“You and Ralph seem like you’ve known each other forever.”
“We were lucky. There aren’t many who’ve survived as long as we have.”
“So what’s your secret?” Pru said, smiling.
“I don’t know,” Rona said, spearing a cherry tomato that looked a bit yellow. “It just works. We just can’t shut up, is the truth. Even when we’re mad at each other, you know, neither one of us can walk out on an argument.” She laughed her warm, rough laugh. “Ralph tried to, once. It was when we first got together. We were involved in a terrible fight, and he slammed out of the apartment. He made it about five blocks before he stopped to call and yell at me from a pay phone. He had a terrible temper in those days. We talked for so long that there was a line for the phone, people shouting for him to hurry and hang up, so he comes and yells at me under my window for a while, and when it gets too cold he comes back upstairs to continue. And here we are, forty years later, and we’re still talking.”
“What was the fight about?”
“He was supposed to marry someone else. I knew her, too. A dancer. I liked her.”
“Wow. That sounds awful.”
“Falling in love is always awful, isn’t it?”
“So what happened?”
“He dumped her and married me. We’d only known each other six weeks.”
“And the dancer?”
Rona waved the yellowing tomato on the fork. “She married someone else. An architect in the city, lots of money, a lovely man. Not bad, huh? We’re still good friends with them.” She paused significantly. “I have to say,” she ventured, “we don’t know what on earth Johnny is doing. We’ve spent hours talking to him, and it just doesn’t make sense.”
“You mean, with Lila?”
“She’s all wrong for him.” Rona scowled, looking like a little girl.
“I think he’s trying to honor his wedding vows.”
“Vows, shmows. That’s not a marriage. That’s a prison sentence.” Rona popped the tomato in her mouth. “He should be with someone like you,” she said, from around the tomato. “Or, you know, you.”
Pru could feel her face going red. “Oh, I don’t know—” she started to say, but Rona interrupted.
“I told him the first time we met you, and I told you, and I’ll keep telling you both: You, we get.” She made a dismissive wave with her hand. “Her, not so much.”
“Well, it’s not up to us, I’m afraid.” Pru smiled at her. “I wish it were, believe me.”
“Have you tried?”
“Tried what?”
“To get him to leave her for you!”
“No,” Pru said, laughing. “Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Self-respect? Respect for John and his wife? Pride?”
“Oh, yeah,” Rona said, waving her hand again and looking pained. “Pride. I remember that.”
“Yeah, the thing that goeth before a fall.”
“I never knew what that meant,” Rona said. “Does that mean if you lose your pride you’re going to fall? Or when you’re already falling the last thing to go is your pride, which you’ve foolishly been holding on to?”
“I think it amounts to the same thing. But the point is, look, I can’t do anything while he’s married. It would be wrong. It just would. And you know it.”
“Can I just tell Johnny you like him?” Rona said, with a seventh-grade smile.
“No. Besides, I really do think it’s beside the point.”
“I suppose it is. I just keep thinking that if he knew . . .” She sighed, turning more serious. “Ralph and I love to fight. It’s not really Johnny’s nature, though. He and Lila bring out the worst in each other. There’s no other way to explain it. Like, early on, they found each other’s buttons, and can’t stop pressing them. I guess Ralph and I do that, too. But Johnny doesn’t like it. It’s not his nature,” she said again.
PRU ENTERED THE DINGY FOYER OF THE NEW APARTMENT building and started up the stairs. Then she heard Patsy yelling, and started running. She ran up three flights and pushed open the door, breathlessly.
“Shut up!” Patsy was yelling into the phone. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Pru gave her the universal hand signal for, you shut up! She still hadn’t gotten over thinking they were about to be evicted, for reasons she couldn’t quite understand.
“You are seriously fucking with my serenity!” Patsy shouted, then slammed down the phone, and burst into tears.
Jacob, Pru thought. She knew that having seen him in the ER was a bad sign. He had to make sure Patsy still loved him, didn’t he? What else could have sent her into such a tailspin, especially when she’d been doing so well?
“What is it?” Pru said, going to her. “What happened?”
“Jimmy Roy,” she sputtered at last. “He says he’s still in love with me. That fucker!” she said, throwing herself onto the couch and weeping loudly.
Pru dropped her purse on the floor. Thank God, she thought.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “He’s got some nerve.”
“You don’t understand,” said Patsy. “He only said that because of . . . because of Annali. He thinks she needs a father. That’s all.”
“Patsy, that’s crazy.”
“Children just fuck up everything,” Patsy said. “Oh, stop looking at me that way. She’s not here. She’s having a play date at Fiona’s.”
“Listen, Patsy, if you don’t love Jimmy Roy, then just say it. But quit blaming the fact that you have a kid for everything that happens to you. It’s just ridiculous to think that’s why he says he loves you. And quit looking for every excuse under the sun why you can’t be together. You can, if you want. And if you don’t want to be with him, then don’t. But it’s not worth all this . .
