Hot Night in the City

touching moment (dim the lights; handkerchiefs at the ready, Ladies!) that touching moment when, inspired by the happiness of young lovers all around them, the lonely older couple (my mother and your father) decide to fill one another's autumnal years out of respect for their departed spouses. And there it is! A triple wedding with a grand— Oh-oh, wait a minute! I forgot someone.'

'I was wondering when—'

'I've got to find someone for your Aunt Adelaide. Hm-m. Ah! I have a crusty old bachelor uncle, Hippolyte. The meeting and mating of your Aunt Adelaide will provide us with a comic subplot: the love-sick spinster and the quaint-but-loveable codger who by sheerest coincidence happens to—'

'That's exactly what's wrong with farce! It's all based on cheap, trumped-up coincidences.'

'But coincidence is the means by which Fate influences the lives of mortals.'

'No, I don't accept all that nonsense about coincidence being 'the Engine of Fate'. That's just an excuse for story weavers to use hackneyed conventions. Like the convention of the happy ending, and the old ploy of mistaken identity, and the toad that turns out to be a prince, when in life—in grim, hard, real life—the prince more often turns out to be a toad, and probably a toady as well.'

'Yes, but life—even grim, hard, 'real' life—teems with coincidences. Take our meeting tonight in the cab. If that wasn't a coinci— Say, that's not bad.' He took out his notebook and scribbled 'toad—toady' as the waiter took their dinner plates and waited until he had their full attention before chanting the dessert menu.

They chose creme brulee, the waiter left, and she said, 'What about our meeting?'

'You'll have to admit that our meeting involved a veritable medley of coincidences.'

'I admit nothing of the sort. Given the fact that my sister and your brother sent telegrams announcing their intention to hurl themselves into an ill-considered marriage, there was nothing more natural than that you and my brother would rush to Cambo-les-Bains to make them listen to reason. No coincidence there, just the natural way of things. And, of course, you both went to the Lafitte-Caillard agency because that's where everyone makes their travel arrangements. Again, no coincidence. While you were dawdling up in the travel office, the cabs moved to the head of the line, as they always do, and all Paris fiacres are the same design and color, so it's hardly a coincidence that you, childishly miffed over an encounter with my brother and desperate to catch your train, should jump into the wrong cab. The fact that I was asleep in the corner of the cab was no coincidence, either. It was the natural result of my not getting a wink of sleep last night, worrying about poor Sophie.'

'That wasn't a twist on the old farce dodge of mistaken identity, eh?'

'Not in the least. And it's no coincidence that you and my brother had the train tickets, while your sister and I didn't even have money for dinner. It's a result of stupid, unjust, oppressive attitudes about what men can and ought to do and what women can't and shouldn't. No, no, there was no 'Engine of Fate' operating in our encounter. It was just the logical working out of a set of givens.'

'And what about the fact that you and I are both in theater? That's no coincidence, I suppose?' He knew he had her there.

'Well-l-l, in a way it's a coincidence.'

'Ah!'

'But in another way, it isn't.'

'Oh.'

'Consider this: Take any two people meeting anywhere in the world. Many things about their meeting will be incidentally identical—and that's not the same thing as being coincidental.'

'It isn't?'

'No. For instance, they would have been walking on the same street, or else they would not have met. So that is a condition of their meeting and not a coincidence. You see what I mean?'

'Hm-m.'

'Also, it's likely that both had coffee that morning, that they both glanced at the newspapers, that they were born in the same century, in the same country, and that they have similar reservations about eating live worms, or the practice of hurling oneself out of second-story windows to get the exercise of walking back up the stairs. But none of these things could properly be called coincidences.'

'They couldn't, eh?'

'No. They are merely the normal, random, incidental identities that one finds in any encounter. Indeed, if there weren't even one single identity in the circumstances of their meeting, that would be a coincidence. You understand?'

'Ah-h... almost.'

'I hold that the fact that we both are in theater is one of those normal, mathematically probable identities without which our meeting would have been truly coincidental, and therefore not, in itself, a coincidence at all, but indeed quite the opposite. And there you are.'

He looked at her levelly for a long moment. 'Did you go to a Jesuit school, by any chance?'

'Girls are not admitted into Jesuit schools. Yet another instance of mindless prejudice.'

'So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that if I were to write a play based on the circumstances of our meeting, I couldn't be accused of relying on cheap, unlikely coincidences, am I right?'

She frowned. Wait a minute, hadn't she been arguing the opposite way? And somehow twisting everything until... Hm-m.

He smiled. 'I considered ending the play with a quintuple wedding including the playwright character and the actress character.'

'Oh?'

'But, of course, that would be ridiculous.'

'Yes, of course.... Why?'

'Five marriages at once might seem a bit much. Then too, the playwright and the actress are what we dramaturges call 'the agents'—and they couldn't possibly get married.'

'No, of course not.... Why not?'

'Well, for one thing, it would be too predictable. The audience would see it coming the minute he jumps into her cab. Then too, there are the medical and religious implications.'

'Medical—?'

'—and religious. When their brothers and sisters marry, they'll be brother-in-law and sister-in-law twice over. And when their parents marry, they'll also be stepbrother and stepsister. The Bible frowns on unions of that sort. And the biologists warn us against them pretty sternly. But whether or not I decide to marry them off isn't my greatest problem.'

'It isn't?'

'No, no. My greatest problem will be finding a cast. The role of the young playwright doesn't present insurmountable problems. It could be played by any clever, charming, intelligent, reasonably good-looking actor— provided he has a quick wit and a winning personality. But a young woman who goes around wearing short dresses and agitating for social change and chucking stewards out of compartments and jumping onto trains with strange men and threatening that her granddaughter will one day rule Europe—it won't be easy to find an actress who can pull all that off, and still be charming and lovely and desirable and winning and bright and entertaining and—well, all the qualities that I admire in—in this character I've invented. No, I'll have to search long and hard for an actress who can do the role justice. This is no job for a beginner. I'll need an actress with a long list of successes to her cred— Ai-i-i!'

She nearly twisted the skin off the back of his hand. After which totally unjustified but infinitely gratifying assault, she left her hand on the table, the tips of her fingers accidentally brushing the backs of his. They were not holding hands. No one could say they were in any way holding hands. No. It was just that her hand was resting on the table near his because... well, it had to rest somewhere, didn't it? He was intensely aware of her soft touch, and he didn't dare move his hand even a fraction of an inch lest she suddenly realize that their hands were in contact and withdraw hers. In fact, he needn't have worried.

The waiter brought their desserts, and she began to eat hers slowly, her thoughts turned softly inward. He could not eat his, because it was his right hand she had accidentally rendered immobile, and he would rather have died than move it.

'Aren't you going to eat your dessert?' she asked.