Conversation Piece

For as long as it took the phone to ring three times he considered not answering it. His mother hadn't called for a couple of days and he didn't feel like going through that again. But in the end he decided that it wasn't his mother calling and he picked it up.

"Hello," he said.

"Jay," she said. "Hi."

"Hello, pet," he said. "How are you, Barbara-girl?"

"I'm all right," she said.

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Is Tommy there? I haven't talked to him in a long time."

"Yes, he's here," Barbara said. "He's in the library. Look, I have to tell you something."

"OK. Do you want to have lunch?"

"No, I have to tell you right now."

"Sure you should?" Jay said.

"It's all right," Barbara said. "He's busy. The architect is with him."

"You're out of your mind, girl, I've told you that."

She ignored it.

"I'd love to give you lunch," he said.

"Can't do it," she said. As she spoke it seemed to him that the line current fell, although he didn't hear an extension receiver come up. But he was sure about the power drop. He remembered lines in Washington in McCarthy's time, with so many taps draining current that the legitimate users had to shout to be heard. He knew the effect when he heard it.

"Somebody at the door here, Barbara," he said briskly. "Call me back in five minutes."

"Wait a minute," she said. "I told Tommy about us."

He felt his face flush, and his heart quit for a split second and then went on in a thumping little grace note but that was all. It is nice, he thought to himself, to be bright, and to plan for every eventuality. I'm sorry, girl, he said to himself. He waited another beat.

"You told him what about us, Barbara?" he said slowly, softly, working at it.

"Everything," she said. "I'm sorry, Jay, but I had to."

"I really don't get it," he said. "What (continued on page 118) Conversation Piece(continued from page 43) do you mean – everything? What's everything?"

"I told him that we'd been having an affair," she said. "What else do you think I mean? I told him that, and I told him everything about it."

"Dear God," he said. "What in the world did you tell him that for?"

"I had to," she said. "My conscience wouldn't let me keep it from him any longer, that's all. It was too hateful. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I know you're furious, and I'm sorry."

"I'm not furious at all," Jay said. "But Barbara: why a thing like that? And why me? Why pick me out?"

"That's an odd remark," she said. "Why you. After all, I haven't been having an affair with anybody else."

"I suppose not," Jay said. "But you haven't been having one with me, either."

She didn't answer and he began to count: one, two, three...he was on eight when she spoke. "Are you out of your mind?" she said.

"No," he said. "Not at all. Look, Barbara, it's not that I wouldn't like to sleep with you. I would. You know it, and Tommy knows it, or he should know it, and I know it. I'd love to. But after all, there are things in the way. Take the fact that Tommy's a friend of mine, and let the rest go."

"You can't be drunk, not at ten o'clock in the morning," she said slowly.

"Barbara, look," he said. "If this is a reverse-English proposition, believe me, I'm flattered. I've never been so flattered in my life. And I'm sorry I can't take you up on it. But you know it's impossible."

"Stop it!" Barbara said. "Stop it, you son of a bitch! You know damned well I'm not propositioning you, and you damned well know that we've been in bed together every chance we've had for three months, and I don't know what in hell you're trying to do to me, saying we haven't. What are you trying to do to me?"

"Barbara," he said quietly. "Look. I know how it is with you. I know you've got this weird notion that somehow you've failed Tommy all down the years, that somehow you've been cruel to him, or let him down, or whatever – I can't understand it, and I don't know anybody else who can – but anyway you do think so, and obviously you think you ought to be punished for it. My own view is that you haven't done anything at all to Tommy. I think he's lucky to have you. But I know you have this idea, and I know it's real enough to you. OK. And I'd help you any way I could, you know that. Only not this way. Just don't cut me in on your private fantasies. Don't get me hanged as a goat when I'm only a sheep, in other words."

"Jay," she said. "In March, when Tommy was in Florida, you took me home from Helen Martineau's party, and we went to bed right here in this apartment. You didn't leave until eight the next morning. And since then we've been together here and I don't know how many times at your place, and in Bremley House, and once in Pete Mileson's apartment. Is that a fact, or isn't it?"

"Are those facts, you mean," Jay said. "Or aren't they. And the answer is, no, they aren't facts. Look, Barbara, I'm as susceptible as anyone else, and more than most, and it's no secret – but the only way you could get me to go to bed with you in your own house would be at the point of a gun. It just isn't in me. That's just too far north. You ought to know me better. As for Bremley House, I've had lunch there a couple of times – never with you – but I haven't been in a room there, not ever, I think, and anyway not for the last two years."

"Your name is on that register twice since April," Barbara said.

"My name?" Jay said softly. "I doubt that. I doubt that very much, that you'd find my name on the Bremley House register." He waited a couple of beats. "Look, Barbara," he said, "have you talked to your analyst about this?"

"Dr. Chelminsky? Certainly I told him that I was going to tell Tommy about us, if that's what you mean."

"And he told you to go ahead and do it?" Jay said.

"He did."

"Ah. But then, he thinks you really have had an affair with me, doesn't he? You told him so, right?"

"Of course I told him. Jay, listen to me ..."

"Just a second, pet. Don't you see what a weird position you're getting yourself into? Don't you see how unreal it is, how irrational? Here you are arguing like a maniac with me that you have had an affair with me, that you have been unfaithful to Tommy, that it is true and you can prove it – doesn't it strike you as a little odd that you should be trying so desperately to convince yourself that something happened that never happened at all? Aren't you trying as hard as you know how to get yourself punished? You think you've committed some imaginary offense against Tommy down the years, and now you want to get yourself punished for it by admitting another imaginary offense. Don't you think you'd be wiser to explain the whole thing to Chelminsky just as it has happened? After all, what's so pointless as lying to a psychiatrist? Think about that for a second. Are you paying this guy $35 an hour; $175 a week, to lie to him?"

She was shrieking before he had finished. "Stop it!" she yelled. "Shut up! I'm not lying to him, and you know it! And if I have to prove that you're my lover, I can prove it. I know every mark on your body, I ..."

"So does everybody else who ever saw me in swimming trunks," Jay said.

"I know things about your body that no one finds out watching you swim!" she said. "I know everything about you, just for one thing, I know that..."

"And they say girls don't talk," Jay said sadly. "All right, I did sleep with Janie Berthold, lots of times, all winter as a matter of fact. So, before she went to Italy she gave you a blow-by-blow. Well, bully for her. I hope it was a good report, that's all."

"Jane Berthold never told me word one about you," Barbara said.

"That's OK," he said. "Nobody objects to a little white lying when it's to cover up for a friend. Forget it."

She didn't speak for half a minute.

"Jay," she said finally. "What is this? What are you trying to do? Do I have to describe every stick of furniture in Pete Mileson's apartment to you? Are you really going to try to tell me that you and I didn't go there, 618 Cabinet Street, four A-for-Apple, last Wednesday, that was the ninth, that we didn't go there at two o'clock, you went in first and I came a few minutes later, that we didn't take a shower together and that I didn't tell you, when we came into the bedroom, that I'd seen Pete with Hilda Barnes the night before? And afterward didn't we eat a whole jar of his brandied pears? And then..."

"I'm sure you know Pete Mileson's apartment," Jay said. "Why not? You know Pete. You know Jerry and Marnie Mallory, they're his closest friends, and the Boothroyds, they're with him all the time, Pete has a couple of parties a month, you've been there I'm sure, why wouldn't you know his apartment?"

"All right, Jay," she said. "OK. Goodbye. Goodbye, louse."

"Look, Barbara," he said. "Take my advice. Listen to me. Tell Chelminsky. And as far as Tommy's concerned, I don't know anything. Next time I see Tommy, I'm going to act just as if nothing had happened – because nothing has happened. But tell Chelminsky, Barbara. Tell him. After all, you've been seeing him for over a year now. It's time you were getting somewhere. Tell him. Get well, baby. Get well."

He heard the soft click as the extension cradle came down. He waited. "Goodbye, Barbara," he said.

She hung up.

He waited an instant for the tone and then dialed. I wonder what the architect thought, he said to himself, sitting there watching Tommy glued to the phone.

"Extension 614," he said. "Jay Garner. Mr. Mileson there? Thanks." he waited.

"Petè," he said. "You feeling strong?"

"I guess so, buddy," Pete said. "Should I be?"

"You just might get a phone call from Tommy McInerny," Jay said. "I don't think you will, I think I've fixed it, but you might, because I'm afraid Barbara-girl has finally blown her wig, and all the way, this time. She says she told him I'd been laying her – and once in your apartment. How about that?"

"The girl must be out of her skull," Pete said.

"I told her that," Jay said. "The whole idea is idiotic. I mean, does she think you're running a hot-bed joint there, everyone you know carrying a key?"

"Ridiculous," Pete said. "I'd be shocked if I knew you'd had anything to do with a broad like that, buddy."

"You'd have every right to be, pal," Jay said.

"I resent her thinking I'd let anybody use my flat for sordid assignations," Pete said. "And matinees, at that."

"An absurd idea," Jay said.

"I never would," Pete said. "And if I did, I'd have certain rules, like for example anybody who eats up a quart jar of brandied pears should replace them."

"Two for one, they should be replaced," Jay said. "And a bottle of like Mumm's thrown in."

"That makes sense," Pete said. "Maybe I'll see you at the club tomorrow?"

"Sure," Jay said. "We'll see if we can't turn up a couple of beasts."

He hung up. Six minutes later the phone rang. This time, somehow, he was sure it was his mother. He let it ring. counting. The old lady quit on fourteen.