Sol Stein - Other people

I picked the release form up and started to put it back into my breast pocket.

"How do I know you're not bluffing?"

"Make the call," I shouted at him.

He looked at his pad where I had written the number. Then he picked up his phone and dialed the number. I guess whatever they say when you reach Cunham's office convinced him. He hung up, rubbed his chin, then motioned for the piece of paper back. I watched him sign it, put it in my pocket. I watched him make out the check for the deposit. I took it, waved goodbye at him so that I wouldn't have to shake his hand, went quickly out to the reception room. For a moment I felt panic, I couldn't see Francine. "Where is she?" I said to the receptionist. "Where did she go?"

"In the ladies' room."

George Thomassy, get a hold of yourself.

When she came back in, she returned the ladies' room key to the receptionist, then said to me, "What happened with Mr. Hoover?"

I pulled the release out of my pocket. "You're free to move," I said.

You are free to move.

"Did you beat him up?" she asked.

"In my fashion. No violence. He's a dirty old man." Like me.

"George?"

"Yup." Yup? You'd think I was a nervous kid.

"You've been helpful to me."

I nodded.

"Really helpful. All along."

Risk rebuff. "Francine?"

She waited.

"I didn't know how long this would take, so I told Grace not to expect me back at any particular time if at all. I have a mildly crazy idea."

She waited.

Help me.

"What's your idea?"

"Since you took the day off — listen, how long since you've been to the Bronx Zoo?"

"Long time."

"Me, too. Why don't we stop there on the way to Westchester. What do you think?"

"You want to look at all of the bachelor animals who've accepted their fate?"

"What does that mean?" I asked. Was she saying yes? Yes to what?

She said, "There's something pathetic about the acceptance of a cage. Or the free-roaming ones who don't try to jump the moat."

I told her I'd lead our two-car caravan to the zoo.

"I've seen you drive. I won't be able to keep up with you."

"I'll watch you in my rear-view mirror."

"Thanks."

My mind wasn't on driving. Somehow our little convoy made it to the zoo without mishap. We had hot dogs and beer, got bone weary walking in a determination to see everything there was to see and smell of the animal kingdom that day. Later, we plunked ourselves down on a bench, stretching our tired legs in front of us, to watch the other people, odd as the animals, pass before us.

Finally, Francine said, "Where do we go from here?"

I have sometimes thought that the people I know are each individual parts of a jigsaw puzzle that never quite gets put together into a picture that makes sense. But at that moment, it seemed that the two pieces juxtaposed on the park bench might just possibly fit together.

We had arranged to dispose of her apartment, if not of all of its memories. It seemed natural to go to my place.

When we were inside and the door was closed, I turned the cylinder lock.

"Expecting anyone else?" she asked.

"Not today." I watched her admirable back as she ambled over to the bookshelves on the opposite side of the room. "Looking for something to read?"

"No," she said, turning toward me. "You look like a nervous school-boy. I thought you're used to stress, counselor."

"Not this kind."

"What kind?" she said.

"Us."

Francine twined her fingers into a bridge. She was fifteen feet away when she looked up from her hands and said, "Why don't you take your clothes off?"

I remembered my first experience with a girl, I can't remember her name but I see her as she looked then, pleading with me not to undress her, bargaining for the blouse and the brassiere only, not the blue jeans, not the panties, as if it was the clothes and not the body that was at issue, two awkward kids ending up half undressed doing something or other that was supposed to be sex, worried about what she would think of me, she undoubtedly worried about what I would think of her, worried that somebody would see us, catch us, punish us for ducking the parental admonition never to remove your clothes in the presence of someone of the opposite sex. How many grown-up couples for how many centuries fornicated with nightclothes on in the dark? It wasn't dark any more.

"You'll be more comfortable," she said, unbuttoning her blouse. Her fingers across the room affected me. I could feel the muscles of my buttocks tighten.

As she slipped from her blouse, she said, "It isn't as if we're a one-night stand."

Her breasts were beautiful because she was beautiful.

"You're very quiet for you," she said, slipping out of her skirt.

"What are we?" I asked.

She kicked her shoes off.

"I hope a little bit in love," she said.

"Yes, but what are we?"

Her expression deemed my question unnecessary. I thought she would turn her back to me as she slid her pantyhose down and pulled them off, but she faced me as if what she was doing was perfectly natural, which it might have been if I hadn't lived, like all men of my vintage, at the end of the age of embarrassment.

"I guess," she said at last, "we're somewhere between a one-night stand and a relationship that might last a bit. Who knows? Do you lawyers need a contract for everything? Take your damn clothes off!"

I felt like an idiot standing there. Quickly, I went over and put my arms around her. Her skin felt hot. I had trained myself for two decades to speak with precision and care, not to let words slip, and here I was suddenly saying, "I love you," and kissing her.

Hers didn't feel like the mouth of another person.

When, for breath, she pulled away, she said, "Your suit's scratchy."

And so George Thomassy, who like his precursors in Eden was taught that nakedness was shameful, with deliberate speed flung off his clothes and led Francine Widmer into his no longer private bedroom.