dreaming voice, “I was thinking, how funny … five years ago you were my life and my death, and now …”
“Yes?”
“No, it wouldn’t be fair. You’re leaving.”
“Come on, sweet Maggie, say it.”
“… you’re just nothing.”
He was paralyzed, but his body continued to move, and the music flowed on, out of some infinitely remote USO where doomed sailors swayed with their clinging girls.
She sniffed and repeated, “You’re
nothing
, Tommy.”
He heard himself laugh. “Thank you. I received the bit the first time.”
Being nothing, he supposed, excused him from speech; his silence wrested an embarrassed giggle from her. She said, “Well, I suppose it proves I’ve grown.”
“Yes,” he agreed, trying to be inoffensive, “you are a beautifully growing girl.”
“You were always full of compliments, Tommy.”
Turquoise and pink flickered in the side of his vision; his shoulder was touched. Bugs Leonard asked to cut in. Tom backed off from Maggie, relieved to let go, yet hoping, as he yielded her, for a yielding glance. But her stare was stony, as it had been in the hall, except that there it had been directed past him, and here fell full upon him. He bowed.
The minutes after midnight, usually weightless, bent Tom’s bones in a strained curve that pressed against the inside of his forehead. Too weary to leave, he stood in the darkened playroom watching the others dance, and observed that Bugs and Maggie danced close, in wide confident circles that lifted her sleeves like true wings. A man sidled up to him and said, “If I was John Lindsay, I’d build a ten-foot wall across Ninety-sixth Street and forget it,” and lurched away. Tom had known this man once. He went into the living room and offered here and there to say goodbye, startling conspiracies of people deep in conversation. They had forgotten he was leaving. He went into the kitchen to collect Lou; she recognized him, and doused her cigarette in the sink, and stepped down from the stool, smoothing her skirt. On his way from the bedroom with their coats, he ducked into the bathroom to see if he had aged; he was one of those who gravitated, at parties, to the bathroom. Of these Connecticut homes he would remember best the bright caves of porcelain fixtures: the shower curtains patterned in antique automobiles, the pastel towelling, theshaggy toilet-seat coverlets, the inevitable cartoon anthology on the water closet. The lecherous gleam of hygiene. Goodbye, Crane. Goodbye, Kleenex. See you in Houston.
Lou was waiting in the foyer. A well-rehearsed team, they pecked the hostess farewell, apologized in unison for being party poops, and went into the green darkness. Their headlights ransacked the bushes along this driveway for the final time.
Safely on the road, Lou asked, “Did Maggie kiss you goodbye?”
“No. She was quite unfriendly.”
“Why shouldn’t she be?”
“No reason. She should be. She should be awful and she was.” He was going to agree, agree, all the way to Texas.
“She kissed
me
,” Lou said.
“When?”
“When you were in the bathroom.”
“Where did she kiss you?”
“I was standing in the foyer waiting for you to get done admiring yourself or whatever you were doing. She swooped out of the living room.”
“I mean where
on
you?”
“On the mouth.”
“Warmly?”
“Very. I didn’t know how to respond. I’d never been kissed like that, by another woman.”
“
Did
you respond?”
“Well, a little. It happened so quickly.”
He must not appear too interested, or seem to gloat. “Well,” Tom said, “she may have been drunk.”
“Or else very tired,” said Lou, “like the rest of us.”
The Corner
T HE TOWN is one of those that people pass through on the way to somewhere else; so its inhabitants have become expert in giving directions. Ray Blandy cannot be on his porch five minutes before a car, baffled by the lack of signs at the corner, will shout to him, “Is this the way to
“Yes?”
“No, it wouldn’t be fair. You’re leaving.”
“Come on, sweet Maggie, say it.”
“… you’re just nothing.”
He was paralyzed, but his body continued to move, and the music flowed on, out of some infinitely remote USO where doomed sailors swayed with their clinging girls.
She sniffed and repeated, “You’re
nothing
, Tommy.”
He heard himself laugh. “Thank you. I received the bit the first time.”
Being nothing, he supposed, excused him from speech; his silence wrested an embarrassed giggle from her. She said, “Well, I suppose it proves I’ve grown.”
“Yes,” he agreed, trying to be inoffensive, “you are a beautifully growing girl.”
“You were always full of compliments, Tommy.”
Turquoise and pink flickered in the side of his vision; his shoulder was touched. Bugs Leonard asked to cut in. Tom backed off from Maggie, relieved to let go, yet hoping, as he yielded her, for a yielding glance. But her stare was stony, as it had been in the hall, except that there it had been directed past him, and here fell full upon him. He bowed.
The minutes after midnight, usually weightless, bent Tom’s bones in a strained curve that pressed against the inside of his forehead. Too weary to leave, he stood in the darkened playroom watching the others dance, and observed that Bugs and Maggie danced close, in wide confident circles that lifted her sleeves like true wings. A man sidled up to him and said, “If I was John Lindsay, I’d build a ten-foot wall across Ninety-sixth Street and forget it,” and lurched away. Tom had known this man once. He went into the living room and offered here and there to say goodbye, startling conspiracies of people deep in conversation. They had forgotten he was leaving. He went into the kitchen to collect Lou; she recognized him, and doused her cigarette in the sink, and stepped down from the stool, smoothing her skirt. On his way from the bedroom with their coats, he ducked into the bathroom to see if he had aged; he was one of those who gravitated, at parties, to the bathroom. Of these Connecticut homes he would remember best the bright caves of porcelain fixtures: the shower curtains patterned in antique automobiles, the pastel towelling, theshaggy toilet-seat coverlets, the inevitable cartoon anthology on the water closet. The lecherous gleam of hygiene. Goodbye, Crane. Goodbye, Kleenex. See you in Houston.
Lou was waiting in the foyer. A well-rehearsed team, they pecked the hostess farewell, apologized in unison for being party poops, and went into the green darkness. Their headlights ransacked the bushes along this driveway for the final time.
Safely on the road, Lou asked, “Did Maggie kiss you goodbye?”
“No. She was quite unfriendly.”
“Why shouldn’t she be?”
“No reason. She should be. She should be awful and she was.” He was going to agree, agree, all the way to Texas.
“She kissed
me
,” Lou said.
“When?”
“When you were in the bathroom.”
“Where did she kiss you?”
“I was standing in the foyer waiting for you to get done admiring yourself or whatever you were doing. She swooped out of the living room.”
“I mean where
on
you?”
“On the mouth.”
“Warmly?”
“Very. I didn’t know how to respond. I’d never been kissed like that, by another woman.”
“
Did
you respond?”
“Well, a little. It happened so quickly.”
He must not appear too interested, or seem to gloat. “Well,” Tom said, “she may have been drunk.”
“Or else very tired,” said Lou, “like the rest of us.”
The Corner
T HE TOWN is one of those that people pass through on the way to somewhere else; so its inhabitants have become expert in giving directions. Ray Blandy cannot be on his porch five minutes before a car, baffled by the lack of signs at the corner, will shout to him, “Is this the way to
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