George Higgins - A change of gravity

There was a fair amount of Sunday traffic westbound on the turnpike where it begins the gradual ascent from the valley of the Connecticut River into the foothills of the Berkshires, enough to keep all but the most intractable lane-weavers respectably in line, peaceably exceeding the posted speed limit by ten miles an hour, just under seventy-five.

The heavy coupe was quiet and cool, going fast in a reasonably straight line, as it had been engineered and built to do, and Merrion had Diane's listening preference, WFCR-FM, Five College Public Radio, audible but just below normal conversational level the announcer, displaying his erudition, was voluptuously saying "Bayed-rish Schmet-nah' to identify Bedrich Smetana as 'the Czech composer' of the selection just concluded, the overture to The Bartered Bride. Merrion frowned, repressing an urge to say "Shaper."

Diane misinterpreted both his expression and the reason for his silence. "Come on, Amby," she said, coaxing, 'tell me what's on your mind. That's what we do for each other."

It was the kind of unpressured relationship she meant to have with him, one in which she intended that he would feel free to behave pretty much as he would have if he had been 'off-duty' with his friends and she had not been present. So far as she knew, he did, but she didn't have it quite right.

He believed he was making more of an effort to please her than he had made for any woman except Sunny Keller. When he was with her he was always on his better if not his best behavior; or intended to be, anyway. His effort was apparent to people who had known him a long time and seen them together. Dan Hilliard warned him he was 'getting somewhat pussy-whipped, you know." He shrugged it off by saying that he supposed he was, 'a little, but Jesus, a man's gotta calm down some time, hasn't he? I mean, I may say that I'm not getting old here, but I have to admit I've been getting a little winded. Not tuckered out, no; a little tired. It hadda happen, sooner, later, I suppose; I been out raising hell a long time. Takes it out of a man.

"Plus which, even though you wont wanna, I think you gotta admit I could've made a much worse choice to slow down with, you know? I realize she's not your favorite person, and I can't say I blame you.

But what happened between you and Mercy, and how much Diane had to do with it; well, that's something that Diane and I leave strictly out of what goes on between the two of us. I try not to talk much about you when I'm around her not that she would mind because she's told me she likes you okay; she's got nothing against you."

"Well, for Christ sake," Hilliard said, 'how the hell could she, have something against me? I never did anything to her; she did something to me. I'm not saying she set out to do it, ruin my marriage, or that Mercy all by herself d never've decided she'd had enough of me, but Diane had a lot to do with what finally happened and when it happened, too, worst possible timing for me. Regardless of whether she meant to or not, everything she did had the result of turning my wife against me. I don't thank her for it."

"Yeah, I know," Merrion said. "But I still do it, just the same, leave your name out of what we talk about. I just think it's better. And I never bring up Mercy's name and Diane doesn't either, much, although I know they're still very thick, very good friends themselves. And as a result, I think Diane and I get along pretty well. She's a real good woman. I like her. She's funny; she makes me laugh, and then she doesn't get mad when I do it. And she's not always trying all the time to reform me, or corner me, either, into getting married. Measuring me all the time.

"I had that happen to me once or twice, Mary Pat would get like that sometimes, and it made me nervous. I didn't like it. And've you got any idea how hard it is to find a woman our age who wont treat a man like that? Who'll just leave him alone and enjoy life, have fun? No, of course you don't. How could you? Your idea of a woman the right age is a thirty-six-C Wonderbra on a setta jugs that haven't even been inside a polling place yet; they don't turn eighteen until next year.

"I dunno, Danny; you, runnin' a college, all that firm young flesh bouncin' around all over the place? All that scary stuff we're always hearing all the time now, sex harassment cases? I worry, something might happen. Yeah, I realize you're an old hand, you could say, been doin' it quite a while now, and so far as we know, at least, you haven't been in trouble yet. But it worries me, Danny; I worry 'bout you all the time."

He was right in his perception that Diane did not have matrimony in mind. She consciously tolerated more from him than she would have from a man she had been inspecting as a prospective husband. "Gentleman friends are different from husbands," she told Sally Davidson, a friend since their freshman year at Wisconsin. "They don't have to meet the same requirements. The standards're nowhere near high. Be honest: the first thing to look for in husbands is whether they can make sure there'll be a roof over your head and you'll have enough to eat, be taken care of financially, if the day ever comes when they can't continue to provide those things. Walter was a very good husband. He left me very well-off, much better off than I ever dreamed of being.

Even if something should happen to my practice, if I got sick and could no longer work, I'd be quite comfortable. So there's no pressure on me, no reason why I need to find another husband. Furthermore, I don't think I want one. Two weddings ought to be enough for a respectable woman. More'n that and you start to run the risk of looking showy, don't you think?"

"Always wanting to be the center of attention all the time," Sally said. She laughed.

That delighted Diane; she deliberately tried to say things that would make Sally laugh because the sound she made reminded Diane of the noise made by agitated poultry. "Uh huh, there they are again. I just heard a bunch of turkeys." Sally laughed again. Diane said: "You're not kidding me, you know. You've closed the gallery and started farming turkeys. Don't the neighbors complain?"

Sally laughed again. "Not a bunch of turkeys," she said.

"Well, what then?" Diane said. "What are lots of turkeys? "Flocks," like lots of chickens? Crows? Doesn't seem as though they should be, being so much bigger and all." '"Gaggle," Sally said, clucking away as she said it. "My father said a fair number of turkeys was a gaggle. Or was that for geese, and a "gobble," that was his collective noun for turkeys I forget."

Sally had stayed on to finish her degree in fine arts, marrying one of their classmates and supporting him by teaching drawing at Laydon Art School while he went to law school. Both becoming disappointed by the complete departure of excitement from their marriage, they had divorced after two years without rancor, thankful they had not had any children.

With her lump-sum cash settlement, reimbursing her for his keep while in law school, she had purchased a small dark-green wooden building near the campus in Madison and opened a small art gallery: "Atelier Sally."

Four years later, while working toward her MFA, she had met and married an industrial designer older than she, also divorced, who'd returned to Madison for a doctorate. They had divorced after eight years; he had been unable to reject an offer of an executive vice presidency with an internationally known firm in San Francisco; she could not bear to sell her business, by then thriving.

Now she was 'semi-living with' an oral surgeon named Tony who was thirteen years younger than she was and did as he was told. She spent almost every night at his house except when he went to conventions, and during school vacations when his two daughters came to stay for visitation. During those periods she lived in her three-room apartment on the third floor of her gallery. "Yes, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think you're right. Tony's been after me again lately to get married. For the sake of his daughters, he says. He says even though I move out while they're here, they still know we're having sex.