Making Love (22 page)

“The sofa will do me fine. I'll catch the nine-o'clock plane to Saranac and by then I'll have a clear picture of why you wanted to leave.”
 

“He's also my faculty adviser,” Jane said quickly to Sonny who was inching up on the ottoman. “Did you get my address from Conlon?”
 

“With difficulty, I might say.” She'd begun to lie, and Alan was slowly easing her over a barrel.
 

“You two are friends?” Sonny inquired, innocently. There were too many threads to gather. “Lookit, maybe you should make some coffee, so we can talk.”
 

She turned to the kitchen, aware that disaster was right over her shoulder, and numbly searched for a plan to disarm Sonny and remove Alan from her premises. Piping-hot Maxim and Sara Lee banana cake appeared on the coffee table.
 

“I think we can work something out,” Alan said brightly. With sinking heart, Jane watched them shake hands.
 

“What I've got in mind is really straightforward....”
 

“Since when have you become straightforward?” Sonny's ears perked up, and he leaned forward waiting for a revelation. “It's the old academic hard line, Sonny.”
 

“Familiar with it, Jane.”
 

Alan sipped his coffee reflectively. “The thing is, Mr. Jackson, no one's looking to trick Jane into anything. If she wants to quit, she can, of course, or take a leave of absence. I'm only an emissary from the dean who simply wants her to do it properly. Clarify the situation. Get the university off the book, in a manner of speaking.”
 

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Sonny said.
 

“Not to me, it doesn't.”
 

“He's bein' reasonable, Jane, and you aren't.”
 

“Sonny, it's my life, my way of doing things, so don't interfere.”
 

“That the way you feel, I'm rackin' in.”
 

He lifted his banana cake from the plate and moved as daintily as two hundred and ten pounds and a flowered peignoir would allow, toward the bedroom.
 

“You stay here on the couch,” he said. “Jane gives you any trouble, you can use my place.”
 

“Thanks very much, Mr. Jackson. I can see that Jane has found a rational adult to guide her.”
 

“Don't mention it.”
 

Sonny closed the door.
 

“It wasn't too hard to persuade him to leave,” Alan said.
 

She wondered if there weren't something to the remark. Had Sonny made an effort to misunderstand their relationship? It irritated her, this habit of his, choosing to ignore whatever appeared complicated and could not be settled by force. He resisted any attempt to get under the surface.
 

“That's some animal you've got for yourself.”
 

“And you've got a goddamn nerve breaking in here.”
 

“Can we moderate our voices, or else we'll have your friend back. And you don't want that, either.”
 

“Alan, what made you come? It's all over.”
 

“I wanted to hear it from you.”
 

She didn't like the way he confused her, made her apply to herself feelings of guilt that didn't rightly belong to him.
 

“Look, I'm tired.” He didn't budge, opened his briefcase, and brought out a water pipe and block of hash.
 

“Want to smoke some?”
 

“You're really crazy.”
 

“Despondent is more like it. I've been in the men's room at Grand Central station and smoking there isn't as simple as you might think.”
 

“I don't want you to smoke here.”
 

“Why didn't you have the decency to tell me you were going....?”
 

“I didn't think you rated it.”
 

“Nice to know where I stand. I still want you back.”
 

“Alan, you're repeating yourself.”
 

“Didn't I make you happy at all ... even once?” She didn't like his pleading tone and was suspicious of it. “I love you, Jane.”
 

“Have you found out about my money?”
 

“I knew about it before I met you.”
 

“Alan, you're a user. Most people are, but you're so obvious about it.”
 

“You've got a fucking nerve saying that to me.” He got up and she thought he was going to strike her and she flinched. “Sitting there with your cunt shaved. Was that for the abortion? You know I had something to say about it!”
 

“I didn't want it.”
 

“Because it was mine?”
 

He was close to tears, and she had a vague sense of regret.
 

“Partly, I guess. It's three in the morning and I'm tired.”
 

“Your friend give you a workout. Don't you ever stop fucking?”
 

“You and I fucked, he and I make love.”
 

“That's a nice tidy distinction coming from you. You wouldn't really know the difference. Look, I put myself and my job on the line for you.”
 

“Always a convincing argument. You were horny and I was available. Maybe a better lay than most, maybe not.”
 

“You were great, Jane. The best, a straight A. Is it just a case of being promiscuous?”
 

She lit a cigarette, rubbed the corners of her eyes and hoped he'd disappear. But he loomed ahead, making small concentric circles in front of Mrs. Burke's fireplace. A lot of people had probably done the same thing in the sad little apartment.
 

“I want to live my life without accounting to anyone.”
 

“Don't you start that kind of editorializing shit with me.”
 

“Your jacket sleeve's torn.”
 

“Well, why doesn't little Miss Fixit get her sewing basket out?”
 

“Listen, Alan this isn't getting us anywhere.”
 

“No, it's not,” he admitted, then held her face in his hands. “Jane, does he make you come?”
 

“Everyone does.”
 

His hands fell to his sides and he took a deep breath to control his shaking.
 

“You've always been horribly candid. So, I guess it's true,” he said wearily. “Want to give me a fast blow job to remember you by and send me merrily on my way?”
 

He reached toward her, and she suddenly felt disgusted, and angrier than she'd ever been. As he touched her hand, she picked up a large ashtray and hit him across the side of his face. He took the blow silently, and small drops of blood dripped from his earlobe. He made no attempt to staunch the bleeding but walked past her, rapped on the bedroom door, and brought Sonny wrapped in a blanket to his feet.
 

“What's the matter, Professor? She won't listen? I'll have a talk with her.”
 

“I've decided to leave now, so I won't have the pleasure of seeing you tomorrow.”
 

“You can stay here or my joint,” Sonny said.
 

“Thanks anyway.”
 

Jane, shaking and close to tears, waited for him to come out. She took hold of his sleeve, but he ignored her.
 

“That was the first manly thing you've done since I've known you,” she said.
 

“What was that?”
 

“Keeping your mouth shut.”
 

“Not everyone wants to hurt you.”
 

“I've never felt closer to you, Alan. I'm really sorry.”
 

“As far as I'm concerned you've taken a leave of absence. I didn't mean to say...”
 

She went back to the bedroom, and a wave of exhaustion came over her like a chill on a summer afternoon after a sweat from playing tennis. She'd go into the tennis hut with her mother to towel off and have a Coke while Nancy began the ritual of mixing cocktails. James Harmon Siddley would saunter down the large green expanse of never-ending lawn, playfully swinging a wedge in his right hand, and join the two girls for a drink, mop Jane's brow with a cool towel, and smile sweetly at the sun in the perfectly ordered universe of their lives. Had she dreamed it all?
 

Sonny bit the small nub of a pencil as he handicapped horses for the next day. A shark's fin of black-gray light came through the window, and Jane swung her legs under the rumpled sheets.
 

“I stopped believing in my parents when I was fourteen,” she said.
 

“Really? Well, Jane, when I was fourteen my old man was a numbers runner in Sarasota and my mother was workin' at a dance studio in Miami, givin' old guys with false teeth mambo lessons and screwin' anything that'd pay her ten bucks. So you got an edge. When I played in the Sugar Bowl I got her a dozen tickets that I scrounged from anybody I could and she sold them outside the stadium like a scalper and got herself a suite at the Roosevelt Hotel, a case of Wild Turkey, and bent her ass for any guy the bellhop could find that wanted a piece.”
 

“Good night, Sonny.”
 

“It's been the happiest Sunday of my life, even when I was playin'.”
 

The pure ecstasy of chaos engulfed her and she fell asleep immediately.
 

 

 

 

Here Comes the Sun King

 

 

The center of Kew Gardens still maintains the quiet waywardness of a village. It is hilly, populated by small shops—chains have expanded elsewhere—and Jane always enjoyed going home with Conlon. In the center, opposite the train station, stands the Homestead Hotel in solitary decaying grandeur. Its back rooms face the Long Island Railroad and the faint though inconsistent thunder of trains can be heard throughout the village, and especially well from any part of the hotel. As they passed, Conlon said:
 

“I never told you, but I had my first affair there when I was sixteen. Married man, too. I guess that's my destiny, going to bed with other women's husbands.”
 

“There are worse things,” Jane said.
 

“Like what?”
 

She was on the point of saying disloyalty between friends, but caught herself. It wouldn't erase the mortifying scene with Alan. Christ, couldn't Conlon keep her mouth shut and stop interfering? Obviously she'd acted in Jane's best interests; she herself was responsible for not having taken Conlon into her confidence. For the moment, she let it drop, noticing that Conlon was going through her Irish blues, a phrase that covered everything from menstrual discomfort to the destruction of freedom in America.
 

“Jane, something's very wrong ... it's so bad that I can't even cry about it.”
 

No one, least of all Jane, could deny Conlon's talent for melodrama, and Jane felt a bit irritated, looking forward to a quiet turkey dinner with the Conlons
en famille.
She'd been in touch with her father and he hadn't let her down. He stopped in New York to change planes on his way to Palm Beach. He called from the airport—or rather his broker had, to say that Jim would be coming to the phone in a minute, and could she hold on. Apparently there'd been some confusion with his golf bag. Jim sounded strained when he spoke, avoided the subject of golf, and extended a halfhearted invitation for her to join him. Relieved that she turned him down—she'd only cramp his style—he then got onto the precarious subject of her health, which meant only one thing, and she went out of her way to reassure him that she was fine. A lost man, frightened of bad news, in search of a fairway.
 

“My abortion was terrific. In fact it was sensational. One of the best abortions any girl ever had. The doctor was a humanitarian. In fact he was a cross between Albert Schweitzer and Christiaan Barnard. A fun guy, but with feeling. In his spare time, he teaches Good Humor drivers how to make change.”
 

Jim didn't understand, but accepted his daughter's frivolity as a sign of good spirits and the superb recuperative powers passed onto her by his wife. She could find him at the Everglades if anything came up. No golf this time, maybe just a friendly round at The Breakers. He needed to relax after the tour grind. She agreed that sailing was just what the doctor ordered. His plane was called. Any message for the broker? He'd decided to unload some of his common stocks and go into Double-A bonds and advised Jane to do the same thing. She told him she'd think about it. Yes, she loved her apartment and Nancy knew where to get hold of her, but so far hadn't. She ended the conversation.
 

“Listen, Dad, this call is costing you a fortune.”
 

For a moment, he was disoriented. All airports and all countries were the same to him.
 

“I never know when to take you seriously.” In the background she heard the broker yakking frantically, a commission at stake. “Bye, and please keep in touch.” The phone went dead and Jane stared at the receiver, wondering if she'd had a conversation or had absentmindedly picked it up and forgotten whom she wanted to call.
 

Alongside her, a truck jockeyed for position and Conlon shouted:
 

“Look out, will you. I don't want to die in Kew Gardens.”
 

“It wasn't my fault.”