Looking for Mr. Goodbar (26 page)

“I hate lawyers,” she said. “They always win arguments whether they’re right or wrong.” But she felt no venom. She was just sleepy.

“Both the prosecution and the defense always win, mm? That’s a novel idea.”

“You really should go home now.” Without moving from her comfortable position. “I’m sleepy.”

“Mmm,” he said. “You’re right. I really should go home.”

She fell into a dreamless sleep from which she awakened while it was still dark. Only one small light was on at the end of the room. She was aroused and before she was awake enough to realize where she was or who she was with, she stretched her arm around him to hug him and gently rub the smooth surface of his shirt. He held her more tightly, then, and kissed the top of her head until she turned up her face to meet his. But as she did so the gesture made her know the man and she fully awakened and broke from his grasp.

She sat forward in the chair and rubbed her eyes. She could feel him in back of her. Watching her. She could feel his rapid breathing. Her own body was free of sexual feeling now; it had vanished at the moment she realized it was James in the chair with her. She stood up and looked at the clock; it was ten minutes after two.

“I’m sorry you have to travel home at this hour.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Were you asleep?”

“No.”

She shook out her arms, rubbed the back of her neck.

“I hope you weren’t too uncomfortable.”

“If I was I didn’t notice.”

She turned away from him, blushing.

He went into the bathroom, came out with his hair combed again. He was tieless, for the first time in all the time she’d known him; his white shirt was open at the collar. It made him look vulnerable. He put on his jacket; she sat on one of the chairs at the table, looking at the floor.

“May I see you Saturday?”

“Okay,” she said, “unless . . .” Unless what? “There’s just a vague possibility I’ll go out to Fire Island to look at my friend’s house there. She wants me to take a share.” Actually she hadn’t thought about it since Evelyn broached the subject that afternoon. Not that it was such a bad idea. “Check with me on Friday night, to make sure.”

Evelyn hadn’t said anything about the weekend, of course. Theresa hadn’t even realized she remembered the hasty conversation that afternoon until she needed an excuse for James.

At five o’clock Saturday
evening Tony called, not to tell her when he would pick her up the following day but to say he would be down between eleven thirty and twelve that night—as soon as he finished with the Broadway crowd.

“But I have a date,” she protested weakly. Knowing that she was going to try to reach James, who was picking her up at seven. Knowing she was relieved to have a reason not to see him. (She hadn’t collected herself well enough when he called to lie about going to Fire Island.)

“Tell him you’re sick.”

She paused. “I don’t know if I can reach him.”

“Try,” he said, and then, as she hesitated, he cajoled in that low, suggestive voice she’d nearly forgotten since her early times with him. “C’m’on, Ter, I’m horny as hell. I don’t know what I’m gonna do tomorrow, tear up the place or something, if I don’t see you tonight.”

“All right,” she said, hearing the thickness, the eagerness in her own voice. “I’ll try. But if I can’t reach him—”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

“Make it half an hour.”

“I can’t. I’ll be getting too busy by then.” He hung up before she could respond.

James picked up the phone on the first ring. Only as she heard his voice did she realize, with a flash of panic, that she hadn’t prepared what she would say to him.

“James . . . I . . . it’s me. Theresa.” She had never called him before.

He sounded pleasantly surprised to hear from her. It hadn’t occurred to him yet why she must be calling.

“James . . . I have to—I can’t see you tonight.”

“Oh. Is anything wrong?”

“No.”
Idiot.
“I mean yes, but nothing serious. I don’t . . . I just don’t feel like going anyplace. I’m . . .”

“Would you like me to pick up something like pizza and bring it to your place?”

“No,” she said, “you’re sweet, but . . . I’m tired and grumpy . . .”  . . . and horny . . . “and I just feel like being by myself for a while.”

“I understand,” he said. “Can I call you later?”

“No.” But the effect on Tony had always been good. “I mean, if you want to. Later. I’m going to sleep for a few hours now, then wake up and try to do some work. I don’t think—I still won’t want to go out.”

“I’ll call you just to talk.”

“All set?” Tony asked when he called back.

“All set.”

“What’d he say?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Cunt.”

“When are you going to be here?”

“When I get there.”

He hung up and she had a brief moment of regret at having told James not to come. What if Tony didn’t show up now? If he didn’t, she decided, she definitely wouldn’t go to his mother’s goddamn birthday party tomorrow. Not that she wanted to, anyway, but it was apparently important to him.

James called at ten to eleven and they talked for more than an hour. He’d gone to see a movie by himself since he hadn’t particularly been in the mood for company, other than hers. Ingmar Bergman’s
Persona.
He had been very much affected by it and would like to see it again some time, with her.

“Theresa? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Except I have a headache.”

“If you’d like to take some aspirin or something, I’ll hold on.”

She laughed without knowing why.

He was silent for a moment. Then, “Or maybe you’d rather I just hung up.”

“No,” she said. Contrite. “I really feel like talking.”

“Good,” he said. “Talk to me.”

She laughed. “I meant,” she said, “like listening.”

He talked about the movie and then about other Bergman movies. He talked about his mother and his sister and how in some way the movie had reminded him of them. She looked at the clock and asked him questions about his sister. Patricia. Patricia had three children. Patricia’s husband was what you would call a regular guy. Right wing but very decent on a personal basis. Like so many of the people he’d grown up with. Not nearly as bright as Patricia, but it didn’t seem to matter because Patricia had never
chosen to develop that part of herself anyway. One of the points in the movie that had touched him deeply was the idea of two women, nurse and invalid, exchanging personalities, not personalities, exactly, persona, and that—

Theresa interrupted him to say that he was making her feel spooky.

He laughed. “I’m sorry. Can I come down and comfort you?”

“It’s too late,” she said.

“I don’t mind,” he told her.

“No,” she said, although for a moment she’d been thinking maybe . . . maybe Tony wasn’t going to show up and maybe she should just give James a try. “Call me later in the week, okay?”

He said that he would.

A short while later Tony was at the door, drumming on it impatiently until she opened it for him, bopping into the room, nearly bristling with electricity, looking around as though he half believed she had someone hidden there. He was wearing a black leather jacket although it was the end of April and the nights were warm. He eyed her critically. She was wearing the usual sweater and jeans.

“I hope you don’t think you’re wearin’ that stuff tomorrow.”

She laughed. “If you don’t like what I wear I promise not to go.”

“Ha ha.” He turned on the radio, then took off his jacket. Then he began dancing around the room, doing his “buh buh buh buh” sounds, moving his arms and shoulders widely, bending at the waist sometimes but barely moving his hips and taking tiny steps with his feet. Ignoring her the whole time.

She had a bottle of California Burgundy she’d opened earlier in the evening. She got it from the kitchen with a second glass for him, left his glass on the desk, filled it, then her own, and stretched out on her side on the bed, watching him. When the song ended and the commercial began he stood in the position he’d been in, waiting for the next one, which he began dancing to when it came on. She sipped her wine and kept watching him, at once anxious
and lazy. He stopped to drink his wine at one gulp and pour another, then go back to his dancing.

“Too hot in here.”

He took off his shirt.

He was sweating from the dancing, but it was also true that he used any opportunity to display his torso, which she had often admired.

“Aren’t your pants too warm?” she teased. He took them off and folded them neatly over a chair back. They were army pants; he never wore jeans, which he associated with the hippies he despised. (He’d once told her in all seriousness that dope should be kept from the hippies because it was too good for them.) He wore old-fashioned boxer shorts, which always seemed strange. His legs were hairy and very muscular. She was getting more and more excited as she watched him but she was afraid to let him know because he was always most turned on when she was least interested in him. She put down the glass of wine and closed her eyes. At first he didn’t seem to notice; he just kept dancing. She peeked at him through almost closed lids; he had an erection. His dancing had excited him as much as it had her. She closed her eyes again, trying to look relaxed although her heart was pounding. After a while he came over and stood next to the bed. He put one foot up on the bed—on the far side of her body, so that when he nuzzled her with his foot and she opened her eyes she was looking at his erect penis.

“Mmmmm,” she murmured, closing her eyes again. “I’m sooo sleepy.”

He jostled her with his foot again so that she opened her eyes again.

“What the hell you been doin’ that you’re so tired?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just the wine.”

“Has
he
been here?”

“Sure. He’s still here. Under the bed.”

This time he kicked her and she grabbed his foot and then they were tussling and he was down on her, she fighting hard because she knew it only turned him on.

They made love and it was the way it had been at the beginning, the music and the “buh buh buh buh” and the changing position slightly until he touched some spot that made her moan and then whispering with a kind of vengeful satisfaction, “You like that, huh?”

It was getting light out when he went home. He’d never come but she was exhausted and didn’t mind his stopping. She asked why he didn’t stay and they could go directly to his mother’s. He asked if she was crazy, thinking he could go there like
this,
without changing into decent clothes.

“I thought you looked pretty decent,” she said. Smiling. She felt very loving toward him but knew she must be careful about showing it.

“Not for a party.” He was Emily Post and she’d written a particularly dumb letter to the paper. “Maybe you better show me what you’re gonna wear.”

“Don’t worry,” she promised. “I’ll look respectable.”

But when he left she lay awake worrying, for the first time, about what she would wear. Was she supposed to try to look respectable? Pretty? Sexy? She’d assumed she would wear one of her regular dresses, the dresses she wore to school, or when she went out with James. Maybe the bright green one, if she were feeling gay. It wasn’t just a question of what to wear, she realized, it was
who
she was supposed to
be!
She hadn’t thought about the party—as much, she saw now, out of the fear that if she thought about it too much she would chicken out of going, as for any other reason. Tony would never forgive her if she didn’t go, which just added another dimension to her anxiety. If she didn’t go he would disappear—and maybe beat her up first. Nights of good sex like this made it harder to think of not seeing him.

So. She was going because she had to. She would wear the green dress. But it was very tailored, not really dressy at all. All
her clothing was tailored. They were Italians; when her mother’s side of the family had parties they got dressed up like flocked wallpaper. The men wore suits and the women wore crepe and taffeta and velvet as well as enough necklaces and earrings to stock a medium-sized jewelry store. She didn’t even have jewelry to make the green dress fancier! She had never owned a piece of jewelry. Maybe she would get up early in the morning and hunt around in some of the little neighborhood stores that were open on Sundays for some jewelry. That was what she would do. Except they weren’t open early on Sundays. Oh, well, it was too late to be up really early, anyway. Late morning would do it.

She ended up buying a strand of turquoise beads and some gold earrings. Then, at one o’clock in the afternoon as she began her dash back to shower and change because Tony had told her to be ready at two, she popped breathlessly into a wild little boutique on Eighth Street that had clothes she admired but had never even considered buying, and bought, without trying it on, a slinky-silky black dress with a low, ruffled neckline and long sleeves. It was totally unlike anything she’d ever worn and cost eighty dollars (she had never spent more than twenty-five dollars for a dress). At home she spread the dress and jewelry out on the bed, showered, tried on the dress and looked at herself in the mirror. It fit her as if it had been made to order but she found herself frightened because she looked not like herself but some strange, slutty female she would make it a point not to know. She hung up the dress and put on the green one. Tony arrived at two thirty, took one look at her and said, “That’s what you wear to a party?”

“My dressy dresses are at the cleaner,” she said.

“Boy, that’s great,” he said. “You’re a genius.”

He went to the closet, threw open the door and almost immediately found the black dress.

“What’s this?”

Wearily she took it from him, took off the green dress, put it on. Let him zip up the back. Stood back while he scrutinized her.

“Pull up the neckline a little,” he said. “You look like a whore.” Her face burning, she obeyed. “And change your shoes.”