Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“Even then, it’s not as if I’ve had everything I exactly wanted — like the wife and kids I always spoke about.”

That’s right. You used to speak about that a lot.”

“It was way too early to, but I did. Or the home. The relatively permanent home with some grounds I could putter around on my days off, for basically I’m a family and fireplace man and I’d be a self-deluding idiot to deny it. But I’ve been quite lucky all in all.”

“I’d say so. In ten years? You’ve done a lot.”

“Yeah. Well, then last night, when we were in the lobby waiting for the movie to break—”

“You were with someone?”

“A friend — a woman I see, although nothing serious. So, I spotted Gladys, and I don’t know, I just ran over to her and for some reason threw my arms around her — something I never would’ve done ten years ago, as I had never cared for her much. But things change. I was actually exhilarated at seeing her. And we naturally got around to talking about you.”

“What did she have to say about me?”

“Nothing much.”

“I ask that because she’s always had a savage mouth. Always spreading lies about people — me particularly, though I was one of only a few people to even take a half interest in her. She’s another one I made a pact with myself never to speak of or think about. She’s said some filthy malevolent things about me — to mutual friends, no less — which, in another age, we’d be cut off the line if I repeated them.”

“For me, she’s always had a special ironic place in my memory. Because if you remember, when we finally emerged from that coffee shop ten years ago, Gladys was walking past — the last person we wanted to see at the time, we agreed when we saw her.”

“Now I remember. That bitch was always turning up when you least wanted her.”

“She saw us and smiled and began waving an arm laden with clanky chains as if this was just the most beautiful day in the most beautiful of worlds for everyone in it. I remember her vividly.”

“You always had an excellent memory. I suppose that’s important in your field.”

That among other things. But that incident comes back amazingly clear. Even the kind of day it was, with the ground freshly covered with the light snow flurry we had watched from the coffee shop.”

That part,” she said, “I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

“Everyone has a few scenes in his life that stick out prominently. And not just extraordinary or life-changing events — that’s not what I’m driving at so much. For instance, I can remember supposedly insignificant and meaningless incidents that occurred twenty to twenty-five years ago, and also what kind of day it was then and how everyone looked and even what they were wearing down to the pattern of their dresses and ties.”

“What was I wearing that day?”

That day? — Oh…that green suit you had. And a trench coat. The tightly belted coat I especially remember, even that the top button was off and you said that right after you leave me you were going to head straight to a notions shop to replace the button.”

That trench coat. I got it at the British-American House and did it ever cost a fortune, though I at least got a few years out of it. But the green suit?”

“A green tweed, salt and pepper style. It was a very fashionable suit at the time — the one you most preferred wearing to your auditions.”

“Nowadays, I just go in slacks.”

“You usually wore it with a white blouse and the amber bead necklace I gave you, and so I always felt somewhat responsible for the parts you got.”

“I forgot about that necklace. You know, I still have it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wasn’t about to throw it away. It’s a nice necklace.”

“How does your husband react to your sporting these priceless gems from other men?”

“Jack? He doesn’t think a thing about my clothes — not like you used to do. But he’s very kind and sweet. A very peaceful man who knows where he is more than most anyone, and extremely generous and perceptive in other ways. He’s a dentist.”

“Just about my favorite professional group — even if they hurt.”

“But he’s not your everyday dentist. He specializes in capping teeth for actors. In the last fifteen years, I’d say most big New York stage and television actors who’ve had their teeth capped, had it done by him. That’s how we met.”

“You had your teeth capped?”

“Just four of them. The upper front.”

“But you always had such beautiful teeth.”

“Well, a number of people who know about things like this thought my teeth should be capped, if I wanted to do soaps and TV commercials, and I agreed. They were a little pointy — the incisors, especially — like fangs. They look much better for it — honestly.”

“What could a job like that run someone?”

“Couple of thousand, but that’s with two cleanings and x-rays and everything. And you have to consider the labor and time involved. I was in that chair for months.”

“Did Dr. Cabell make you pay up before he married you?”

“Oh, we got married long after that. You see, about six months after I paid up completely, he phoned me out of the blue and mentioned something about my having missed one of my monthly payments. I said ‘Can’t be, Dr. Cabell, there must be some mistake,’ and he said he’d look in to it further. He called back the next day and said I was right — I was paid up in full. That’s when he asked me out to lunch — to make up for his misunderstanding, he said — and the next year we were married.”

“It sounds as if he was initially feeding you a line.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Why, because, and I say this quite harmlessly, it has all the earmarks of a line. Which is all right if it works, I suppose, which it obviously did.”

“But you’re wrong. He, in fact, told me in that second call that I might think his bill call was only an excuse to contact me, but that it wasn’t. He really did think I wasn’t paid up.”

Then why didn’t he have someone in his office call you about the so-called overdue payment? He has a big practice, I assume, so can’t be doing all the billing and appointments and such by himself, and it’d seem a lot more professional doing it that way.”

“Jack feels that something like that — when he has the time, and he tries to make time for it — ought to be handled by him alone. He’s a very informal man, Arnie, despite his imposing office and successful practice, and he’s told me several times that there’s already too much impersonality in the city between patient and dentist. Also, he likes to chat.”

“You’re no doubt right. It’s absurd of me to even have brought up such a petty issue. But I suppose I’ve been hauling around this vision of you of being a person too clever to fall for that kind of palaver, we’ll call it.”

“Fall? What are you talking about? I married the man. Even if he was giving me a line with that call — which he wasn’t — what’s the difference now? It’s all water under the cesspool or something when you married the person, isn’t it?”

“Naturally.”

“Oh sure, you really sound convinced.”

“Well, despite what I said before about how it’s okay and such if it works, I’m against lies and deceptions of any sort, what can I tell you? I don’t like hypocrisy. I’ve seen too much of it in my work and I simply don’t like it.”

That’s right — I forget. You’re the big world traveler and interpreter of newsy events.”

“All right, I happen to be a journalist — a newsman, if you like. And I write and report on things that turn my stomach every day. In politics, diplomacy, business—”