Going Down Fast (5 page)

Something must have shown. Estelle, who had married from home right after highschool graduation, stepped closer to peer at her. “Do you date now? Do you go out with boys?”

Boys. “Yes.” And she had thought she would tell Estelle about Rowley, by way of trying it out. What she had anticipated: Yes, I know he isn't Jewish, but …

“That must be … fun.” Estelle was looking at her carefully, trying to read something. “Do you tell them you were married? Do you call yourself Miss or Mrs.? Don't they wonder where your family is?” Estelle's blind strong curiosity gave off whiffs of dissatisfaction. “Of course you don't have a place to ask them in to sit … How do you make them bring you back on time?”

Remembering, Anna sighed. They had never been as close as Rowley and his baby sister were. He was helping Sam through school—his parents couldn't with his father sick and his mother a woman who had never worked outside the home. Sam was a bright kid but strongwilled, and one of these days she and Rowley were going to have a battle …

With a start she came back to the room seeing the stained lecture notes and columns of halfmade budget. If only she could forget for a whole day, for half a day, for an hour that he existed.

At seven as she was broiling a lambchop, he called. When she heard his voice she thought he was going to ask her to supper. She would not say a word about the chop. But he asked, “You want to come over and pick up your things? If you want to.”

“Yes, of course. Tonight. If you're … if it's convenient.”

“Anytime. When you want.”

“I'll be over about eight.”

“I'll pick you up.”

“Don't bother.”

He did not argue.

By then she could not eat the chop. Changed her clothes. Decided she looked too dressed, too arranged, and changed again. Walking through the darkened streets, a scrappy chill wind on her back coming in spurts off the lake half a mile east, she played over and over again their brief exchange. An excuse to see her? He needed none. No, he wanted her gear out, he wanted the clean definition of a break. She almost hated him as she approached his house, past the cavernous old apartment houses the University was always secretly buying and then making a scandal by evicting all the old tenants, into the streets of frame and shingle houses. Hating was sordid. She disapproved of women who spoke with venom of men they had loved for no reason than that they had stopped. She disapproved! She always was disapproving of something. One would think her a moral animal. I try, I try, she muttered.

The house pulsed light: probably everyone home, the relatives upstairs, the Williams in between, the downstairs Rowley. She did not want to go in, not at all. The tension that had caused their breakup came from this house, for if Harlan were to lose it and Rowley had to move around the same time she was put out, they could not have gone on as they had. Whether they decided to live together or not would be a decision, a judgment: and they must both have perceived that subconsciously. As she hesitated, she thought that he might look out and see her dawdling there. Down the walk she marched to rap briskly. She must give him back the key. To save the price of having a new one made for Caroline?

“Hello, Rowley.” For a moment she was tempted to use his first name, George. He hated it, saw that few knew it. Rather than face him she passed into the livingroom, bruised to see it looking as it had. Did she expect the walls to run blood? Yente howled welcome, climbing her leg, pawing and complaining and butting his head until she took him up. On her shoulder he set up loud rough purring, kneading her and in his excitement letting his claws unsheathe.

Rowley's mouth tweaked upward in restless unease. He crossed the room rubbing his scalp, setting the coarse dark hair on end. “I don't suppose this is the half of it, but it's what I turned up. Don't take my word for it. Better look around.” He had piled pans and kitchen gadgets on a chair along with clothes, a box of tampons, her toothbrush and hairbrush, Navaho rug, wineglasses, a wide strawhat, books. It came to her that if she had not gone on pills two months before, her diaphragm would be on the pile too, and she was thankful.

“The Klee drawing in the bedroom. That's mine.” She longed for a squabble about possessions to relieve them both.

“Sure it is.” He strode off. “You know me, I buy things to listen to, but not to look at.”

She resolved that her dignity consisted in not following him to that doorway. She stood clutching Yente.

“Look, have a seat. How about a drink?” He brought the drawing back and stood against the heaped chair.

She accepted, grimly. She had begun to dread the moment she would walk out. How she hated endings.

His hand as he gave her the glass was steady, but his eyes broke from hers, returned with a strange vivid black stare that felt familiar, as if a long time before she had seen him look that way. “How are your classes?”

The room was tilting toward him. She could tell him. Yes. That would rally him to her because it would let him off from being wrong. As if she were sliding across she set her flesh against him. She would not use her trouble as bait. She would not trust again. “Please don't let's talk for the sake of making talk.”

He hopped from his seat to pace around the chair laden with her things. “Fuck it, Anna, you think something's more real if it hurts?”

She told him more items and he fetched them. She was tortured by the feeling that all she had to do was laugh or touch him, and the savage coldness would rip aside.

He came to stand in front of her. “Take Yente.”

“Don't be silly.”

“I'm not home much. He's used to you.”

She kept looking at the cat so she would not have to look up. “I don't think I'm allowed to have pets.”

“Your landlady afraid they'll bother the roaches?”

“Besides, I can't support him.” She pulled the cat off her shoulder and handed him over. Resentful, Yente twisted free and trotted into the kitchen, tail high.

The phone rang. He dodged into the bedroom. “Rowley speaking.” He scooped it up and walked to the door cradling the receiver against his shoulder, his eyes still on her. “Oh, it's you.” His gaze turned to the wall. “No, I am not …” He turned as if casually and walked back into the bedroom. “I'll call you back.… Yeah, yeah, later.… Now shut it off. I told you she would be …”

She caught herself holding her breath. Caroline? Or another, what matter. The contemptuous intimate tone hurt more than pet names. He was sure of this girl already.
She
knew that Anna was here and was jealous. Need not be.

“I said I'll call you. Goodbye.” He hung up.

She rose. “I'm just going. You needn't have cut that short.”

“Of no importance.” His eyes were hard. “You have everything you want?”

“Everything that belongs to me. I wouldn't be wanting anything else.”

They stood face to face and she in the heat of her anger sustained his gaze.

“A safe attitude. I suppose if I'd held it, I'd have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

His face was dark and bitter, making her forget the insult of her tongue. “Oh, Rowley, I'm not gong to start blaming you for that now—”

“Start?”

“I wasn't happy with Asher. We'd have broken up eventually.” Ashamed of letting her truculence slip, she turned and loaded her arms with objects from the chair.

As he was putting a box into the backseat, he said over his shoulder with his teeth showing, “You're a fair woman.”

“To everyone but myself. There I'm fowl—a sitting duck, no?”

He straightened up and glared.

“Let's not talk,” she said. “Help me get this stuff to my rooms and don't say any more. Not any more.”

He shrugged broadly but he kept the silence. Without more than directions exchanged—“Hold the door would you?” “I'll take the clothes”—they finished loading the car, drove to her place, and carried her things upstairs. Letting him make the last trip alone she began to put kitchen supplies away. She did not turn when he brought the books in, put them on the table and stood looking at her. Feeling his gaze on her back she thought loudly, oh please, please don't let him say anything, please don't let him speak. Keep his mouth shut and send him away. Please.

The door closed and his footsteps cascaded down the stairs. Weakly she leaned against the refrigerator and looked with blank stupidity and fatigue at the baggage piled on her table, residue of a finished small life.

Tuesday, September 23–Tuesday, October 7

Anna stayed out of the bars Rowley frequented, and since they were the only ones she felt comfortable in alone, she did not drink. She changed restaurants, stores and laundromats, avoiding Rowley and incidentally their friends. That suited her. She would keep away till she was less pitiable, but she was cut off from the usual job channels at the University, the station, the journals and institutes, and thrown back on the newspaper.

In the Lotus Gardens where for less than a dollar she could escape her walls and her own company, she sat eating chow mein. It was a slot between stores with a cramped row of booths and a take-out counter presided over by the Grand Canyon at sunset. The proprietor's fourteen-year-old daughter, who waited on tables with a transistor radio clapped to her ear and her neat butt twitching, looked on customers with disdain for anyone who would eat in such a crummy place.

She was rereading Veblen for comfort. She had an old crush on his clumsy integrity. He had been a tweeny too in this city and fired eventually. She looked up from her book and plate to see Leon waiting by the take-out counter. She started to wave, thought better. She did not want to talk to him and slid down. But a moment later he stood beside the booth, slope shouldered and scowling.

“So how are you?” he said heavily as he slid in the opposite bench. Rumpled and careworn he rubbed his hands loosely.

She smiled for answer still hoping to evade him, but he went on, “How's Rowley? You make things up?”

He must know, he was a friend of Caroline's. “We're not seeing each other.”

“Oh?” His bushy eyebrows met. “From that night?”

“I think we'd about reached the end of our rope.”

“You don't have to try to act cheerful. You look like hell.”

She snorted. “Oh, that was only the first blow. I'm out of a job too.” Briefly she told him what had happened.

Taking off his glasses he rubbed his eyes hard with his palms. His voice had a builtin sneer, undermining whatever he said. The words seemed to come out at a slant. “What kind of job you want?”

“Just one to keep me, modestly. Not bore me out of my mind or cause me to do harm to myself or others. I can type, run a switchboard, I've done editing. I've timed rats and taken care of shell-shocked lab monkeys. I've had some statistics …”

“Okay, I think I can get you something at ISS.” The Institute for Social Surveying.

“You could?” She did not believe him but the offer was well meant. “That would be fine. You work there?”

“Yeah, and it's not fine. A place with the jitters. But there are always openings, the door swings out, the door swings in. I'll ask around. Eat, don't mind me, your food's getting cold.”

She obeyed. It was already cold. After a minute he asked, “He seeing Caroline?”

She kept her eyes to her plate. “Can't say that I asked him.”

“I knew that engagement was a farce. Just wanted the ring. Look, girls, stone of my own. She won't marry him.”

“If she wants marriage, she'd better stick to her boyfriend.”

Leon shrugged, still harried. He frowned at her as if trying to figure something out. But he did not speak, and then his named was called.

Two days afterward he phoned. “Looks like a good deal. I got a bit interviewing on what people think we should do with old folks—like should we gas them or just let them starve—but the opening for you is inside. Norma Clay needs a helper—mainly secretarial, some technical stuff. Come on sociological. Her last is having a baby. Call her tomorrow—a fat old dyke if you don't mind that—but uh don't tell her I sent you if you want the job.”

A week and a half later Anna began work for Norma Clay, a squarish bedeviled sociologist about forty who wore tweed suits with dainty frilled blouses, as if she had once been told to assert her femininity. Miss Clay had a high girlish voice that belonged to a much younger, slenderer woman, but everything else was soldierly. She walked weightily with a slight frown of decision and threat. The major business of the institution, Anna discovered, was jockeying for position within it. Miss Clay was not a natural conspirator. The constant effort to maintain her place, to wangle her share of foundation and industrial monies and to counter plots to oust her had soured what must have been a gentle, rather phlegmatic disposition, so that she had become awkward but dangerous, like a cornered cow.

Anna shared an antechamber with a middle aged woman who looked her up and down and sucked in her mouth. Mrs. Cavenaugh had been with ISS from the beginning. Sociologists came and went, but the secretarial staff abided in full security elaborating Byzantine rituals. Mrs. Cavenaugh ate lunch at her typewriter, arrived before nine, left well after five and spoke of the director with an elderly flutter. In her view her most important task was to keep the technical personnel from getting their hands on the office machines and supplies.

As she left Tuesday, Leon was perched on the receptionist's desk. He rose and came after her. “So, you got the job?”

She thanked him effusively, awkwardly. She felt she had been rude, remembering things she had said to Rowley, worse things she had thought. He had gone out of his way to help her, either willing to excuse her rudeness or unaware of how she had felt.

“I told you it's no great job, so forget it.” His voice was cold and distancing. In a prickly silence they walked a block, crushing the brittle cottonwood leaves underfoot. He said, “Have supper with me at Parks, I hate to eat alone.”