30 Pieces of a Novel (63 page)

still attractive
, or only time I saw her; must have been much better looking then and shapely rather than what's getting to be a matronly figure. And did you have to like a woman to want to bed her? You yourself said—” and he says, “That's true, to a degree, but what do you think I was then? besides your missing my point. With Clo there must have been some attraction I kept back because Andrew was my old college friend and had been so generous to me since I moved into the building and also because they lived upstairs and I didn't think anything like that could possibly happen with her. And then it did happen because he was away for a while and I must have been all rutted when I rang her bell and maybe feeling sexually dispossessed and she made that first overpowering display, you could say—at least irresistible to me at the time. While now I think my libido, being somewhat lower or less urgent or demanding or whatever a libido becomes with age—” and she says, “You don't have the sex drive you once did, you're saying. But maybe you do, or it's off by a small fraction since I've known you, but because we live together and if I'm not sick and you're not being obnoxious I'm usually agreeable and even eager for it, you don't have to go out of your way to get laid,” and he says, “That could be true too. But what I was going to say was that if I were in the same situation today, and even if it wasn't true that you're usually compliant and my sex drive isn't as strong and I'm married with children so I'd have a lot more to lose by going along with it, I'm sure I'd be able to resist: the breasts at the door—and let's say you and the kids were away for a week too—large beautifully shaped young breasts, I feel a little stupid saying, and skinny bikini panties, if that's what they're called, and quick invite to come inside. But with Gwen there was nothing for me to resist—no attraction, not that she wasn't physically attractive then. And forget opportunity, because even if I had rung their bell one day to see Harold—just happened to stop by—and she opened the door completely nude and said he suddenly had to leave town for the year, or that they were getting a divorce and he was no longer living home and she's been waiting for this chance with me for a long time, and grabbed my penis through the pants or did whatever with it that would normally make me excited, for you know that just about any handling by you or pressure on it, even a book, would do it—” and she says, “Oh, come on,” and he says, “‘Oh, come on' nothing. Anyway, my point in all this, just so we don't forget, is my shame, how every time I talk to Andrew—maybe once every five years, and that includes bumping into him on the street or seeing him with Harold … actually, at Harold's second wedding a number of years ago. You saw him there too, the only time I think you met. He came alone; we in fact sat at his table. I mean it wasn't organized like that; you sat where you wanted to sit and he was the only person I knew there other than Harold and I seemed to be the only one he knew. So it would have been insulting to him, I thought, not to sit there, and he seemed pleased that we sat next to him. And the three of us had a good conversation, intelligent and stimulating and long, do you remember? You had very nice things to say about him after, that he was a person of high quality and so on, and later we drove him home—it was on our way—and I don't think Harold holds it against me anymore what I did with Clo. That's what I get from his attitude toward me, few times we've seen each other the last ten years. Anyway, I always feel constrained with Andrew: small, humiliated somewhat, even base, other things. I really feel it can only end if I bring it up to him, what I think, my regrets and shame—I'd even say that to him: that this is why I'm bringing it up. And that I'm nothing like that now, haven't been that way for twenty years and have no excuse for what I did then, and how sorry I am and that I only wish there was some way of making it up to him. Though when you think of it, he did remarry, no matter how that one turned out, and got a child out of it—in her teens now, college, whom he adores, by the way he talks of her. So if I and some other guys were partly the cause of his breakup with Clo, at least he can say … well, you know, and of course I'd never say any of this to him. I'm just sort of rationalizing, putting into his head what I'd think if I were in the same situation: I got a great kid the second time around and that was worth all the heartaches of the first marriage, and so not to hold a grudge against the guys who screwed my wife, though of course not to thank them either,” and she says, “That couldn't have been it, you and these other men, even partly, or only a tiny part of partly. Those problems can be worked out and were only a symptom of what was wrong. There had to be basic incompatibilities between them of long standing, things they must have tried to fix. I think you once said he'd gone through a lot of therapy since college, so I have to assume she went through a little too, and then when their marriage was falling apart they went individually and together, and also marriage counseling. And she was young then, like you and Andrew, and that was a free-for-all time in America if there ever was one—we're talking here of almost thirty years ago, I think you said,” and he says, “Maybe even more than thirty. Let me think when it was exactly,” and she says, “Doesn't matter. But I don't think you ever want to talk to him about anything related to it unless he brings it up first. It would only revive certain things for him he probably prefers to forget. And if it's only to relieve your conscience, is it worth it when you consider the damage you might do him? This is the price you pay for your past promiscuity. It'd be different if he wanted to renew his friendship with you or wanted to get all these things out. Then, maybe, you could work out your differences, past associations, and all that, and it would also be easier for him and seem a lot more reasonable too, since he would have initiated it and would know what he's getting into and if it got too messy for him he'd only have himself to blame,” and he says, “He did say that if I got to San Diego again I should look him up, and gave me his phone number,” and she says, “That's not the same thing,” and he says, “I suppose not. No, of course, you're right, so I'll just have to live with it. It's a shame,” and she says, “Why? Because you like him now, or as much as you did before, but can't really be friendly with him because of what you did to him then?” and he says, “That too.”

So what does he do now? He didn't want to have sex with her. He told her when she came to his room. Well, she was good-looking and he wouldn't mind doing it, he thought then, but knew he shouldn't because of his wife and that it could get complicated with this woman and he did what he could to stop it. He said, “Really, this isn't a good idea. I've never done it outside of my marriage, not even an amorous kiss. Better you go home and I go to sleep alone, I'm sorry. I know I don't sound too convincing, but I'm really convinced about it. You're attractive and pleasant and so on, but I just wouldn't know what to say to my wife,” and she said, “You have to say anything? Why would you want to hurt her, if that's what it'd do? But if you want me to leave, of course I'll go without a fuss. It's not like I invited you out here just for this.” He's driving home from the college he gave a reading at. He was met in the hotel lobby late yesterday afternoon by this woman. She said, “Oh, you took the service stairs instead of the elevator: the athletic type. Hi, I'm Sheila, welcome,” and shook his hand hard. “How was the journey?” and he said, “An hour longer than you thought it would be, not that I'm blaming you.” “Thank God for that; I'm not sure I could take it. What, there were major delays on the road?” and he said, “None, smooth all the way, and I mostly kept the speed at nine above the limit and followed your directions to the letter. Incidentally, they were perfect.” “Then is your watch accurate or you switched to Daylight Savings Time during the drive?” and he said, “I'm telling you, four hours and a few minutes, with a quick pit stop to hit the men's room and get a container of coffee and, at the border tourist office next door to this restaurant, a free Pennsylvania road map. But it wasn't bad, since I was able to pick up a few classical music stations on the radio, and the best one an hour from here and with the call letters of your university. All of Byrd's masses. Very unusual. This is a good music area,” and she said, “How's the hotel? I know it isn't big-city plush but we got you the nicest around,” and he said, “The staff's friendly and I don't mean to sound like a chronic bellyacher, but the room's so depressing. Jesus, you want to blow your brains out, that's the room to do it in. Though it does have a Jacuzzi, not that I'll use it. But its one modern touch, with sliding frosted doors on the other side of the tub that open onto the rest of the room—what's that all about? Another entrance in case you locked the bathroom door accidentally? Or to take a bath or do the Jacuzzi with someone in the main room watching? Some architect's idea of chic or kink?” “Is that what made the room depressing?” and he said, “No, mystifying. For depression, just about everything else: furniture, carpet, drapes. All different muddy colors, and dim bulbs in ugly lamps, and a view of rundown row houses across the hotel parking lot and an abandoned railroad track.” “Not abandoned; that's our famous spur. You're liable to hear a slow freight train choochoo-ing at midnight and again around five, or that's what several other guest speakers have told me. They liked it—small-town America—and they said the train had a very soothing whistle. It's picking up and delivering to what's left of the big steel mill in town.” “Anyway, I'm reporting, not complaining. A life I couldn't live there, but a night?—it's fine. And thanks for having me out. Your fee is more than fair.” Thinks: Should he take the alternate route to 83, coming up in a few miles? About twenty minutes longer, she told him when she gave directions to the hotel, but prettier and less traffic, and he'd like seeing different scenery going home. No, stick to this one, get back soon as he can, and, if the kids aren't around, tell his wife. “I don't know what happened last night. I mean, I know but can't quite believe it. But the teacher who coordinated the whole event and introduced me to the audience? Well, she ended up in my room later. In my bed. Minute after I said good night to her in her car downstairs, she knocked on my door to say she had to use the bathroom. I said why didn't she use the one in the lobby, and she gave some feeble excuse that it was being cleaned and she really had to go badly. We had sex. She forced me to. I didn't want to have anything to do with it and protested profusely till she stuck a washrag in my mouth. Before that, when we were having dinner, she must have slipped me a mickey or whatever it is that knocks you out in an hour or just makes you too weak and dizzy to fight back. Next thing I knew I was tied to the bed, on my back, spread-eagled and with no pants on, four ropes for four limbs plus duct tape, and she was on top of me, wielding a knife and threatening to mutilate me if I didn't perform. That's when I started protesting and the washrag went in. Twenty minutes after it was over she started in again, with the same threat, because she said she hadn't taken the risk she did to get so little satisfaction. Sound nuts? Believe it, because she was crazy. But that's all I did: perform, and good thing I was able to. I had her arrested in the morning after I got out of those ropes. Thought of calling you about it but then decided it'd be better to tell you face-to-face. She's in jail now. I'm pressing charges of assault and battery, whatever that last half is, and rape. I'm so sorry, but you have to see it was totally excusable on my part and that perhaps my being able to complete the sex act twice saved my life.” They drove to the school building he was to read at. She was pretty, pleasant, intelligent, easy to be with, wavy red hair, strong build, short, lean-legged, nicely dressed, about twenty years younger than he, immediately effusive and friendly, with a much older and frailer woman's gravelly voice. Was she sick and just didn't show it? She asked about his wife and kids; he asked if she was married and had any kids. She had married early, childhood sweetheart, divorced after the birth of twins; two more brief marriages but no kids from them. The boys go to different colleges on opposite coasts. They're freshmen, only out of the house for three months and she misses them terribly. She lives alone in the foothills with a dog and several songbirds and her sons' cats: their dorms wouldn't permit pets. “If the car stinks it's because of the dog. He won't let me leave the house without him. Today you got lucky, except for the stench, which can't be avoided, I'm afraid, since I hate all those fake deodorizers. He's big and hairy and romps around in our nearby swamp a lot, and I can only give him so many baths a month. I even take him along when I teach or go out to a movie or dinner. He stays quietly in the car, hence the stench, which I must have grown used to, since I never smell it. Maybe my passengers are exaggerating it to reap some advantage from me. He's also good protection in this deceptively benign town of unemployed drunks and epigonic car thieves. But am I talking too much about him and not enough about my boys? That's because he's my best friend now and I love him—he'd never desert me for higher learning—and he's never given a sign that his car confinement is any kind of mistreatment,” and he said, “Then you're probably doing the right thing, when you weigh it against his staying home and being lonely. How come you left him behind today, though again, I'm not complaining?” and she said, “The possibility that you could be allergic to dogs like our last guest; by the time I thought to call you about it, you were on the road,” and he said, “I have no allergies, and though the smell is detectable, I can live with that too for a short time.” “You know, I like you: you're a good guy. I mean; relaxed, equable, direct,” and he said, “I only seem that way because I'm a little tired from the trip,” and she said, “I like that about you too: your false modesty, which is only there to deflect further conversation about yourself. So many of the lecturers and writers I invite for the day because I like their work, though also because they're within a three-hour driving radius of here and don't insist on apparitional stipends, turn out to be cranks, egomaniacs, lechers, and jerks,” and he said, “Three of the four I'll admit to being now and then, and a lech I might've been many years ago. But it'd be ridiculous to be one now—right?—not only because I don't want to bust up my marriage and hurt my kids, but my age. But what are we talking about?” and she said, “We're just talking, everything harmless, getting to know each other like two new people often do when they're suddenly stuffed into a small smelly car filled with dog hair for more than ten minutes. The conversation will change, though, and become rangy. That's a word I think I made up: wide range. To be honest, something I've never put to a real word man before; what do you think of it?” and he said, “If it catches on, and I'm so out of touch with contemporary culture that maybe it already has, I'll remember I heard it here first.” “Now you sound sarcastic; what happened to change you?” and he said, “You're going to make me apologize. I didn't intend to sound sarcastic. And ‘rangy.' Rangy? It's okay, but few people will understand it unless you explain it as you did to me.” “Then I'm wiping it from my vocabulary. I'm serious—it's erased. Think of it as a value assessment of your judgment and technical know-how,” and he said, “Don't be rash; it was just a single opinion of mine and maybe rushed.” He thinks in his car, Maybe he won't say anything to his wife. Since he never did anything like it before, why would she suspect it now? He'll park in the carport—probably get home an hour and a half before the kids, the way he's moving—walk in, if she's not outside—she doesn't usually go out unless he or one of the kids or her student helper is around, afraid she might get stuck someplace in her wheelchair or motor cart and have to stay there till someone comes by or call a neighbor on her portable phone to help her—say, “Sally, you around? I'm back.” If she's outside, and she won't be too far from the carport and the kitchen door, he'll see her when he pulls in. They'll kiss, she'll be very happy to see him, unless she's going through or has recently gone through something difficult with her illness. Then she probably won't be outside. “Hi, welcome home, you got back earlier than you thought you would,” she might say. If she's not feeling well or has had a bad morning, he'll say, “What can I do for you? Anything you want?” Say, “I shouldn't have gone. I knew something like this could happen.” Would happen? Would. “Even with people covering me,” she might say, “they can't be here every second.” He'll swear he's not going to accept another reading date out of town, if she had a bad time while he was gone. Yesterday when he called, soon after he got back to the hotel after dinner and just a few minutes before what's-her-name—he can't believe it; he's forgotten her name already—Sheila knocked on his door, she was fine: nothing had gone wrong, the girls had been a great help. “If I go slow and think about every move and am very careful about my transferring, I'm usually okay.” “It isn't worth it,” he could say today. “The reading fee is taxed, what, twenty to twenty-five percent, so if I get six hundred max for it as I did for this one I only end up with four-fifty or so.” “There are expenses for the trip,” she'd probably say. “Thirty-one cents a mile when you go by car, IRS allows you, and your meals and hotel.” “All paid for,” he'd say, “except the car costs and coffees along the way. Though I can pad,” and she'd say, “No padding; let's be completely honest.” My God, he thinks in the car, how subliminal or subconscious or whatever it is, that last line. Anyway, they'll kiss, outside or in the house, no matter how bad she feels. She'll be glad he's home even if she's not feeling well; she just won't show it as much. He'll say, “Want some tea?” no matter how she's feeling. “I'm going to have some, since I had too much coffee on the road and for breakfast and I just want to sit tranquilly for a few minutes,” and he'll make tea for himself or them both and say, “Want to sit with me outside?” and she could say, “That's an enticing idea, not only to be with you but I haven't been out today,” and if she's outside when he gets there, then, “Sure. I can take a break”—from reading or marking papers or from her wheelchair snipping branches or pulling up tall weeds—“and you can tell me about your trip.” He'll make the tea, bring the mug or mugs outside, wheel her out to the patio table right beside the carport or just to the table if she's already outside. The weather should be good for it; it's nice now and doesn't seem as if it'll change, and the TV report for central Pennsylvania, which he saw when he was having a buffet breakfast in the hotel lounge, said it'd be clear and sunny the entire day and in the high sixties, and the weather there shouldn't be that much different from Baltimore. They'll talk, he'll tell her what he had at dinner and what the town's like, and more about the reading than he did
last night
on the phone. “The reading coordinator, Sheila something—she also teaches nineteenth-century lit—Sheila Haverford, just like the small college near Philadelphia. I wonder if she's in any way related to the founder or whoever gave the college its name. If that's how it did get its name, it'd seem like too much of a coincidence that she isn't. Anyway, she was quite pleasant, smart, has twin sons in college—freshmen—though looks much younger than that … than a woman with twins that age. She could have married young, seventeen, eighteen, but while raising her kids she also must have worked hard getting through school for so many years; she has a Ph.D. in your least favorite subject and what you also call the most farcical, comp lit. Maybe she had help from her husband, plus lots of sitters and nannies, though that can run up. But if she is a Haverford and the Haver-fords still have money—haven't given all of it away to the college, if that is, as I said, how it was named—there could be plenty of family money there, plus a couple of grannies to help her. But she said she divorced early, so who knows. I also recall now that her father was a watchmaker in a small New Jersey factory and died in a fire when she was around twenty. So, maybe fire insurance, if she was an only child. Her introduction—if I'm talking a lot about her it's because she was there from almost minute one till she dropped me back at the hotel after dinner, and there's almost nothing of comparable interest, not that this is interesting, to say about the trip—her introduction at the reading was typically embarrassing. Why don't they just cite a few facts—he did this, got that, his feet are flat and because of it he suffers from sciatica and has a bad back—and not try to assess your work so glowingly? I hate it when they gush on like that and I have to sit through it like a schmuck with everyone there to see me grimacing and squirming appreciatively. The turnout was pretty good—seventy-five, maybe. Good for me, anyway, but I think most were undergrads ordered to attend by their teaching assistants so as not to embarrass the department, as well as to justify my fee, which is what we do in my department when a non-hotshot guest gives a reading or lecture. I actually saw one of these TAs walking up and down the aisle taking attendance, or maybe she was only jotting down atmospheric notes for the academic novel she's writing. The Q-and-A's were the usual, though one I'd never heard: not ‘Do you get a lot of your material from your own life?' but ‘Why do you use so much of your life in your work, and because of the nature of what you write about, don't your friends, colleagues, neighbors, and especially your family object to your naked portrayal of them?' I said, ‘How did you decide I do that? Are you writing an unauthorized biography of me, speaking to people I know behind my back, going through the garbage I put out for the trash haulers, attaching listening devices to my phone and through my home and office walls?' and he said, ‘I'm sorry if the question offended you, sir. I thought it was a fair one but I can see your point,' and all I could think to say was Touché! which caused a few giggles and oohs from the audience, though of the kind that made me think they felt I got the worst of the argument and had spoken like a fop, but big deal. After, I suggested to the woman that a couple of the students or TAs come to dinner with us, but she said it wasn't in the budget. So just the two of us,” and she might say, “Maybe that's what she counted on,” and he'd say something like, “I doubt it.” Anyway, that's when he'll probably tell her what he ate and what the restaurant was like, though he thinks he did that last night. “Then—and I had three glasses of wine, she had one, the two choices they had being American chablis and Chilean merlot, and the glasses were relatively small and came a little more than half full, and when I pointed both these things out to the waiter, he said, ‘That's the way the house pours them, which is based on the guidelines of the chain that owns this place, and the only size wineglass we have'—she drove me to my hotel. I never slept in such a depressing room. If there ever was an ideal one for suicide, this was it. In fact, if you had been in that room before you might even choose to go back, just to sustain the suicidal urge, to do yourself in. Dark ugly furniture—did I tell you this?—same with the drapes and rug, and floral wallpaper and an urban-blight view. And at midnight—this I know I couldn't have told you—and again at four A.M., a freight train choochoo-ed by… really, about ten feet past the hotel parking lot, on a spur line or track, whistling hysterically though it was only going about five miles an hour, after picking up and/or delivering goods to what's left of the huge steel mill in town. The last piece of info the desk clerk told me when I asked about the train while I was checking out. There was—the room's one contemporary touch, though for all I know something a lot more modern in bathrooms superseded it a dozen years ago—a Jacuzzi in the bathtub, which I didn't use.” She might say, “Why not? It would have relaxed you, taken your mind off suicide, and helped you sleep well, which you apparently didn't do,” and he'd say, “Too much of an effort. You have to stick a hand on the drain—first you fill the tub to this silver dot between the regular bath and shower controls—and at the same time your other hand on another spot in the tub to get the Jacuzzi going. A little of me thought I'd get an electric shock—I mean, this place wasn't in the greatest shape. But the major part of me thought, Who can pamper himself like that? And do you soap yourself in a Jacuzzi—which is what I wanted to do: get clean—or just lie in it, letting the thing do whatever it's supposed to to you? A quick shower and then bed, with maybe a little reading, that's all I wanted.” “You took a shower before you went to bed?” she could say. “How unlike you. You always exercise and run in the morning and then shower,” and he could say, “I did my exercises and ran in place for about a half hour in the room last night, feeling if I did them then I wouldn't have to do any of it in the morning. I wanted to set off early today. I thought if I got back an hour or more before the kids—by the way, the drive there and back took an hour longer than this woman said it would—maybe you and I could have some fun … what do you say?” and he might jiggle his eyebrows or make a silly face or both, and she could say, “I wouldn't mind,” and then he'd push her into the bedroom, to get it started sooner, help her undress and get on the bed, and she'd prepare herself if she had to and they'd make love. While on the bed he thinks he'd say, “I forgot to tell you about something I did there,” and she might say, “You had sex with Sheila this morning—she called you up for an early breakfast. Or with one of the students—she knocked on your door last night, while you were wondering whether you should take a shower, Jacuzzi, or bath, for a late evening snack,” and he'd say, “No, but close. I cable-hopped—what's the expression the kids use for flicking through the TV set with the remote? Channeling? Station surfing? Television diving? I wanted to get a taste of American culture we don't have any access to or want, and oh, boy, did I!—enough to hold me for a couple of years. Every movie, new, old, or ancient, including two jammed pornos—those you paid extra for, so I could only hear the dialogue, moaning, clothes being torn, and someone splashing in a bath—was silly, poorly written, and inconsequential, and I had a choice of about seven. And all the regular shows and reruns, from TV sitcom to cable stand-up, were no better and equally frivolous and often stupid about civility, marriage, intellectual discourse, history, art, violence, and sex. On the cable shows, and there were about thirty, mainly local, was everything from a preacher preaching, guru guruing, TV and movie critic critiquing, and several salespeople selling, to weather predicting for parts of the globe almost nobody but diplomats, the very rich, and jetting businessmen will go to, and consciousness-expansive talk fests for both genders and all adult ages and stages of parenting and most sexual preferences—I don't know them all—and heritages and races. I felt that two hours of this in that room but without the nearby and then distant train whistles—that could only help someone come to his senses—would turn a healthy mind to abnormal thoughts of suicide.” No, he'd only tell her that nothing worthwhile was on, not go down a list she was probably familiar with and he'd added nothing original to, and he doesn't know how he could deliver it without sounding condescending and pompous. Besides, she'd question his being able to make such decisive judgments about so many things in the shows—art, history, intellectual discourse—in so short a time. “It was all shit, period, but I got my taste,” will be all he'll say. He actually did channel-surf—he thinks that's the right expression—for an hour after Sheila left. He couldn't sleep or read. It was around one A.M. He feels tired now and should stop for coffee and to rest his eyes a few minutes. He showered before surfing. Wanted to get the smell of them off. It all happened pretty fast. He fell asleep briefly after the first time—holding her, not holding her, or being held; he forgets—but she was there. Then she was rubbing and kissing him—for a moment he thought he was being licked and nibbled on by one of his daughters' cats—and he did it again, half asleep, and doesn't recall which position he took or if he came. That would have been unusual for him, twice in less than an hour, but he supposes with a new woman, or the only woman but his wife in almost twenty years, that could happen. Before she left—she was by the door, dressed, hair brushed; he was nude, sitting on the edge of the bed—she said, “Like me to drop by for breakfast?” He remembers thinking, Does she expect me to go to the door and kiss her goodbye? I think I'll just sit; if she comes over, then I'll have to kiss. “I know the hotel gives you a complimentary buffet breakfast at the bar—dry cereal, frozen fruit juice, muffins, and packaged bagels; you toast them in the toaster they provide—and weak coffee. But there's a great breakfast place in town, the real McCoy. Opens at five, a workmen's café that doesn't get much business now that the mill's ninety percent shut down, and I'll clean the interior of my car first. I could tell you were more put off by the dog smell and hairs than you let on.” He said—by this time he had covered his genitals with the bed cover or sheet in case he got erect again—“No, this should be the end of it,” while he thought, Now what am I going to do? I never should have got into this stupid mess, and she said, “Hey, what do you think, I'm planning an affair with you? It was spontaneous, which is how it should be, and we had our kicks. If I'm still free and willing and you want to come around the area again, please do, but not for a second university check. Next time, if there is one, it has to be singularly for me,” and he said, “I meant that what I want to do six hours from now when I wake up is take an early run, maybe limber up beforehand on the weight-room machines downstairs, breakfast quickly in the bar, and then head home. It's best I don't stay away too long, though I can't think of any good reason right now other than to be there when my kids get back from school and maybe to get some work done at home,” and she said, “And of course for your wife too—you can say it. Hell, it'd be natural, and by the way you spoke of her at dinner, I know she's a fine woman,” and he said, “That's right, I didn't intentionally leave her out; for her too. As for my coming back here; much as I admire you, and I certainly don't regret having done it”—You're lying your eyeballs out, he told himself while he was saying this—“I think this was the only time for that too,” and she said, “Good, I can appreciate that, and I didn't expect much more. I can also see no kiss good night will be forthcoming from you. If you wish, send it in a letter, but not care of my department,” and he said, “I don't quite understand,” and she said, “Home, dummy, nothing furtive or disapproving implied,” and smiled, blew him a kiss, and left. In her car after dinner she said, “So, do you want to be driven straight back to the hotel?” and he said, “Sure, where else?” and she said, “Oh, this town's loaded with fun-producing dives: just joking. But there are a couple of roadhouses for nightcaps a short drive from here. How about one of those? I love the word ‘nightcap.' It puts the lid on things, does what a combination word like that's supposed to: reverberate and ring with multiple meanings. What do you think?” and he said, “I guess so.” “And you deserve a nightcap. You deserve two, but I haven't got all night either. It was a terrific reading and you gave the students half an hour longer in the Q-and-A session than they normally get from our visitors. It was apparent they kept asking questions because they were interested in you, liked your mind and forthrightness, and had been stimulated by the reading,” and he said, “Oh, God, I thought I was awful. I read too fast and was inarticulate in most of my answers. But I really am tired and would rather go back, maybe have a glass of wine in my room—I brought a glassful in a jar to help me doze—and then read for a while and go to sleep.” “The bar there—the Rendezvous Room, if you can believe it; can you think of a more inappropriate name for a grungy steel town in the heart of beerland?—but it's a good one, designed with taste and sometimes lively. Why not have a drink there instead of in your room—that's too depressing to think about—and we'll put