Эд Макбейн - Snow White and Rose Red

“With chicken,” she said.

She was bustling about the kitchen now, pouring peas into a small pot from the plastic container in which she’d brought them, putting the fried chicken into a shallow pan, the potatoes into another, fiddling with the dials on the oven and the range. “Bring my drink in here, why don’t you,” she said, “so I can keep an eye on this. And come give me a kiss.”

I picked up her drink and went into the kitchen.

I handed her the drink.

“don’t forget the kiss,” she said.

I took her in my arms.

“I’m too tall, right?” she said.

“Wrong,” I said.

“This’ll be our first kiss,” she said.

“I know.”

“But it doesn’t have to be a great one, okay? Just a little smooch. We’ll save all the great ones for later, okay?”

“Okay.”

I kissed her gently.

“Nice,” she said, and smiled. “I knew I was right about you.” She sipped at the martini. “Oh, this is going to be lovely,” she said.

I listened to her, fascinated, all through dinner.

I didn’t know whether she was very stupid or very smart. Listening to her was like listening to an out-loud stream-of-consciousness monologue. She said everything that came to her mind whenever it occurred to her. She held back nothing. There was no prior censorship. Whatever was worthy of being thought was worthy of being spoken.

I had never met anyone like her in my life.

She told me that she was married when she was seventeen because she mistook her first sexual experience for love.

“Have you ever noticed,” she said, “that girls with good breasts like having them touched, whereas girls who aren’t so lucky in that department usually don’t get much of a thrill out of it? That’s because when a girl starts to develop, if she’s got good breasts they get touched — a lot , in fact. And it’s enjoyable, naturally, so you grow up liking it and it’s something that stays with you the rest of your life. Of course, he did a lot more than fool with my breasts, which is why I married him, because it was so thrilling and all.”

She told me that she was divorced by the time she was nineteen.

“Lucky thing he didn’t make me pregnant or anything, because then I wouldn’t have known what to do,” she said. “This way I was free to say, ‘Hey, listen, Charlie, this isn’t working, you know what I mean? So we’re both still young and there’s time to correct our mistake, so let’s do it, okay? let’s split.’ Actually, he wasn’t all that young, he was twenty-nine years old, ten years older than me, a cradle-snatcher, am I right? And his name wasn’t Charlie, either, That’s just an expression. His name was Abner Bramley, a real fuckin’ redneck — excuse me, I sometimes swear when I think of him — who when I told him I wanted a divorce he beat me up so bad I couldn’t walk. I told you that before, remember? I’m big, but I’m not very strong. Anyway, I couldn’t walk, literally. I crawled out of that place and I had the son of a bitch arrested — excuse me — and I filed for divorce the very next day.”

“Good,” I said.

“I wish I’da known you back then,” she said. “Do you handle divorce cases?”

“Occasionally.”

“I’da come straight to you,” she said, and smiled. “Would you have handled me?”

“I’d have handled you.”

“Mm, I’d have loved to be handled by you,” she said. “You want some more of this wine? This is really good wine. Or should we save some for later? For when we’re in bed? I love to sip wine when I’m making love, don’t you?”

I looked at her.

“I’m really too much of a bigmouth, I know,” she said. “I should learn to be more careful about what I say. I’m scaring you, right?”

“No,” I said. “And I wouldn’t call you a bigmouth.”

“No, huh? Then what would you?”

“Candid? Honest?”

“Well, That’s the best policy, isn’t it? Would you like to go to bed now, and I can clean up the dishes later?”

“If That’s what you’d like.”

“What would you like?”

“That’s what I’d like,” I said.

“Yeah, me, too,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll take off everything but my heels and panties. I’m wearing lacy green panties that match the dress.”

We were in bed together when the telephone rang.

The bedside clock read ten minutes past one.

“Shit,” Terry said.

I picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Matthew? I hope I’m not waking you.”

Susan. My former wife. Who was probably wishing she’d awakened me.

“What’s this about sending Joanna away to school?” I said.

“Oh, she told you, did she?”

“Of course she told me. I’m her father.”

“Yes,” Susan said.

It was amazing what she could do with the simple word yes . It hissed from between her lips, insinuated itself over the wires, emerged from the receiver as an amazing blend of doubt, suspicion, and outright accusation.

“So what about it?” I said.

“I applied to the school, yes,” Susan said.

“To this Simms Academy—”

“Yes.”

“—in Massachusetts.”

“Yes.”

Yes, yes, yes. Soft, gentle, patient. Like nuclear fallout.

“What is it?” I said. “A military school for girls?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Matthew.”

“Any place calling itself a goddamn academy —”

“It happens to be one of the finest all-girl schools in New England.”

“She’s already going to a fine school in Florida.”

“St. Mark’s is coeducational,” Susan said.

“What’s wrong with coeducational all of a sudden?”

“I don’t choose to go into that with you,” Susan said.

“You were coeducating with Oscar the Bald tonight, weren’t you?”

“If You’re referring to Oscar Untermeyer—”

“I believe that’s the gentleman’s—”

“—what he and I share together is none of your fucking business.”

“Ah,” I said. “Nice talk on the lady.”

“I believe it was you, Matthew, who not so long ago told me to keep my various and sordid affairs to myself, if I’m quoting correctly—”

“You’re not.”

“—so I’d appreciate it if you followed your own advice.”

“Susan,” I said, “Joanna is not going to school in Massachusetts or anywhere else outside the state of Florida.”

“I have every reason to believe she’ll be accepted,” Susan said.

“If you send her out of the state, You’ll be violating our separation agreement”

“Oh?”

Susan was marvelous with the word oh , too. She could wring wonderful nuances of meaning out of any monosyllabic word in the language.

“How?” she said.

“The agreement calls for visitation.”

“No one’s abrogating your visitation rights.”

she’d already talked to a lawyer. Abrogate was not a word she normally used, not when there were so many simpler words around.

“How can she spend every other weekend with me if she’s in Massachusetts?” I asked.

“Neither would she be spending every other weekend with me ,” Susan said.

“Are you trying to get rid of her, is that it?”

“I am trying to make sure she gets the education to which she’s entitled. At a school that isn’t being overrun by—”

She suddenly stopped talking.

“By what , Susan?”

“Inferior students,” she said.

“By ‘inferior,’ do you mean ‘C’ students? ‘D’ students? ‘F’ students?”

“I mean—”

“Black students?”

Silence.