“Like it?” I said.
She nodded.
“And the plan? How about that.”
She shook her head.
“All right, you don’t like it. But will you go along? Don’t waste yourself. Go along. I can get you out of this mess. Let me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m not pleased with myself, but I’ll go along. For Harvey and for the children and for myself. Probably mostly for myself…”
Ah-ha, the old puckish charm. I must use this power only for good.
I said, “Whew” and popped the top off another can of Utica Club. I put the water on for the spaghetti and started to tear lettuce for the salad.
“Want another beer,” I said. I put the lettuce in some ice water to crisp.
“Not yet,” she said. She sat still and sipped on the beer and watched me. I glanced at her occasionally and smiled and tried not to look too long at her thighs.
“I can’t figure you out,” she said. I sliced a red onion paper thin with a wide-bladed butcher knife.
“You mean how someone with my looks and talent ended up in this kind of business?”
“I was thinking more about all the conflicts in your character. You reek of machismo, and yet you are a very caring person. You have all these muscles and yet you read all those books. You’re sarcastic and a wise guy and you make fun of everything; and yet you were really afraid I’d say no a little while ago and two people you don’t even like all that well would get into trouble. And now here you are cooking me my supper and you’re obviously nervous at being alone with me in your apartment.”
“Obviously?”
“Obviously.”
“And you?”
“I too. But I’m just somebody’s middle-class housewife. I would have assumed that you were used to such things. Surely I can’t be the first woman you’ve made supper for?”
“I cook for Suze a lot,” I said. I cut some native tomatoes into wedges. And started on a green pepper.
“And for no one else?”
“Lately, just for Suze.”
“So what’s different about me? Why is there this sense of strain?”
“I’m not sure. It has to do with you being desirable and me being randy. I know that much. But it also has to do with a sense that we should leave it at that.”
“Why?” She had put the beer can down and her arms were folded under her breasts.
“I’m trying to get you and Harv back together and making a move at you doesn’t seem the best way to get that done. And, I don’t think Suze would like it all that much either.”
“Why would she have to know?”
“Because if I didn’t tell her then there would be things I kept from her. She couldn’t trust me.”
“But she wouldn’t know she couldn’t trust you.”
“Yeah, but she couldn’t.”
“That’s crazy.”
“No. See the fact would be that she couldn’t trust me. That I am not trustworthy. The fact that she didn’t know it would be simply another deception.”
“So you confess every indiscretion?”
“Every one she has a right to know about.”
“Have there been many?”
“Some.”
“And Susan objects?”
“No. Not generally. But she doesn’t know them. And she knows you. I think this would hurt her. Especially now. We’re at some kind of juncture. I’m not quite sure what, but I think this would be wrong. Damnit.”
“She is, I think, a very lucky woman.”
“Would you be willing to swear to that. Just recently she called me a horse’s ass.”
“That’s possible,” Pam Shepard said.
I sliced up three small pickling cucumbers, skin and all, and added them to my salad. I took the lettuce out of the water and patted it with a towel and then wrapped it and put it in the refrigerator. I checked my sauce, it was nearly melted. I added some seedless green grapes to the salad bowl. “The thing is, all that explanation didn’t do much for the randiness. I don’t think it’s fatal, but you can’t say I’m resting comfortably.”
Pam Shepard laughed. “That’s good to know. In fact, I thought about us going to bed together and the thought was pleasant. You look like you’d hurt and somehow I know you wouldn’t.”
