Эд Макбейн - Barking at Butterflies and other stories

“What do you think of her as?”

“A woman,” he said, and shrugged. “My wife. Whom I happen to love very much.”

“I happen to love Michael very much, too,” she said, “though he is a pain sometimes. This is very good, this Scotch. No wonder Michael belts it down every night. Could I have just a teeny little bit more?”

He took the bottle of Scotch from the dresser and went to her, and poured more of it into her glass, and then sat on the edge of the bed beside her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“That must have been very nice,” she said, “going to an out-of-town college, I mean. I went to N.Y.U. I used to commute from the Bronx every day.”

“When did you graduate?”

“Ten years ago. In fact, Michael and I went to a reunion just before Christmas. It was ghastly. Everyone looked so old.”

“How old are you, Millie?”

“Thirty-two,” she said.

“Do you realize that when I started at the University of Pennsylvania you were still being pushed around in a baby carriage?”

“You’re how old? Forty-six?”

“Four.”

“That’s only twelve years older than I am,” she said, and shrugged.

“Exactly my point. When I was twenty-two...”

“Why’d you start college so late?”

“I was in the Army. My point is that when I was starting college... did you want some more of this?”

“Just a drop, please,” she said, and held out her glass again. He poured liberally into it, and she raised her eyebrows and said, “That’s like one of Michael’s drops.”

“Anyway, when I was starting college, you were only ten years old.”

“Yes, but that’s not in a baby carriage.”

“No, but it’s very young.”

Sipping at her drink, she said, “Is that why you want to make love to me?”

“What?” he said.

“Make love,” she said. “To me,” she said. “Because I’m twelve years younger than you are?”

“Well, who... well, who said anything about...?”

“Well, you do want to make love to me, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“Well, is that the reason?”

“Well, that’s part of it, yes.”

“What’s the other part? That I’m Jewish?”

“No. What’s that got to do with...?”

“If that’s part of it, I really don’t mind,” she said. “A lot of Gentiles find Jewish girls terribly attractive. And vice versa. Jewish girls, I mean. Finding Italian men attractive.”

She looked at him steadily over the rim of her glass. She rose then, and walked to the dresser, and put her glass down, and began unbuttoning her blouse.

The motel courtyard was washed with sunshine, the trees were in full leaf. It was April, and Millie was wearing a bright cotton dress that echoed the blues, greens, and yellows of the season. Frank was wearing a business suit, but the tie he wore seemed geared to spring as well — a riot of daisies rampant on a pale green field. He unlocked the door knowledgeably, and removed the key with familiar dexterity. Millie entered the room first. She went swiftly to the dresser and put down her bag. As Frank locked the door from the inside, she went quickly to the drapes and pulled them closed across the windows. Frank threw the slip bolt and was turning away from the door, when Millie rushed into his arms. She kissed him passionately, and then moved out of his arms and disappeared into the bathroom.

Frank went to one of the easy chairs. He turned on the lamp between the chairs, and then began taking off his shoes and socks. Millie came out of the bathroom, carrying a facial tissue. She went to the mirror and began wiping off her lipstick. Frank took off his jacket. Millie slipped out of her pumps. Frank carried his jacket to the clothes rack, and hung it neatly on a wire hanger. Millie padded over to him barefooted, turned her back to him, lifted her hair from the nape of her neck and waited for him to lower the zipper on her dress.

“What’s the use?” he said.

“Huh?” she said, and turned to look at him, puzzled.

“What’s the use, what’s the use?” he said despairingly, and went to one of the chairs, and sat in it, and began wringing his hands. “How am I supposed to put my heart in this when my mind’s a hundred miles away? She’s driving me crazy, Millie. If she doesn’t stop, I’ll just have to leave, that’s all.”

“Leave?” Millie asked, surprised.

“Leave, leave, right,” he said, and rose and began pacing in front of the dresser. “I’ve warned her. I’ve told her a hundred times. She can’t treat me this way, damn it. I’m not some adolescent kid fresh out of college.”

“You’ve told her?” Millie said, and her eyes opened wide.

“A hundred times. More often than that. Repeatedly. Over and over again. A thousand times. Then today...”

Alarmed, Millie said, “What happened today?”

“What’s today?”

“Tuesday. You know it’s Tuesday. We meet every Tuesday.”

“I mean the date. What’s the date?”

“April sixth.”

“Right. So that means she was five days late to begin with. So what’s she jumping all over me for?”

“Five days late?”

“Right. And she yells at me about it. When she’s really the one to blame.”

“Frank, I thought we agreed a long time ago that we wouldn’t discuss anything like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like Mae or Michael.”

“Who’s discussing Mae or Michael? I’m talking about Hope. Hope Cromwell. She came in first thing this morning and said, ‘Where is it?’ So I reminded her that she’d only told me about the damn thing Friday, five days after it was due, and she said it seemed to her it shouldn’t take that long to do a thirty-second spot when I knew the client was waiting for a presentation, and maybe I’d get the material in on time if I didn’t take such long lunch hours every Tuesday. So I told her to take a look at her own lunch hour, which starts at eleven in the morning and ends at three, so don’t talk to me about long lunch hours, baby.”

“Did you really say that?”

“I certainly did.”

“You called her ‘baby’?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t call her ‘baby’. The point is I don’t like being bawled out for something that’s not my fault. And anyway, if I want to take a long lunch hour every Tuesday, so what? I’ve got half a mind to tell her what she can do with the job.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Why don’t you call her and tell her what she can do with the job?”

“Tell Hope, you mean?”

“Sure.”

“Well, she’s probably out to lunch right now.”

“Let’s try her,” Millie said, and went to the phone.

“Well, perhaps it’s best not to act too impulsively,” he said. “There are millions of copywriters in New York, all of them just as good as I am.”

“I doubt that very much,” Millie said. She lifted the receiver and handed it to him. “Call her.”

“Just a second, Mil,” he said. “Let me think about this a minute, okay?”

“What’s there to think about? Just tell her, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell her when I get back to the office.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

Millie put the receiver back onto the cradle, and turned her back to him again. Lifting the hair from the nape of her neck, she lowered her head and waited for him to unzip her dress. “You don’t have to take that kind of abuse, Frank,” she said. “You’re a very good copywriter.”

“Yeah,” he said, and lowered the zipper.

“So tell her.”

“I will,” he said, “don’t worry.” He unknotted his tie and threw it onto the seat of the closest chair. Unbuttoning his shirt, he said, “I’ll tell her I don’t have to take that kind of abuse.”