McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (59 page)

 
          
 
"I can't say I'd thought it
through," I said. "We could go in the antique business together. Pool
our talents."

 
          
 
"Pool your talents, you mean," she
said. "I wouldn't mind being in business with you but it's certainly no
reason to marry you."

 
          
 
"It might be an extra asset," I
suggested.

 
          
 
"We have to get the real assets first,”
Jean said, looking out the window.

 
          
 
"Which are they?"

 
          
 
She didn't answer. When we got to her house
she told me to wait in the car and take Debbie home. She didn't have quite
enough babysitter money so 1 loaned her a dollar. The money she fished out of
her purse was all crinkled up, whereas my dollar was absolutely crisp and new.
The contrast amused her.

 
          
 
"I'm not sure your money would want to
live in the same house with my money," she said, before going in.

 
          
 
When I returned the front door was unlocked,
so I went in. Jean was nowhere around, but while I was inspecting various small
objects I sensed a presence and turned to see Belinda, standing at the bottom
of the stairs.

 
          
 
"What are you doing here?" she asked
in a distinct, unsleepy voice.

 
          
 
"Just looking around," I said.

 
          
 
"Belinda?" Jean said, from somewhere
upstairs.

 
          
 
Belinda marched over to the stereo and turned
it on, though she made no move to play a record. She seemed mesmerized by the
little green light that indicated the stereo was on.

 
          
 
Jean came hurrying downstairs. "How come
you're not asleep?" she asked Belinda.

 
          
 
"I woked," Belinda said. "Wanta
play Pat Benatar?"

 
          
 
Jean
swooped
her up
and gave her a kiss. "I want you to unwoke," she said.

 
          
 
I followed them up and watched Jean put an
uncomplaining Belinda back in her bed. As we were going out of her room Jean
took my hand and led me a few steps down the hall, into her bedroom.

 
          
 
"I was gonna hide all my treasures but I
didn't get time," she said. "It's simpler just to turn off the light.
That way you won't know you're surrounded by treasures until morning."

 
          
 
The only light in the bedroom came from a
streetlight a block away. I felt nervous. I hadn't allowed myself to assume I
would be spending the night. I could see various dark shapes in the room that
could have been chests or trunks but I couldn't tell a thing about them.

 
          
 
"You don't have to worry so much," I
said. "I'm not going to try and buy your favorite objects."

 
          
 
"No, but you're gonna wanta look at them
—as opposed to me," she said. She had her head tilted—she was taking off
her earrings. I heard her put them on top of the TV at the end of the bed. I
put my hands on her shoulders and encountered one of her small hands. She had
been about to take off a small gold necklace she wore. I helped her.

 
          
 
"Belinda spoiled my elaborate
seduction," she said. "It's stupid to plan anything with kids
around."

 
          
 
"Why did you want to plan an elaborate
seduction?"

 
          
 
"Because I never get
to.
Are you nervous?"

 
          
 
"Yeah," I admitted.

 
          
 
"I figured you for a shy one," she
said. "It goes with your lying."

 
          
 
She bent and shucked her dress off over her
head. "If the light were on you could see my whole wardrobe," she
said, "It's scattered around here. If you could see it you'd realize how
hard I tried before I gave up and decided to look like myself."

 
          
 
I sat down on the bed and began to take off my
boots.

 
          
 
"I wondered about that," Jean said,
coming to stand in front of me. She rubbed my hair a little.

 
          
 
"About what?"

 
          
 
"Whether you had to sit down to take your
boots off," she said. "I've never seduced anyone in boots. It's an
important question. If you could have done it standing up I would have been
really impressed."

 
          
 
"Have you been fantasizing about me
taking my boots off?"

 
          
 
"Ever since I met you," Jean said.

 
          
 
"I thought you were contemptuous of
boots."

 
          
 
She turned the covers back and hopped up on
the bed.

 
          
 
"So I'm a little inconsistent," she
said. "Hurry up. It's cold in here."

 
          
 
When I woke up the next morning very bright
sun was shining in the window of the bedroom and Beverly and Belinda, in their
red bathrobes, were sitting on the bed. Belinda held a huge pair of scissors
and was cutting little pieces out of a section of morning paper, whereas
Beverly
, more serious, was reading a book.

 
          
 
"Good morning," I said,

 
          
 
"Hi,"
Beverly
said. "Would you like me to read to
you?"

 
          
 
She wiggled a little closer.

 
          
 
"Don't,
Beverly
," Belinda said, throwing her sister a
dark look. "I'm cutting!"

 
          
 
"So what, I can't sit still
forever,"
Beverly
said. "Besides, you aren't cutting
anything out. You're just making a mess."

 
          
 
"Still," Belinda insisted, as Jean
came through the door. She too was in a red bathrobe, and she held two mugs of
coffee.

 
          
 
"I hope you like company in the
morning," she said. "Around here you get it whether you like it or
not."

 
          
 
"He likes it," Belinda said.

 
          
 
Jean set one mug on the bedside table and carefully
climbed on the bed, holding the other.

 
          
 
I felt vaguely troubled about the night, since
I found I had no memory of having made love. The bed was very comfortable, and
I had been very tired. I had a vague sense that something might have happened, later
in the night, but I couldn't be sure. Perhaps I had just gone to sleep and
slept all night.

 
          
 
Still, if I had been a big disappointment,
Jean seemed to be weathering it nicely. She looked quite happy, sitting on the
bed with her girls. They formed a bright ensemble in their red bathrobes.
Belinda sat across my feet, so that it was not easy for me to sit up and drink
my coffee. There was a nice smell in the bed, namely the smell of young females
and one woman, mixing with the smell of the hot coffee.

 
          
 
Jean and the girls were exchanging merry,
conspiratorial looks, as if they were in on some secret that I didn't know.

 
          
 
"What's going on?" I asked.

 
          
 
Then I happened to glance at the room and saw
that all the furniture was covered with sheets or bedspreads. None of the
primary antiques were visible at all.

 
          
 
I must have looked surprised, because Jean and
Beverly laughed and Belinda went into a paroxysm of giggles. She giggled so
hard that the others began to laugh at her.

 
          
 
"It certainly is cheerful around here in
the morning," I said.

 
          
 
Belinda lay across my legs, gasping for breath
and waving the scissors around.

 
          
 
"Be careful with those scissors,
Belinda," Jean said. "Don't you think it's time you girls got
cracking?"

 
          
 
"I do,"
Beverly
said. She left. Belinda continued to loll
across my legs.

 
          
 
"Get going, Belinda. Play school,"
Jean said.

 
          
 
"Sleepy," Belinda said. ''He's still
in bed."

 
          
 
"Yeah, but he isn't being picked up in
ten minutes."

 
          
 
"He could take us in the soft car,"
Belinda suggested.

 
          
 
"Nope, get going," Jean said in firm
tones.

 
          
 
Belinda yawned. "Got up too early,"
she said

 
          
 
Seeing that
hw
words
had no effect, Jean picked her up and carried her off. As she was being carried
Belinda fixed me with an upside-down look.

 
          
 
"Come and get us in the soft car,"
she said.

 
          
 
"Don't make her any promises," Jean
said.

 
          
 
In a few minutes I heard a honk and
raised
up to look out the window. The girls, dressed now,
were being picked up by a woman in a station wagon.
Beverly
was going willingly, Belinda dawdling
across the yard, urged on by Jean, who was still in her bathrobe. Belinda's
movements were so slow as to be imperceptible. Finally, with several people
yelling at her, she gave up and went on to the car, which immediately left.

 
          
 
A minute later Jean came back to the room and
hopped on the bed.

 
          
 
"I've never known a child who could
dawdle like that," she said. "She's always up to a contest of wills,
whereas I’m not, always. Sometimes I win, sometimes she wins."

 
          
 
"It must make life interesting."

 
          
 
"It makes it exhausting," Jean said.

 
          
 
But she didn't look exhausted. She looked out
the window for a moment, as if trying to remember something. She appeared to be
extremely fresh and alert. I had no idea what thought or thoughts she might be
busy with.

 
          
 
"It's very interesting, that you're never
quite free of kids," she said, slipping out of her bathrobe. She got back
under the covers with me. "What's gonna happen now is that Belinda's gonna
fake being sick. She hates school because she can't dominate it, plus she
doesn't want to miss whatever might happen with you here. I know her so well I
can imagine every move she makes. Today she's gonna fake a stomachache, vaguest
of all ills. Who can disprove a stomachache?"

 
          
 
"How long do we have before this
happens?" I asked.

 
          
 
Jean looked at the bedside clock.

 
          
 
"A couple of hours, if we're lucky,"
she said.

 
          
 
I was still feeling guilty because I couldn't
remember the night.

 
          
 
"Did anything at all happen last
night?" I asked.

 
          
 
Jean looked amused. "Nothing appropriate
to such a grand evening;" she said. "How many hours had you been
awake before you hit this bed?"

 
          
 
I tried to count up, mentally.

 
          
 
"Never mind," Jean said. "It
doesn't matter. I got to watch you at a time when you were totally defenseless,
which was interesting."

 
          
 
"Did you reach any conclusions?" I
asked.

 
          
 
Jean rolled on top of me, looking me in the
eye from very close range. She ran a finger across my lips. Her eyes were green
flecked with brown. She didn't weigh much and she seemed to be in an awfully
good humor. Looking at her alert face an inch away I felt myself sliding
quickly down into love. The feeling was exactly analogous to one of the first
feelings I could remember, that of sliding down the big slide on the school
playground in
Solino
,
Texas
, when I was a young boy. It was a very
slick slide. Once you climbed to the top all you had to do was lift your hands
and whoosh, you were gone so rapidly that it created a funny sensation in the
stomach and the groin. Looking into Jean's eyes, I felt the same sensation. I
had lifted my hands—now I was gone.

 
          
 
“I love you," I said.

 
          
 
"Ha," she said. "You better do
something about it before Belinda persuades them she's got cancer."

 
          
 
"You could take the phone off the
hook," I suggested.

 
          
 
"No, because you never know," she
said. "She might really get sick. A swing might hit her in the head and
give her a concussion. A lot of things can happen to tiny kids. It worries me
to have it off the hook."

 
          
 
"Forget it," I said.

 
          
 
Fortunately the morning passed without the
phone having rung a single time. We talked several times about getting up but
we didn't get up. Finally we both noticed that we were so hungry we felt
hollow, so Jean went downstairs and made two enormous tuna fish sandwiches, and
brought them back to the bedroom. We wolfed them down, and drank some milk.

 
          
 
"It's amazing how good tuna fish can
taste when you're really hungry," Jean said. "It's almost better than
sex."

 
          
 
"Last night you said it would probably be
nice if we got married," I reminded her.

 
          
 
She shrugged. "That was last night,"
she said. "What makes you think it would work? It practically never
does."

 
          
 
"I think I'm ready for it," I said.
"I don't think I was before."

 
          
 
"Bullshit," she said. "How can
you ever know if you're ready for a marriage when you're not in it? All you do
is fantasize about the nice parts. Then you actually get in it and lose track
of the nice parts. Or else what was once nice stops seeming nice."

 
          
 
"I think you're being deliberately
pessimistic," I said.

 
          
 
Jean rubbed my hair again, as if I were a dog.

 
          
 
"Well, you're sweet but it's no
deal," she said, grinning. "I think I'd rather hold you in reserve,
for the occasional orgy."

 
          
 
"Why?"

 
          
 
"I don't want to get bored with
you," she said. "Nor do I want you to get bored with me. I'd rather
marry someone I was already a little bored with. Then there'd be no
decline."

 
          
 
"You wouldn't really marry someone you
were bored with, though," I said. "That would be insanity."

 
          
 
"That would be practicality," she
said. "But you're right. I’m not capable of it. Still, it doesn't affect
my position vis-a-vis you."

 
          
 
I was beginning to feel a little sad,
suddenly. Jean seemed awfully clearheaded. I knew it was simplistic to think
that love always followed sex, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking that
way. We had had a fairly passionate morning, but the passion hadn't wrought any
great changes, as it was supposed to. It had made us fonder and closer, but
apparently it had not been all-consuming. Jean was cheerful, but she was far
from consumed. I was getting depressed at the thought that I might not get to
live with her.