After You've Gone (18 page)

In Minneapolis she will pin her hair securely in a knot, or perhaps she will wear it long and sexily loose, all washed and brushed. In any case, the day after tomorrow, in Minneapolis, she will look adult and genuinely successful, and sexy and available, she has decided. If she is a traveling salesperson she might as well act like one, is one thing that she thinks.

In fact, she will call Jack Bishop from here, from Austin, Texas, and ask him out to dinner, or lunch, maybe Saturday for lunch? And if they end up languorously in bed (her old
fantasies of afternoons at last enacted) and if she misses her 4:30 plane—well, so what? Tom seems to believe that she is arriving on Sunday anyway; it might as well be true.

She really does not feel well, though. Something beyond this cigar smoke is making her not well—not precisely sick, but not herself.

She needs a walk; if she does not get some air and a little exercise, she will be in serious trouble, worse than now.
I will be in serious trouble
, she thinks. And this portentous, rather silly-sounding sentence repeats itself to Brendan: I will be in serious trouble, serious trouble, I will be.

Some blocks up the street from her hotel she can see a large pink building, upraised from its surrounding grounds, highly domed, visibly old. Brendan, having left the hotel, now walks in that direction, as many other people are walking, in the delicate, springlike air.

Traveling, she has even become confused as to seasons; it is actually March, she knows that perfectly well, but Boise was so cold; in Boise it seemed the tag end of winter, whereas here in Texas spring warmth. This is one more deeply upsetting fact, she decides; sheer physical displacement is one of the things that is doing her in, too much quick change in both geography and weather. How do real circuit lecturers manage? she wonders. Not to mention the traveling salespeople, with whom she feels, depressingly, a greater kinship.

Just before the capitol building, and surely that is what it must be, with its pillars and cornices, its walks and plaques everywhere, there is a large statue of a soldier in ancient uniform: the carved white stone announces a monument to the Confederate dead. And Brendan stoops to read the green bronze inscription. It is mostly numbers, an enumeration of those dead, so many Northern (Union) soldiers, so many Confederates. The vastly outnumbered Southerners “fought to
exhaustion,” says the plaque. And Brendan, who has no “Southern blood” that she is aware of, who shares the views of most liberal intellectuals about many aspects of the South, at that phrase, “fought to exhaustion,” Brendan bursts into tears, there in Texas, beside a just budding clump of shrubbery, within sight of the pink granite building.

She is in serious trouble, probably.

In the new Radisson Hotel, the lobby bar, where Brendan and Jack Bishop now sit, at a very small table—the bar is Art Deco, sort of. An odd carpet, dizzyingly geometric, black and white, all upraised and separated from the central hall by a series of railings. There is a big grand piano at which last night a large brown man was playing some nice jazz standards as Brendan came in from her lecture. So much like the man in Boise, at that bar. Is he possibly the same person? Is he, like herself, engaged in some crazy tour, traversing miles of states, constantly changing cities and hotels?

In any case, no one there now. A silent piano.

And Brendan and Jack, who have been talking in a fairly animated way, exchanging life stories, now have fallen silent.

Jack is no longer (of course not) the lanky, lithe blond person whom Brendan remembered, and on whom she has been so focused in recent days (it had even begun to seem to her that Jack was the point of all this travel). This present Jack, though, just sipping his second vodka on the rocks, is a trim and very sleek, clearly successful man, of almost middle age. The blond hair is gray and a little thin, but still Jack looks good.

He is divorced, after a couple of marriages about which he
has not said very much; he is probably quite used to lunches with women who have sexy plans for the rest of the afternoon. The only trouble is that Brendan doesn't really like him very much.

All the differences that might be predicted between herself and a Midwestern businessman seem in their case multiplied. They have instinctively avoided any even vaguely political discussion, but Brendan's intuition informs her that he is somewhere to the right of mainstream Republicanism. He goes to Scotland to fish and play golf, his two sons are in a military school (tactlessly Brendan has commented, “Really? I didn't know they still had them”). His tie and his handkerchief, both maroon, are perfectly matched, and his suit is pinstriped, its pants and sleeves perfectly creased.

In no way is he Brendan's type, assuming that she has one; however, he has an available look, and there he is. If she were braver, she thinks, if she were truly liberated, at this very moment she would say, Well, how about some lunch from room service, in my room?

Jack, however, has just summoned the cocktail waitress, whom he seems to know. (Is this possible? Of course it is, this is no doubt a popular bar, as he is no doubt a popular man.) Anyway, he knows her name, Cindy. “Cindy, how's the girl? Well, you can bring us a couple of these good drinks.” He and Cindy both laugh, as though he has said something funny, or as though they were such great pals that anything is funny.

Cindy has long straight blond hair, a black miniskirt and frilly white apron, her uniform. Viewed from the back, her black stocking seams are wondrously straight, on her long, impeccable legs.

“Well,” says Jack, in a tone that is suddenly warm and expansive, “I can't think of a nicer way to spend a Saturday, can you?”

“Oh no,” Brendan murmurs as she thinks, Well, actually I can, quite easily.

Her hair too is long and straight today, all down around her shoulders, and very clean and brushed, if not blow-dried. But maybe too long? And is she too old for such hair? Jack is probably used to much younger women. Like Cindy.

Cindy is back with their drinks, Jacks vodka, Brendan's spritzer (non-drunkenness has been part of her calculation). As Cindy puts the glasses firmly on the table, Jack seizes one of her hands. Is he pressing money into her palm? No, apparently not, as they both laugh—again.

“She's a great girl,” Jack remarks, clearly meaning the just departed Cindy.

Brendan murmurs assent, there not being much room for argument, and then Jack repeats what he also said, in just the same words, an hour or so ago: he is sorry he missed Brendan's lecture the night before.

And Brendan says again (with perhaps more emphasis?) that it really does not, did not matter.

But a few minutes later, as Brendan stares across the table at Jack, who is happily settled into his new drink, she is visited by several revelations; they are strangely confused as to order, but at the same time peculiarly clear.

One is that even had she wanted to, it is now too late to say anything about a room service lunch in her room.

And, two, even if she had made such a suggestion Jack might very well in some way turn her down. (And this last is a horrifying thought, but why? Men get turned down by women fairly often; they seem to live with it. Maybe this is something that free women should get used to?) In any case, if Jack had wanted to go to bed with her he could have let this be known by now; it looks as though he would rather drink. Quite possibly he doesn't like her any more than she likes him?

However, the strongest revelation experienced by Brendan just then is the fact that this is the last day of her tour! It is over, and she never has to do this again, not ever, if she does not choose to. This truth is so striking as to clear her head; she feels suddenly braver and stronger. In control.

Her plane, the one she had planned to miss in the course of her fantasied voluptuous afternoon with Jack, the fantasied savior of her trip—her plane to Washington leaves at 4:30. With a little diligence she can just make it, still.

Contriving a sudden look at her watch, with all the emphasis she can muster Brendan exclaims, “Oh dear! I had no idea—so late!” She is aware of not sounding like herself, even of sounding like some silly sitcom woman, but no matter. Jack does not know who she is, and very likely she is presenting him with a person with whom he can deal quite easily; whereas with her, with Brendan as her own true self, everything is hopeless. “My plane,” she murmurs. “Tom will be really upset if I'm not on it.”

Her instincts about Jack were quite right, seemingly; he is suddenly galvanized, all action. “Well, of course you have to make the plane,” he tells her. (Is he anxious to get rid of her? Well, if he is, so what?) “I tell you what, I'll drive you out,” he surprisingly says, leading Brendan to wonder at least momentarily if he is not such a bad person after all? Has she been unfair? “Cabs in this town are really chancy,” he says.

“But your lunch—”

“Listen, it won't hurt me to miss a meal. I'll just gulp some coffee while you collect your stuff.”

And so, about twenty minutes later, Jack and Brendan are headed out on various highways, in Jack's large green Cadillac, toward the airport. He drives very well, Brendan notes; thank God. He does not seem even slightly drunk.

At the security check, to which he has insisted on carrying
her bag, and where they are to part, Jack kisses her passionately, as though they had had an intense romantic interlude.

As though she were someone else.

On the plane, Brendan alternately dozes and drifts into her own odd, random thoughts. At some point it occurs to her that this is rather the way she works, allowing herself an almost mindless drift, then trying to pull it into some sort of focus.

She tries this now, and she realizes that she is still (so irrationally!) embarrassed by that encounter with Jack Bishop. As though he had read her mind and been aware of her true intentions, she feels turned down, found wanting, sexually. She repeats to herself that she should not mind, if she aims to function as a liberated woman. And, on the other hand, she tells herself that very possibly Jack took her at her word; he thought she just meant lunch—or drinks. Most usefully of all she repeats to herself that it does not matter; it simply does not, not at all. And then she sleeps.

Waking somewhat later, looking down far below to the fenced-off, trapezoidal shapes of farms, from her isolated window seat, she begins to think of those eager young women, her several audiences. She resees their warm, unsuspicious faces, feels again their incredible gratitude. And she feels grateful to them; at this moment she understands that those fragmentary, often confused after-lecture conversations were the best part of her trip, its most human exchanges.

She next thinks: I can't wait to be working again.

She and Tom never meet each other at Dulles; still, as always, Brendan scans the crowds who are there to meet people. Of course Tom is not among them, nice as that would be. Extravagantly, Brendan gets into a cab, and heads for Bethesda.

Arriving at her darkened house, she sees only the porch light left on. And, entering, she sees that the too large house is empty, yielding up no clue as to Tom's whereabouts. It is perfectly clean and neat. Is that Tom's way of welcoming her home, or is he covering tracks? There are no coffee cups in the sink, nor glasses, and the sheets on their bed are fresh.

If he were gone for good, there would be a note, obviously; Tom is neither impulsive nor grossly inconsiderate. However, it is possible that he has managed to forget—again!—that she is to come home Saturday, not Sunday. He is often distracted, his mind somewhere else, presumably on his work.

At least there is a nice new bottle of white wine in the refrigerator: to celebrate Brendan's homecoming? To drink with someone else, his Saturday night companion? Given Tom, this is unlikely; still, it is something that Brendan thinks of as rather defiantly she uncorks the wine and pours out a glass for herself.

In another era, Brendan thinks, or if she were another woman, she could be about to say to Tom, when she sees him, Oh, honey, you were right. I shouldn't have gone. Most of it was lousy, and I missed you. Which, as something to say, has a lot in its favor—including the truth (although “honey” is not a word she ever uses).

However, being herself, and the climate among intelligent women being what it is, Brendan's mood is more adversary.
Why weren't you here? she would (will) be more apt to say. And she will ask him (probably), Why couldn't you remember Saturday, not Sunday?

But as some moments later she recognizes the sound of Tom's car, hears the slamming door, and then not long after hears his footsteps as they cross the creaky porch—lagging steps, but his, unmistakably (and he is alone)—Brendan's mood shifts from defiance and accusation to one in which relief predominates, relief and a certain confusion. She might say—oh, anything at all. She might even say, Why don't we take this nice bottle of wine right up to bed, right now? (After all, it is Saturday night.)

She's not up to my usual standards. That was the first thought of Roger Michaels, an architect, on meeting a woman named Julia Bailey, a mathematician. Julia was at last to break his heart, or nearly, but on that April afternoon in San Francisco, back in the early sixties, Roger went on to think, She's not even as good-looking as my former wife. And that dress is a mistake. But she's got good eyes, and she does look intelligent. Probably too intelligent. Well, what the hell. It's only one evening.

Accustomed to being attractive to women, most found him
very
attractive, Roger gave almost no thought to Julia's possible reactions to himself. (“I thought you were sort of overdressed, in that new blazer,” she later told him. “And I usually don't like curly hair.”) Although he rated himself fairly low on a handsomeness scale (not tall, too dark), there had to be something. Sexiness, he liked to think it was. Or, to put it more elegantly, style. He had a lot of style, he knew that.