Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

Warren Chambers took a deep breath.

Christmas Eve, he thought.

Try to find a musician on Christmas Eve.

They were alone together for the first time since Joanna came home last Friday.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon on the day before Christmas, and they were decorating the tree in the house Matthew used to share with Susan and his daughter, who was out delivering Christmas gifts to friends up the street. The radio was tuned to WUSF. They were listening to Christmas carols. Everything felt right. Just like old times. But everything felt wrong.

He had not yet mentioned his close encounter yesterday.

Nor had either of them mentioned the fact that fourteen-year-old Joanna seemed to be head over heels in love with a black boy named Thomas Darrow Jr.

Matthew wasn’t sure he wished to broach either subject.

He remembered a frantic telephone conversation he’d had with his daughter when she’d learned that Susan was planning to send her off to the Simms Academy:

“She says it’ll be good for me. She says St. Mark’s is getting run-down. She says... you won’t like this, Daddy.”

“Tell me.”

“ She says too many black kids are infiltrating the school. That was the word she used.”

And not ten minutes later, in a somewhat more frantic telephone conversation:

“Daddy? What Mom said, actually — about the infiltration — what she said was ‘niggers.’ Two black kids’ve been admitted to the school.”

“Terrific,” Matthew had said. His former wife from Chicago, Illinois, was turning into a Florida redneck.

A Christmas ornament fell from his hand. It bounced on the carpet, miraculously intact. He picked it up and looked at his watch.

“Got a taxi waiting?” Susan asked.

“I was hoping to hear from Warren by now. I gave him the number here, just in case.”

“Warren?” she said.

“Chambers,” he said. “A private eye I’ve got working for me.”

He hesitated.

The moment seemed ripe.

“He’s black,” he said.

“Is he good?” Susan asked.

“Very,” Matthew said.

He wondered if he should tell her he had enjoyed kissing Marcie Franklin yesterday. He wondered if he should tell her he’d debated calling Marcie Franklin today. He wondered if she’d really used the word niggers to describe those two black kids who’d been admitted to St. Mark’s. He wondered if he was spoiling for a fight. He wondered if he wanted out.

“Susan,” he said, and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know how I feel about it,” she said.

My wife, the mind reader, he thought. Excuse me, former wife.

“We’re talking about Tommy, right?”

“Who else?” Susan said. “How do you feel about it?”

“She’s fourteen,” he said. “This, too, shall pass.”

“Suppose it doesn’t?”

“So?”

“I’m asking you , Matthew. Don’t put me on the spot.”

“A long time ago,” he said, “before I met you, I dated a black girl named Ophelia Blair. I was in high school. She was in my English class. Ophelia Blair.”

“Is this confession time?” Susan asked.

An edge to her voice. Maybe she was the one spoiling for a fight.

“A bright beautiful girl. I dated her only once. Kissed her a lot, tried to get in her pants, told her I loved her—”

“Matthew, I really—”

“Begged her to go all the way because I’d never done it with a black girl.”

“If you’re suggesting that Joanna—”

“Let me finish this, may I?”

“Not if you think Joanna and that boy—”

“This has nothing to do with Joanna!”

“Then why are you telling it? And please spare me any more quaint adolescent expressions, okay? Get in her pants, go all the way... ”

“Damn it, I was an adolescent! I’d never done it with a white girl, either, I’d never done it with anyone ! The point is—”

“Yes, Matthew, please get to the point.”

“The point is, I robbed her of her uniqueness, Susan. To me, she was only a black girl. To her, she was Ophelia Blair. She never dated me again.”

“Is that the end of the story?”

“That’s the end of it.”

“Thank God. Would you mix me a martini, please?”

He went to the bar, took out a bottle of Beefeater gin and a bottle of vermouth, and mixed a pitcher of very dry, very cold martinis. He carried hers back to where she was sitting on the sofa, head tilted, examining the tree for spots bare of ornaments, places they had missed.

“Thanks,” she said, and raised the glass. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “Are we about to have a fight?”

“I thought we just had one,” she said, and drank.

“What I think I’m saying, Susan—”

“I know what you’re saying. You’re saying Thomas Darrow Jr. may be a very special individual in his own right... ”

“ Is a very special individual, according to Joanna.”

“ Is , fine. A very special individual who also happens to be black.”

“Which upsets you.”

“Yes. It upsets me.”

“Why?”

“Matthew, don’t ask stupid questions. Joanna’s fourteen years old. She doesn’t need the kind of trouble even adults can’t handle.”

“Some adults handle it just fine.”

“I’m sure.”

“Susan, I have to ask you something. When you decided to pull Joanna out of St. Mark’s... did you use the word niggers in reference to—”

“I’ve never used that word in my life !” Susan said.

“Not even when you were referring to the two black kids who—”

“Never! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Joanna said you did.”

“Joanna was lying.”

“She told me—”

“She would have told you anything to keep from being sent away! How can you even think —”

“On the phone later, you said you were pulling her out because the school was being overrun by inferior students.”

“It was. Look at it now. Would you be happy if Joanna was still—”

“Did you mean black students, Susan?”

“I did not.”

“Back then, when I asked you that same question, you said, ‘We’re in Florida.’ What did you mean, Susan?”

“Is this a court of law?” she said. “If so, I’d like an attorney, please.”

“Did you mean that black students in Florida are somehow inferior to—”

“I don’t remember the conversation, and I don’t know what I meant. If it was one of our usual conversations, we were probably yelling at each other—”

“The way we are now,” Matthew said.

“You started it,” she said.

There was a deep and ominous silence.

“I’m going to ask her to stop seeing him,” Susan said.

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I don’t think she knows the kind of trouble—”

“She’s happier than I’ve ever—”

“I’m not !” Susan shouted. “The very thought of—”

She stopped the sentence.

“Of what?” Matthew asked.

Susan shook her head.

“I’m sure they kiss,” he said, “if that’s—”

“Don’t!” she said.

Another silence. Longer this time.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you were talking about my daughter.”