Erich Segal - Oliver's Story

'Or maybe it's still Jenny. I mean almost two years later I could maybe have a fling and justify it.

But my house ! To have somebody in my house and in my bed. Sure, realistically the house is different and the bed is different. Logic says it shouldn't bother me. But damn, it does.'

'Home', you see, is still a place I live with Jenny.

Paradox: They say that husbands all have fantasies of being single. I'm a weirdo. I lapse into daydreams that I'm married.

And it helps to have a place that is inviolate. A pad that no one comes to. I mean nothing breaks the comforting illusion that I'm sharing all I have with someone.

Now and then a piece of mail is forwarded, addressed to both of us. And Radcliffe regularly sends her letters coaxing contributions. This is my dividend for not announcing Jenny's death except to friends.

The only other toothbrush in the bathroom has belonged to Philip Cavilleri.

So you see, it's either a dishonest act to one girl …

Or betrayal of another.

Dr London spoke.

'In either case, that puts you in the wrong.'

He understood. But unexpectedly his understanding made it even worse.

'Must it be only either/or?' he queried with a Kierkegaardian allusion. 'Could there be no other explanation for your conflict?'

'What?' I really didn't know.

A pause.

'You like her,' Dr London quietly suggested.

I considered it.

'Which one?' I asked. 'You didn't say a name.'

Marcie had to be postponed.

By a strange coincidence I'd set our rendezvous for 5 p.m. Which happened, as I realized in the office, to conflict directly with my psychiatric session. So I called to make adjustments.

'What's the matter — chickening, my friend?' This time there was no meeting in her office. She could tease me.

'I'll only be an hour late. Sixty minutes.'

'Can I trust you?' Marcie asked.

'That's your problem, isn't it?'

Anyway, we had to run in semidarkness, Which can be lovely when the reservoir reflects the city lights.

Seeing her again, I felt some day-long qualms diminish. She was beautiful. I had forgotten quite how much. We kissed and then began to jog.

'How was your day?' I asked.

'Oh, the usual catastrophes, the overstock positions, understock positions, minor transportation snags, suicidal panic in the corridors. But mostly thoughts of you.'

I fabricated things to say a stride ahead of saying them. And yet, incapable of superficial running conversation, I inevitably focused on the point. I had demanded. She had come. We both were here.

What was she feeling?

'Did you wonder where we would be going?'

'I though you had the compass, friend.'

'Bring any clothes?'

'We can't eat dinner in our track suits, can we?'

I was curious to know how much she'd packed.

'Where's your stuff?'

'My car.' She gestured toward Fifth Avenue. 'Just an airline bag. The kind you carry on and carry off. It's very practical.'

'For quick departures.'

'Right,' she said, pretending not to know what I was thinking. We ran another lap.

'I though we'd go to my place,' I said casually.

'Okay.'

'It isn't very big … '

'That's fine.'

' … and just make dinner. By ourselves. The staff is you and me. I'll do the goddamn dishes … '

'Fine,' she answered. When we'd jogged another hundred yards, she interrupted our athletic reverie.

'But Oliver,' she said, a trifle plaintively, 'who'll do the goddamn cooking?'

I looked at her.

'Something in my stomach says you aren't being jocular.'

She wasn't. On our final lap she told me of her culinary training. It was nil. She once had wanted to enroll in Cordon Bleu, but Mike objected. One can always get the teacher to come cook for one.

I was sort of pleased. I had mastered pasta, scrambled eggs and half a dozen other tricky dishes.

This made me the expert who could introduce her to the kitchen.

On the way to my place — which takes longer if you drive than if you jog — we stopped for take-out Chinese food. I had enormous difficulty in finalizing my selection.

'Problems?' Marcie asked, observing my exhaustive study of the menu.

'Yeah. I can't make up my mind.'

'It's only dinner,' Marcie said. And what: she may have meant — or understood — I'll never know.

I am sitting in my living room, trying to read last week's Sunday Times and pretending that a lady in my bathroom showering is nothing extraordinary.

'Hey,' I heard her call, 'the towels here are sort of … rancid.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Do you have clean ones?'

'No,' I said.

There was a pause.

'I'll be okay,' she said.

The bathroom was suffused with smells of femininity. I thought my shower would be quick (I only had one lousy nozzle, after all), and yet the perfume made me stay. Or was I afraid to leave the reassuring flow of warmth?

I was emotional, all right. And hypersensitive. But strange to say, at this point in the evening with a woman out there waiting to play house with me according to my oddball rules, I couldn't tell if I was happy or if I was sad.

I only knew that I was feeling.

Marcie Binnendale was in the kitchenette, pretending she could light a stove.

'You need matches, Marce,' I coughed, while quickly opening the window. 'I'll show you.'

'Sorry, friend,' she said, extremely ill at ease. 'I'm lost in here.'

I warmed the Chinese food, took out some beer and poured an orange juice. Marcie set the (coffee) table.

'Where'd you get these knives and forks?' she asked.

'Oh, here and there.'

'I'll say. No two pieces match.'

'I like variety.' (Yes. We had owned a total set. It's stashed away with other stuff suggesting marriage.)

We sat down on the floor and had our dinner. I was as loose as my uprightness would allow. I wondered if the grunge of the apartment and its claustrophobic clutter made my guest nostalgic for her normal way of life.

'It's nice,' she said. And touched my hand. 'Do you have any music?'

'No.' (I'd given Jenny's stereo away.)

'Nothing?'

'Just the radio that wakes me up.'

'Okay if I tune into QXR?' she asked.

I nodded, tried to smile, and Marcie rose. The radio was by the bed. Which was some four or five steps' journey from where we were camping. I was wondering if she'd return or wait for me to join her there. Could she notice my depression? Did she think my ardor had already waned?

Suddenly the telephone.

Marcie stood above it.

'Shall I answer, Oliver?'

'Why not?'

'It could be some little friend of yours,' she smiled.

'You flatter me. Impossible. You answer it.'

She shrugged and did.

'Good evening … Yes, that number is correct … It is. He's … Who am I? How is that relevant?'

Who the hell was at the other end, interrogating my own private guests? I rose and sternly grabbed the phone.

'Yeah? Who is this?'

A silence on the other end was broken by a gravelly 'Congratulations!'

'Oh — Phil.'

'Well, glory be to God,' the holy Cavilleri rolled.

'How are you, Phil?' I said casually.

He totally ignored my question while pursuing his.

'Is she nice?'

'Who, Philip?' I retorted icily.

'Her, the she, the gal who answered.'

'Oh, that's just the maid,' I said.

'At ten o'clock at night? Come on — come off it. Level with me.'

'I mean my secretary. You recall Anita — with the lots of hair. I'm giving her some notes about my School Board case.'

'Don't bullshit me. If that's Anita, I'm the Cardinal of Cranston.'