The Tight White Collar (26 page)

“Come home, my boy” the wire had read. “You're as good as new and we'll have another bestseller on our hands.”

Well, Anthony was going tomorrow and damned glad he was of it, too.

Back to the penthouses and the air-conditioned bars and the sleek, smooth, smart girls who didn't fall in love with you, or look at you with enormous eyes while you talked or hang on to you when it was over with stories about being pregnant. And when the sleek ones got to be too much for you, you could always go to a whorehouse or get a fancy call girl who knew all the perversions and loved the extra money that practicing them brought in. Those girls didn't scream and pant and moan and faint. They practiced their art coolly, with precision, while you watched and reluctantly admired them for the master craftsmen they were. Even if they didn't excite you particularly, you still had to admire them. After all, what was sex anyway but just another appetite to be appeased, like hunger. So you might as well be a gourmet about it and get the best money could buy.

But the sleek, smooth girls did not have hair that smelled of the sun and the whores did not sob your name against your shoulder. The sleek girls, when they wanted it at all, wanted it coldly and neatly with a good strong condom between you and them and you certainly didn't spend time discussing philosophy with a whore. The sleek ones laughed at sophisticated comedies and the whores laughed at vulgarisms and whoever heard of a girl who laughed over nothing anyway.

God, but it'd be good to get back to the city, Anthony told himself. He'd had enough of the country to last him a lifetime. He was going to be all right once he got back to civilization. Lisa was all right already. All she'd needed was to get away from him and her world had straightened itself out in a hurry.

He took another drink from the bottle and leaned back on the bed.

Oh, yes, Lisa'd gotten over him just fine. He didn't like to remember the night the ache had gotten the better of him and he'd picked up the telephone.

Hello, my love, he'd said to her.

Anthony?

My dear child, have you already found someone else who calls you my love?

Anthony, it's one o'clock in the morning. What do you want.

I want you to come live with me and be my love. That's Sheridan or somebody. I forget.

Anthony, are you drunk?

Only a little, my love.

Oh, for heaven's sake, Anthony. Go back to bed and sleep it off. You're going to kill yourself if you go on like this.

Will you come?

Anthony, go back to bed.

But my bed is too big and too cold.

I've got to hang up, Anthony. Chris has to be at school early in the morning and I don't want to disturb his sleep. Good night, Anthony.

Goodbye, my love, said Anthony after he had hung up.

Well if Lisa was so goddamned well-adjusted these days, he would be, too. It wouldn't take long, once he was back in the city. He'd sober up and finish the damned novel and become a human being again.

Anthony turned his face against the uncovered pillow on the bed and even after all this time it seemed to him that it still smelled of Lisa.

What a horse's ass I've turned out to be, he thought angrily. But still, he buried his face in the pillow.

Goodbye, my love, he said silently. Goodbye to summer and your little round belly. Your silly laughs at nothing and the soft places between your thighs. Your frowns at the Russian novelists and your wondering how the hell to spell Nietzsche and your nervous fingers ripping at the wet labels on beer bottles and the way you looked in a hot, perfumed bath and your little lame brain that it was exciting to put new creases in, your big eyes and your silly Tell me a story, Anthony.

It was almost one o'clock in the morning when Margery and Nathaniel found him. They had searched their own house and Anthony's before thinking of the cottage. He was snoring and the bottle of Scotch was empty on the floor next to the bed. Margery had turned on a lamp and she stood still and looked down at Anthony.

“Why, Nate, honey,” she said. “He must have had a bad dream or something. His face is all wet.”

Nathaniel picked up his nephew and swung him over his shoulder. He started toward the door with him while Margery picked up his coat, a half-empty package of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Nate, honey, he must've been crying in his sleep,” said Margery.

“Don't worry about Anthony,” said Nate, panting a little. “He's never shed a tear in his life.”

Somehow or other, thought Lisa, you never expected people to die during the month of May, for in northern New England, May always seemed like the beginning of everything. Lawns were like heads of newly fuzzed green hair, ready for cutting, and every brook and stream scrambled its way toward the sea in what seemed an absolute frenzy of freedom. In front of the house that Chris and Lisa had rented in Gammon's Landing, Massachusetts, there were two round, fat forsythia bushes that looked almost comical under their heavy load of yellow blossoms, like two cheerful club women in yellow flowered hats. Just beyond the eastern rim of Gammon's Landing was the sea and along the beach front, people had started taking down the wooden boards that had protected the windows of their cottages all winter long. Hot-dog stands and shooting galleries sported new coats of paint as everyone got ready for the crowds that would begin to arrive over the Memorial Day weekend. It seemed that the whole world was beginning to stir again after a winter of hibernation and it seemed impossible for anyone to die amidst all the life that pulsed on every side.

But it did happen, thought Lisa, as she packed two bags for herself and Chris. In Cooper's Mills, Irene St. George was dead and Lisa thought how typical this was of her. Leave it to Irene to do everything differently from everybody else. Lisa sighed as she snapped the second bag shut. Now she'd have to start in on the children's things. Thank God for her new friend, Janie Wright. Without Janie, Lisa and Chris would have had to drag the kids up to Cooper's Mills and while Midget and little Chris wouldn't be too much trouble, Linda was still only six weeks old and woke in the middle of the night for a feeding and a diaper change. In one way, though, Lisa was sorry they weren't bringing the children. She would have liked to stop off in Cooper Station and visit Polly Sheppard and show off her new daughter. Still, perhaps it was just as well. In all the months that she'd been in Gammon's Landing, Lisa had received only three letters in reply to the many she had written to Polly, and none of the three had included anything that sounded like an invitation. Still, thought Lisa as she folded the last of Linda's diapers to take over to Janie's, perhaps it was always that way when you moved away from a place. You started a new life in a new house and made new friends and you didn't have time to think about last year or the year before that. Just the same, though, it was funny the way things had turned out with Polly. You'd think after they'd been friends for so long that Polly would have made some attempt to maintain her end of their relationship. Well, she'd just wait and see if Polly showed up for Irene's funeral and if she didn't, then Lisa would consider their friendship over. It was perfectly all right to make excuses for Polly's not writing, after all she was always busy with a million different things, but a funeral was something else again.

Linda Pappas awoke quickly, with loud demands to be fed, and Lisa laughed as she bent over the crib. Linda's fat little face was red with anger at being kept waiting for more than three seconds and she was soaked clear up to her shoulders.

“Never mind, my love,” said Lisa as she picked up the baby, “we'll have you all fixed up in a minute.”

She stood in front of the gas stove half rocking Linda in her arms as she waited for the bottle to warm.

My love, thought Lisa. My love. Anthony used to say that all the time.

Lisa did not let herself think of Anthony often any more. But in the beginning, when she and Chris had first come to Gammon's Landing, she had thought of him often. Mostly in the morning, when she was so sick she wondered if she'd ever get through the day. Then she had leaned, retching over the toilet, and cursed him along with Chris and every man ever born. Then, everything had been wrong. Her doctor was a native of Gammon's Landing by the name of Wendell Garrett, and she missed Jess Cameron with a fury that made her feel even sicker than she was. At least Jess had always had soothing, comforting words for her, even when he couldn't stop the morning sickness, and she could talk to Jess. Dr. Garrett, on the other hand, was brusque almost to the point of rudeness.

“It'll pass,” he told Lisa when she complained of her illness.

“Is that all you can tell me?” Lisa had demanded.

“Mrs. Pappas, you're not the first woman in the world to have had an incurable morning sickness, and you won't be the last. It passes.”

“Goddamn him,” said Lisa angrily to Chris. “I never really appreciated Jess until now.”

“Gee, baby, I'm sorry,” said Chris. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No,” mimicked Lisa, “there's nothing you can do. Just leave me to hell alone.”

Then she went into the bathroom and threw up again.

Bastards, she thought feelingly. Every goddamned last one of them.

But, of course, the sickness did pass after several agonizing weeks, and Christopher Pappas silently thanked God for that. Maybe now, Lisa would be a little easier to live with.

“I know none of this has been pleasant for you, honey,” said Chris, “but I haven't exactly enjoyed it either you know.”

He slipped his hand under her pajama top and began to stroke her and Lisa moved impatiently under his touch.

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Chris, cut it out,” she said crossly.

But he continued to handle her. “I've missed you, baby,” he whispered against her hair.

Lisa sighed aloud and in aggravation. “I don't feel well, Chris,” she said.

His hand was still and for a moment he said nothing.

“What is it, baby?” he asked at last. “The morning sickness is all gone. So what is it?”

Lisa sat up in bed and reached for a cigarette.

“For heaven's sake,” she said crossly. “Is it so damned hard to understand. I'm pregnant, for God's sake. How do you expect me to feel? Like doing cartwheels or something?”

“Not exactly,” said Chris and now his voice was impatient and edgy. “But neither do I expect you to act as if I had the plague. Sometimes you act as if you hate me.”

Lisa smoked and stared up at the ceiling through the dark.

“I don't hate you,” she said.

And that much was true. She did not hate Chris. In fact, in some strange way she loved him more than she ever had. It was comforting to live with a man like Chris. To know where she stood every minute and to never feel out of her depth. It was only when he tried to touch her that she felt something stir within her.

You're a fine little animal, my love.

But that's all over, Lisa argued silently. Anthony was fine in bed. Wonderful. But you can't spend your whole life with your clothes off. It's over and done with and a good thing for me it is, too. I never would have been happy with him.

But still, when Chris tried to make love to her, she felt slightly disgusted, as if she were being unfaithful to Anthony and in a way that she had never felt when she was being unfaithful to Chris.

It's crazy, she told herself. I don't owe Anthony one single thing. All I owe I owe to Chris and I should be concerning myself only with his happiness.

Anthony. Her whole body cried out silently for him. Anthony, I need you.

“No,” said Lisa to Chris. “I don't hate you. I just don't feel well.”

She felt that she should reach out to him, touch him, reassure him, but she could not and she felt guilty and angry with herself.

“For heaven's sake, Chris, I can't help it, and I should think you'd be able to understand how I feel.”

“Christ, it wasn't all my fault, you know,” said Chris angrily. “You had your fun, too.”

For a moment, Lisa felt a fear that was almost panic. “What do you mean, I had my fun?” she asked.

“I mean as well as I did,” retorted Chris.

Lisa breathed easily again. For a frightening moment she had thought that Chris was referring to her and Anthony. But of course, that was ridiculous. Chris had never suspected her for a second, in spite of all the talk that had gone around Cooper Station. In the first place, none of it had ever reached his ears, and even if it had, he would have put it down as part of the vicious plot to get rid of him. He had accepted Lisa's explanation that she and Anthony were simply friends and neighbors at its face value and he had, in fact, been friendly with Anthony himself.

“He's really intelligent,” Chris had said of Anthony. “Too bad he's so mixed up.”

“What do you mean, mixed up?” asked Lisa defensively.

“Are you kidding?” asked Chris. “That guy's got the weirdest set of values in the world. Hurry up and grab everything today. There's no tomorrow for Anthony.”

“Well, Anthony doesn't need the same set of values as you do,” countered Lisa. “He isn't a married man with a family. And even if he never wrote another word, he'd still have all that Cooper money to fall back on.”

“Maybe,” said Chris, and Lisa thought he sounded a trifle smug, “but I sure wouldn't want to live that way.”

Lisa almost hated him. “No, you wouldn't,” she said sarcastically. “Not you. You've got to do your lousy bit for mankind. What the hell do you care if the kids don't have shoes as long as you can wear that damned white collar of yours and teach school for peanuts.”

Chris looked at her sharply. “You sound just like my old man,” he said coldly, knowing that this would reach her as would nothing else. She hated his father and Chris knew it. “Maybe you think I'd be better off in the fruit store at Cooper's Mills,” he continued. “Then I could wear a work shirt and an old apron and sell bananas.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Lisa crossly, unable to think of anything to say.

“I will,” said Chris in that maddeningly calm way of his. “Just don't go around trying to justify Anthony Cooper's existence to me. He's smart and a nice guy and all that, but he doesn't seem to have much purpose as far as I'm concerned. His novels certainly aren't going to live after him and he's never even had enough ambition to get married and produce a son to carry on his name.”

“That's the Greek in you coming out,” said Lisa. “You're all alike. Sons, sons, sons. God, I thought your father would die when Midget turned out to be a girl. It's a damned lucky thing for me that I had better luck producing little Chris or he'd think I was worthless for sure.”

But after that night she wondered often about Chris's words and of the child she now carried.

What if it's a boy? she thought. What if it's a boy and turns out to look just like Anthony?

She knew Chris. Tolerant and kind he might be, but he'd never stand for another man's son in his home. He'd throw her out on the street and keep Midget and little Chris, and for a moment a picture flashed through her mind of Anthony smiling and welcoming back his love with his baby in her arms. But she didn't even know if he was still in Cooper Station. He might have gone back to New York the way he always said he would, and besides, she did not want to spend the rest of her life with Anthony Cooper.

Yes, Chris would throw her out even if it meant wrecking his career with a messy divorce. And Lisa would fight him, she knew. She didn't have much but she wasn't about to lose what little she had. Not after those lousy years at the university getting Chris educated. Not now, just when they were beginning to get somewhere.

Lisa thought of an eventual return to Irene and Cooper's Mills and she shuddered. She'd wind up like Marie Fennell, just another old bag to be laughed at and joked about and not even pitied.

What if it's a boy and he looks like Anthony?

She tried to comfort herself. New babies don't look like anybody, she assured herself. And even if this one looks like Anthony later on, Chris will be so used to him by then, and Cooper Station will be so far behind us, that he'll never even think of it.

But she still had her moments of fear. The day the baby was born, Lisa asked, “What is it?” as soon as she awoke.

“A girl,” they told her, and Lisa went back to sleep without even asking to see her.

Thank God she thought as she drifted off.

And the next day she realized that it wasn't true about new babies not looking like anyone. Linda looked exactly like Lisa. The same pale-brown hair and big eyes. The same nose and mouth and chin.

“Baby, why are you crying?” asked Chris.

“Because I'm so happy,” said Lisa. “I wanted it to be a little girl all along.”

“I guess I did, too,” confessed Chris. “I missed too much of Midget's babyhood not to want to watch a little girl growing up.” He kissed her gently.

Lisa looked up at her husband and felt a wave of such love go over her that tears formed at the corners of her eyes again.

I'll make it up to you, darling, she thought and put her hand against Chris's cheek. I'll make it all up to you.

Lisa finished burping Linda and put her back to bed.

“And that's that for another four hours, my love,” she said to the child.

Everything was done. The only thing left was to drop the children and their things off at Janie's as soon as Chris came home from school and then they could be on their way. Lisa went into her kitchen and made herself a cup of instant coffee, then she sat down and lit a cigarette and wondered why she didn't feel anything about her mother.

Maybe I'm not used to the idea yet, she told herself.

The telephone call had come just that morning, only a few minutes before Chris and the older children left for school. It was the chief of police at Cooper's Mills and he told Lisa that Irene was dead.

“Must've fallen down the front hall stairs, Lisa,” he said. His name was Johnny McGrath and Lisa remembered that he had always been kind. Plenty of times he could have locked Irene up for the way she behaved. But he never had. He'd always seen her home, drunk as she was, as if he were seeing home a great lady.