“About what?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Mr. Lowe’s opinion of him, I guess.”
Marie smiled at the mention of Mr. Lowe’s name, a quiet, respectful smile.
“Anyway, we straightened it all out,” I added quickly.
“Good,” Marie said. She looked at me softly. “So, are you coming to bed soon?”
“It won’t be long,” I assured her.
She nodded and drew herself back out into the corridor. “Good night, then,” she said as she disappeared into its darkness.
I sat back in my chair and let my eyes settle on the telephone. Marie had already vanished from my mind, but merely by staring at the phone I could all but feel Rebecca’s breath still surging toward me through its stiff black lines.
I got up early the next morning. While still in bed, I reached up and touched my face. I could feel the scratchy texture of my morning beard, and it reminded me of the dream I’d had a few weeks before, a dream of waking up in a place I didn’t recognize, a small room with an old sink and a battered armoire. I remembered the short white curtains and the warm, tropical breeze that had lifted them languidly, revealing a rust-colored landscape of tiled roofs and dark spires.
A few minutes later, I walked downstairs. Everything in my house, I realized, looked old and encrusted, and had lost its power of attraction. It was a feeling which Rebecca had already begun to explore. “For these men, perhaps, for all men,” as she finally wrote, “the sense of permanence in human relations rarely issues a truly romantic call, rarely speaks in thrilling whispers or attains the electrifying jolt of a lover’s voice.” The capacity to imbue long and enduring relations with just that kind of highly charged romanticism, she added, “was the single greatest achievement of the female imagination.”
Whether true or not of all men, Rebecca’s insight was true enough of me. For it was undoubtedly the “thrilling whisper” rather than the “sense of permanence” that I wanted as I stood among all the things and people who’d gathered around my life.
“You tossed a lot in bed last night,” Marie said as she came down the stairs.
I gave her a weak smile. “I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I told her. I didn’t add anything else, but merely allowed her to assume that my recent agitation was related only to my work, that there was nothing growing in me that she should fear.
Peter came bounding down the stairs a few minutes later. He wolfed down the cereal Marie had poured into the bowl, then headed out to the driveway for a couple of hoop shots before he left for school. I could see him playing happily in the sun as he leaped about the cement driveway, ducking and swooping, pretending that the opposite team was closing in upon him.
“You know, he’s a pretty good basketball player,” I said as Marie rose and headed for the stairs.
She turned toward me and smiled weakly. “Like his dad was,” she said, almost wistfully, as if remembering the former life of a loved one who had already died.
She was still upstairs when I left the house a few minutes later. I passed Peter on the way to my car, stopped to make a couple of shots, then drove away. In the rearview mirror I could see his hair shining in the early morning sun.
I arrived at my office a few minutes later. I had barely gotten to my desk when Wally stepped up to it.
He smiled brightly and slapped me on the shoulders. “You got lucky, old chap,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I have to go into New York today, and Mr. Lowe told me to take you along.”
“To do what?”
“I’m delivering the latest drawings on the Global Apartments project,” Wally told me. “Old Man Lowe thinks you should be there in case there are any questions.”
Normally I would have dreaded such a trip. My love was drawing in my private cubicle, the seclusion of creating isolated forms. I hated meetings of all kinds, especially client meetings. But that day such a ride into the city struck me as a respite, a way of regaining the strength which had been drained from me during the night.
We took the old U.S. 1 rather than the highway, moving through shady Connecticut villages until we reached the crowded suburbs of New York. Wally drove in his usual style, casually, with his arm slung out the open window. He was about twenty pounds overweight, and his reddish hair had thinned considerably since the days he and Marty Harmon and I had first worked together at Simpson and Lowe, but there was still a raw and vulgar boyishness about him, a quality that appeared to attract some people as much as it repelled others. The young secretaries often flirted with him openly, while the older ones, married or looking toward marriage, thought him a pathetic clown.
That day, as we drove through the bright, still summery, air, Wally lit one cigarette after another, often bobbing the lighted tips wildly as he spoke. He related tales of his various jobs, his youth, finally his travels, either alone on business trips, or with his wife and family.
“You don’t get out much, do you, Steve?” he asked at one point. “Out of Old Salsbury, I mean.”
“Not much.”
“When was the last time you were in New York?”
“Years ago. I can hardly remember.”
Wally shrugged, letting the subject drop.
I thought of the night before, the excuse I’d made to Marie about Rebecca’s call.
“Listen, Wally,” I said as we headed through the last stretch of road that led into the city, “if Marie ever
