George Higgins - A change of gravity

"I'm sure they do. It doesn't seem to bother them. I don't really think it'd bother them if I didn't move out when they come here; it's his ex-wife who'd be bothered. Might haul him back into divorce court again it's what she does instead of jogging. Six years they've been divorced, and still she's got her hooks in him. "So why get married?"

I say. "What's the percentage?" '"Well, but on that same reasoning, why not?" he says. "Then you wouldn't have to move out, even if she still was disturbed by the idea of us screwing. Then how she felt about it wouldn't make any difference."

"Well of course what I've wanted to say to that is that how his ex' wife feels about our activities doesn't make any difference now, but that wouldn't be true. I don't care how she feels but it does matter to Tony. So I haven't known what to tell him, but now I think I do.

He's at a convention in Chicago this weekend. Wall-to-wall Porsches, I'm sure. You're the shrink; you explain it: what is it about dentists and Porsches? Suppose they feel safer and more comfortable driving if they're enclosed in small spaces, 'cause that's what they work in all day?"

"I don't know," Diane said. "Do we know what the gynecologists drive?

That might give us some help here."

She was rewarded with the gobbling sound again. Sally said: "When he gets back I'm going to tell him what you said. If he starts in on me again, I'll tell him we can't because Diane says it's showy to get married three times, and I agree with her. Diane isn't getting married a third time; until she changes her mind, I'm not going to either. So there."

"And if things should ever change," Diane said, 'if I ever did decide I was looking for another husband, I don't honestly think Amby'd be someone I'd consider. I'm not sure, though, which seems to be a hallmark of the way I am with this guy not being really sure. Now I know at first-hand what "ambivalence" is.

"I like him. I spend time with him. I don't mean we're always very sweet and kind, and loving, kitchy-koo. We disagree about things. We argue a lot. We quarrel. We're both adults. Sometimes you could say we even have fights. But they don't stop us from liking each other.

He's caring and I find him interesting. I think he finds me interesting too.

"I like the things he likes to do movies and going out to dinner. He takes me to Tanglewood in the summer, even though he'd probably rather go to a ballgame. He really does his best to be agreeable. I wouldn't think of asking him to take me dancing, but I'm sure he would if I did. He probably wouldn't be very good at it I doubt he had lessons when he was a kid. But he is good about doing things he isn't really all that keen about because they're things that I want to do. He's considerate of me when we're in bed, too, very gentle. He knows how to show a girl a good time, so that part's all taken care of. I tell myself I don't know how lucky I am; a lot of women'd kill for this guy.

"But he's oh, I don't know; he's still sort of a lout. I'm not sure how to describe him to you. He isn't like any of the boyfriends either of us had, when we saw each other all the time.

"He's a court clerk. Clerk magistrate. It sounds like less than it is. He's got three assistants under him, and there're over thirty people in the office where they work. It's really a medium-sized legal business. File clerks, bookkeepers; and about a dozen or so more who work out of it, constables, deputy sheriffs and so forth. So what it amounts to is that he's sort of a cross between the CEO and CFO of the Canterbury District Court, and he reports to the presiding judge, who's the chairman of the board of this little company.

"But what he really is, is a pol. That's how he thinks of himself and how he got his official title, when he was still in his twenties. He's never changed. I suppose that's to his credit. He doesn't pretend to be anything he isn't. Or not to be anything he is. Been a pol all his life and makes no bones about it. He's good at it. The proof is that he got this prize. He isn't a pol because he's the boss; he's the boss because he's a good politician. He's proud of it.

"If you met him he'd remind you of those men you used to tell me that your uncles hung out with all the time down in Chicago. Smoking cigars and drinking whiskey; telling dirty jokes and laughing all the time, except when they were snarling; talking about all the mean and nasty, awful things that they were going to do to people. Or'd just finished doing, croaked someone good. Probably not people that you'd want to spend all of your time with; every so often you'd hear that one of them'd gone to jail. But still and all, fun to be around them; they were raffish. You could tell yourself you didn't have much choice. It was your family duty. "Crude as they are, they're also entertaining."

That meant you could let yourself go and have a good time without feeling guilty about it. They made you laugh that made them pretty nice guys, all in all, if you could overlook their rougher edges.

"Rough but good-hearted." Amby's like that.

"He's certainly not someone you'd expect to find me consorting with now, at my age, and in my widow's weeds. Nor would I. When Walter was alive I thought he was rather vulgar. Poor dear Walter just adored him, so it seemed as though we had to have him every time we had a dinner party, and I used to have to remind myself I had some friends I always asked that Walter wasn't fond of, and he never complained. So if he wanted to have Amby, and the guy that Amby worked for, with, he would say, Dan Hilliard, well, grin and bear it.

"You would not believe this Hilliard. He's a college president now. It sounds like more than it is: just a dinky little community college. But that's what he does in retirement. He used to be chairman of Ways and Means in the state legislature. A very powerful man, and that's what he still looks like now. The way he moves, how he dresses and talks; he shows you he's used to power. He would've become Speaker one day, if he'd been able to control his sex drive. I'm best friends with his ex-wife, Marcy Hilliard. I'm as close to her now as I was to you. He thinks I'm the reason she's his ex-wife. All those chesty young bimbos that he ran around with had nothing to do with it. But the memory of power's still there; if you tried to imagine what the president of a tin-pot community college would look like; what he'd act like; what he'd be like; well, you would not imagine him.

"So anyway, there I would be, having the three of them over for dinner;

Amby and Danny and Marcy; being the dutiful wife. Plus one or two other couples we know. I really don't know how I did it. I'd tell Walter to invite them, and sometimes they'd show up and Amby'd have a date with him, some woman who they'd both met in politics either their husbands weren't interested in politics, or they didn't have husbands; they weren't really old enough yet. That was the explanation anyway; one didn't ask too many questions. And Marcy would be with Dan, and wed all act like of course this new woman was with Amby. When it looked to me at least a couple times as though she could've been with either of them and most likely had been, too, one time or another. We were never completely sure.

"I never knew what to expect from Dan or Amby, what either one of them would do or say, so I sort of just learned that the best thing to do where they were concerned was just go with the flow. Whatever they did was all right. And keep telling myself all the time they were there:

"This's for Walter, this's for him. Walter's my husband and Walter's okay, and Walter likes these two guys. Walter thinks these two guys're neat. My dear husband is probably nuts."

"Then Walter died. And both of them were so kind, and so good to me, so, well, sweet, to me, really. I couldn't get over it. The last people I would've expected. And then, Amby, he knew all about this complicated investment trust that Walter had, that I didn't really know anything about: he was a big help to me there. And so, well, what can I tell you? One thing just led to another, as it usually does. You know how it can be. Suddenly there you are in bed with some man and you're not really certain who he is, or if you were sure that you wanted to be naked in bed with him. But then figured: Oh, what the heck, kinda late now. Might as well see what he's like."