How Long Has This Been Going On (19 page)

"What happens if I go on reading?"

"You will learn about life."

Lois, on strike, dropped the pages onto the floor.

"But it's not my job as a writer to make you happy," Elaine explained. "It's my job to make you think."

"The lawyer's out of your life now, no? You're back at Jill's, whether I like it or not."

"You have to understand how it felt at the time. For me, for a woman. And for us."

"How about understanding how I might feel reading this?"

"Yet read on."

"Don't you
ever
talk like anyone else?"

"Never. Why would you wish me to?"

Lois snorted.

"Read," Elaine urged. "Find out."

"What happens?" asked Lois dangerously.

"I strongly regret that dark look," said Elaine, sitting next to Lois to hold her and lean against her and press her, head to head, almost rocking her. "Don't be angry yet," Elaine cooed.

Lois retrieved the story and read on, with Elaine still weighing against her. The appetitive lawyer made advances to his secretary, and Lois stopped reading.

"Why does it have to be about you?" she complained.

"Some fiction is necessary," said Elaine, picking her head up.

"Am I in it?" "No fiction is complete."

"Does the secretary give in? Is that what happened, in fact?"

"We must read to discover."

Lois grimly read three more pages, and when the lawyer and the secretary left work for the rendezvous—"an overbuilt hotel with a turret," Elaine had written, "reserved, she fancied, for the most adulterous, the most disgraced, the most hungry, and the least denied"—Lois threw the pages into the air and jumped up to visit the kitchen. There she banged around with the Savarin and the percolator, a certain sign that she was angry.

After some while, Elaine appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Somehow," she said, "I pictured you reading doggedly to the end."

Lois, buttering toast, said nothing at first. Then she put down the knife—carefully, like a hostess whose tea is going badly—turned to Elaine, and asked, "What are you telling me here? Something about men and dicks? Answer straight!"

"I don't need their fucking," Elaine replied, also carefully. "But I need to wonder about it."

"Wondering's okay. But writing it isn't."

"Writing
is
wondering."

Lois grunted and turned back to the toast.

"Is that our afternoon coffee and toast?" Elaine asked.

"I
feel,"
Lois said, "that it should be coffee for one."

"In that big percolator?" Elaine glided up behind Lois and embraced her. "Don't be angry at me for being honest, I beg you," Elaine urged. "Don't freeze me out for airing our worries."

"They're not my worries, Miss."

"We share worries. We share work. We share perceptions."

"Never in a hundred years will I get used to how you talk," said Lois, her body relaxing in Elaine's arms. Going with it, Elaine nuzzled Lois's ear and said, "You released the madcap in me."

Lois put down the knife and let Elaine work on her, arching her back and then pulling off her sweater so that Elaine could finger her breasts, working her way from the bottom of the globes to the tip of the nipples with a slow, confident pull. Lois breathed in rhythm with Elaine's touch, and gasped at the high points, so it was a bit like trashy music, some Broadway tango or something.

"Oh, it's so much easier to quarrel with a woman," said Elaine, finally. "Men scream at you, but with a woman it's a little grumbling and then caresses." "Tell me how the story ends."

"It's avant-garde for 1951. They gain the turret room, but the sex is terrible, and there is an earthquake and the hotel collapses, and only the turret is left intact. The couple is amazed, three stories high, nude in the clouds. It's a wee bit symbolic, you see."

"Did that happen?"

"The earthquake?"

"The sex."

It must have been a whole minute before Elaine moved to the stove, turned the heat off under the percolator, then poured them cups of coffee. Handing Lois hers, Elaine said, "It happened to someone, surely."

"Stop," said Lois. "What's the title of this story?"

"The title of this story is 'Ambivalence.'"

I'm not worried about the girls; this looks to me like Love for Life. But in fairness I must report that it was not long after this confrontation that Lois got stomach cramps one evening, packed it in at Jill's, and came home to find Elaine on the couch with an unknown man.

Oh, they were fully dressed and just sitting there; but all the same Lois went nuclear, screaming and cursing and running to the kitchen for a weapon all at once. She came out with a rolling pin—remember those? the woman's baseball bat—but by then the man was out the door and headed for the hills, so Lois kept yelling at Elaine and then threw the rolling pin at the wall so hard it broke.

Lois is tough, loving, absolutely honest and reliable, humorless, bossy, incredibly sensualistic behind closed doors, and a totally supportive guy: but right now all she is is
mad.
She wants to tear at Elaine for all her affected, fruity airs, just rip her right down from her stage; but something holds Lois back. "Who was that?" she cries, spitting the words out. "You tell me, and now and here! You
speak to me!"

Elaine is quick, doing those hand things with the palms down and the fingers splayed, the calm-down things. "Our neighbor, borrowing a cup of sugar?"

This is not a calming thing to say, however, and Lois screams, "God
damn
you to
hell!"

Elaine, it's serious. But she pursues her line of defense:

"My long-lost brother, with the long-awaited concessive message from crabby Aunt Sally?"

Lois, by now absolutely blazing, takes a step forward that is meant to threaten.

"The pumpkin man?" Elaine suggests.

"You
Judas!"
Lois shouts, not advancing now but backing away, in tears. "
Get out!"
She screams.
"Pack up!
It's
enough!
Do you hear me? It's
over!
It's
over!
It's
over!
It's
over!"

Elaine stands there, takes this in, and says, "I used to be ashamed of my body. All women are, I think, no matter how beautiful they may be. How... supple. Firm. The skin tone. So strong and sweet. But ashamed. I'd blush at the very mention of the word 'body.' What it... what it brings up. All women. You wonder. It's something they do to us. Men aren't ashamed—hairy, rumbling things on the beach. Some fat horror passes a sleek and trim young one of us and he grins at her. He has no shame of what he is. Somehow they're idols and we're freaks. My husband stamped the house naked, but I always had to be wrapped in something, like a ballerina.

"But I don't—no, listen, I don't
feel
that with you, Lois. That shame. I won't be wrapped. The way you make love to me tells me that we both are lovely, that our bodies are wonderful. Your eyes, Lois. Your touch. You drink me in. My husband... Well, he... You redeem me. You turn me free. You make of me an explosion of feeling that is amazing, and ecstatic, and virtuous. This is the only honest, plain speech I've made in my life, and I hope you appreciate that."

Lois had stopped crying. "What about ambivalence?" she asked.

"That's all in my head. My art, ha. In what little I can admit of reality, there is only you."

Lois took a deep breath, nodded, asked, "So who's the pumpkin man?"

"Oh, you know the old song:

Do you know the pumpkin man,

The pumpkin man,

The pumpkin man?

Do you know the pumpkin man

Who dwells in Shady Lane?"

Lois—stunned and admiring and stubborn and thrilled—got out, "I don't know that song."

* * *

Frank had had one of those unpredictable days: He and Jake showed up for a haul from San Gabriel to Inglewood to find that the contract had found a more attractive lease two blocks away, and the whole thing was over in less than two hours. So Frank lost some money but gained some free time, and even at the mature age of twenty-four that can't be such a bad thing.

Feeling light and humorous, Frank stopped the van at the donut place near Cahuenga that Jack Cleery had said had the best whole-wheats in L.A. Frank handpicked an assortment box and sneaked into Larken's to surprise him and found him and Todd lying in bed as wrapped as a burrito, wet and hot and just sliding down from their climax.

Now, this is strange: because all that Frank felt then was relief. It was as if he'd been carrying a great weight on his back without knowing that it was there, and suddenly it was lifted off him. He was laughing as he tossed the box of donuts onto the bed, and he winked at Larken and said, "Yeah, me, too."

Then Frank went into the living room and sat and waited. Todd would pass by, presumably, as soon as he got dressed—no, here comes Todd
carrying
his clothes; but that's crazy Todd. "Got to run," said Todd, as if scurrying out of a party. "I'm late for my malted."

"Right," said Frank.

Larken followed presently, dressed and miserable.

"I never did that before," he said.

Frank patted the sofa. "Come over here."

Larken didn't move. "To make up?" he asked, his voice so unsteady that Frank felt a surge of guilt for what he was about to do.

"Just come over here, okay?"

Larken sat next to Frank, tense and wary, though he melted when Frank put his arms around him. In fact, he wept. He said, "Don't, Frank. Please..."

"We're going to split up, Larky."

"Frank,
no.
Not because of this!"

"Of course not because of this." Larken frantically shaking his head, Frank trying to soothe him, chuckling, feeling easy. "But think about it, my friend. This place is too small for—no, just
listen,
Lark. You're a good listener, and you're going to hear what I say, right? Right, Larky boy? Shh. Shh, now. Listening to me, listening, Lark..."

"Frank, I
knew
you'd been with Todd all this time and I never—"

"Lark, it isn't that. I need room, and people haven't been giving it to me. Not ever in my life. I want... well, I—"

"No, Frank. Because
you
listen now." Larken rose, too anxious to sit. "I don't want to go back to being alone. I'm too used to you, and this is all I want. I don't care how many times you and Todd—"

"It's not—"

"Frank, I don't even like him!
He's just some blond sex baby.
You're
the real man that I know of!"

Frank was smiling, still free but now a bit bewildered.

"What does that
mean,
Lark?"

"It says that you've got stuff inside you Todd will never even know about!"

Larken began to sob, but as Frank rose, Larken backed away and held up a hand.

"No," Larken told him. "No emotional blackmail. I'll get over this in a second."

"Shoot, why are you always crying, Lark?" Frank asked, holding him tight but already feeling the wonderful release of going off on his own.

"I'm crying," said Larken, "because I'm afraid there's only going to be one of you in my whole life."

"Larken, you're twenty-five! There'll be... What do I have inside me that Todd won't know about?"

"Fairness. You care about other people's opinions. You stop and say to yourself, Maybe they're right."

"What's the big deal about that?"

"Frank.
You just don't see it, do you?" Another wave of tears flooded Larken's face, and Frank had to steer him into the bathroom and help him wash up, then steer him back to the couch saying sensible but unavailing things like "This would have happened eventually, anyway."

"It isn't just you who needs understanding and everything," said Larken. "I need that, too."

"But I'll go on understanding you, Lark. I just won't be around every second."

"Understanding is a round-the-clock occupation."

Frank had to laugh at that. "Come on," he said. "You'll always have me to talk to. Maybe sometimes by telephone, but so what? I'll be there, is the thing. I'm not getting rid of you—we owe too much on the vans for that."

"Very funny."

"I need to cut out and feel my strength, okay? See what I'm like as a citizen. You know... find out the reason I was put on earth."

"I know what you're like," said Larken, but Frank cut him off with a hand on his mouth.

"All my days," Frank told him, "people have been telling me what I'm like. My father says I'm a cop. The Captain told me I'm irreplaceable. The Lieutenant told me I'm promising. Todd told me I'm..." Frank stood up. "It's funny," he said. "I was going to spend the rest of the day loafing, not making life decisions."

"I'd take a shower," said Larken, "only I'm afraid you'll slip off."

"Look, I'm not escaping from you. We're just—"

"Totally dead as a couple."

That stopped Frank for a bit. But wait. "What's a couple, Lark? Do we have to sleep in the same bed to be close?"

"It's a well-known fact on the Other Side that when a guy moves out on you he vanishes forever."

"Tell me something. What do you think of Todd sexually?"

"Oh, for gosh sakes!"

"Tell me."

A pause.

Larken said, "At least he let me fuck him."

"Yeah, he's a real yes queen."

"A yes—"

"I can't invent terms? I have to take all my technicals from you and Todd?"

"Boy, if you're making up lingo, you're a practicing gay man for certain." Larken's forced smile gave way then, and he said, "Too bad we never took that photograph of ourselves for the history books. Frank... please don't go."

"Turn me loose, Larky, and we'll talk every day and run the business together and stay real close. We'll just... figure out a different kind of loving. Can we do that?"

They have to: because the sense of destiny that Frank's father had laid upon him from birth impels Frank to
do.
Frank was not put on earth, as he phrases it, to keep Larken company. Frank has bigger work in store, he believes, dog-on-quicksand work. As for Lois and Elaine, they excite our confidence. They seem to know how to shape a relationship, making the periodically necessary forgivenesses better than men do. True, Lois isn't sure what, if anything, she had to forgive in Elaine. No one knows what Elaine has done except Elaine, and she's telling stories.