I Could Go on Singing (24 page)

Jenny finished the song to a great warmth of applause. She nodded to Larry, and then went into her demanding number, “I Could Go on Singing …”

Jason turned and moved back to where Lois stood. He took her by the arm. “Come with me,” he said.

“But I want to …”

“Come along.” He took her back through the backstage area, down the steps, through the main corridor to the dressing room corridor and into the dressing room. He closed the door. But they could still hear that voice.

“Jason, you act so strange!”

He took hold of her arms. She tried to wrench free, but he held her. “Do you know what that is out there?”

“You’re hurting me!”

“Do you know what that is? Can you understand what that is? It isn’t any lousy little compromise based on survival.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know whether you can hear me. But I have to try this. There isn’t anything else to do. I’ll have to go back now. And let Wegler pat me on the head like a good dog. So I don’t have much time. I have to do it this way.”

“Do what?”

“It isn’t survival. It’s a kind of marvelous endurance, Lois. What you have to do is take the risks. You have to take them all. And they turn into joy or they turn into heartbreak. But above all, you live with your risks.”

“I don’t know what you …”

“I’m a risk. I’m a lousy risk for you. I’m not a strong man. There’s no shine on the armor and the white horse has a bad limp. I’m jumpy and nervous and the things I do don’t turn out too well, but I have to take the risk of living. You’re no tower of strength. You’re sweet and scared and unsure of yourself. We’re not going to find any adolescent dream of utter bliss and perfection. We’ll hurt each other. People always do. But by God we’ll have the rest of it too. All the plus. I want you for keeps. For permanent. With no guarantee except love.”

Her eyes stopped shifting in shyness and panic and steadied on his, a gray and thoughtful gaze. “It couldn’t work. Nothing works for me, Jason.”

“So let’s prove you right, or prove you wrong. All you do is say yes. It’s a very small word. Say yes, or spend all your years wondering why you didn’t. Why you couldn’t.”

Her eyes went wide. He held her. The level mouth softened. And then the eyes took on a heaviness. And the mouth said yes. Without a sound it formed the shape of yes, once and then again, and he took her into his arms and felt the warm strong shuddering of her body, heard the catch of her breath in something like a sob.

He heard the distant slamming surf-sound of applause and, as it dwindled, the music again, and then that throbbing clarity of the voice of Jenny Bowman singing “Alone Together.” He held his scared and hearty yes-saying woman, and stroked her shining hair and kissed her temple and thought, with great smugness, with a fatuous acceptance of the corniness of it—that will be
our
song. And thought it extraordinarily sad that with all Jenny’s songs and all her
singing and all the warmth and wanting of her, she gave her songs to lovers and kept not one for herself.

THE END
of an Original Gold Medal Novel by
J
OHN
D. M
AC
D
ONALD

John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel
The Executioners
, which was adapted into the film
Cape Fear
. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980 he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.