The Temple of Gold (14 page)

Zock was waiting in the living-room of his house when I got there. The minute he saw me, he started to laugh. I fought it as best I could, but it beat me. So in a second we were both laughing, tears rolling down our faces. He went on and on, still going strong long after I’d stopped, my stomach aching. I went over and poured us each a drink.

“Well,” I said, when he’d finally calmed down. “How do you like her?”

“She’s gorgeous all right,” he answered.

“I know that. But how do you like her?”

“I assume she speaks English.”

“She’s shy is all,” I said.

He looked at me. “That wasn’t quite the word I had in mind.”

“Well, she is. Very shy. Honest to God.”

“I believe you on faith,” Zock said.

“Wasn’t she great up there?” I went on. “I mean, wasn’t she just great?”

“Experience, Euripides. It’s probably happened before.”

“Not to Annabelle,” I said.

“Again, on faith.”

“Dammit—” I began.

“Take care, Euripides,” Zock said.

“I will,” I told him, laughing. “Next time I’ll lock the front door.”

With that we toasted each other, and drank.

Which made it pretty obvious to me that the two of them were not cut out to become bosom buddies. And which also put me in a somewhat uncomfortable position, what with wanting to be with Zock during his stay home, and having to be with Annabelle at the same time. I worried about it awhile that night, but I needn’t have. Because everything was solved the next day, much to my amazement, by Annabelle. Who, it turned out, had a big paper due and would I mind if we didn’t see each other the rest of the week. Naturally I protested, fought the good fight, losing with honor. So Zock’s stay went very fast, with no new complications showing up. Bunny was home, too, and the three of us went out some, but just as often it was Zock and me alone. We talked, horsed around, doing one thing and another. I saw Annabelle twice for coffee that week and she was in a good mood, as her paper was coming along fine.

Zock left for Harvard on a Sunday night, flying from the airport in Chicago. I drove him and afterward, on the way back, I stopped off at Annabelle’s dorm. She wasn’t in, though, being at the library. I didn’t see her at all Monday, but Tuesday afternoon we had an appointment to meet in Harold’s at four.

She never showed.

So, when I got tired of waiting, I wandered over to her dorm and asked was she in. The girl at the desk buzzed her room. She buzzed back. I waited. There were quite a few others milling around and I sort of watched them. Waiters were zipping in and out, setting up for the evening meal; some clown was trying to play the piano; the living-room was full of hand-holders. Finally Annabelle appeared, wearing a man’s white shirt, her black hair loose along her back. She walked down the stairs very fast, stopping a few feet above me.

I smiled at her. “Where were you?” I asked. She didn’t say anything. “Cat got your tongue? What gives? I’m a busy man. I’ve got better things to do than just sit around waiting for girls not to meet me.”

“Don’t wait any more then,” she said, turning, starting away.

I grabbed her, pulled her down. “Where were you?”

“Busy,” she answered, staring off some place. She tried twisting loose but I wouldn’t let her, holding on tight to her arms, digging in with my fingers.

“You might as well know,” she whispered. “I won’t be seeing you any more.”

“What’s the joke?” I said. “Come on, tell me, let me in on it.” And by now my voice was louder and I knew everyone was staring at us. But I didn’t care.

“Joke?” she said. “I told you once. I never joke. Now let me go.”

I did. For a second. Then I grabbed her again and started shaking her hard, talking to her, my voice suddenly the only sound on the whole floor. “Annabelle,” I said. “This is me. For Christ’s sake, snap out of it.” A buzz-buzz-buzz began behind me and I got louder and louder until I suppose I was yelling. “Please. Come on. Goddammit! Look at me!” I twisted her head so she had to. “This is me, Annabelle. Trevitt. Remember? The house? The stairs? The bed, Annabelle. The bed. For Christ’s sake remember that.”

She stared past me. “Bed?” she murmured, as if in all her life she’d never heard of it.

I sagged against the banister and she tore loose, running up the stairs, away from me. I didn’t move for I don’t know how long, and when I did, they all watched me, those whispers following me on out the door.

I got drunk that night. I thumbed my way to the Crib and was squiffed by suppertime. But I kept on, drinking, mumbling into my glass, swearing, until they wouldn’t serve me any more. I staggered home, which took many hours, and when I got there I walked right by my folks who said not one word to me. I made it to my room, flopped on the bed, and, in a minute, I was out.

I suppose it was near four in the morning when I woke, groggy, thirsty. Stumbling to the bathroom I turned on the faucet, bent over, pressed my lips against the spout, and let the water run down inside me until I was bloated and my stomach bulged. Then I went back to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything but think of Annabelle and swear, cursing her as well as I knew how. Every time I thought I was all right, I’d feel her lying next to me, hear her humming her song, see her as she lifted one of those perfect legs straight up into the air.

I tried to cry but I couldn’t. I hated her but I didn’t. My stomach hurt, felt hollow for all the water I had drunk. I thought about killing her, watching her die. I thought about killing myself. I listened for the phone to ring but it never did. I waited for sleep but it never came. I just lay there, wide awake, rolling and twisting, my stomach aching like hell.

It was just before dawn that I realized I was in love with her.

The next morning I got down to her dorm early, waiting for her, standing by a tree on the far side of the street. After nine, she came out and as soon as I saw her I bolted across, calling to her. She didn’t stop. “Annabelle!” I yelled, running up beside her. “Listen. I’ve got to talk to you. Please. Stop. Will you listen to me? There’s something I have to say. Annabelle, will you for chrissakes stop and listen?” She stopped.

“I love you.”

She didn’t answer but started walking again.

I grabbed her, spun her around. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I love you. I swear to God, Annabelle. I do.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You’re too late.”

Which shook me. Because all the time I’d been waiting for her I just knew that as soon as she found out how I felt, everything was going to be all right; that before the day was over we’d be back in my room, on my bed, her humming soft beside me, relaxed and happy.

I couldn’t say anything more then. She walked away from me. I watched her go. But later, when I got to thinking about it, it all came clear. There was somebody else. There had to be. So I took to following her around campus, like Harriet had done with me, only now the river had changed. Wherever she went I kept her in sight, stopping when she stopped, hurrying when she hurried.

Professor Janes turned out to be the man.

Which I should have guessed from the start, but didn’t. She visited him in the afternoons, with me following and her knowing it but visiting him all the same. After she’d go inside I’d creep up to the house and press against the wall underneath the bedroom window. And once, on a warm day, they left that window open and I could hear her humming her bed song, the sound of it drifting down to me.

We had a lot of scenes after that, about every day for a while. They were always the same. I’d start pleading with her, then I’d yell, and finally go back to begging again. She never listened much to what I said but only looked off somewhere, nervous and tense, anxious to get away.

The last one was a real whopper in which I told her I was going to tell the school authorities and then both her and Professor Janes would be canned. I guess it must have been pretty funny, but I didn’t think so, not then. So when she laughed at me I lost control and shoved her. She fell into what happened to be a mud puddle, ruining her dress, ripping it. After she’d gone I jumped up and down on that mud puddle like a crazy man, splashing the water away, soaking my own clothes. When there wasn’t any water left, I went home.

What was so terrible was that I knew exactly when she’d be with him, because Mrs. Janes belonged to the same organizations as my mother, had the same meeting schedule. So I could tell, almost to the minute, what was going on, except there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. Once, when Mrs. Janes was at my house I almost broke up the meeting I wanted so badly to run down and tell her to get the hell home, to hurry because right that second her husband was in bed with the girl I loved, to catch them because then everything would be fine again. I didn’t, of course. Instead I started throwing things around my room; books, shoes, whatever I could lay my hands on. When there was nothing left to throw I tore out of the house to the Crib and got drunk.

I tried a couple other women, among them the college dietician, an excitable woman of forty. But it didn’t help. So finally I called Harriet, telling her to come over right away, hanging up before she had a chance to say no.

I went to my room and waited, lying on my bed, all the shades down. It was a beautiful day outside and the sun slanted in at the edges of the windows, striping the room. I stared at those golden stripes, riveted my eyes on them, wishing for Harriet to hurry, trying not to think. Which is always a mistake. Because by the time she did ring the doorbell, I was so tense I wasn’t in shape to see anyone.

I yelled down to her, letting her know where I was. Then I heard her hopping up the stairs.

“What a cheery place,” she announced, walking in. She went to the shades, starting to fiddle with them.

“Leave them down,” I told her.

“Sure,” she said. And with that she raised them all, one by one, pulling at the string, letting them fly, watching as they snapped around and around at the top. Then she sat down, drummed her fingers awhile, looking over at me. I didn’t say anything, but just blinked, staring back.

“It’s been swell talking to you,” she said, standing, heading for the door.

“Jesus, Harriet,” I muttered. “Quit acting like that.”

“How could any maiden resist you?” she answered, coming over to the bed. “How would you like me to act? Sweet and demure? Bursting with sympathy? Really, Euripides. Lying here in the dark. All you need is ‘Hearts and Flowers’ playing in the background.”

“Maybe you better go,” I said. “Now.”

“A young man asked me over for a chat,” she answered. “And I’m not leaving until we’ve had one.” She sat down beside me on the bed. “I know all about it, Euripides. You don’t have to bother explaining. I know you’ve been bedding with her. And that she dropped you. And about that wing-ding you had in her dorm. The freshman class talked of little else for a week.” She looked at me. “That pleases you, doesn’t it? Admit it, you feel better already.”

“I love her,” I said.

“Oh, baby, you don’t love her. It’s just being dropped that upsets you. ‘How can she do it to a great guy like me?’ Isn’t that the truth?”

“Let’s skip it,” I said, knowing she was trying to be nice, acting clinical and all. As if it was just something minor, like a skin rash, and tomorrow it would be gone. But right then I wasn’t buying.

“No,” she said. “Let’s not skip it.”

“Harriet,” I warned. “Shut up.”

“Sure. ‘Shut up, Harriet, and cry on my shoulder.’ And you know something? I probably would, if it was somebody else. But I won’t weep for her, not for Annabelle. Do you know what she is?”

I turned on her then, yelling. “Do you know what you are? You’re jealous! Green as grass jealous. So don’t go around calling other people names when you’re not so goddam perfect yourself. Because I’d drop you for her again in a minute if I had the chance and don’t you ever think I wouldn’t!”

She bolted.

Running out of the room, down the stairs, while I just lay there, listening to the sound of her footsteps. Finally I went to the window on the landing, opened it, and called after her, yelling for her to come back, that I was sorry. But she was too far away; she never heard me. So I stayed there, leaning out the window, watching her as she ran, as fast as she could, until she was out of sight.

That’s the last I saw of Harriet for more than a year. We didn’t talk again during that time so I don’t know what happened to her. But I do know what happened to me. I did just what any normal, red-blooded American boy would do.

I went to pot.

By drinking. Every night for more than a month I drank myself blind. I took money from my father’s wallet and my mother’s purse. I snuck into Zock’s house and stole bottles from his old man’s liquor cabinet. I lied to everyone, never went to classes, but instead, to the Crib, which opened at noon, running as much of the way as I could, just trying to get there. For the month was May, the weather fine, clear and warm, with maybe a hint of wind blowing in off the Lake. That wind was what I hated most on those walks. It knotted my stomach so that I had to stop and scream at the top of my lungs to get some release. I didn’t eat during those weeks nor did I sleep much. I didn’t do a thing but drink, coming in late, sometimes making it to my room, but more often not, spending the night on the lawn, the floor, the stairs; wherever I happened to fall.

My mother tried to help and my father even called me into his study for a talk, which was sad, for I think he really wanted to help. But all he did was sputter around in Greek awhile. I didn’t listen to him and I didn’t listen when President Atkins called me in to tell me I was in danger of flunking out and “think of your family.” I just went right on, making a fool of myself, I know, but there wasn’t anything else I could do.

And then, late one morning in the first week of June, I was awakened by someone shaking me. I fought free and turned over. The next thing I knew, water was being poured on me. I came out swinging and there, standing over me, peering down, was the ugly face of Zachary Crowe.

“Zock,” I yelled.

“Morning, Euripides,” he said cheerfully. “Time to rise and shine.”