The Cocktail Waitress

“You don’t want me to?”

“What do you think?”

“… Joan, you don’t love me, not even a little bit, but I love you, I can’t help it.”

“Earl, I love you, but know no way of loving a corpse.”

“O.K. O.K.”

Little by little his seizure passed. “When it starts going away, that’s the worst of all. Feels like a hand was there, squeezing the air out of your lungs-not your heart, your lungs, though of course your heart is the cause of it all.”

“Take it easy.”

“Joan, I’m trying to.”

And then, all of a sudden, it was over, and he half lay in the chair, still in a state of collapse. When he was somewhat recovered, so he could sit up, I asked: “Now-can we talk?”

“… O.K. What is it, Joan?”

“About the massage parlor.”

“… All right, but I want to add something to what I told you. It all happened as I said, except that it happened with you, not the massage girl at all.”

“Oh?”

“I pretended, that’s why. Pretended she was you. In my mind, in my heart, she was you-it’s what I wanted to say. I’m trying to tell you, spite of everything, spite of how you feel toward me, I do love you. I do.”

There, once more, was the thing Liz had suggested, to fix everything up by pretending. I suddenly realized I had, back in the early days of my marriage, when Ron and I were still trying, and I’ve since read it’s something the whole human race does, at one time or another. But with Earl I just couldn’t. No amount of pretending would help.

He waited, and then: “But I interrupted you, Joan. What was it you wanted to say?”

“About the massage parlor-please don’t go there anymore.”

“Will you give me a reason not to?”

“You can still ask me that, after what just happened?”

He didn’t even look abashed. “It wasn’t the parlor that did it,” he said, “it was the argument with you, the strain of it-”

“It was both, Earl. It was the combination. And even without the argument it might have happened if what came before had brought you to a similar emotional peak. And if that happened with me, as a result of my allowing you what you’ve been begging for-I couldn’t live with myself, knowing I’d been the cause of it. Do you get my full meaning, why I can’t, won’t let myself, say yes? Do you realize what that would mean?”

“But do you realize, Joan, what it would mean to me, to know I can be normal-live the life everyone leads-and forego it just because you are afraid? I cannot promise that, Joan. I can’t.”

“… Then, if you must have it, at least we can remove as much of the risk as possible.”

“Meaning what?”

I said: “You liked her, that girl in the massage place?”

“Believe it or not she was very nice-kind, understanding, and sweet.”

I couldn’t help myself, and snapped: “I’m sure she was.”

“It wasn’t cheap, what I did.”

“Who knows better than I that you couldn’t be cheap, Earl? So O.K., do you know her name?”

“Bella.”

“Do you know the name of the place?”

“Kitty-Cat, in Arlington.”

“Then, if, as, and when, tomorrow night or whenever, you feel the urge coming on, and can’t resist or don’t want to, I want you to call them-I’ll look up the number for you-and have Bella come here.”

“Joan, that would be messy-”

“Nothing like as messy as what could happen, in the Kitty-Cat, if you had a seizure there. Earl, to them you’d be just a problem, something to be got rid of, to be put out in the street before the police could get there. We can’t have that happen to you.” I brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. “The same as you need to know how I feel, and accept it, it’s up to me to know how you feel and accept that. And-I guess I do. I wish, for your sake, you didn’t-but you can’t hold back Niagara-and it seems to be that strong, this compulsion you have.”

“You’d actually want me to …?”

“If you have to, I want you to do it that way. So that you’re here, where we know what to do with you, and how to get hold of the doctor, in case he’s needed.”

“If you put it that way-”

“I do put it that way.”

“You’re remarkable, Joan.”

Next day, he went in to the office, but came back almost at once, as I was finishing breakfast. He said, “Something occurred to me, driving in, that I want to get out of the way-that I’ve been intending to do, but realize I had better do now. Can you come with me now, to the bank?”

“But of course.”

I took a coat, went out with him and got in the car while Jasper held open the door, and drove with him to the Suburban Trust in College Park. There the manager, Mr. Frost, came bouncing out of this office, to shake hands and be introduced to me, as of course the marriage had been in the paper. “Dick,” Earl told him, “I want to change all four of my accounts, the checking, the Special No. 1, Special No.2, and Savings, from single, in my name, to joints, in my name and Mrs. White’s-so she’s protected in event of my death.”

“… Which seems highly unlikely, Mr. White, but if that’s the arrangement you want-?”

“It’s not only likely but certain-give God time, it’s amazing what He can do.”

“He always has his little joke,” said Mr. Frost, smiling at me.

“Oh, always.”

He cut off with the small talk then, and took us into his office, a sizable one, enclosed in glass. We sat down, Mr. Frost called a girl, and then told her to bring certain forms, which ones I don’t recollect. Then we signed-Earl, to O.K. me as joint holder on the accounts, I to give specimen signatures on four different cards. The Special accounts, it turned out, were for taxes, one for federal, the other for state. I was put on all four, and finally, Earl called for the balance showing on each. I was stunned. On the checking account it was over $600,000, on one Special $230,000, on the other $90,000, on the savings $65,000. I had known he was rich, but had had no idea how rich. When we were done, I shook hands with Mr. Frost and thanked him, and Earl gave him a nod. Then we were at the door, going out, but Mr. Frost took the nod as a dismissal, and didn’t come with us. In the glass vestibule at the bank’s entrance, Earl suddenly took my arm, and said: “Joan, I said some bitter things last night, as a man in love does, every so often. Make no mistake, Joan, I am a man in love. I love you insanely, and-”

“I love you, Earl.”

I said it without a hitch in my voice this time, without hesitating, and without, I hoped, Tad’s look of fear in my eyes.

“Maybe so,” he said, “in your own way. At least I do know you don’t wish me dead, as if you did you’ve had plenty of opportunity to let me die, last night included. But still and all-” He waved back in the direction of the bank. “… I’m glad to get this done. Now you have every bit as much with me alive as you’d have with me gone.”

“Please don’t talk like that.”

“I just don’t ever want it to be an issue, in your mind or anyone else’s.”

That night, he was as I wanted him to be, quiet, courteous, and not demanding, physically, I mean. We watched television, and when I, very nervous about it, said I wanted to go to bed, he patted me, kissed me, and took me upstairs, but made no attempt to follow me into my room, and didn’t knock after I turned in. What a relief! At last I could sleep without fear sleeping with me. In the morning he came in and kissed me, I being still in bed, then drove off to work with Jasper. In the afternoon he came home, changed his clothes for his walk, set out for the