Oliver's Story

Where a wagon entered.

Pushed by Mildred.

Cargo: breakfast.

By the time I'd wiped my face off, Marcie was at table — in a garment she did not intend to wear to work (I hope). I sat down clad in merely towel.

'Coffee, bacon, eggs?'

'Jesus, it's a damn hotel!'

'Are you still complaining, Mr Barrett?'

'No, it was fun,' I answered, buttering a muffin, 'and I'd like to come again 'cause it was silly.'

Then I paused. And told her, 'In, like, thirty years.'

She looked perplexed.

'Marce,' I said, 'this place is strictly for the paleologists. It's full of sleeping dinosaurs.'

She looked at me.

'This isn't what you really want,' I said.

Her face seemed sort of moved.

'I want to be with you,' she answered.

She wasn't coy. Or full of metaphor, as I had been.

'Okay,' I said. To give me time to think of what to say.

'When would you like to go?' she asked.

'Today,' I answered.

Marcie wasn't fazed.

'Just tell me when and where.'

'Let's meet at five o'clock in Central Park. The East Side entrance to the reservoir.'

'What should I bring?' she asked.

'Your track shoes,' I replied.

 

I fell thirty thousand feet and hit the ground. I was incredibly depressed.

'It's unbearable,' I told the doctor. 'Couldn't you have warned me?'

Earlier that afternoon, my wild euphoria had started to dissolve into a sadness beyond words.

'But nothing's wrong — ' I started. Then I realized how ridiculous it sounded. 'I mean things are going well with Marcie. It's just me. I've clutched. I can't go through with it.'

There was a pause. I hadn't specified what I could not go through with.

I knew. But it was difficult to say:

'Taking her to my place. Do you understand?'

Once again I'd acted rashly. Why the haste in making Marcie leave her house? Why do I precipitate these gestures of … commitment?

'Maybe I'm just using Marcie selfishly … to fill the void.' I thought about my own hypothesis.

'Or maybe it's still Jenny. I mean almost two years later I could maybe have a fling and justify it.

But my house! To have somebody in my house and in my bed. Sure, realistically the house is different and the bed is different. Logic says it shouldn't bother me. But damn, it does.'

'Home', you see, is still a place I live with Jenny.

Paradox: They say that husbands all have fantasies of being single. I'm a weirdo. I lapse into daydreams that I'm married.

And it helps to have a place that is inviolate. A pad that no one comes to. I mean nothing breaks the comforting illusion that I'm sharing all I have with someone.

Now and then a piece of mail is forwarded, addressed to both of us. And Radcliffe regularly sends her letters coaxing contributions. This is my dividend for not announcing Jenny's death except to friends.

The only other toothbrush in the bathroom has belonged to Philip Cavilleri.

So you see, it's either a dishonest act to one girl …

Or betrayal of another.

Dr London spoke.

'In either case, that puts you in the wrong.'

He understood. But unexpectedly his understanding made it even worse.

'Must it be only either/or?' he queried with a Kierkegaardian allusion. 'Could there be no other explanation for your conflict?'

'What?' I really didn't know.

A pause.

'You like her,' Dr London quietly suggested.

I considered it.

'Which one?' I asked. 'You didn't say a name.'

 

Marcie had to be postponed.

By a strange coincidence I'd set our rendezvous for 5 p.m. Which happened, as I realized in the office, to conflict directly with my psychiatric session. So I called to make adjustments.

'What's the matter — chickening, my friend?' This time there was no meeting in her office. She could tease me.

'I'll only be an hour late. Sixty minutes.'

'Can I trust you?' Marcie asked.

'That's your problem, isn't it?'

Anyway, we had to run in semidarkness, Which can be lovely when the reservoir reflects the city lights.

Seeing her again, I felt some day-long qualms diminish. She was beautiful. I had forgotten quite how much. We kissed and then began to jog.

'How was your day?' I asked.

'Oh, the usual catastrophes, the overstock positions, understock positions, minor transportation snags, suicidal panic in the corridors. But mostly thoughts of you.'

I fabricated things to say a stride ahead of saying them. And yet, incapable of superficial running conversation, I inevitably focused on the point. I had demanded. She had come. We both were here.

What was she feeling?

'Did you wonder where we would be going?'

'I though you had the compass, friend.'

'Bring any clothes?'

'We can't eat dinner in our track suits, can we?'

I was curious to know how much she'd packed.

'Where's your stuff?'

'My car.' She gestured toward Fifth Avenue. 'Just an airline bag. The kind you carry on and carry off. It's very practical.'

'For quick departures.'

'Right,' she said, pretending not to know what I was thinking. We ran another lap.

'I though we'd go to my place,' I said casually.