Oliver's Story (6 page)
Authors: Erich Segal
“Oh, no,” said I, aggressively genteel. “It’s
I
who should thank
you
.”
There was a pause. I would be damned if I would beg for further scraps of information. So I left the cab.
“Hey, Oliver,” she called, “more tennis Tuesday next?”
I was happy she suggested it. In fact, I showed too much by answering, “But that’s a week from now. Why can’t we play before?”
“Because I’ll be in Cleveland,” Marcie said.
“All that time?” I asked incredulously. “No one’s
ever
spent a whole entire week in Cleveland!”
“Purge yourself of Eastern snobberies, my friend. I’ll call you Monday evening to confirm the time. Good night, sweet prince.”
Then, as if the cabby knew his
Hamlet,
he gunned off.
As I undid the third lock on my door, I started to get angry. What the hell was this?
And who the hell was she?
“D
amn it all, she’s hiding something.”
“What’s your fantasy?” asked Dr. London. Every time I’d make a simple realistic statement, he’d demand a flight of fancy. Even Freud described a concept called Reality!
“Look, Doctor, it is no delusion. Marcie Nash is conning me!”
“Mmm?”
He hadn’t asked me why I was so exercised about a person I had barely met. I’d asked myself a lot and answered that I was competitive and simply didn’t want to lose at Marcie’s game (whatever it might be).
I then kept my patience and explained in detail to the doctor what I had discovered. I’d asked Anita, who’s my very thorough secretary, to get Marcie on the phone (“Just wanted to say hi,” I’d say). Naturally, my quarry hadn’t told me where she would be staying. But Anita was a genius at locating people.
Binnendale’s, whom she’d first telephoned, alleged they had no Marcie Nash among its personnel. But this did not dissuade Anita. She then called every possible hotel in greater Cleveland and the fashionable suburbs. When this didn’t turn up any Marcie Nash, she tried motels and humbler hostelries. Nothing still. There absolutely was no Miss, Ms. or Madame Marcie Nash in the vicinity of Cleveland.
Therefore, Q.E.D. and damn it all, she’s lying. Ergo she is somewhere else.
“What then,” the doctor slowly asked, “is your . . . conclusion?”
“But it’s not a fantasy!” I quickly said.
He did not demur. The case was opened and I started strong. I’d been brooding over it all day.
“First of all, it’s obvious she’s shacking up with someone. That’s the only explanation for not giving me her phone and her address. Maybe she’s still even married.”
“Then why would she be seeing you?”
Christ, Dr. London was naïve. Or else behind the times. Or else ironic.
“I don’t know. According to the articles I read, we’re living in a liberated age. Maybe they just both agreed to ‘open’ their relationship.”
“But if she’s liberated, as you say, why doesn’t she just tell you?”
“Aha, there lies the paradox. I figure Marcie’s thirty—though she looks much younger. That means she’s still a product of the early sixties—just like me. Things were not that loose and free back then. So, since the girls of Marcie’s vintage still are more hung up than out, they tell you Cleveland when they’re swinging in Bermuda.”
“That’s your fantasy?”
“Look, it could be Barbados,” I conceded, “but she’s on vacation with the guy she’s living with. Who may or may not be her husband.”
“And you’re angry. . . .”
One did not need psychiatric training to discern that I was furious!
“Because she wasn’t straight with me, goddammit!”
After bellowing, I wondered if the patient waiting outside leafing through the old
New Yorkers
heard my blast.
I shut up for several seconds. Why did I get so excited in the process of convincing him I wasn’t?
“Christ, I pity any guy that gets involved with such an uptight hypocrite.”
A pause.
“ ‘Involved’?” asked Dr. London, seizing my own adjective to use against me.
“No.” I laughed. “I am extremely
un
involved. In fact, not only am I gonna write her off—I’m gonna send that bitch a telegram instructing her to go to hell.”
Another pause.
“Except I can’t,” I then confessed. “I don’t know her address.”
I
was in the midst of dreaming that I was asleep when—dammit—someone woke me on the telephone.
“Hi. Did I arouse, disturb or otherwise intrude?” The merry caller was Miss Marcie Nash. Her implication: was I having fun, or simply waiting doglike for her call.
“What I’m doing’s strictly classified,” I said, implying I was into some lubricious bit of grab-ass. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m at the airport,” she replied, as if it was the truth.
“Who’re you with?” I asked quite casually, in hope she would be caught off guard.
“Some tired businessmen,” she said.
I bet the business had been very tiring.
“Well, did you get a tan?” I asked.
“A what?” she said. “Hey, Barrett, are you smoking? Clear your head and tell me if we’re playing tennis in the morning?”
I squinted at my wrist watch on the table. It was almost 1
A.M
.
“It’s already ‘in the morning,’ ” I replied, annoyed by what she’d done all week compounded by her waking me. And not biting at my baited questions. And the whole continuing enigma.
“Do we play at six
A.M
.?” she asked. “Say yes or no.”
I thought a lot for several miniseconds. Why the hell would she come back from fun and frolic in the tropics and yet want to go play tennis so damn early? Also, why not play with “roommate”? Was I just her tennis pro? Or did he have to breakfast with
his
wife? I ought to tell her off and go to sleep.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said. Which wasn’t quite what I’d intended.
I beat her to a pulp.
Next morning on the tennis court I showed no mercy whatsoever. I was wordless (save for “Are you ready?”) and extremely vicious. Add to this the fact that Marcie’s game was slightly off. She looked a trifle pale. Did it rain down in Bermuda? Or did she spend too much time indoors? Well, that was none of my concern.
“Heigh ho,” she said with difficulty when the swift debacle ended. “Pancho didn’t humor me today.”
“I had a week to lose my sense of humor, Marcie.”
“Why?”
“I thought the Cleveland joke was just a little much.”
“What do you mean?” she said, and seemed ingenuous.
“Look, I’m too pissed off to even talk about it.”
Marcie seemed confused. I mean she acted like she didn’t have a clue that I was on to her.
“Hey, aren’t we adults?” she said. “Why can’t we talk about what’s bugging you?”
“It isn’t worth discussing, Marcie.”
“Okay,” she said, and sounded disappointed. “Obviously, you don’t want to go to dinner.”
“I was not aware there was a dinner.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be the prize?” she said.
I thought a moment. Should I tell her now? Or should I enjoy a lavish meal at her expense and
then
tell her to go to hell?
“Yeah—buy me a dinner,” I replied, a trifle gruffly.
“When and where?” she said, apparently undaunted by my impoliteness.
“No, I’ll just pick you up. At your place,” I said pointedly.
“I won’t be home,” she answered. Yeah, a likely story.
“Marcie, I will pick you up if you’re in Timbuktu.”
“Okay, Oliver. I’ll call you at your house around six-thirty and I’ll tell you where I am.”
“Suppose
I’m
not at home?” I said. A pretty cool riposte, I thought. To which I added, “Sometimes I have clients who invite me to their offices in outer space.”
“Okay, I’ll keep calling till your rocket lands.”
She started toward the ladies’ locker room and turned. “Oliver, you know I’m starting to believe you’re really crazy?”
“H
ey, I won a big one.”
Dr. London offered no congratulations. Yet he knew the action was significant since I’d referred to it in sessions past. So once again I had to abstract
Channing
v.
Riverbank
. The latter is the fancy condominium on East End Avenue, the former, Charles F. Channing, Jr., president of Magnitex, a former Penn State All-American, a prominent Republican . . . and also eminently black. His application for the purchase of the penthouse was denied for some odd reason. And that reason brought him to seek counsel. He chose J & M for our prestige. Old man Jonas gave his case to me.
We won it easily, invoking not the recent open housing laws—which have some ambiguities—but simply citing
Jones
v.
Mayer
, last year argued in the high court (392 U.S. 409). Herein the justices affirmed that 1866’s civil rights act guaranteed to everyone the freedom to buy property. It was soundly rooted in the First Amendment. Riverbank was soundly routed. And my client moves in on the thirtieth.
“For once I even made some money for the firm,” I added. “Channing is a millionaire.”
But London still withheld all comment.
“Old man Jonas took me out to lunch. Marsh—the other half—came by for coffee. They were hinting at a partnership. . . .”
Still no comment. What exactly would impress this guy?
“I’m seducing Marcie Nash tonight!”
Aha. He coughed.
“Don’t you wonder why?” I asked, my tone demanding a response.
He answered quietly. “You like her.”
I began to laugh. He didn’t understand. I then explained this was the only way to get the answers. Crude as it may sound (and cynical), seduction is a potent way to truth. And when I’ve learned what Marcie has been hiding, I’ll just tell her off, depart, and feel terrific.
Now if London dares to ask me for a fantasy, I’ll walk right out.
He didn’t. And instead he made me ask myself why I had been so self-congratulating. Why had I been strutting verbally like some damn peacock? Was my emphasis on legal triumph just to draw attention from some other . . . insecurities?
Of course not. Why should I be insecure?
She’s just a girl.
Or isn’t that the problem?
“Hey, I’m naked, Marcie.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You caught me in the shower.”
“Shall I call you back? I wouldn’t interrupt your monthly ritual.”
“Never mind,” I snarled, ignoring her remark. “Just tell me where the hell you are.”
“The White Plains shopping center. In Binnendale’s.”
“Then be outside the front in twenty minutes and I’ll pick you up.”
“Oliver,” she said, “it’s fifteen miles away!”
“All right,” I casually replied. “I’ll pick you up in
fifteen
minutes.”
“But, Oliver, please do me one small favor.”
“What?” I said.
“Put on your clothes.”
Thanks to the mechanical perfection of my Targa 911S and also to my driving creativity (I even pass on center strips—the cops are always too impressed to stop me), I zoomed into the shopping center twenty-seven minutes later.
Marcie Nash was waiting (posing?) just where I had told her to. She had a package in her hand. Her figure looked—if possible—more perfect than the other night.
“Hello,” she said. As I leaped out, she came and kissed me on the cheek. And put the package in my hand. “Here’s a little gift to mollify and butter you. And, by the way, I like your car.”
“It likes you too,” I said.
“Then let me drive.”
Oh, not my little Porsche. I couldn’t. . . .
“Next time, Marcie,” I said.
“Come on, I know the way,” she said.
“To where?”
“To where we’re going. Please . . .”
“Marcie, no. It’s much too delicate an instrument.”
“Don’t sweat,” she said while climbing into the driver’s seat. “Your instrument will be in expert hands.”
And I confess it was. She drove like Jackie Stewart. Only he would never take a hairpin turn as fast as Marcie did. Frankly, I confess to intermittent trepidation. And some total fear.
“Do you like it?” Marcie asked.
“What?” I said, pretending not to notice the speedometer.
“Your present,” Marcie said.
Oh, yeah. I had forgotten all about the butter-up. My panicked fingers were still clutching that unopened offering.
“Hey, unscrew your digits—open up and take a look.”
It was a soft black cashmere sweater with Alfa Romeo emblazoned on the chest. In vivid red.
“It’s Emilio Ascarelli. He’s the new Italian whiz kid.”
Clearly Marcie had the money to afford this kind of thing. But why’d she buy it? Guilt, I guess.
“Hey, this is gorgeous, Marcie. Thanks a lot.”
“I’m pleased you’re pleased,” she said. “Part of my business is to guess the public’s taste.”
“Ah, you’re a hooker,” I replied, with tiny smile to punctuate my witticism.
“Isn’t everybody?” Marcie said. With charm. And grace.
And maybe truth?
One may well ask, since I’d been recently a bit uncertain of myself, how I could be so sure I would seduce Miss Marcie Nash.
Because it’s easier without emotional involvement. I know by definition making love implies affection. But often nowadays the act is merely a competitive event. In this regard I felt completely comfortable—psyched up, in fact—to handle Marcie Nash.
And yet the more I paid attention to the comely driver and forgot to watch the dash, the thoughts that London had evoked came back to me. Notwithstanding all the mystery and my ostensible hostility, did I not maybe slightly
like
this girl? And was I maybe faking myself out in order to reduce anxiety?
For was it really possible, once having made most tender love with Jenny Cavilleri, to dichotomize? Could I divide the act of love, be sensual yet insincere?
People can and do. As I would prove.
For in my present state, without involvement was the
only
way I thought I could.
