“I didn’t mean it to sound rude. I just didn’t know you were such a close friend.”
“I wasn’t. Mick trusted me. She knew that. Maybe people have to have somebody to talk to or write to. A sounding board. I didn’t hear from her at all while she was married to Trescott.”
“Poor Teddy,” she said. I could see her thinking it over. She nodded to herself. “Yes, I guess it would be nice to be able to just spill everything to somebody who… wouldn’t talk about it and who’d… maybe write back and say everything would be all right.” She tilted her head and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You see, she wasn’t ever really a whole person again after Daddy died. They were so very close, in everything, sometimes it would make Maurie and me feel left out. They had so many little jokes we didn’t understand. And they could practically talk to each other without saying a word. Alone she was… a displaced person. Married to Teddy, she was still alone, really. If being able to write to you made her feel… a little less alone… then I’m sorry I acted so stupid about it.” Her eyes were shiny with tears and she blinked them away and looked down into her glass as she sipped her drink.
“I don’t blame you. It’s upsetting to have a stranger know the family problems. But I don’t exactly go around spreading the word.”
“I know you wouldn’t. I just can’t understand why… she had to have such a hellish year. Maybe life evens things up. If you’ve been happier than most, then…” She stopped and widened her eyes as she looked at me with a kind of direct suspicion. “Problems. About Maurie too?”
“Trying to kill herself? Not the details. Just that she was very upset about it and couldn’t understand it.”
“Nobody can understand it!” She spoke too loudly and then she tried to smile. “Honestly, Mr…. Travis, this has been such a… such a terrible…”
I saw that she was beginning to break, so I dropped a bill on the table and took her just above the elbow and walked her out. She walked fragile and I took a short cut across the greenery and through a walkway to 109. I unlocked it and by the time I pulled the door shut behind us, she had located the bath, and went in a blundering half-trot toward it, making big gluey throat-aching sobbing sounds, “Yah-awr, Yah-awr!” slammed the door behind her. I could hear the muffled sounds for just a moment and then they ended, and I heard water running.
I went down to the service alcove and scooped the bucket full of miniature cubes and bought three kinds of mix out of the machine. I put some Plymouth on ice for myself, drew the thinner, semiopaque drapery across the big windows, and found Walter Cronkite on a colorcast speaking evenly, steadily, reservedly of unspeakable international disasters. I sat in a chair-thing made of black plastic, walnut, and aluminum, slipped my shoes off, rested crossed ankles on the corner of the bed, and sipped as I watched Walter and listened to doom.
When she came shyly out, I gave her a very brief and indifferent glance and gestured toward the countertop and said, “Help yourself.”
She made herself a drink and went over to a straight chair and turned it toward the set. She sat, long legs crossed, holding her glass in both hands, taking small sips and watching Walter.
When he finished, I went over and punched the set off, went back and sat this time on the bed, half-facing her.
“Getting any painting done?”
She shrugged. “I try. I fixed it up over the boathouse into sort of a studio.” She made a snuffling hiccupy sound. The flesh around her eyes was pink, a little bit puffed. “Thanks for the rescue job, Trav. Very efficient.” Her smile was wan. “So you know about the painting too.”
“Just that it was your thing a couple of years ago. I didn’t know if you still kept at it.”
“From what I’m getting lately, I should give up. I can’t really spend as much time on it as I want to. But… first things first. By the way, what did you want to talk to Maurie about?”