Philip Roth - Letting Go

“Who said I didn’t want people? Who mentioned people?”

“—because it’s not too late. I can call them and cancel the whole thing. We can eat the roast ourselves.”

“They’re as good as anybody else,” she mumbled, and plowed into the breakfast and lunch dishes that were still stacked in the sink.

“What kind of attitude is that? Turn that damn water off, please. I thought you were enthusiastic about having somebody for dinner. I thought you thought it would be a great pleasure for us, very domestic.”

“Everything’s domestic enough, thank you.”

“Look, it was your idea to have somebody for dinner. What are you being so bitchy about? You said it would be a pleasure.”

“It probably will be.”

“Martha, I’m going to make out a check. We’ll split the rent.”

“You don’t have to pay anything, really. You don’t even have to pay Sissy’s forty.”

“I want to.”

“Her moving had nothing to do with you. I told you that.”

“I’ll split the rent. I’ll give you a check for twenty-five dollars more, is that agreeable to you?”

“… I suppose so.”

“Well, what’s the matter now? Do you want me to pay the whole rent?”

“Oh forget it.”

“Excuse me if I’m being obtuse. What is it you want to say to me?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it?”

“Well”—she raised her hands, as though she had done everything possible to spare me—“honestly, Gabe, all this dividing in half is pretty damn silly. I mean we divide the grocery bill, and you’ve got an appetite like a horse.”

“What?”

“Last night you ate all the green beans, you ate two-thirds of the tuna yesterday afternoon—”

“What’s going on here? Cynthia ate all the ice cream, every last drop, just this afternoon, and did I start shouting about dividing the bills? What’s the matter with you?”

“Why don’t you just leave Cynthia out of it? There’s no need to be so hard on that poor kid. At least she can have some vanilla ice cream out of this deal, for God’s sake.”

“I haven’t been so hard on Cynthia, let’s get that straightened out. Nobody’s been hard on Cynthia, and least of all me. The truth of it — since we’re going to speak truths — is that I’m paying half the groceries and feeding one mouth, and you’re paying half and feeding three mouths. So I’m entitled to a few God damned green beans, all right?”

“Well, you’re living here for practically nothing.”

“I paid you forty bucks.”

“Half of a hundred and thirty ain’t forty.”

“I’ll pay sixty-five. I said I’d pay sixty-five.”

“What about the other apartment?”

“Let me worry about my other apartment, will you?”

“I mean if you’ve moved in here, you might as well move all the way in.”

“I have moved all the way in.”

“Not with another apartment, you haven’t.”

“I’ve explained to you, Martha. It’s simply a matter of the University, my position, a matter of appearances and dignity—”

“It’s not dignified enough, is it, living with me?”

“Oh the hell with it. You’re just being contrary, so the hell with it.”

I went into the living room, where the table that Martha and I had pulled onto the middle of the rug was being set by Cynthia. With a painstaking concern for symmetry, the child was aligning and realigning the dinner plates between their appropriately squadroned knives, forks, and spoons. She might just as well have been defusing a bomb, for the expression on her face. As she circled the table, she smoothed out the tiniest wrinkles in the white cloth.

Markie was not around, having gone off to the playground with Stephanie and her grandmother; Cynthia had begged that she be allowed to stay at home and help with the preparations. Already she had vacuumed rugs and gone around emptying ash trays, and for one optimistic moment I believed that since she knew it was friends of mine who were coming to dine, that with these labors she was making a bid for an end to hostilities between us. Not that she hadn’t been deferential to me for the two weeks I had been in her house, but it was Cynthia’s kind of deference. At dinnertime, for example, she would shove the bread my way before I had even asked. She had not made the smallest offer of lips or face — neither a kiss or a smile — nor did she now. Watching her labor over the table, I concluded that all her dogged helpfulness was actually designed to ally herself with her mother against me. Martha and I had been sniping at each other for two days now, and Cynthia, a worldly and attentive baby, probably wanted only to make clear whose side she would be on, in the event of a full-scale war.

I left her posing in aesthetic contemplation over an arrangement of serving dishes she had made in the center of the tablecloth. In the kitchen I sat down at the table, pushed aside a coffee cup, and wrote out a check.

“This is for you,” I said.

“I don’t need any checks.”

“You’ve got to pay the rent, so don’t be silly.”

“I’ll explain that I’m broke. I’ll pay double next month.”

“Here’s a hundred and twenty-five dollars. Stop being an ass. Twenty-five I owe you, the hundred is a loan. When your friend Theresa pays you back, you pay me back.” I went up to where she stood, leaning against the sink, and put the check in the pocket of her apron. “What did she need the hundred for?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t inquire. A down payment on an abortion is probably a damn good guess. Look, I’m sorry. I’ve been being nervous about the rent.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me? If you feel rushed and upset, if you want me to — if you’re feeling harried — I’ll just call and say you’re not feeling well.”

“Listen, if you want to call because you don’t want them, then go right ahead. Don’t try to slough it all off on me. I made dinner, and I’m ready, so it’s fine with me. I thought they were your friends. I thought you thought we’d all enjoy ourselves.”

“I thought you might like them, yes. I thought they would like to meet you.”

“Then let’s stop calling on the phone and telling them I’m sick. I’m not sick.”

“Martha, please don’t worry about that hundred dollars. If that girl just takes off, if she’s going to buy a ticket for a train somewhere, you just forget it.”

“I didn’t bring you here to support me.”

“I didn’t come here to support you! All I’m saying is, don’t worry about the hundred. What the hell are we arguing about? All right? Just say all right, all right? ”

“All right.”

When the roast was nearly finished and Martha was dressing in the bathroom, the phone rang. She ran to it and spoke for some ten minutes, standing in her slip and bare feet.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“It’s not important.”

“That Theresa girl,” I said. “How did you get so involved with her? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“She needs more money, doesn’t she?”

“Well, I don’t have any more!” Martha shouted, and went back into the bathroom.

Certainly there were others we could have invited. Anyone at all, really, could have sat down with us, eaten our food, sipped our coffee, and then gone off to carry into the streets the news of our unabashed, forthright, and impractical union. We needed only one couple — married preferably — to stand for the world and its opinions, one pair of outsiders to whom we could display our fundamental decency and good intentions, to whose judgment we could submit evidence of an ordered carnality and a restrained domestic life. Just one couple to give us society’s approval, if not the rubber stamp … For it must have been all of this that we were after when one sunny morning a week after I had moved in, Martha woke up and said, “Let’s have somebody for dinner!” and I said, “What a splendid idea!”