Read Online Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner - Free Book Online
Authors: Judith Rossner
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me to begin today?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “You’re here and I have some papers.”
She went twice a week for the rest of the term, marking two sets of papers each morning. After a month or so he began to rely on her more completely. He told her to start making a lightly penciled estimate of the quality of each paper on the top. Before long he was just erasing the penciled words and writing a brief version of the same thing in his own hand. “I liked this,” or “Dull,” or “The opinions don’t seem honest, though I’m not sure why.” He was pleased to find that she, too, reacted when someone was trying to please rather than to express; to adopt an opinion not his own; to omit some essential part of an experience in the interest of self-protection. He always worked in the room while she was there, sometimes on his poetry (by hand on legal pads), sometimes on his scholarly manuscript (on the typewriter), sometimes, it seemed, just fussing with the papers she’d done or some other odds and ends. She would work in the big chair, watching him surreptitiously when she was supposed to be concentrating on the papers. Sometimes he just pulled dry leaves off his plants or stared out the window. He told her he didn’t know how he had ever managed without her. Occasionally she asked him a question about some paper and then he might lean over to her to see what she was talking about. Once in the spring she looked up as he was doing that and he kissed her mouth. Then he walked away. The next time she asked him a question he stayed in his chair and told her to read it aloud to him.
“You know that I love you, don’t you, Theresa?”
“Ssshhh. She’s going to hear us.”
“The hell with her, let her hear us. Let her divorce me.”
“She’s the mother of four of your children, Martin.”
“As a matter of fact, they’re not my children at all. They happen to be her children by a previous marriage.”
She dreaded the summer, when they would go to their home in Connecticut. (His wife would commute in July but stay there in August.)
She was going to take both typing and steno in the adult education program at Columbus High School in the evenings and work full time baby-sitting during the day. She talked about baby-sitting and kept hoping he would tell her to forget about the typing and come be their sitter for the summer, but when she told him her plans, he simply nodded in approval.
In the middle of May she started getting headaches. She would be sitting in the big chair, marking papers, and the words would blur in front of her eyes. When she forced herself to focus on them, the headaches would begin. She didn’t tell him, but then a short while later the backaches began. Not backaches, exactly. As she sat working, the lower part of her neck would feel cramped and uncomfortable; when she moved from her original position, she would feel a sharp pain, as though she’d been locked in and had forced the lock. Then she would have to get up and stretch. Or go to the bathroom. He’d never again asked her about her walk. Until now that first morning had been pushed to the back of her consciousness, but now it forced its way back every time she stood up and feared that he would see how hard it was for her to stand straight. It became a game to see if she could bear to wait until a moment when she knew for sure he couldn’t see her. At the end of the second week of this she waited so long one morning that by the time she got up, the lock was too strong to break and she staggered.She almost fell to the floor but just in time reached out to the studio bed, leaned on it, then sat.
He swiveled in his chair and faced her.
“I don’t dare ask what’s been bothering you for the last few weeks,” he said coldly, “for fear that you’ll jump out of the window. Or turn into a block of ice again, then melt away until there’s no Theresa left to do my papers next year.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Her
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “You’re here and I have some papers.”
She went twice a week for the rest of the term, marking two sets of papers each morning. After a month or so he began to rely on her more completely. He told her to start making a lightly penciled estimate of the quality of each paper on the top. Before long he was just erasing the penciled words and writing a brief version of the same thing in his own hand. “I liked this,” or “Dull,” or “The opinions don’t seem honest, though I’m not sure why.” He was pleased to find that she, too, reacted when someone was trying to please rather than to express; to adopt an opinion not his own; to omit some essential part of an experience in the interest of self-protection. He always worked in the room while she was there, sometimes on his poetry (by hand on legal pads), sometimes on his scholarly manuscript (on the typewriter), sometimes, it seemed, just fussing with the papers she’d done or some other odds and ends. She would work in the big chair, watching him surreptitiously when she was supposed to be concentrating on the papers. Sometimes he just pulled dry leaves off his plants or stared out the window. He told her he didn’t know how he had ever managed without her. Occasionally she asked him a question about some paper and then he might lean over to her to see what she was talking about. Once in the spring she looked up as he was doing that and he kissed her mouth. Then he walked away. The next time she asked him a question he stayed in his chair and told her to read it aloud to him.
“You know that I love you, don’t you, Theresa?”
“Ssshhh. She’s going to hear us.”
“The hell with her, let her hear us. Let her divorce me.”
“She’s the mother of four of your children, Martin.”
“As a matter of fact, they’re not my children at all. They happen to be her children by a previous marriage.”
She dreaded the summer, when they would go to their home in Connecticut. (His wife would commute in July but stay there in August.)
She was going to take both typing and steno in the adult education program at Columbus High School in the evenings and work full time baby-sitting during the day. She talked about baby-sitting and kept hoping he would tell her to forget about the typing and come be their sitter for the summer, but when she told him her plans, he simply nodded in approval.
In the middle of May she started getting headaches. She would be sitting in the big chair, marking papers, and the words would blur in front of her eyes. When she forced herself to focus on them, the headaches would begin. She didn’t tell him, but then a short while later the backaches began. Not backaches, exactly. As she sat working, the lower part of her neck would feel cramped and uncomfortable; when she moved from her original position, she would feel a sharp pain, as though she’d been locked in and had forced the lock. Then she would have to get up and stretch. Or go to the bathroom. He’d never again asked her about her walk. Until now that first morning had been pushed to the back of her consciousness, but now it forced its way back every time she stood up and feared that he would see how hard it was for her to stand straight. It became a game to see if she could bear to wait until a moment when she knew for sure he couldn’t see her. At the end of the second week of this she waited so long one morning that by the time she got up, the lock was too strong to break and she staggered.She almost fell to the floor but just in time reached out to the studio bed, leaned on it, then sat.
He swiveled in his chair and faced her.
“I don’t dare ask what’s been bothering you for the last few weeks,” he said coldly, “for fear that you’ll jump out of the window. Or turn into a block of ice again, then melt away until there’s no Theresa left to do my papers next year.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Her
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