Gould (18 page)

“He misses you, pines for you, has returned to wetting his bed every now and then,” she said on the phone week after she and Brons left. “When are you coming back? We both need and miss you. My bed wants you. The whole house is groaning for your return. Just skip out on the future rent and let them follow you to California if they'd ever do that,” and he said “Can't do, it wouldn't be right. If I come, then I first pay them what I owe,” and she said “Dummy, nobody in New York would and the landlord knows and expects that.” She wants him, he thought, so she can have someone pay the bills. Maybe in three months, just so he can save some money from substitute teaching every day and also to give him time to get someone to take over his lease.

His mother said “My advice is not to go. She doesn't seem the right girl for you. She's not soft, her background's too different, I've a feeling she'll end up bossing you around and treating you like a schmo. You were always such a proud and independent guy but something's happened to you.” His father said “She's a pig, no personality, ugly as sin and with brains to match. She treats you like a doormat. Her son's not yours but you play around birdbrain-like that he is, and this is going to ruin your future life and keep other women a hundred miles from you. Get rid of her fast. Don't waste your money calling her anymore, don't write, for sure don't go back. Get a real woman who looks like one and not like a boy and who has a body that can have babies after you marry her. This one's an operator and schemer, cagey as they come and only thinks of herself and her gorgeous garish clothes and layers of makeup, as if she's a rich princess who all the eligible men adore, when she's more like a witch. How can she walk on such pin legs and breathe when she has no nose? You two look stupid together—Mutt and Jeff, she's so short—and she also has no respect for your parents when she knows you love us and we've been good as gold to you. She comes in here, always wanted to be waited on, never once said thanks, and when she left, ‘good-bye' was a dirty word to her, and no note since for the two weeks we put her up and the mattress her son ruined.” His mother said “Not true, the no-thanks part. She was usually polite, had very nice manners, cleaned up after herself and her son, and the boy is a darling. If she could raise him to be so good, even if I bet some of that the last year had to do with Gould's contribution, then there's a lot to be said for her. She simply isn't right for him though. There doesn't seem to be that necessary thing between them, the lights and respect, nothing. Maybe because they were financially strapped here, but they were usually backbiting, fighting—in front of us—almost never agreeing on any one thing.” “She's flighty,” his father said. “Had a husband devoted to her—” “He wasn't so devoted,” Gould said. “Then had a husband, period, and leaves him in a week or so after the boy's born and takes up with who knows what and eventually you. Now she wants to be an actress, or that's finally over. What did she want to be before?” “The part about taking up with other guys right away is wrong, all wrong.” “When you were in California you wrote us she was going to be an interior designer, before that a furniture designer and before that an architect,” and Gould said “Those things were momentary aspirations; more ideas to think over and discuss the possibilities of than anything concrete, and I did her a disservice by mentioning them. I suppose I wanted to—you know—build her up to you.” “Just because you felt you had to do that shows how little you thought of her,” his father said, and he said “That's not how I see it. Anyway, theater, an actress, becoming one, that was the first serious thing she really wanted to do and you have to give her credit for uprooting her life to pursue it. That it didn't work out  .    .  and his father said “It didn't because she couldn't act to herself alone in front of a mirror if you gave her two hours to. And she was never pleasant, always that sour mug of hers, or something where you had to tickle her silly to get out the simplest smile. So what was there to her? Tell me, I'm asking. Did men stop dead in their tracks on the street for her?” “Yes, as a matter of fact, sometimes.” “Bull. And if there's one thing a girl ought to have, if she doesn't have good looks and personality and a great job or lots of promise and there's no big family money around, which anyhow you don't care about—money, hoo! what does it mean to you—is brains. And for you especially she should have this and maybe most important: an intellect, to be a member of the intelligentsia you aspire to, and that she also lacked, take it from me,” and his mother said “I found her to be quite smart, well read and full of interesting insights into life. It's the chemistry between them that I think was missing,” and his father said “Chemistry and brains, then, but a lot else wasn't there. If her only attributes were that she was an all-star in bed and a good mother, big deal—you can't live off the first forever and the second shouldn't affect you much if the kid isn't yours. I think you're only going back for the boy, and a greater mistake couldn't be made. You aren't his father, you'll never be his father, and no matter how much the boy loves you now and you feel close to him, in ten years—in fifteen, you name it, if his real father doesn't grab him first—he'll be out of the house and in college and then you'll be stuck alone with her.” “We could have other children,” and his mother said “I'd advise against hanging your hat on that. She told me a number of times that having Bronson was the worst experience she ever had—throwing up violently for three months and then the long delivery, which nearly drove her mad with pain till they put her out—that she'd never want to have another child.” “I overheard that too,” his father said, “since of course she'd never say it to me. She never said boo to me. She knew I was on to her the moment she stepped into our house. And that despite all her primping and painting—toenails, fingers, face, eyes and hair, the whole can of worms—what I also thought of her looks.” “Some people think she's beautiful,” Gould said, “everyone at least thinks she's pretty. But what are we talking about, for the one thing we haven't mentioned so far and is more important than anything is that she's a very good person inside,” and his father said “In my eyes she isn't, and the ones who think so or see that ought to get their eyes and heads examined. She's got a homely face and a shifty mind and a heart that's like a stone. There's a combo for you, one only an idiot would go for,” and his mother said “That's not so—not even near the truth. Though there were some things I questioned about her, she has many fine qualities,” and on it went, till his father said “Enough; nothing's going to sink through his hard head. And besides everything else, as if I have to say this, I'm not well, your mother can't do all the taking care of me at her age, and I'll probably get a lot worse before I get a little better, if I don't drop dead in a year, so it should be easy for you to see we need you here or just around the city for sudden calls,” and he said “I wish I could; honestly, there's nothing I'd want to do more; but I can't be in two very far-apart places at the same time and I'm going out there. If you really need me—a sudden emergency, or just some help for a couple of weeks—which I'd hope not because I'd hate for you to get worse—I'll fly right home.”

Years later he was standing at a bar with a friend who said “You know, you might not want to hear this. But since you brought her name up before     or maybe you do, now, or wouldn't mind, when it's so long after the fact, but I never knew what you saw in that California broad—Angel, or Evangel, or Angelina. She wasn't—” and he said “Evangeline. She never liked it shortened or would tolerate any nickname,” and his friend said “Evangeline, then. But just
that
, that she wouldn't, with such a mouthful of an uncommon name. But she wasn't smart or sharp or good-looking. Her body was like a board. She didn't like one person you knew, me most especially, I think because I was your closest friend. She in fact looked on everyone we knew as if she wanted to spit great wads on top of their heads. She hated the city, was afraid of everything, and treated you like shit. She wouldn't even cook part of the dinner when Beverly and I came over—you had to do it all because we were your friends, not hers. What possibly could have possessed you? Usually your taste in women was pretty good,” and he said “You sound like my dad there, may his soul, etcetera, and the rest of him  .   .  ” and his friend said “Then your dad was right. He knew a looker; look at your mom. He also knew—I could tell, even sick as he was the last times I saw him and with not much use for talking because of his paralysis problem—what was up and who was phooey and what in life was hype or gauze or fake.” “There was something between her and me that can't be explained. But I'll try, right? That's what I usually do. If you don't think she was good-looking or smart or anything like that.

Wait, did you say anything about her not being smart?” and his friend said “She wasn't, was she?—not too much.” “Anyway, nothing I can do about that. Eyes, taste, your own handicaps or prejudices or just that you never engaged her in a deep conversation, or that she didn't fill your bill in the bones and flesh categories     But we had lots of fun together. I mean, where I really went hysterical with laughing, both of us together, and not from pot. And she had a very good mind. Would read a difficult novel, poetry or as much as she hated the subjects, an article on philosophy or some literary criticism I handed her—unlearned, you see, never got through high school—but would understand it more incisively than I most times and more than lots of scholars could. Why? Intuitive knowledge, instinctive, common sense, saw through things and could read between the lines and so on—incisiveness, as I said, all easy and natural. So we discussed things like that—long discussions, no fancy words or references or quotes from literary big shots or other books—and movies and plays we went deeply into too. And we both adored her son. Another plus. You don't have a kid or want one so you're shaking your head it's nothing, it's nothing, but you don't know what you're missing,” and his friend said “The art bullshit sessions don't interest me either,” and he said “I know, it's not what you like or appreciate—movies, you do, even talking about them at length. She also made a nice home for us. Very nice things; she had great taste, picked up treasures in Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul; I felt very comfortable there. You're a slob so this doesn't mean anything to you, stinky jockey briefs in the kitchen sink, greasy pots piled high in the toilet bowl,” and his friend said “Thanks a lot; you really know me.” “I like things neat and attractive and a house in order and uncluttered, with serious paintings or prints on the wall, nice light fixtures, and that's what she did, with a little help from me. In ways our tastes in many things were almost identical; that doesn't hurt a relationship. And she was good in bed. Now your eyes light up. ‘Good, bed, fuck, ug,'” and his friend said “Looking at her, I wouldn't've thought it; but knowing how much you like sex, it sort of makes sense.” “She always put out for me when I wanted—not something every woman did—or most of the time. Handed me her body almost, or turned around with her backside to me, as if saying ‘Here, I'm sleepy, not even up to performing, do what you want with it'—but with restrictions of course. Though I think I have her mixed up with someone else. Sorry. She, actually, couldn't be persuaded to do anything she didn't want to. And sure, she was a tremendous ballbreaker too and we wouldn't do it for weeks at a time sometimes because we loathed each other and wanted to live any way but together and even did the separate rooms bit,” and his friend said “So why didn't you leave? If something like that happened to me with some girl, I'd say ‘Man overboard,' and jump,” and he said “Good question. I never understood why, several times, I didn't leave absolutely and indisputably and unreturnably for good. It was during my needy way-down-on-myself period maybe. Maybe I got too comfortable in her house and with her kid and in being to other people a much-admired pretend father. The pleasures of predictably recurrent sex once the enmity ends. That I was a poor lonely putz but at least had a nice house and some family life. Also, I was going nowhere so at least for the time being was somewhere, and so on—you need more reasons? When it was good it was almost okay, blah blah. She needed me lots of times too and when I was out of her life no one missed me more, till the last time when she was giddy at my being gone and stayed that way. ‘Aren't we better off now?' she'd say on the phone—I forget who called, probably me with some lame excuse for calling. ‘Isn't life really better for you now that we're split?' If I said ‘Well, I guess so, but still     .' she'd say ‘No, it is for me and if it isn't for you yet it will be. Wait, my new beau wants to talk to you.' But sometimes, before that, I thought we broke up just so we could get back together again in a month and for a few days, or a day or two, have the wildest most uninhibited and saddest—cries, tears, whoopees—time a couple could. In other words—well, in other words what? I can't think; Elephant beer we had to order. But I found her beautiful—I shouldn't forget that as a reason for staying. I'd look at her nose, eyes, the lips, everything.
Tout le
face. The most gorgeous I'd ever seen in a woman I was close to,” and his friend said “That's nuts,” and reeled off names. “And they had tits, these women, gigantic to big to medium to only a little bit small, but something there you could squeeze or push your face into,” and he said
“Tits
. Why's it matter so much? You need them to feed off of? But I'll never win on that with you. Some guys are like that and some—a few—could care less. None could care nothing, I suppose, but you have to understand there are many other things in a woman, physical and emotional and so on, to supersede if not go way way beyond them. Just as if one guy has an enormous dick and the others don't, big deal, there are so many other things in those men that should be important to a woman, or one would hope they'd be there. Believe me, after the first few days with Evangeline, they didn't—” and his friend said “Bullshit.”