“Isn’t that the term? Hockey player. I don’t really know the game.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“What I’m getting at, we’re big on recreation here at New Horizons. Physical activity helps to take the edge off, if you know what I mean. Ever considered maybe getting into jogging, for instance?”
“I’ll think about it,” Whitey said.
“That’s all we ask.”
4
Francie, in her bedroom, stripped off the heavy brown wrapping paper and had a good look at oh garden, my garden- the best kind of look, alone, private. She’d bought it on her way home from the office for $950, unable to resist, now that it was for Ned. The artist hadn’t cared at all whether the buyer was Francie or the foundation. His only request had been for payment in cash. Francie hadn’t anticipated that, but on reflection it suited her fine. Standing at the foot of her bed, with the painting propped up on the pillows, she liked it more than ever.
There was a knock at the door. She almost said “Who is it?” but who else could it have been?
“Dear? Are you awake?”
Francie slid the painting under the bed, kicked the wrapping paper in after. “What is it?” she said, thinking, dear?
“Can I come in? Into the matrimonial chamber?”
“It’s not locked, Roger.”
The door opened. Roger came in, wearing a Harvard-crested robe over his shirt and tie and carrying two tumblers. “You’re in your nightie.”
“I’m going to bed.”
He sat down on the end of it, held out a tumbler. She noticed that his feet were bare; legs under the robe, bare, too. “Care for a drink?”
“Thank you, Roger,” she said, laying it on the dresser. “But I’m a little tired.”
He gave her a long look, as though he was trying to communicate some emotion. She had no idea what it could be. “Is something the matter?” she said.
He laughed, that single bark he’d been using for laughter the past year or so. “We haven’t played tennis in some time, have we, Francie?”
“No.” He hadn’t played in years. But they’d met on a tennis court: Francie, on her college team; Roger, a few years out of Harvard, helping the coach after work. Francie was a good player, if not in Roger’s class, but good enough so there were boxes of mixed-doubles trophies somewhere in the house. Had he come to set up a match? She almost laughed herself but lost the impulse when she saw him staring at her thighs.
Roger licked his lips. “I understand you know Sandy Cronin.”
“We’ve met.”
“I had breakfast with him today.”
“How did it go?”
“Quite well.” Roger took a sip from his glass, a sip that became a long drink. Silence. Then: “Do you know the word putz?”
“Yiddish for prick.”
His eyes glazed at the word, or maybe the word coming from her mouth. What was going on? He touched her hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
That would have been her last guess. The perfect reply, the honest reply, came to her immediately: I’m a one-man woman, Roger. I don’t sleep around.
“Is something funny?” Roger said. His hand was still touching hers, not holding it, just touching the back. An odd gesture-not friendly, not warm, not erotic.
“No.”
“Sit down, Francie.”
“Why?”
“Is that a lot to ask?”
She sat down. His hand covered hers, stroked slowly up her arm: a hard, horny hand, like that of a manual laborer, which Roger was not.
“Have you been drinking?” she said.
“That’s not a very nice suggestion,” said Roger. “And inaccurate. I’m feeling uxorious, if you must know.”
His hand reached her shoulder, jerked quickly down, took possession of her breast. Francie recoiled, but he hung on to her nipple, manipulating it in various ways, as though hoping to stumble on some combination that would change her mood, like a safecracker fiddling with a lock.
“Roger, for God’s sake.” She tried to push him away. He fell on her-was much bigger and stronger-and as he did she noticed for the first time that although there wasn’t a single white hair on his head, his nostrils were full of them. His Harvard robe fell open, his penis pressed against her, and at that moment-unbidden, ill-timed, insane-the image of Ned’s penis appeared in her mind.
Roger’s, almost a schematic in contrast, butted against her rigid body.
“Stop it now,” she said. And then his mouth was on hers, his tongue probing. This wasn’t him at all. She twisted her head, tried to roll away, but Roger got his hand under her ass, pulled her close, forcing his penis against her. At the same time, she felt his finger moving behind her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Spicing up our marriage. You are my wife.”
“You’re sick.” Francie struck out at him, barely aware of what she was doing.
He stopped moving, stopped pressing, raised himself. Four scratches ran across his cheek, blood welling in the deepest. Their eyes met. Roger’s eyes: but behind them could have been anybody, and the face was the face of a man who resembled Roger. It reddened under her gaze; at the same time, his penis dwindled, as though all the blood had drained to his head. He got off her, rose, straightened his robe; his tie remained perfectly knotted. He went to the door, opened it, turned.
“You may fool other people, dear, but you don’t fool me. Never have. And now you’re a dried-up cunt as well, no matter what anyone else thinks.” He went out, closing the door softly, never touching the wound she had made.
Francie didn’t start crying until she was in the shower, hot as she could stand, scrubbing and scrubbing, bathroom door locked. Crying: from not being able to stop, to realizing it wasn’t doing any good, to stopping. Getting out of the shower, she saw her wretched face, fogged in the mirror, and turned away. She dried herself, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, but stopped abruptly in mid-stroke: no matter what anyone else thinks. What did that mean? She thought back, searching for some mistake in her spycraft, found none. Then who was anyone else? Sandy Cronin? Was his behavior tonight some form of sexual competition? With a noncompetitor, of course, and still he had lost. Clear in her mind theoretically, the disconnection between sex and rape had now been demonstrated as well.
Francie put on a fresh nightie-flannel, to her ankles-and went to bed, curled up in a ball. She tried to keep her mind from doing anything, but failed. It went right to her most vulnerable spot. Why wouldn’t it, after what had just happened on the bed, and with the skateboarding girl underneath?
Francie’s most vulnerable spot, in three acts. Act one: the months of frequent, if not passionate-how could it be passionate when it was regulated by doctors, ovulation calendars, thermometers? — fucking that had preceded the discovery that it was Roger’s fault. Not fault, but contained in his body: low sperm count, and what sperm there were, deformed. Act two: sex in a petri dish, forcing the coupling of her eggs with the best of the deformed sperm- also a failure. Act three: a conversation repeated many times in different words, but first held as they left the doctor’s office for the last time. Francie: I guess that leaves us with adoption. Roger: What would be the point of that?
That same act three might have done double duty as the beginning of the last act of their marriage as well, a
