“Are you still thinking about your studying?”
“Somewhat.”
“I’ll get you right back as soon as I can,” she said. “I swear I won’t keep you very long; I hesitated a long time before I called — as a matter of fact, I almost didn’t call. I hate to bother you when you’re studying.” She did not mention Gwen and he was aware of that. No doubt she had known that Gwen was out of the question.
He thought, I shouldn’t be doing this.
One afternoon, over at her place, he had happened to notice an opened bill lying on the coffee table in the living room. The bill was from a clothing store in San Rafael, for children’s dresses. The amount would have paid his and Gwen’s bills for the entire month, all of them. And this was for the girls’ clothing alone.
His income, from his part time job, and Gwen’s income from her two-day a week job in San Anselmo, added up to about two hundred dollars a month. It was barely enough for them to squeeze by on. To the Humes, two hundred dollars amounted to nothing; her psychiatrist bill, he knew, often came to more than that a month. And their heating bill — even a utility bill, he thought. One utility. The money would keep us alive. And she wants me to go over her check stubs for the month. I have to scrutinize every check. See all that money, all that waste. Things they don’t need …
One night, when he and Gwen had eaten dinner at the Humes’, he had stood by watching while Fay handed the dog a t-bone steak which she had unfrozen, along with the others, but which had not fitted onto the grill of the barbecue pit. He had asked her, trying to keep his feelings out of sight, why she simply didn’t put the uncooked, uneaten steak into the refrigerator and have it in the following day or so. Fay had stared at him and said,
“I can’t stand leftovers. Little remains in the bottoms of cups. I always throw what’s left from dinner to the dog. If he won’t eat it then it goes down the disposal.”
He had seen her put smoked oysters and artichoke hearts down the disposal; the dog did not care for either.
Aloud to her now he said, “You should keep a stub for every check you write, regardless.”
“Oh I know,” she said. “Sometimes I’m overdrawn at the bank by two or three hundred dollars. But they always put through my checks; they never send them back. They know me. They know I’m good for it. God, if they ever sent back one of my checks I’d never speak to them again; I’d raise such a ruckus there that they’d never get over it.”
“If you don’t have funds,” he said, “they ought to send the check back.”
“Why?” she said.
“Because it’s not good,” he said.
“Oh, it is good,” she said. “Don’t you know that? What do you mean, not good? Don’t you think I’m good for it?”
He gave up and relapsed into silence.
“Why so quiet?” she said.
“They put them through for you,” he said, “but if I’m overdrawn they don’t put them through. They send them back.”
“Do you know why?” Fay said.
“Why.”
She said, “Because they never heard of you.”
Turning toward her, he stared at her. But there was no malice on her face, only the cautious alertness for the road. “Well,” he said with hard irony, “that’s the price you pay for being a nonentity. For not being a big person in the community.”
“Do you know what I’ve done for this community?” Fay said. “I’ve done more for this community than anyone else; when they were trying to get rid of the Principal over at the grammar school I went down to San Rafael and got my attorney and paid him to look up the laws and see how Mr. Pans, the Principal, could be kept on in spite of the school board; we found six or seven ways.”
“Good for you,” he said.
“You bet good for me,” Fay said. “And I got the petition up and circulated it for putting in the street lights; when we moved in up here there wasn’t a single street light in Drake’s Landing. It’s unincorporated. And we did a lot to get the old firehouse torn down and the new one built.”
“Incredible,” he said.
“Why do you say that?” She shot him a brief glance.
He said, “You’ve practically made this area over singlehandedly.”
“It sounds as if you resent it.”
“I resent your making so much out of it.”
To that, she said nothing; she seemed to shrink back. But then, when she had turned the Buick into the cypress-lined driveway of their house, she said, “You know, you didn’t have to come over. I know how you feel about me; you think I’m heedless and demanding and indifferent to other people’s welfare. But I’ve done more for other people’s welfare than anybody else around here. What have you done for this area, since you moved in?” She said it all calmly, but he saw that she was upset. “Well?” she said.
I think he’s night, he thought. Charley is right about her. At least to some extent. She does have a childish quality, a sort of brashness.
Then why am I here? he asked himself.
Can’t I say no to her?
“You want to go back?” Fay said. Stopping the car she put the automatic transmission into reverse, and, with a squeal of tires, backed out of the driveway, swinging the car wildly into a turn as it reached the road. The front end missed the mailbox on its post by inches; he automatically tensed himself, waiting for the sound of metal against wood.
“I’ll drive you back,” she said, shifting into forward range and starting back down the road. “I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to do. The decision’s yours.”
He said, feeling as if he were talking to an angry child, “I don’t mind helping you with your bills.”
At that, to his surprise, she said, “I didn’t ask you to come over to help me with the bills. The hell with the bills.” Hen voice rose. “What do I care about the bills? That’s none of my business. It’s up to him to pay them, the god damn bills. Fuck the bills. I wanted you to come over because I’m lonely. Good god –” Her voice grated. “Charley’s been in the hospital for over a month and I’m going crazy sitting around the house; I’m about ready to go out of my mind. Cooped up with the kids driving me nuts! And that nutty motherfucking brother of mine. That fruit.”
She sounded so mad, so fed-up and exasperated, that he was amused. The strident clamorousness of her… it did not go with her appearance, her leanness, her slight, almost underdeveloped body. Now she had begun to cough: deep, hoarse coughs, as if a man were sitting beside him coughing, a man’s cough.
“I’ve been smoking three packs of L & Ms a day,” she informed him. “Good god, I never smoked so much in my entire life! No wonder I can’t gain any weight. God.” She said it with stunned amazement. “What do I pay that hick psychiatrist three hundred dollars a month for? That asshole…
“Calm down,” he said to her. “Drive back to your place; we’ll get the bills done, and then we’ll have a drink or a cup of coffee and then I have to get back to my studies.”
“Why didn’t you bring your books over, you asshole?” she said.
“I thought I was coming over to work.”
“God,” she said. “Good god. I never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. My goodness.” She seemed utterly floored. “I went to so much trouble to find something that wouldn’t bring that — 1926looking wife of yours along. It doesn’t bother you if I talk about your wife, does it?” Slowing the car, driving with one hand, she turned toward him, saying, “You know you’ve stimulated me even since I first laid eyes on you. Don’t you? My god, I’ve as much as told you half a dozen times. Remember that night I asked you to wrestle with me? What did you think I wanted to wrestle with you for? I was sure your wife caught on. And my god, all you did was throw me on the floor and walk off and leave me. Did you know I had a black and blue mark on my ass for a week afterward?”
To that, he said nothing; his head was swimming.
“God,” she said, more composedly, now. “I’ve never been so attracted to a man. I was attracted to both of you, you in your big old wool sweaters … where did you ever get those sweaters?” Without pausing she said, “Why do you ride a bike? Didn’t you have a bike as a child? Didn’t your family give you a bike?”