Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

Dinner party. Mrs. R. kept asking Z how her son got into Harvard, as if it had nothing to do with his gifts. Z laughed, virtually apologizing, though she’s very proud of her son, who is a good kid and also a genius, which I tried to suggest, but Mrs. R. wouldn’t hear it because her son didn’t get into Harvard and she was too miserable or drunk merely to agree that Z’s son would be welcome at any university. Mr. R. left the table, went to the piano, and started banging Haydn on the keys so nobody could hear his wife raving about Harvard, but she raised her voice and talked about her glorious days in graduate school when she took seminars with Heidegger and then she asked Z, “When exactly did you stop loving your kids?” Instead of saying never, and never would, whether or not they got into Harvard, Z sat there laughing in the sophisticated style of Mrs. R. and feeling compromised and phony and intimidated. Mr. R.’s Haydn got louder, the sweetness torn by anguish and humiliation.

Natural light passes through murky glass windows in the office doors and sinks into the brown linoleum floor. It is scuffed, heel-pocked, and burned where students ground out cigarettes while waiting to speak to their professors. The halls are long and wide, and have gloomy brown seriousness, dull grandeur. You hardly ever hear people laughing in them. The air is too heavy with significance. Behind the doors, professors are bent over student papers, writing in the margins B+,A—.

Henry comes to my office. “Free for lunch?” I jump up and say, “Give me a minute.” He glances at his watch. I run to the men’s room, start pissing, want to hurry. The door opens. It’s Henry. Also wants to piss. He begins. I finish. Seconds go by and then a whole minute as he pisses with the force of a horse. He would have gone to lunch with me, carrying that pressure.

Boris asks my opinion of a certain movie that has been highly praised. I know it isn’t any good, but I’m unwilling to say so. He’ll ask why I think it isn’t any good. I’d have to tell him, which would mean telling him about myself, becoming another object of endless, skeptical examination. I prefer to disappoint him immediately and not wait for the negative judgment, the disapproval and rejection, like one of his women who never know, from day to day, whether they are adored or despised. I confess, finally, that I disliked the movie, but I understand why many others loved it. The woman I live with has seen it several times. He laughs. He approves. I feel a rush of anxiety, as though I’ve said too much. I’ll be haunted later by my remark, wondering what I told him inadvertently.

Boris had been very successful in Hollywood, but he didn’t have one good thing to say about the industry or his colleagues. Producers were conniving, directors were bullies, stars were narcissistic imbeciles. Given his talent and brains, a little contempt for his colleagues was understandable, but he was bitter, he was seething. He went on and on, as if to prove that an emotion perpetuates itself, and then he told a story which I promised not to repeat, but I don’t feel bound. Others heard him. He’d been invited to L.A. to meet a group of wealthy people who wanted him to write a movie on a loathsome subject. This was neither here nor there. Any subject, he said, can be made worthwhile. What matters is the way it’s rendered. I disagreed, but he became impatient, he didn’t want to discuss “art.” He was too upset by life. He’d been offered for writing the movie a stupendous sum, endless cocaine, and a famous beautiful woman. “They treated me like an animal.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you think? I took the next plane home.” Looking sullen, he said, “You think I’m a schmuck?”

“You’re lying. Who was the woman?”

“I can’t tell you. She’s famous. You’ve heard of her, believe me. Everyone has heard of her.”

“Tell me.”

“It would be wrong.”

“If that’s how you feel, don’t tell me. I’d rather not know.”

“Marilyn.”

“She’s dead.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“Well, she’s dead, isn’t she?”

“It was Marilyn. I saw her.”

“Amazing. What did you do?”

“We did everything. You hate me now.”

Annette didn’t want to go to Danny’s. I followed her from room to room, cajoling, arguing. Not to go was not to live. It wasn’t her idea of living. She didn’t want to go, but she bought a few yards of silk and began to make herself a dress, working on it at night after the kids were in bed. None of her dresses was good enough. What about the dress she wore last week, the green dress, or what about the black dress? Anyhow, look, I’ve known Danny since we were kids. We played basketball together in the neighborhood. His mother knows my mother. It makes no difference that he’s prospered and everyone at his party is likely to be rich except us. Who’ll care about your dress? It’s a dinner party, not a fashion show. More to the point, who will be as beautiful as you?

I didn’t say anything like that. She didn’t want to go, let alone talk about it. She was making a dress. That was a sign. She hadn’t actually said she was going, but why else would she make a dress? So I phoned the babysitter. She didn’t tell me not to phone the babysitter. Saturday came. She hadn’t said she was going, but she moved more slowly than usual. That was a sign. I didn’t ask if she was going. She might have felt challenged and said no. She took much longer than usual with dinner for the kids, much longer putting them to bed. I helped, but nothing I did seemed to speed the process. She was moving slowly, as if with weighty business on her mind. I couldn’t just say, “If we’re going, let’s move a little quickly, all right?” The babysitter arrived, a cheery girl, not too stupid. I read to the kids, then shut the lights and said good night, and went to our room and saw that she had put on the dress she made. Rose-colored silk. Extremely simple sheath. I looked at her looking at herself. She could tell what I felt, since there is every sort of silence. My voice asked, “How does it feel to look like you?” She said, “It’s all right.”

I imagined seeing myself like that. The surprise; the little delirium. It must be frightening, pleasing. She’d never admit she liked it. Me, I looked all right, but not good enough for her. I wasn’t rich enough either. If I were rich, or an older man, we might connect better. We’d have moral pathos; delicate binding sorrow. I said, “Are you ready?”

We drove to Danny’s place, from flats to hills, from sycamores to Monterey pines. She didn’t say a word, but she was in the car. She didn’t have to talk. What did she owe the world? The evidence was in. Like a flower or a painting, her existence was enough. I wished she’d talk, just the same. I’d have been happier even if she complained, or if she were happier. But this was a lot. I didn’t need more; except maybe a cigarette. She never objected to my smoking, but she was doing something for me. I could forgo.

There were twelve people at Danny’s party. We knew some of them. Sooner or later, I’d slide up beside her and whisper, “What’s that guy’s name, the bald guy with the mustache?” She’d whisper it to me. She was talking to Danny’s wife, doing fine, even if she was uncomfortable. She looked better than anyone in the room. Or California. Or the planet. I’d have whispered that to her, but she’d get annoyed, the way she got annoyed in bed. I had the wrong effect. I liked her too much. Always a mistake. You can’t expect a woman to want you to like her too much.

The things I’d done in my frustration. I never dared think about that. I’d have denied it under torture. It wasn’t a question of getting laid, only how. The ferocity. Could one live without it? Or with it? How was everyone living, anyway? It was a secret. The secret.