Seventh Avenue (52 page)

“I don’t think my specialty would be of interest to you,” Mitch said. “It bores hell out of everybody, including Terry.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Give me some credit.”

“Oh, you’re a marvelous wife. The best I could have hoped for.” He turned to Jay and added with a hint of passing on confidential information: “She always knocks herself. Thinks she doesn’t put out enough, but that’s because she gives so much.”

Jay polished off his drink rapidly and waited, she thought, for a lead from her, but she was unable to provide it.

“I wish I could say the same thing about my wife.”

“Oh, come on, you’re kidding. Everybody at the country club’s been talking about nothing else since you had lunch with her. Even the headwaiter think’s she’s a knockout. He dropped his menus when she walked in,” Mitch said, giggling like an errant schoolboy.

“Well, if he can support her, he can have her with my compliments.”

“Don’t make that offer around Park Knoll; somebody might take you up on it. A few of them might even be prepared to bid. When’s she coming back?”

“In about two weeks.”

“So you’re a lone wolf on the loose.”

“You’re not suggesting that Jay ought to fool around,” Terry said.

“Of course I am,” Mitch replied, “Only not here.”

He laughed, and Terry and Jay joined him uncomfortably. If it went on much longer, she’d have to tell him. Perhaps that’s what Jay intended. You shoot a lame horse to put it out of its agony.

“It’s healthy for a man to have a fling now and then.”

“Does that apply to a woman as well?” Jay asked.

“In some cases.”

“
Which ones?” he continued, unable to prevent himself from being
drawn in.

“
I’m not sure. I’m afraid I’d relate that to a woman’s physical condition. If she wasn’t able to have children for instance. Then there’d
be no danger. It would only boil down to such nonmedical factors as
loyalty and love. Abstractions.
With a man, it’s all so simple, so
superficial.
He doesn’t have to feel very much, except a biological
need. With a
woman,
it’s a total commitment . . .”

“
Must you go on and
on .
. .” Terry interjected.

“
Sorry,” said Mitch, and from the
sad,
empty look in his gray eyes,
Jay thought he was sorry. He seemed older than thirty-five. Perhaps
it was the way he parted his hair, unevenly on the left side so that
the crown stood up in the back, or the understanding bedside manner
he had to assume. In a
way,
he was nice-looking, but he had a
weak,
pliable mouth
that
gave him the appearance of someone docile and
house-trained. His eyes watered a bit behind his tortoiseshell glasses,
and Jay realized that Terry had embarrassed him.

“
My fault,” he said almost in defense of Mitch. “I asked the
question.”

“
Don’t be silly,” Mitch responded quickly, unwilling to accept Jay
as a defender.

“
Maybe we’re all hungry,” Terry said to relieve the tension
that
had begun to hang on the warm summer air. She would’ve liked to
say to Jay: Either do
it
or keep quiet, but don’t play around. She
didn’t want to be left to put out a fire he had started.

Dinner was uneventful. They gossiped about a number of people
Jay didn’t know, discussed golf handicaps, whether Florida
tans
were
better than Cape Cod’s, and Jay’s business success, which Mitch
found even more fascinating than the orange soufflé
that
he had
allowed to get cold. Terry was calmer over coffee, for whatever she
had expected to happen seemed to have died as suddenly and as
quixotically as a summer storm. They were over the hump - in limbo - she thought. Jay would go, and Mitch would forget about him until they ran into each other at Park Knoll. A superficial bonhomie
might emerge over a drink, but the status quo would not be disturbed.

Mitch poured Jay a large Rémy Martin with his coffee and then
settled back in his armchair, which faced the stone fireplace, the only
new feature in the room. Jay allowed himself to relax; he had achieved
his purpose and seen Terry. Mitch wouldn’t give him any more uncomfortable
nights.
He’d work out some kind of arrangement with
Eva, and nature would take its course. Jay swallowed his brandy
and tried to move his glass away when Mitch came over with
the bottle,
but Mitch poured him another snifter.

“
I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Jay said. “And you’ve probably
got a busy day tomorrow, right, Mitch?”

“
Not that busy. You don’t have to run, do you? My father was a
lot like you. He came over from Ireland at the turn of the century.
Settled in Boston with the rest of the Micks, even though he was from
Northern Ireland and hated the church. In some way or another he
managed to get into
a bank
as a messenger and by the time he died he
was vice-president.
Funny, the way he was so insistent on education.
Sent me to the best schools - Andover, Harvard, forced me to become a doctor.”

“
You did like studying medicine,” Terry said.

“
I would’ve preferred doing what Jay did. I’m just a trained technician. He’s
the pirate,
the romantic figure, the man who has had
none of the important advantages and who carries off the booty. I
mean,
if we were both young and Terry had to pick one of us, which
one would she choose? I’m sure it’d be you.”

“
You’re jumping to conclusions, Mitch,” Jay said awkwardly. He
couldn’t believe that Mitch knew about them.

“
Well, she did pick a man over me once. I wonder what
happened .
. .”

“
Don’t be such an idiot! You’ve had too much to drink . . .” Terry
was on her feet, her face drawn and cherry red.

“
Maybe you’ll pay me the compliment of being honest?”

“
About what?” Jay said, even though Mitch had spoken to Terry.

“
Well, for Christ’s sake, this little evening wasn’t supposed to wind
up in a game of charades. You came over to say something to me, so
let’s get it over.”

“
You seem to be pretty well-informed,” Terry said, sinking into
the sofa next to Jay.

“
Private affairs are public knowledge in a small community, and
the two of you haven’t exactly been discreet.”

“
You’re wrong,” Terry said.

“
Let’s try to work out a
compromise .
. . I’m prepared to allow
Terry to have her little love life with you, provided she continues as
my wife and looks after the children. Because that’s it, isn’t it? All
that’s between
you .
. . going to bed!”

“
Not entirely,” Jay said. His face was contorted in anger.

“
You seem shocked by the suggestion. I thought you might react
that way because basically philanderers are hypocrites - cheap,
phony, sentimental, gutless puritans - who want to believe they’ve
got some decency.”

Jay made a lunge for Mitch, but Mitch turned his back.

“
I’m not going to risk an injury in a fight with somebody like you
over a woman like Terry. Take her, she’s yours. You can pack your
bags tonight and shack up in some motel. And when
you’re together,
try
to tell each other that it isn’t sex that draws you together.”

“
It’s not!” Terry shouted.

“
You don’t have to convince me,” Mitch replied. “Convince yourself. Or better still, him!”

Rhoda stood by the rail as the horses lined up at the starting gate.
The wind from the track blew her hair, but the day was
warm,
and
the field behind the tote board seemed unreal. She had never seen
grass quite so green. Sports handed her a hot dog, and she wolfed it
down in two bites.

“
I don’t like the clubhouse much.”

“
It’s better standing up here where you can see everything. Who’d
you bet on?”

“
The light bay: number nine.”

She looked it up on the program. “Regis. It’s six to one on the
tote. Did you bet much?”

“
A grand. The jockey plays poker with a friend of
mine
and said
they were going to give the pony a bang!”

“
A thousand dollars!” She couldn’t conceive of anyone betting such
a huge
sum on
the
outcome
of a horse race.
“That
means if you win
it
’ll be six thousand dollars.”

“
Three thousand. The odds work in multiples of two.” He nibbled
his hot dog abstractedly, his eyes darted from number to number as
he studied the changing odds on the tote, and his body tensed like a
greyhound’s when the starting bell rang and the automatic gates
clanged.

“
C’mon baby,” he chanted. “Don’t break yet.”

“
How long is the race?”

“Seven furlongs. I want her to break at the five-furlong post because the front runner’ll die by then.”

The horse broke at the fourth furlong post and tore out in front of the two horses vying for the lead. By the sixth furlong Regis was five lengths ahead and increasing her lead.

“Go, go, go, go, Regis,” Rhoda screamed, caught in a frenzy of excitement. She seized hold of Sports’ hand and squeezed it with all her strength until he forced her to release it. “We’ve won, we’ve won.”

“Take it easy, Rho. They gotta make an official announcement and the judge has to look at the photo.”

A voice over the loudspeaker said: “The judges have examined the photograph, and the Winner is Regis; second, Kelly Green; third, My Baby; fourth, Heaven Sent.”

Numbers on the tote changed magically, and Rhoda pointed to it: “It’s seven dollars and fifty cents for
win.”

“That’s better than I thought. Thirty-seven seventy-five. Thank God they didn’t do a saliva test.”

“How do you do it so fast?”

“It’s my business, Rhoda. Percentages. I’m an engineer: angles and curves.”

She guffawed delightedly and threw her arms around him. He pecked her on the cheek, studied his program over her shoulder and patted her behind with his free hand.

“You bring me luck.”

“Do I?” She was desperate for compliments, and she repeated: “I really do?”

“Sure you do. I broke the jinx with you. A few more of these and
I
’m on my way to the top. Latkin gets his two grand and then . . .”

“What then?”

“We’ll see, huh?”

“Who’s Latkin?”

“A furrier who does some shylocking. Got a great business. When I’ve got maybe twenty big ones, I go into the same business. No headaches. Loan some other fall guys bread at a hundred percent interest per week and we’re on easy street.”

By the end of the afternoon, Sports was jubilant and Rhoda in a state of bemused shock. He had won twelve thousand dollars and on the strength of it he proposed marriage. As they walked back to the
car, a canary yellow Chevrolet convertible, she had a queasy feeling
in her stomach.

“
But what about Neal? Shouldn’t we wait till he comes back
from camp?”

“
That’s another seven weeks and means I can’t move into the apartment, ‘cause you want everything should be nice and respectable.
And when he comes back, it’s liable to embarrass him. You wouldn’t
like him to be at the ceremony?”

“
No, not really. It’s just that . . .”

“
If you don’t care for me, that’s another matter!”

“
You know I do. I wouldn’t be sleeping with you if I didn’t care.”

“
Then what’s stopping us? Tell me that, huh?”

“
It’ll take a few days for the license and blood tests.”

“
Why wait? Listen, we jump into the car and shoot down to Maryland, grab a judge and he marries us on the spot. Pronto. And on the
way, we catch the Phillies in Philadelphia for
the night
game with
Chicago
,
and we stay overnight. And Baltimore in the morning.”