Stephen Dixon - Frog

He forgets exactly what he said to make her continue listening and not call the police, if she was really going to. Days later she said she didn’t have the phone in her hand then but was thinking of going to the living room to call. He knows he said he wanted to give her a quick rundown of who he was and what he did and where he lived and so on, just so she’d have some idea of him and know or at least think there was a greater chance of it that he was rational and respectable and no criminal or kook. That way maybe she’d look differently on him. And maybe, though without opening her door if that was the way she wanted it, and preposterous as this outcome probably was, give him her name and phone number so he could call her some later time. And “later time” not meaning tonight but in a few days to a week or as far off as she wanted, but he would hope relatively soon. Or if she preferred to call him, he could give her his name and phone number. Certainly his name. He gave it. Waited for her to give hers. She didn’t. He could even give her the names and phone numbers of people he knew whom she might know and she could call them about him. Would she prefer that? If she did, he’d wait till she got paper and pen or he could even write the names and numbers out for her or slip a paper and pen under the door so she could write them down. She didn’t answer. Really, he said: intelligent, decent people. Educators, writers, a translator, a magazine editor; even a publisher of a small trade house here in New York. He listened. She didn’t ask who they were or if that was what he did: write, possibly teach. He was going too far, wasn’t he? he said. But, quite truthfully, though he also knew he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, he was attracted to her and didn’t want this to be a lost opportunity where he’d never see her again. Which was why, of course, he was making such a terrible fool of himself and putting her through all this and risking being grabbed by the super or the police. And don’t worry, he said. None of her neighbors had opened their doors to look, nor had he heard any of them come to their doors or open their peepholes. They must all be out. She didn’t say anything. Or just very circumspect, or apathetic, inattentive, uninquisitive, reclusive to a fault or for any number of reasons didn’t want to involve themselves in possible trouble. Tenants were tenants whatever New York City building you were in. Would she agree with any of that? Then what did she think about anything he’d said so far? Still no response. He asked if she was still there. Yes, she said, from right behind the door. And if she had called the super or the police? No. Then could he also tell her, and then he’d go, how he usually felt at parties when he went alone and essentially didn’t know anyone there: uncomfortable, a party imposter, which was another reason he’d asked her to come with him. That had nothing to do with her, she said. He could go, he didn’t have to go, all that was his business solely. He knew, he knew, he said, but was just saying, maybe for lack of anything else to say. No, that wasn’t so. He also told her what the bride was to him. That they had once been very good friends, mates for a while, and he wasn’t saying this to do anything but state a fact, though why he felt he had to state that fact was perhaps another matter and one he should look into…. But the bride and he didn’t work out, and also why she’d invited him. It was a strange story. He started laughing. He didn’t know if he could tell it through a door or keep it to thirty seconds, for that was how long she said she’d give him before she probably would call the super. He told it in a minute. One minute-ten to be exact, he said, looking at his watch before and after. She thought the story bizarre and funny. The part about the gun especially. Did he think her husband was serious? Just a big windbag, he said, or seemed. If she were he she wouldn’t go to the reception. He really shouldn’t have been invited, for it’ll probably make the groom uncomfortable seeing him there. He believed another ex-lover of hers would be there too, he said; the one who’d come in to the bar with her for the daiquiris. Even worse, she said. Something was slightly off about this woman. But he was right not to have gone to the wedding ceremony, though she didn’t know if he hadn’t gone for what she’d consider the right reason. But now to think about taking someone to the reception whom he’d just met in an elevator in the same building the reception was? It’d seem his motives were questionable now and that he wanted to take her to make it an even better story to tell or to get back at the bride some way. No, positively not, he said. He wanted to take her for the reasons he gave before, which he was sure she didn’t want to hear again: his unease at going alone, but much more so because he was attracted to her, that lost opportunity he mentioned, and thought if she came with him it’d be a pleasant enough place to get to know her a little and perhaps other way around for her too. Festive atmosphere, lots of convivial people, familiar building, two elevator rides and a short lobby walk to her own apartment, if it were cold out he’d say she wouldn’t even have to put on a sweater, etcetera. But if she wanted he could skip the reception and they could go out for coffee or any kind of snack, all on him, not that he didn’t think she could pay for it. But better yet why didn’t she just come to the reception for half an hour? She didn’t say anything. Even less time than that if she wanted. That way he could fulfill his obligation to go to the reception, since he had told the bride he’d be there and that seemed to mean something to her. And he supposed they could get coffee there as well as at any coffee shop and certainly far better snacks, maybe a glass of champagne if she wanted, and they could talk for part or most of that time, and that would be that unless she wanted to stay longer. If she didn’t, then he could stay and she could go home, or they could take a long or short walk after that half an hour to less, and then she could go home and he’d return to the party or just go home himself. Probably that. But what does she say? She didn’t know, she said. He was a most convincing arguer or fabricator. Not so, he said. He was usually inarticulate, garble-mouthed, preternaturally slow to think of the right things to say to win any argument or just thought of them too late. There was an expression for that in Yiddish, another in French, perhaps most languages — what you thought after the door had been slammed on you and you walked downstairs. Steps-in-mouth. Tongue-unfurled-only-on-the-dark-stairs. For arguing, convincing, more than simple conversing, even explaining, just weren’t for him, except now and then, like maybe now. And as for lying? She’d said fabricating and she was sorry she’d said it, she said. No no, he said. He didn’t, why would he? since in addition to other reasons, probably the most flagrant was that he was such a poor speaker he’d be seen through too easily. Though with the door shut it was true he might be more adept at it, since the person being lied to wouldn’t see his giveaway face. No, what he did do well was run on unintelligibly about relatively nothing and make it seem no more than that. But really, what does she say? She still didn’t know, she said. He swore there’d be no problems. Not on his knees, for he had his only good dress pants on and he was going to a party — No, no more bad jokes, for the time being. And ten minutes at the most?

She invited him in for coffee. Maybe that’d be the best idea, she’d said, though she wasn’t sure why. They talked, drank tea and ate toast. Her expression when she’d opened the door was reserved, observing. He’d said then honestly, he had no gun and then that that was a stupid remark. After awhile she said there didn’t seem to be anything menacing about him but she still felt he’d acted very strangely, pursuing her when everything she’d said and did was against it and he could have been locked up. He said maybe once, twice in his life had he acted that way but never so inexorably. She said he was either lying to her, again or for the first time, or had forgot. Their respective families, educations, what each did professionally, where he lived and they’d been brought up, how’d she got the apartment, something about a print on her wall above the piano: naked woman riding a big furious bull, and not about what each thought it meant. Was that, he thinks he said, what playing the piano was to her? She laughed — not then, and he forgets what it was over or even if it was something he’d said that did it. Soon after she said maybe going to the party for half an hour — he’d asked again when she was still smiling — would be all right. Even if she wouldn’t know anyone there but the Rerkovskys, she liked champagne almost more than anything and at wedding receptions you usually got the best. She was kidding of course, and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea — it’d seem she’d come only for the party. Those questions she spoke about before would probably be asked: how’d they know each other, and so on. So they’d lie, he said. Oh, what should she do? — give her five minutes to dress. She shut the bedroom door. He sat on the couch not believing his luck and hoping she wouldn’t change her mind. They went. She said once that she was having a good time, smiled warmly at him several times, spoke at length with Sid Rerkovsky about a neighborhood park problem and that she thought she could be of some help, told Howard after about an hour that she was leaving and he needn’t walk her to her door. He stayed another hour, went home, couldn’t stop thinking of her, wanted to call her, told himself not to for a couple of days, drank himself to sleep while reading several days of papers. They saw each other a few afternoons later. For almost every other night for months. Had an argument: she said he’d been repeatedly rude and hostile to her mother and to a lesser extent to other people and that was something she couldn’t take in the man she was seeing. He said her mother had been hostile to him from day one, which would make him rude to her he supposed but didn’t know, and as for the other people, he didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about. They broke up, got back together a month later: he’d phoned, asked if he’d left a very important book to him at her apartment, knew she’d see through the pretext but thought he had to use something like it than saying straight off how much he missed her, dreamt of her, could hardly work because of her, that he’d been writing one a night these idiotic gushy poems about her, did she think they could meet to talk over some of their differences and so on? She said she didn’t remember seeing the book but would look, but before she hung up, was that really why he’d called? He said it was a pretext, knew she’d see through it and was glad she had, and how much he missed her… They met, talked, started seeing each other again, he moved in with her, they had dinner at the Rerkovskys a number of times and had them over once, got married, the Rerkovskys wanted to give the reception in their apartment but she wanted to have a small wedding in her apartment and didn’t want the Rerkovskys to be at the even smaller ceremony there. Had their first child less than a year later, moved to where a good job was for him, another child, she resumed teaching but evenings, lots else, then what happened to her happened.