Oliver's Story

'Hey,' objected Marcie. 'We could wrestle, but we'd have to keep our clothes on and it wouldn't be much fun. So cool it, huh?' And then she said, 'Dmitri?'

She knew the maitre d' by name.

'Yes, ma'am?' Dmitri said.

'Please add a tip and sign for me.'

'Of course, madam,' he said, and greased off noiselessly.

I felt ill at ease. First she had upset me with the candid dinner talk. Then the mention of the naked wrestling (though by indirection) made me think: if she was sexually aggressive, how would I respond? And finally, she had her own account at '21'! Who was this girl?

'Oliver,' she said, displaying all those perfect teeth, 'I'll take you home.'

'You will?'

'It's on my way,' she said.

I couldn't hide it from myself. I was uptight about … the obvious.

'But, Oliver,' she added with demurenes and perhaps a tinge of irony, 'because I bought you dinner doesn't mean you have to sleep with me.'

'Oh, I'm much relieved,' I said, pretending that I was pretending. 'I wouldn't want to give you the impression I was loose.'

'Oh, no,' she said. 'You're anything but loose.'

In the taxicab as we were rocketing to my abode, a sudden thought occurred to me.

'Hey, Marcie,' I said, as casually as possible.

'Yes, Oliver?'

'When you said my house was on your way — I hadn't told you where I lived.'

'Oh, I just assumed you were an East Sixties type.'

'And where do you live?'

'Not far from you,' she said.

'That's nicely vague. And I suppose your phone's not listed either.'

'No,' she said. But offered neither explanation nor the number.

'Marcie?'

'Oliver?' Her tone was still unruffled and ingenuous.

'Why all the mystery?'

She reached across the cab and put her leather-gloved hand upon my nervous fist. She said,

'Hang on there for a little bit, okay?'

Damn! Because there was no traffic at that hour, the taxi reached my place with speed uncommon — and right now much unappreciated.

'Wait a second,' Marcie told the driver. I paused to hear if she might mention her next stop. But she was much too shrewd. She smiled at me, and with a tinsel brio murmured, Thanks a lot.'

'Oh, no,' said I, aggressively genteel. 'It's I who should thank you.'

There was a pause. I would be damned if I would beg for further scraps of information. So I left the cab.

'Hey, Oliver,' she called, 'more tennis Tuesday next?'

I was happy she suggested it. In fact, I showed too much by answering, 'But that's a week from now. Why can't we play before?'

'Because I'll be in Cleveland,' Marcie said.

'All that time?' I asked incredulously. 'No one's ever spent a whole entire week in Cleveland!'

'Purge yourself of Eastern snobberies, my friend. I'll call you Monday evening to confirm the time. Good night, sweet prince.'

Then, as if the cabby knew his Hamlet, he gunned off.

As I undid the third lock on my door, I started to get angry. What the hell was this?

And who the hell was she?

 

'Damn it all, she's hiding something.'

'What's your fantasy?' asked Dr London. Every time I'd make a simple realistic statement, he'd demand a flight of fancy. Even Freud described a concept called Reality!

'Look, Doctor, it is no delusion. Marcie Nash is conning me!'

'Mmm?'

He hadn't asked me why I was so exercised about a person I had barely met. I'd asked myself a lot and answered that I was competitive and simply didn't want to lose at Marcie's game (whatever it might be).

I then kept my patience and explained in detail to the doctor what I had discovered. I'd asked Anita, who's my very thorough secretary, to get Marcie on the phone ('Just wanted to say hi,' I'd say). Naturally, my quarry hadn't told me where she would be staying. But Anita was a genius at locating people.

Binnendale's, whom she'd first telephoned, alleged they had no Marcie Nash among its personnel. But this did not dissuade Anita. She then called every possible hotel in greater Cleveland and the fashionable suburbs. When this didn't turn up any Marcie Nash, she tried motels and humbier hostelries. Nothing still. There absolutely was no Miss, Ms or Madame Marcie Nash in the vicinity of Cleveland.

Therefore, Q.E.D. and damn it all, she's lying. Ergo she is somewhere else.

'What then,' the doctor slowly asked, 'is your … conclusion?'

'But it's not a fantasy!' I quickly said.

He did not demur. The case was opened and I started strong. I'd been brooding over it all day.

'First of all, it's obvious she's shacking up with someone. That's the only explanation for not giving me her phone and her address. Maybe she's still even married.'

'Then why would she be seeing you?'

Christ, Dr London was naive. Or else behind the times. Or else ironic.

'I don't know. According to the articles I read, we're living in a liberated age. Maybe they just both agreed to 'open' their relationship.'

'But if she's liberated, as you say, why doesn't she just tell you?'

'Aha, there lies the paradox. I figure Marcie's thirty — though she looks much younger. That means she's still a product of the early sixties — just like me. Things were not that loose and free back then. So, since the girls of Marcie's vintage still are more hung up than out, they tell you Cleveland when they're swinging in Bermuda.'

'That's your fantasy?'

'Look, it could be Barbados,' I conceded, 'but she's on vacation with the guy she's living with.

Who may or may not be her husband.'

'And you're angry … '

One did not need psychiatric training to discern that I was furious!

'Because she wasn't straight with me, goddammit!'

After bellowing, I wondered if the patient waiting outside leafing through the old New Yorkers heard my blast.

I shut up for several seconds. Why did I get so excited in the process of convincing him I wasn't?

'Christ, I pity any guy that gets involved with such an uptight hypocrite.'

A pause.

' 'Involved'?' asked Dr London, seizing my own adjective to use against me.

'No.' I laughed. 'I am extremely uninvolved. In fact, not only am I gonna write her off — I'm gonna send that