Evan Hunter - Far From the Sea

Goddamn Jewish-American Princess, he thought.

“How about tomorrow night?” he said.

“I told you to call me in the morning.”

“Why? How’s the morning going to be different from tonight?”

“Well,” she said again, “what business is that of yours?”

“How long will you be here in Rockaway?” he asked.

“Till Sunday. I’m going back Sunday.”

“Back where?”

“To New York.”

“Where do you live in New York?”

“Well, look it up,” she said, “I’m in the book.” She hesitated. “You really shook me up, you know,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Kissing me like that. I could hardly find my key. It took me ten minutes’ fumbling in my bag to find my key.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

“I’m not so sure it’s good.”

“What are you wearing?” he asked.

“What?”

“What are you wearing?”

“I just got home. I’m still in my dress.”

“Do you have shoes on?”

“No.”

“Put on your shoes, and come on over. I’m all alone here.”

“No, I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t need a reason,” she said.

“Then why don’t I come there?”

“No.”

“It seems silly, you being there alone and me being here alone.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s so silly.”

“Come on over,” he said.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No. Really, now. No. Call me in the morning, okay? You really shook me up,” she said.

There was a small click on the line.

He fell asleep at last.

He awoke shivering in the middle of the night. The air conditioning had been fixed, apparently, and the room was icy cold. He snapped on the bedside lamp, got out of bed, turned on the overhead light, and went to the thermostat. The room temperature was sixty-four degrees. He raised the thermostat setting and then searched the closet shelf for another blanket. He opened all the dresser drawers searching for another blanket. Finally, he took the quilted bedspread from the chair over which he’d draped it and threw it on the bed over the single blanket. He closed the window. He drew the drapes. Even with the drapes and the window closed, he could hear the sound of the crashing sea. He turned off all the lights again and got into bed. He was still cold.

He suddenly had to go to the bathroom.

He turned on the bedside lamp, got out of bed again, and crossed the room. The attack of diarrhea was immediate and surprising. He tried to think what he could have eaten to have caused such a sudden attack. The bland veal chop? The side order of broccoli? He thought of his father’s severed intestines, his father’s body fluids seeping along a soiled tube into a soiled bag.

He wiped himself several times, kept wiping himself until there was no trace of stain on the toilet tissue.

Then he went back to bed.

He awakened with a start.

He did not know where he was for a moment. The room came slowly into focus. The air conditioner was humming, the drapes were drawn, only a thin vertical line of sunlight gleamed where the separate halves met. He looked at his watch. Eleven minutes past ten! He had forgotten to leave a wake-up call, had forgotten as well to set the little alarm on his watch.

He got out of bed and went to the drapes. He fumbled in the near-gloom until he found the drawstrings and then yanked the drapes open. Sunlight splashed into the room. He blinked against it. He went to the dresser, took a cigarette from the package there, picked up his lighter, and went into the bathroom. Sitting on the bowl, he lit the cigarette. He sat smoking and peeing. The diarrhea seemed to be gone. Better get cracking, he thought. He tore a piece of toilet tissue from the roll, wiped the end of his penis with it, and then stood up. He threw the cigarette into the bowl and then flushed the toilet. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked about the same as he had yesterday. No more surprises, he thought. For the longest time, whenever he’d looked at himself in the mirror, he’d seen a thirty-seven-year-old man. He had liked being thirty-seven. Now he looked fifty. He would not be fifty till August, but he had stopped thinking of himself as forty-nine on New Year’s Eve.

Naked, he went back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He dialed twenty-one for room service and ordered an orange juice, a cup of coffee, and a toasted English muffin. You should eat too, Mrs. Daniels had said. To keep your strength up. Mrs. Daniels, whose husband had just undergone open-heart surgery for the second time and was now refusing to eat. Keep your strength up. He fished in his wallet for the hospital’s number, dialed nine for an outside line, and then dialed the number directly.

“St. Mary’s Hospital,” a woman’s voice said.

“I’d like some information on a patient, please,” he said.

“The patient’s name?”

“Morris Weber.”

“One moment, please.”

He waited.

“Mr. Weber is in critical condition,” the voice said.

“Yes, I know that, but he was supposed to go into surgery this morning, and I wanted to know...”

“One moment, please.”

He waited.

“I have no indication of that, sir.”

“Of what?”

“Of any surgery this morning.”

“Well, is there any way you can check? I simply want to know how the operation...”

“I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing on the computer except that he’s in Intensive Care.”

“Thank you,” David said.

He lit another cigarette, looked for the slip of paper on which he had written Kaplan’s number, and then dialed it. He got the answering service again, a pleasant-voiced woman who said she would give Dr. Kaplan his message and would ask him to call back as soon as possible.

“I want to know how the operation went,” David said.

“Yes, Mr. Weber, I’ll give him that information.”

“Thank you.”

He put the receiver back on the cradle. The phone rang while his hand was still on the receiver, startling him. He picked it up at once.

“Hello?”

“David, it’s me.”

“Hi, Molly.”

“I thought you’d have called by now. I was beginning to get worried.”

“I overslept.”

“How is he?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m waiting for the doctor to call back now.”

“Did you call the hospital?”

“Yes, but their computer doesn’t show anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“About how the operation went.”

“Did you ask if he was in the Recovery Room?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because... honey, the goddamn computer didn’t show anything!”

There was a silence on the line.

“All right,” Molly said, “call me when you know something.”

“I will.” He paused. “Molly, I’m sorry I...”

“I know you’re upset,” she said, and hung up abruptly.

He stared at the receiver. This is the way it started, he thought. On the telephone. This is the way it really started. Now she just hangs up. He slammed down the receiver. The entire phone shook, the bell vibrated. Well, I shouldn’t have yelled at her, he thought. Still, you don’t just hang up that way. In Rockaway that summer, she didn’t hang up. That summer...

He could not wait for morning.

He had spoken to her at midnight and then had lain awake half the night, thinking of her, wondering why she couldn’t have told him last night whether she’d be seeing him tonight; was she waiting for a call from the guy who’d dated her, was she hedging her bets, playing one off against the other? The sheets were sticky. Even naked, he was hot.