rights.”
“Really?” Molly, who still owned two—an ancient but beautiful Brazilian otter and a rather frivolous but amusing ocelot, both now in storage—thought back. It was true, she had never seen Jenny in fur.
“And I would bet she’s totally faithful.” He paused, looking at Molly.
“Yes, I should suppose so,” she agreed.
“God, if I had a wife like her I could do anything.”
“Unfortunately, she’s taken,” Molly said, adding ice to her glass and voice. She remembered something that Howard once said about Gerry, that the only reason he’d never made it into the first rank of American poets was that he was a copycat. If someone he admired began writing sestinas or waterskiing or keeping a travel journal of a trip to Scandinavia, Gerry wanted to do it too.
“You know, I need someone like that,” Gerry confided. “The way it is now, my life is clogged up with errands. Sending out manuscripts, scheduling readings, phoning for plane reservations, packing and unpacking, balancing the checkbook, paying the mortgage, getting the computer fixed and the grass cut, going to the supermarket and the drugstore and the cleaners. It weighs you down.”
“Couldn’t your girlfriend do some of those things?” Molly inquired.
“Tiffany?” Gerry grinned. “Tiffany is worse than useless. Yesterday I was working on a new long poem, it was really going well, so I asked her to drive over to Fausto’s for milk and tea. She came back with condensed milk and powdered iced tea mix.” He laughed. “And then she said I should have gone myself if I was so goddamned fussy.”
“I thought she was rather nice,” Molly said. “Very cute, too.”
“Cute.” Gerry laughed again, less happily. “I’ve just about had it with cute.”
In the sunny, cluttered kitchen of Artemis Lodge, with its long scrubbed-pine table, comfortably sagging wicker sofa, bright feminist wall posters, and hotel-size blender, Lee Weiss was unpacking groceries from the Waterfront Market. She wore a brilliant fuchsia mumu appliquèed with large purple flowers, and was humming a country-western song: “Please Help Me, I’m Falling.”
There were five double rooms and a single in Artemis Lodge, four with private bath. From mid-December to mid-April they rented for from $100 to $150 a night, or $500 to $700 a week, continental breakfast included. During these months the guest house was almost always full. Even with taxes, insurance, laundry, cleaning, gardener, repairs, and a part-time desk clerk, Lee would have done well financially with only two-thirds occupancy. The only problem was that she kept reducing or even waiving the rent for friends or acquaintances, and sometimes for women she’d never met whom friends and acquaintances claimed were ill or in crisis and needed to be in a warm, relaxed place like Key West.
As she stripped the cellophane from three bunches of red and orange carnations, Lee heard the slam of the screen door and then rapid footsteps. It wasn’t the tentative approach of a customer, or the guest she expected for lunch in half an hour, but someone familiar with the house, and in a hurry, almost bounding down the hall toward her: Perry Jackson.
“Well, hi there,” she said—surprised, since it wasn’t his regular gardening day.
“Lee, darling, I had to come over, I’ve got the craziest news.” Jacko leaned against the kitchen door frame in faded cutoff jeans and a dark-green T-shirt, assuming a pose that might have been photographed for a fashion page. He was also fashionably thin: thinner than a month ago, before he had what he described as “a dumb nothing cold”—a cold that had caused much anxiety among his friends. “You won’t believe it.”
“Okay, I won’t.” She grinned and slammed the freezer on a quart of coconut ice cream. “Tell me anyhow.”
“Alvin’s left me his house.”
“Shit, really?”
“Really. I just had a call from his lawyer in Chicago.”
“Hey, that’s
“Really?” Molly, who still owned two—an ancient but beautiful Brazilian otter and a rather frivolous but amusing ocelot, both now in storage—thought back. It was true, she had never seen Jenny in fur.
“And I would bet she’s totally faithful.” He paused, looking at Molly.
“Yes, I should suppose so,” she agreed.
“God, if I had a wife like her I could do anything.”
“Unfortunately, she’s taken,” Molly said, adding ice to her glass and voice. She remembered something that Howard once said about Gerry, that the only reason he’d never made it into the first rank of American poets was that he was a copycat. If someone he admired began writing sestinas or waterskiing or keeping a travel journal of a trip to Scandinavia, Gerry wanted to do it too.
“You know, I need someone like that,” Gerry confided. “The way it is now, my life is clogged up with errands. Sending out manuscripts, scheduling readings, phoning for plane reservations, packing and unpacking, balancing the checkbook, paying the mortgage, getting the computer fixed and the grass cut, going to the supermarket and the drugstore and the cleaners. It weighs you down.”
“Couldn’t your girlfriend do some of those things?” Molly inquired.
“Tiffany?” Gerry grinned. “Tiffany is worse than useless. Yesterday I was working on a new long poem, it was really going well, so I asked her to drive over to Fausto’s for milk and tea. She came back with condensed milk and powdered iced tea mix.” He laughed. “And then she said I should have gone myself if I was so goddamned fussy.”
“I thought she was rather nice,” Molly said. “Very cute, too.”
“Cute.” Gerry laughed again, less happily. “I’ve just about had it with cute.”
In the sunny, cluttered kitchen of Artemis Lodge, with its long scrubbed-pine table, comfortably sagging wicker sofa, bright feminist wall posters, and hotel-size blender, Lee Weiss was unpacking groceries from the Waterfront Market. She wore a brilliant fuchsia mumu appliquèed with large purple flowers, and was humming a country-western song: “Please Help Me, I’m Falling.”
There were five double rooms and a single in Artemis Lodge, four with private bath. From mid-December to mid-April they rented for from $100 to $150 a night, or $500 to $700 a week, continental breakfast included. During these months the guest house was almost always full. Even with taxes, insurance, laundry, cleaning, gardener, repairs, and a part-time desk clerk, Lee would have done well financially with only two-thirds occupancy. The only problem was that she kept reducing or even waiving the rent for friends or acquaintances, and sometimes for women she’d never met whom friends and acquaintances claimed were ill or in crisis and needed to be in a warm, relaxed place like Key West.
As she stripped the cellophane from three bunches of red and orange carnations, Lee heard the slam of the screen door and then rapid footsteps. It wasn’t the tentative approach of a customer, or the guest she expected for lunch in half an hour, but someone familiar with the house, and in a hurry, almost bounding down the hall toward her: Perry Jackson.
“Well, hi there,” she said—surprised, since it wasn’t his regular gardening day.
“Lee, darling, I had to come over, I’ve got the craziest news.” Jacko leaned against the kitchen door frame in faded cutoff jeans and a dark-green T-shirt, assuming a pose that might have been photographed for a fashion page. He was also fashionably thin: thinner than a month ago, before he had what he described as “a dumb nothing cold”—a cold that had caused much anxiety among his friends. “You won’t believe it.”
“Okay, I won’t.” She grinned and slammed the freezer on a quart of coconut ice cream. “Tell me anyhow.”
“Alvin’s left me his house.”
“Shit, really?”
“Really. I just had a call from his lawyer in Chicago.”
“Hey, that’s
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