Lawrence Block - Warm and Willing

“You’ve got to eat. And the service is fast. Come on, Rhoda.”

“Well, I was supposed to meet somebody-”

“Let ’em wait. Auld lang syne and all that. I’ll buy you a good lunch and you can tell old Ed all your troubles.”

They dodged cars, ducked across Eighth Street and hurried into the restaurant. The headwaiter led them to a small table off to the side.

Vance ordered a dry martini and asked her what she was drinking. She hadn’t planned on drinking anything but she wound up ordering a scotch sour.

“Rhoda Haskell,” he said.

“Rhoda Moore now. Again.”

“Uh-huh. What have you been doing? Taking it easy?”

“Working,” she said.

“Not around here?”

She told him where she was working and where she lived.

“Alone?”

“With a friend. A girl.”

“Dating anyone special?”

“No.”

“I guess you and Tom had a rough time of it, didn’t you?” He shook his head. “Well, it happens. I think the major reason I haven’t married is the spectacular examples all my friends set for me. Ray and Judy got divorced, you know. Or maybe you didn’t know. She took a jet to Reno and came back single. I was out drinking with Ray just a week ago. The poor son of a gun needed a shoulder to cry on. Still loves her, he told me. And she hooked him good. Alimony plus child support, with the whole thing leaving him about sixty a week to live on. If he makes more money the alimony goes up along with his income. He can’t come out ahead. And they were one couple I thought would last.”

And, over coffee: “Have you been dating much, Rhoda?”

“No.”

“Nothing serious? No big romance?”

A very big romance, she thought. But she told him that she wasn’t going with anyone.”

“Are you busy tonight?”

A long wind-up, then a fast-breaking curve. “Yes,” she said. “I’m afraid I am, Ed.”

“Tomorrow night?”

“I’m afraid I’m tied up.”

He looked at her, his eyes locking with hers. She reached for a cigarette. He gave her a light and she dragged nervously on the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke.

“I’d like to see more of you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because you’re a very attractive woman, Rhoda. And because I enjoy your company.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You don’t want to see me, do you?” He sighed. “You and Tom had a rough time. That happens. And you’re taking it hard. Well, that happens too. But you can’t let yourself go, Rhoda. You can’t crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after you. You’re a young woman. How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Pretty young to retire from the human race.”

“I’m not-”

“Have you been seeing any men at all?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Do you know what you’re doing to your life? Do you know how lonely you’re going be?”

Her face was burning. If she stayed at the table another minute something very bad was going to happen, she could feel it. She would either blurt out the truth to him or she would throw a big scene and tell him what he could do with his penetrating comments. Her head was spinning. She pushed her chair back and headed for the ladies’ room.

Sanctuary, she thought. She washed her hands, put on fresh lipstick, then sat for a moment on a straight-backed chair. Sanctuary. At least he couldn’t follow her in here. No man could. Here was one place on earth where she could be safe from men. Here, and in Megan’s arms.

When she returned to the table he was all apologies, very suave and smooth. “I’m damned sorry,” he said earnestly. “I must have sounded like Dear Abby after a bad night. I didn’t mean to hammer at you like that.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’d like to see you, Rhoda. That’s all.”

She didn’t say anything. He couldn’t help realizing that she was not interested, she thought. It was pretty obvious wasn’t it?

“I have to go now,” she said finally. “I have to be back at the shop.”

“Can I call you, Rhoda?”

“I think it would be better if you didn’t.”

“Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

“Maybe,” she said. He couldn’t reach her, she knew. The phone was listed in Megan’s name, so he couldn’t find out her number. She got to her feet, “Thank you for lunch,” she said.

“I enjoyed it.”

“So did I.”

“I’ll walk you back to your shop.”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “I can manage.”

It was still raining, steadily, persistently. She darted across the street. He didn’t follow her. She got back to the shop, hung her trench coat on a peg in the back. Then she went into the front of the store and walked up and down the aisles, dusting things.

The apartment was empty when she returned to it. She walked though the rooms calling Megan’s name but Megan was not there. She went into the living room, turned on the radio. A rock and roll station shouted at her. She dialed in classical music, stretched out on the couch. Megan was out and she didn’t know where.

She closed her eyes, kicked off her shoes, tucked a throw pillow under her head. They were supposed to go to a party that night, she remembered. Megan had said something about getting to the party around nine. It was close to six now. Plenty of time, and Megan would be back soon. She let her mind drift with the music, let herself get lost in it. They were playing chamber music, something familiar, a string quartet that sounded like Mozart. She ought to listen to more good music, she told herself. Start buying records, start spending a couple of hours every day listening to music, really listening to it. Like this.

When the quartet ended she swung her legs over the side of the couch, rubbed at her eyes, looked at her watch. It was a quarter after six now and Megan was still not home.

Jealousy came in a wave. Megan had gone out, Megan had met someone else. Megan was with some other girl now, some cheap and easy thing with a repertoire of cheap and dirty bedroom tricks. Megan didn’t love her. If Megan loved her she would have been home, she would have called, she would have left a note. Something. Megan didn’t love her. Megan was only using her, playing with her while she played around with other girls on the side.

Or Megan had actually fallen in love with some other girl. That could have happened. It happened all the time. Megan might have gone out for a walk, and she might have met another girl and it could all have happened that quickly. Love. It had happened speedily enough between her and Megan, and if something could start that quickly it could end just as quickly, and Megan would bring this other girl into their apartment and she-Rhoda-would be out on the street again, lonely again and That was crazy, she knew. It was mad. But she couldn’t shake the jealousy, the worry, the monumental anxiety. It was eating her alive, and the fact that it was illogical didn’t seem to change things much. She paced back and forth, wandered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, closed it, poured herself a glass of water, sipped it, poured the water out in the sink. She lit a cigarette and took two puffs on it and stubbed it out angrily.

Damn it!

At a quarter to seven, the phone rang. She nearly tripped rushing to it. It was Megan.

“Honey, I’m sorry as hell. I’ve been working like a maniac, I should have been home hours ago. This was the first chance I had to call.”

“Where are you?”

“Way the hell up in the East Sixties. A job, complete decoration of an entire apartment, and she wants antiques-”

“She?”

“An old battle-ax living it up on insurance money. One Letitia Warren. Antiques! The hardest part of this job will be finding a chair older than she is. I’m going to have about two weeks of hard work and a hell of a lot of money to show for it, kitten. Listen, I’m in a phone booth. I was all set to hop in a cab but I wanted to call you first. Everything all right?”