Boys & Girls Together (83 page)

Then came the war.

Roger was called up early. Diana worried about him, but not Tony. Not when he was stationed in Rhode Island or later, when he was sent to Europe or after that, when he was shifted to the Pacific. Tony had faith. She knew he’d come back. And he did.

But it took five years.

And when he reopened his office he found that the babies he had treated were no longer babies, and they had other doctors. In the almost eleven months he kept his practice going, it seemed that everyone in the entire city of Boston had other doctors.

Roger went back in the Navy.

Diana was not particularly pleased with the decision. She wept and threatened and swore and started taking lengthy cocktail hours because, she said, she “had to get in training to be an officer’s wife.” Roger kept her company during the cocktail time, drink for drink, but for the most part he said nothing.

Tony didn’t see why it mattered much, one way or the other, just so he was happy. He was, after all, still a doctor, except that now, when people asked her what her father did, she got to add that he was a lieutenant commander, and they were good words to roll off your tongue, words with a rhythm all their own, “lieutenant commander.” And he looked wonderfully smart in his uniform. And being so important, it wasn’t hard for him to pull strings and get himself stationed right in Boston, at the Charlestown Navy Yard, so he actually, if anything, got to spend more time around the house. When they moved from their house, Tony was momentarily unhappy, but they moved only a few blocks, up Marlborough Street toward Massachusetts Avenue, so even if the apartment was smallish, the address was still practically the same.

And besides, she was getting ready for high school. Being a success in eighth grade was one thing; high school had her scared. She used to lie awake nights envisioning herself—slip showing, books dropping, boys laughing, teachers scolding—moving from one humiliation to another.

They never materialized. She was a bigger success in high school than she had ever been in eighth grade. She loved the work and her grades and the teachers. She wasn’t that pretty but she knew how to dress; she had, she told herself,
flair
, and the boys loved her. Her first weeks in school it was the shy boys she dated, fellow freshmen, mumbling and stoop-shouldered, acne-ridden. But before the initial grading period ended, the shoulders had straightened, the complexions cleared—she was dating juniors, seniors before the first year ended. Sophomore year she continued with seniors until a freshman math major from M.I.T. spotted her at a basketball game. He lasted almost a month before being replaced by a Harvard poet. By the time she graduated she had, according to her diary, gone out with one hundred and seventeen different boys, sixty-four of whom swore they loved her. Of these, eleven had proposed. Of these, she had kissed five, accepted none.

Summers she worked, often at the Navy Yard, once as a counselor in Maine, her best summer, probably, marred only by the fact that she submitted nightly, for three nights, to the Princeton boy. She continued to submit to him for a while; whenever he called her down to New Jersey, she always obeyed. And there were others too, until one night she stopped submitting, for reasons she chose not to think about.

Sarah Lawrence did not begin well. At first, the other girls troubled her. Not because they were so bright; she was more than willing to compete on that score. But there were so many what she called “phony dilettantes.” Tony hated the phony dilettantes. They seemed so confident, so everlastingly smug. Eventually, she saw through them, and then they didn’t trouble her anymore. She began to enjoy college. For a time she thought of becoming a modern dancer. She was graceful and the movements came naturally to her, but when she saw the limitations inherent in the field she turned to musical composition; she had taken years of piano lessons and could sight-read like a professional. She could paint too and well, but well enough? She wasn’t sure. In the end she chose literature. She had a way with words, and besides, she loved to read.

She moved to New York after graduation. Her father would have preferred her settling in Boston, and she might have, except that he and her mother were getting on so much better by that time that there really wasn’t any need. She got a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village and a secretarial job with an advertising agency. But the agency, in grateful recognition of her potential and skill, quickly advanced her to the position of assistant copywriter. The week of her promotion she moved into a new apartment in a new red-brick building off Lexington Avenue. It was far too expensive, so she took a roommate. A series of roommates, actually; one after another they got married or moved to San Francisco, but so long as they paid the rent until a replacement could be found, Tony didn’t care. Her social life was busy as ever. She went to all the hit plays, some of them twice, and the good foreign movies, and she ate in the best restaurants and bought her clothes from Jax. So everything was going well, everything was going wonderfully, except every so often, just from time to time, she burst into unaccountable tears.

“What are you crying for? “Walt said. “What’s the matter?”

Tony bit her lip, tried to stop. Then she shook her head and sobbed.

“Look, I’m happy you’re a virgin. I am. There’s no reason to cry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Just stop.”

Tony hid her face behind her hands.

“Want me to get you something? A washrag?”

“I’ll be O.K.” She took a deep breath. Another. Finally, she dropped her hands. “There. See? Done.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. Forget it.” She glanced toward the window. “Maybe it was the rain.”

Walt watched it come down.

“It won’t happen again. I swear. Sometimes it just does and then I get so disappointed in myself. I’m not a baby. Don’t ever disappoint me, Walt.”

“I won’t.”

Tony shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Sometimes my life, it’s like a Genet play. Here I am, naked and crying, and there you are, in my nightgown. Take it off. Please.”

Walt took it off.

“I’m tired, Walt. Are you tired?”

“Dead.”

“Let’s go to sleep then, huh?”

“Let’s.”

They walked into the bedroom.

“No promises this time,” Tony said. “You don’t have to promise a thing. I’m too tired to fight you off. But you said you loved me—”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you love me, you won’t touch me.”

“I love you.”

“Then don’t disappoint me. I’m yours, Walt, but if you love me you’ll leave me alone.”

“Ordinarily I’d ravage you, but I’m probably too tired to do a good job.”

“Just remember, I didn’t make you promise anything. We’ve passed that stage, you and I.”

“Yes.”

They got into bed, turned out the light.

“I don’t ever think I’ve been this tired,” Tony said.

He kissed her lightly. “Sleep.”

“Yes.”

“ ’Night.”

“Walt?”

“What?”

“One thing? You hurt me. Something you said. When you called me a castrator. I’m not. You see that now, don’t you?”

“I was mad. Sometimes you say crazy things when you get that way. I’m sorry. I am.”

“Walt?” Her voice was very soft.

“What?”

“Can I sleep in your arms?”

He reached out, held her gently, kissed her forehead. In a moment she was asleep, her naked body warm against his. Walt looked at her. Then he smiled and closed his eyes. Soon he was breathing deeply. Hey, he thought just before he slept. Hey, I won. What do you know about that?

“C
HARLEY’S SLEEPING WITH HIS
secretary,” Betty Jane said to Penny Whitsell. They were sitting in the bedroom of Penny’s apartment in Peter Cooper Village. It was two weeks before Christmas and Betty Jane had been shopping, successfully for her son and husband, not so for her baby daughter, now six months old.

Penny sighed, picking up her tweezers and her magnifying mirror, zeroing in on the bridge of her nose. “Obviously,” she said.

Betty Jane looked at her for a long time. Then, very softly she said, “Will you please stop playing with the bridge of your nose and explain?”

“You know very well I am compulsive about the fact that my eyebrows almost meet and Charley has all the symptoms. Remember last winter you were preg and it was snowing and I was out to your place and you three all frolicked in the snow like gazelles? Well, whenever Ferd that bastard cheated on me, the next time we’d sleep together he’d always bite me to prove his passion. I began feeling like a midnight snack. Ferd’s biting, Charley’s frolicking: same thing. Dammy!” She pulled a hair from the bridge of her nose.

“Penny, Charley’s having—”

“Swing. Have one too. Listen, when Ferd first started, I almost fell apart. Then I realized: what’s so great about a junior executive at Gimbels? Plenty of fish, right? Well, after that, whenever Ferd screwed around, little Penny went fishing. Smartest thing I ever did. Try it.”

“But you got divorced.” She could not keep her hands still.

“Yeah, but that was basically because we disliked each other. We were too competitive; promiscuity had nothing to do with it.”

“I love Charley.”

“Prove it.”

“I love him, I love him, please,
please
, I do,” and she turned away, starting to rise, starting to cry.

Penny reached out for her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “B.J. B.J. I didn’t want you to get upset. You know how it upsets me when you get upset and I figured if I played it cool you might too. Sit down, B.J. Please.”

Betty Jane sat silently down on the bed.

“Here.” Penny held out a handkerchief.

Betty Jane shook her head, stopped crying. “I just don’t know,” she said then. “I just feel so bad.”

“Is she cute?”

“Built is the word, I think.”

“How long have you known?”

“Year. More maybe.”

Penny whistled.

“I didn’t know exactly. I just knew something. He was working late and ...” She shrugged.

“And what have you done?”

“Nothing.”

“Why?”

Betty Jane shrugged again. “What could I do?”

“Kill him, kill her, leave him, threaten to leave him—”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“I’d be afraid to.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Charley might let me go. I’m not right for him. I don’t really make him happy, you know that.”

“Oh, B.J.—”

“I’m too stupid for Charley.”

“Oh, crap.” I am.

Penny lit a cigarette, then put it out. “You’re not stupid. That’s a
game
you and Charley play. You say you’re stupid and he says you’re not, but he says it in such a way as to make you think he thinks you are. It’s easier to blame it on stupidity than on the truth.” Penny smiled. “Oh, baby, you’re not stupid. I couldn’t love you if you were. Stupid men, yes, but I loathe stupid women. Stupidity, that’s just an excuse you two use. Every marriage needs an excuse in case things don’t go well. You remember that afternoon in Schrafft’s, when we first met Charley?”

“Of course I remember it. What about it?”

“You smiled at him.”

“I did not either smile.” Betty Jane held the Schrafft’s menu in front of her face.

“You did too smile, Betty Jane Bunnel.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Not.”

“Too—look out, look out,
he’s coming over
.” Penny brought her own Schrafft’s menu up in front of her face. “We’re gonna get in trouble and it’s all your fault because you smiled at him.”

“Hush,” Betty Jane whispered. “He’s terribly nice-looking.”

The terribly nice-looking man stopped in front of their table. “Are you rich?” he said.

Betty Jane stared straight at the menu.

“You smiled at me,” the man said.

“You smiled at me first,” Betty Jane said.

“In either case,” the man said, “are you rich?”

“I’m well off,” Betty Jane answered. “My parents are.”

“Don’t talk to him he might have escaped from someplace,” Penny whispered.

“Just so you’re not rich. My name is Charley Fiske and I am drunk.”

“I’m Betty Jane Bunnel.” She put the menu down.

“You
told
him,” Penny said.

Betty Jane kicked her.

“You
kicked
me,” Penny said.

“I just broke a very expensive vase,” Charley said. “I was having brunch on a terrace looking at the East River. There were many drinks. If I were sober, would you see me?”

Betty Jane looked at him. “Yes.”

“I think you both just escaped from someplace,” Penny said.

“You’re very pretty, aren’t you?” Charley said.

Betty Jane shrugged. “I guess so. If you say I am.”

“I have never seen anyone as pretty as you. Tonight would you see me?”

Betty Jane nodded, looking at him.

“Well, why don’t you both hit the sack right here?” Penny said.

“Shut up,” Betty Jane said.

Charley smiled. “Six o’clock? You’ll be alone?”

“I promise.”

“And we’ll just walk? I have no money.”

“We’ll walk.”

“I’ll meet you here. Don’t change your mind.”

“Don’t even think that. Why are you smiling?”

“Because I met you and I’m happy,” Charley said. “And because I don’t do things like this.”

“Neither do I,” Betty Jane said. She watched him walk away. When he was gone she slumped back in her chair and looked at Penny. “That’s the most romantic thing. Ever. In all my life. Don’t you think?”

“Romantic with a capital R,” Penny said, squinting at her magnifying mirror, plucking with her tweezers at the bridge of her nose. “But do you know what I hoped, that night when I left you alone to meet him at a few minutes before six? And a few weeks later, when I watched you all in white walking down the aisle?”

“What did you hope?”

“That you’d neither of you ever have to go to the bathroom,” Penny said.

Betty Jane hesitated a moment, the jar of cold cream in her hands. Then she said to Charley, “I was thinking.”

Charley looked at her from the bed. “What about?”