she still was disturbed by the idea of us screwing. Then how she felt about it wouldn't make any difference.'
'Well of course what I've wanted to say to that is that how his ex' wife feels about our activities doesn't make any difference now, but that wouldn't be true. I don't care how she feels but it does matter to Tony. So I haven't known what to tell him, but now I think I do.
He's at a convention in Chicago this weekend. Wall-to-wall Porsches, I'm sure. You're the shrink; you explain it: what is it about dentists and Porsches? Suppose they feel safer and more comfortable driving if they're enclosed in small spaces, 'cause that's what they work in all day?'
'I don't know,' Diane said. 'Do we know what the gynecologists drive?
That might give us some help here.'
She was rewarded with the gobbling sound again. Sally said: 'When he gets back I'm going to tell him what you said. If he starts in on me again, I'll tell him we can't because Diane says it's showy to get married three times, and I agree with her. Diane isn't getting married a third time; until she changes her mind, I'm not going to either. So there.'
'And if things should ever change,' Diane said, 'if I ever did decide I was looking for another husband, I don't honestly think Amby'd be someone I'd consider. I'm not sure, though, which seems to be a hallmark of the way I am with this guy not being really sure. Now I know at first-hand what 'ambivalence' is.
'I like him. I spend time with him. I don't mean we're always very sweet and kind, and loving, kitchy-koo. We disagree about things. We argue a lot. We quarrel. We're both adults. Sometimes you could say we even have fights. But they don't stop us from liking each other.
He's caring and I find him interesting. I think he finds me interesting too.
