“Is that what it is?”
Was it? Going was still going, but gone had come back, and I thought it might have been the law of diminishing returns. I could hear the cicadas as plain as plain, all up and down the streets of town in a thousand tremulous trees.
“Darling,” she said, “my gimlet is all gone.”
“They’re very small and go quickly,” I said. “Perhaps you’d like another.”
“I’ll have another if you’ll have another with me. Please do.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve had three, which is one more than I intended, and if I have another it may lead to my doing what I said I wouldn’t.”
“Getting drunk on them with me? What a charming prospect! As I recall, we frequently used to do things together impulsively that we hadn’t really intended to do.”
“Yes, we did, didn’t we? As I also recall.”
“Please do have another with me. Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, I do, and I will. Damned if I won’t.”
I went to the bar and got them and brought them back. I handed her a glass with a small bow, and our fingers touched. I sat down, and our knees touched.
“Why have you come back?” I said.
“Didn’t I tell you? To meet old friends.”
“I know. Old friends in general and some old friends in particular. Am I general or particular?”
“How could you ask? Have you forgotten all our fervid moments?”
“I haven’t forgotten. I just wasn’t sure whether they were part of your general or particular treatment.”
“You mustn’t be unkind, darling, even though I may deserve it. It would spoil all our beautiful memories and might even make me sorry that I came back and saw you and had these good gimlets with you. Don’t you agree that our memories are beautiful?”
“I’m not so sure. Especially about the one of your rather impulsive marriage to Wilson Thatcher. Believing as I did, with some justification, that I was going to marry you myself, I was naturally puzzled and disappointed.”
“Did I ever say I would marry you? I can’t recall that I did.”
“You’re right. You didn’t. There was no specific commitment. As I said, however, there was some justification for my belief. Including a couple of rehearsals of the feature attraction, and I don’t mean the ceremony.”
“I said I loved you, which was true, and I only tried to show it. I admit that it might have been natural under the circumstances to assume too much.”
“My error. My only excuse is that I was young and credulous at the time.”
“Surely you can understand why it was necessary for me to marry Wilson.”
“Oh, surely. All that money.”
“That’s correct. It was the money that made me. Several millions of dollars is a serious temptation, you know. A girl can scarcely be blamed for yielding to it.”
“I don’t blame you. I concede that your decision was sensible, if not essentially pure by romantic standards.”
“It really wasn’t much of a decision. It was just something that sort of happened. We were out dancing at this place on the highway, Wilson and I, and he got pretty well loaded and wanted to make love, and I said I was saving it for the man I married, which was almost true, if not entirely, and he said, well, let’s get married, then, and it simply seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.”
“Thank you for the information. There’s nothing like a primary source in the study of ancient history. The rest, however, is a matter of record. So you got married by a justice of the peace, and so you went to California a week later, and Wilson became manager of the California branch of the Thatcher factory. Shirts and jeans for the general market. Uniforms made to order. I hope you were very happy.”
“Actually it wasn’t so bad for a while, but it didn’t last too long, as you know.”
“Three years, wasn’t it?”
“Almost four. Wilson was unreasonable and demanding as a husband, but in the end he was quite agreeable.”
“So I heard. No nasty lawyers. No public hangings of the wash. Just a quiet settlement between the two of you, after which you went to Mexico for a divorce. I trust that the settlement was substantial.”
“Oh, it seemed like a great deal of money at the time, especially when Wilson might have been able to avoid giving me anything at all, but now it doesn’t seem like so much as it did then, because it’s almost all gone.”
“So soon? What the hell have you been doing, honey? Playing the market or something?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. You know how it is when you are going different places and enjoying yourself. You become sort of careless about expenses and things.”
“What different places?”
“Places like Miami and Rio and Acapulco.”
“No, I don’t know. I’ve never gone to those different places. Sometimes I go to Kansas City.”
“They’re very expensive if you live well.”
“It’s better to have lived and lost than never to have lived at all.”
It came out of me just like that, just a little differently from the way it had come out of Tennyson, and I thought it was clever, because of the gimlets mostly, and I waited for some sign of appreciation, but I didn’t see any. I tried to remember what particular piece of Tennyson the line was from, and pretty soon I remembered that it was from In Memoriam, and I thought that it was appropriate, considering everything else, that it happened to be. In memoriam of Gideon Jones. In memoriam of Beth Webb. Beth Webb Thatcher. In memoriam of going and gone and never, never.
“You’ll find things cheaper here,” I said.
“I don’t plan to stay, darling. Only a day or two. The truth is, I really came to see Wilson. I learned that he had moved back here to take charge of the main factory, and I thought he might be willing to give me some more money. He has plenty, of course, and wouldn’t miss a
