'I wonder if you'd understand.'
'I think so-if you want to trust me with it.'
'I do trust you, Karen. I didn't realize that, but I guess I must trust you instinctively because I'm telling you all this. Is it all right with you? I don't want you to feel… I don't want to involve you if you don't want to get mixed up in all this.'
'I think I already am mixed up-because of John.'
'I guess that's true. I'm lucky it's you, though, aren't I? You're very sympathetic, you have a way of listening, I don't feel I'm being judged.
I feel I can talk to you like a friend. '
'Of course you can. I am your friend. So is John.'
Kom smiled ruefully. 'For the moment. I hope… I have to trust them together, you do understand that, don't you? I can't stand there and watch over her every minute. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If she betrays me, she betrays me. But I can't spend my life as a policeman-I don't mean that personally.'
'I know. Ultimately, you have to trust the people you love, or you can't keep loving them.'
'It doesn't bother you then, their being together, knowing that Tovah has a-well-a crush on John?'
'John's a big boy. He can take care of himself.'
'But can he take care of Tovah?' Kom laughed bitterly 'Why do you put up with it, Stanley?' Karen asked again. 'I wonder if you can understand,' he said again. They had moved to the front porch. Kom sat on the secondlowest step and took her hand in his. She was left with noplace to sit except the step below him. She sat looking up at him and he continued to hold her hand absently, as if he was not aware he had it.
'I keep thinking I can save it, the marriage,' he said. 'I keep thinking that if I stick with it just a little longer, if I try a little harder, if I make some more compromises, if I keep trying to make myself into what she wantsmaybe, finally, I can do it. Maybe we'll make it. We've been together for ten years. I was lucky to win her, so lucky to get her to marry me, I can't tell you. Looking the way she does, she could have had anybody, anybody. I think she chose me because I'm a doctor.
Because of what I do, not who I am.'
' No, no…'
'I think so. I'm afraid so.' He held Karen's hand and rubbed it gently but idly between thumb and finger, as if it were a stone or stick, a talisman to give him strength. 'She thought I had power. A medical degree means that to some people, it's authority, it's power, it's position-but it's illusory. She wanted real power, masculine power. I have the power to cure-some things, some limited things. Mostly I have the power to pay the bills. What she wants is the kind of power that can kick down a door to get to her, then hold on to her as he swings through the jungle on a vine.'
'There is no such person.'
'John could do it.
Karen paused. 'But he wouldn't. Anyway, that's not what a woman wants.'
'That's not what you want, Karen. It's what Tovah wants. It's what I can't give her. But I'm not giving up. If this marriage fails, it will not be because I haven't given it every last ounce of my energy and my will and my love… But it's so hard… and it's so lonely.'
Karen squeezed his hand for sympathy. He lifted it to his lips and kissed her palm. Instinctively, she reached up with her free hand to touch his face.
At that moment, Becker and Tovah walked around the side of the house.
'Cute,' said Tovah. 'Real cute.'
Becker looked at the tableau with perplexity.
'I know,' Tovah said. 'Don't tell me. She was bitten by a snake and you're sucking out the poison.'
Karen withdrew her hands from Kom. 'We were talking,' she said.
'Well, sure, he's good at that,' said Tovah. She indicated Becker with a dismissive toss of her head. 'This one should be so good.'
'He is,' Karen said defensively. Her tone toward Tovah crackled with scarcely disguised hostility, and Tovah's voice was similarly charged.
'Must be a hidden talent.' Tovah turned abruptly and patted Becker's cheek, causing him to recoil reflexively. 'I'm only teasing, don't mind me… Ooh, jumpy.'
A beeper sounded and Kom withdrew an electronic pager from his pocket and glanced at the LED readout.
'Excuse me, I have to make a call,' he said, vanishing quickly into the house.
'What else is new?' Tovah asked. 'He's always dashing off to make calls, dashing off to the hospital. Never marry a doctor, Karen.'
'I'll keep the husband I have, thanks.'
Tovah eyed Becker speculatively.
'Yes, good idea,' said Tovah. 'He seems eminently stable.
Becker guffawed. 'Stable?'
'He is-in his own way. Sane, stable, loyal, all the good things.'
'Dogs are loyal,' Tovah said. 'Men are merely between affairs, whether they know it or not.'
Kom returned to the front door holding a portable phone. 'It's for you, John.'
'Tracked you down,' said Tee's voice in Becker's ear. 'That's because of my superior sleuthing abilities. Discussing bones again, are you?'
'Playing tennis.'
'With Dr. Kom? Why not spend an afternoon tripping old ladies at a crosswalk? That would be about as fair a match.'
'We don't have a crosswalk in Clamden,' Becker said. 'We were playing doubles.'
'With the lady wives? The plot thickens. How come you never ask me to play tennis?… Listen, can you spare a minute from your social life?
I've got some business to discuss.' Becker glanced at the three other people who stood by pretending not to listen to his conversation. Karen and Tovah looked as if they might start pulling hair at any moment and Kom was trying so hard to appear innocent that it seemed to Becker as if he had just been caught with his dick in his hand.
'That sounds like a very good idea,' Becker said into the phone. 'Where should I meet you?'
'I'm in the street outside the house. I have red and blue balls on top of my car that I can make go round and round. '
'The top of your car is a funny place to keep them,'
Becker said. 'What if it rains? You're sure you need Karen, too? One of us should stay here if we can.'
'Did I say anything about needing Karen? She's always welcome but-'
'You're absolutely sure I can't deal with it myself?'
'What are you doing, talking for public consumption now?'
'That's right.'
'Tell the Koms to eat my shorts.'
Becker put his hand over the mouthpiece and spoke to Karen. 'I'm afraid he needs both of us. Sorry.'
'Oh,' said Karen, feigning disappointment.
Becker looked at Kom, then Tovah. 'Sorry. Work.'
'Of course, of course,' said Kom. 'I understand, it happens all the time.'
'Be right there,' Becker said into the phone.
'I'm so sorry,' said Karen, already moving back around the house. 'We had such a good time.'
'It's this business,' Becker said, throwing his hands up and shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of annoyed resignation. 'When you have to go…'
'I know, I know,' said Kom. He wrung Becker's hand enthusiastically.
'It was terrific. It's a pleasure just to watch you play, just to watch you move around the court. You move like a panther. Doesn't he, Tovah?'
'What?'
'Doesn't he move like a panther?'
