enter my mind. There was no room for it, it was too full of a conversation with you, except it was a very one-sided conversation because you weren't there.'
'Sometimes it's easier that way. You can write the other person's lines for them.' She frowned. 'For him.
For her. For me?'
'Somebody had better write your lines, if that's how they come out when you make them up yourself.
Oh, Jesus, the only way to say it is to say it. I don't like what you do for a living.'
'Oh.'
'I didn't know it bothered me,' I said, 'and early on it probably didn't, I probably got a kick out of it, if you go all the way back to the beginning. Our beginning. And then there was a period when I didn't think it bothered me, and then a stage where I knew it did but tried to tell myself it didn't.
'Besides, what right did I have to say anything? It's not as though I didn't know what I was getting into.
Your occupation was part of the package. Where did I get off telling you to keep this and change that?'
I went to her window and looked across at Queens. Queens is the borough of cemeteries, it overflows with them, while Brooklyn has only Green-Wood.
I turned to face her and said, 'Besides, I was scared to say anything. Maybe it would lead to an ultimatum, choose one or the other, quit turning tricks or I'm out of here. And suppose you didn't pick me?
'Or suppose you did? Then what does that commit me to? Does it give you the right to tell me what you don't like about the way I live my life?
'If you stop going to bed with clients, does that mean I can't go to bed with other women? As it happens I haven't been with anybody else since we started keeping company again, but I've always felt I had the right. It hasn't happened, and once or twice I made a conscious choice to keep it from happening, but I didn't feel committed to that course. Or if I did it was a secret commitment. I wasn't about to let either of us know about it.
'What happens to our relationship? Does it mean we have to get married? I don't know that I want to. I was married once and I didn't much like it. I wasn't very good at it, either.
'Does it mean we have to live together? I don't know that I want that, either. I haven't lived with anybody since I left Anita and the boys, and that was a long time ago. There are things I like about living alone. I don't know that I want to give it up.
'But it eats at me, knowing you're with other guys. I know there's no love in it, I know there's precious little sex in it, I know it has more in common with massage than with lovemaking. Knowing this doesn't seem to matter.
'And it gets in the way. I called you this morning and you called back an hour later. And I wondered where you were when I called, but I didn't ask because you might say you were with a john. Or you might not say it, and I'd wonder what you weren't saying.'
'I was getting my hair done,' she said.
'Oh. It looks nice.'
'Thanks.'
'It's different, isn't it? It does look nice. I didn't notice, I never notice, but I like it.'
'Thank you.'
'I don't know where I'm going with this,' I said. 'But I figured I had to tell you how I felt, and what's been going on with me. I love you.
I know that's a word we don't speak, and one reason I have trouble with it is I don't know what the hell it means. But whatever it means, it's how I feel about you. Our relationship is important to me. In fact its importance is part of the problem, because I've been so afraid it would change into something I won't like that I've been withholding myself from you.' I stopped for breath. 'I guess that's it. I didn't know I was going to say that much and I don't know if it came out right, but I guess that's it.'
She was looking at me. It was hard to meet her gaze.
'You're a very brave man,' she said.
'Oh, please.'
' 'Oh, please.' You weren't scared? I was scared, and I wasn't even talking.'
'Yes, I was scared.'
'That's what brave is, doing what scares you. Walking into those guns at the cemetery must have been a piece of cake in comparison.'
'The funny thing is,' I said, 'I wasn't that fearful at the cemetery.
One thought that came to me was that I've lived long enough so that I don't have to worry about dying young.'
'That must have been comforting.'
'Well, it was, oddly enough. My biggest fear was that something would happen to the girl and that it would be my fault, for doing something wrong or not taking some useful action. Once she was back with her father I relaxed. I guess I didn't really believe anything was going to happen to me.'
'Thank God you're all right.'
'What's the matter?'
'Just a few tears.'
