Lawrence Block - A Walk Among the Tombstones

“Besides, what right did I have to say anything? It’s not as though I didn’t know what I was getting into. Your occupation was part of the package. Where did I get off telling you to keep this and change that?”

I went to her window and looked across at Queens. Queens is the borough of cemeteries, it overflows with them, while Brooklyn has only Green-Wood.

I turned to face her and said, “Besides, I was scared to say anything. Maybe it would lead to an ultimatum, choose one or the other, quit turning tricks or I’m out of here. And suppose you didn’t pick me?

“Or suppose you did? Then what does that commit me to? Does it give you the right to tell me what you don’t like about the way I live my life?

“If you stop going to bed with clients, does that mean I can’t go to bed with other women? As it happens I haven’t been with anybody else since we started keeping company again, but I’ve always felt I had the right. It hasn’t happened, and once or twice I made a conscious choice to keep it from happening, but I didn’t feel committed to that course. Or if I did it was a secret commitment. I wasn’t about to let either of us know about it.

“What happens to our relationship? Does it mean we have to get married? I don’t know that I want to. I was married once and I didn’t much like it. I wasn’t very good at it, either.

“Does it mean we have to live together? I don’t know that I want that, either. I haven’t lived with anybody since I left Anita and the boys, and that was a long time ago. There are things I like about living alone. I don’t know that I want to give it up.

“But it eats at me, knowing you’re with other guys. I know there’s no love in it, I know there’s precious little sex in it, I know it has more in common with massage than with lovemaking. Knowing this doesn’t seem to matter.

“And it gets in the way. I called you this morning and you called back an hour later. And I wondered where you were when I called, but I didn’t ask because you might say you were with a john. Or you might not say it, and I’d wonder what you weren’t saying.”

“I was getting my hair done,” she said.

“Oh. It looks nice.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s different, isn’t it? It does look nice. I didn’t notice, I never notice, but I like it.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t know where I’m going with this,” I said. “But I figured I had to tell you how I felt, and what’s been going on with me. I love you. I know that’s a word we don’t speak, and one reason I have trouble with it is I don’t know what the hell it means. But whatever it means, it’s how I feel about you. Our relationship is important to me. In fact its importance is part of the problem, because I’ve been so afraid it would change into something I won’t like that I’ve been withholding myself from you.” I stopped for breath. “I guess that’s it. I didn’t know I was going to say that much and I don’t know if it came out right, but I guess that’s it.”

She was looking at me. It was hard to meet her gaze.

“You’re a very brave man,” she said.

“Oh, please.”

“ ‘Oh, please.’ You weren’t scared? I was scared, and I wasn’t even talking.”

“Yes, I was scared.”

“That’s what brave is, doing what scares you. Walking into those guns at the cemetery must have been a piece of cake in comparison.”

“The funny thing is,” I said, “I wasn’t that fearful at the cemetery. One thought that came to me was that I’ve lived long enough so that I don’t have to worry about dying young.”

“That must have been comforting.”

“Well, it was, oddly enough. My biggest fear was that something would happen to the girl and that it would be my fault, for doing something wrong or not taking some useful action. Once she was back with her father I relaxed. I guess I didn’t really believe anything was going to happen to me.”

“Thank God you’re all right.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Just a few tears.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“To what, to reach me emotionally? Don’t apologize.”

“All right.”

“So my mascara runs. So what.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Oh, God,” she said. “This is so embarrassing. I feel so stupid.”

“Because of a few tears?”

“No, because of what I have to say next. My turn now, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t interrupt, huh? There’s something I haven’t told you, and I feel really stupid about it, and I don’t know where to start. All right, I’ll blurt it out. I quit.”

“Huh?”

“I quit. I quit fucking, all right. My God, the look on your face. Other men, silly. I quit.”

“You don’t have to make that decision,” I said. “I just wanted to say how I felt, and—”

“You weren’t going to interrupt.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“I’m not saying I quit now. I quit three months ago. More than three months ago. Sometime before the first of the year. Maybe it was even before Christmas. No, I think there was one guy after Christmas. I could look it up.

“But it doesn’t matter. I could look it up if I ever want to celebrate my anniversary, the way you celebrate the date of your last drink, but maybe not. I don’t know.”

It was hard not saying anything. I had things to say, questions to ask, but I let her go on.

“I don’t know if I ever told you this,” she said, “but a few years ago I realized that prostitution saved my life. I’m serious about that. The childhood I had, my crazy mother, the kind of teenager I turned out to be, I think I probably would have killed myself, or found somebody to do it for me. Instead I started selling my ass, and it made me aware of my worth as a human being. It destroys a lot of girls, it really does, but it saved me. Go figure.

“I made a nice life for myself. I saved my money, I invested, I bought this apartment. Everything worked.

“But sometime last summer I started to realize that it wasn’t working anymore. Because of what we have. You and I. I told myself that was meshugga, what you and I have is in one compartment and what I do for money is way over there, but it got harder to keep the doors of the compartments shut tight. I felt disloyal, which was strange, and I felt dirty, which was something I never really felt hooking, or if I did I was never aware of it.

“So I thought, well, Elaine, you had a longer run than most of them, and you’re a little old for the game anyway. And they’ve got all these new diseases, and you’ve had a scaled-down practice the past few years anyway, and just how many executives do you figure would throw themselves out of windows if you hung it up?

“But I was afraid to tell you. For one thing, how did I know I wouldn’t want to change my mind? I figured I ought to keep my options open. And then, after I’d told all my regulars I was retired, after I sold my book and did everything but change my number, I was afraid to tell you because I didn’t know what it would do. Maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore. Maybe I’d stop being interesting, I’d just be this aging broad running around taking college courses. Maybe you’d feel trapped, like I was pressuring you into marriage. Maybe you’d want to get married, or live together, and I haven’t ever been married but then again I haven’t ever wanted to be. And I’ve lived alone ever since I got out of my mother’s house, and I’m good at it and I’m used to it. And if one of us wants to get married and the other doesn’t, then where are we?

“So that’s my dirty little secret, if you want to call it that, and I wish to God I could stop crying because I’d like to look presentable, if not glamorous. Do I look like a raccoon?”