Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

Frances flicked the corner of her eyes. “Another brandy,” she told the waiter.

“Two,” Michael said.

“Yes, ma’am, yes, sir,” said the waiter, backing away.

Frances regarded him coolly across the table. “Do you want me to call the Stevensons?” she asked. “It’ll be nice in the country.”

“Sure,” Michael said. “Call them up.”

She got up from the table and walked across the room toward the telephone. Michael watched her walk, thinking, what a pretty girl, what nice legs.

W hen he finally saw her, he nearly failed to recognize her. He walked behind her for a half block, vaguely noticing that the woman in front of him had long legs and was wearing a loose, college-girl polo coat and a plain brown felt hat.

Suddenly something about the way she walked made him remember—the almost affected rigidity of her back and straightness of throat and head, with all the movement of walking, flowing up to the hips and stopping there, like Negro women in the South and Mexican and Spanish women carrying baskets on their heads.

For a moment, silently, he watched her walk down Twelfth Street, on the sunny side of the street, in front of the little tired gardens behind which lay the quiet, pleasantly run-down old houses. Then he walked up to her and touched her arm.

“Low heels,” he said. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

She looked around in surprise, then smiled widely, took his arm. “Hello, Paul,” she said. “I’ve gone in for health.”

“Whenever I think of you,” he said, “I think of the highest heels in New York City.”

“The old days,” Harriet said. They walked slowly down the sunny street, arm in arm, toward Sixth Avenue. “I was a frivolous creature.”

“You still walk the same way. As though you ought to have a basket of laundry on your head.”

“I practiced walking like that for six months. You’d be surprised how much attention I get walking into a room that way.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Paul said, looking at her. She had black hair and pale, clear skin and a long, full body, and her eyes were deep gray and always brilliant, even after she’d been drinking for three days in a row.

Harriet closed her coat quickly and walked a little faster. “I’m going to Wanamaker’s,” she said. “There’re a couple of things I have to buy. Where are you going?”

“Wanamaker’s,” Paul said. “I’ve been dying to go to Wanamaker’s for three years.”

They walked slowly, in silence, Harriet’s arm in his.

“Casual,” Paul said. “I bet to the naked eye we look casual as hell. How do you feel?”

Harriet took her arm away. “Casual.”

“O.K. Then that’s how I feel, too.” Paul whistled coldly to himself. He stopped and looked critically at her and she stopped, too, and turned toward him, a slight puzzled smile on her face. “What makes you dress that way?” he asked. “You look like Monday morning in Northampton.”

“I just threw on whatever was nearest,” Harriet said. “I’m just going to be out about an hour.”

“You used to look like a nice big box of candy in your clothes.” Paul took her arm again and they started off. “Viennese bonbons. Every indentation carefully exploited in silk and satin. Even if you were just going down to the corner for a pint of gin, you’d look like something that ought to be eaten for dessert. This is no improvement.”

“A girl has different periods in clothes. Like Picasso,” Harriet said. “And if I’d known I was going to meet you, I’d’ve dressed differently.”

Paul patted her arm. “That’s better.”

Paul eyed her obliquely as they walked: the familiar, long face, the well-known wide mouth with always a little too much lipstick on it, the little teeth that made her face, when she smiled, look suddenly like a little girl’s in Sunday school.

“You’re getting skinny, Paul,” Harriet said.

Paul nodded. “I’m as lean as a herring. I’ve been leading a fevered and ascetic life. What sort of life have you been leading?”

“I got married.” Harriet paused a moment. “Did you hear I got married?”

“I heard,” Paul said. “The last time we crossed Sixth Avenue together the L was still up. I feel a nostalgic twinge for the Sixth Avenue L.” They hurried as the light changed. “On the night of January ninth, 1940,” Paul said, holding her elbow, “you were not home.”

“Possible,” Harriet said. “I’m a big girl now; I go out at night.”

“I happened to pass your house, and I noticed that the light wasn’t on.” They turned down toward Ninth Street. “I remembered how hot you kept that apartment—like the dahlia greenhouse in the Botanical Gardens.”

“I have thin blood,” Harriet said gravely. “Long years of inbreeding in Massachusetts.”

“The nicest thing about you,” Paul said, “was you never went to sleep.”

“Every lady to her own virtue,” Harriet said. “Some women’re beautiful, some’re smart—me—I never went to sleep. The secret of my great popularity.…”

Paul grinned. “Shut up.”

Harriet smiled back at him and they chuckled together. “You know what I mean,” he said. “Any time I called you up, two, three in the morning, you’d come right over, lively and bright-eyed, all the rouge and mascara in the right places.…”

“In my youth,” said Harriet, “I had great powers of resistance.”

“In the morning we’d eat breakfast to Beethoven. The Masterwork Hour. WNYC. Beethoven, by special permission of His Honor, the Mayor, from nine to ten.” Paul closed his eyes for a moment. “The Little Flower, Mayor for Lovers.”

Paul opened his eyes and looked at the half-strange, half-familiar woman walking lightly at his side. He remembered lying close to her, dreamily watching the few lights of the towers of the night-time city, framed by the big window of his bedroom against the black sky, and one night when she moved sleepily against him and rubbed the back of his neck where the hair was sticking up in sharp little bristles because he had had his hair cut that afternoon. Harriet had rubbed them the wrong way, smiling, dreamily, without opening her eyes. “What a delicious thing a man is …” she’d murmured. And she’d sighed, then chuckled a little and fallen asleep, her hand still on the shaven back of his neck.

Paul smiled, remembering.

“You still laughing at my clothes?” Harriet asked.

“I remembered something I heard some place …” Paul said.

“‘What a delicious thing a man is …’”

Harriet looked at him coldly. “Who said that?”

Paul squinted suspiciously at her. “Oswald Spengler.”

“Uhuh,” Harriet said soberly. “It’s a famous quotation.”

“It’s a well-turned phrase,” said Paul.

“That’s what I think, too.” Harriet nodded agreeably and walked a little faster.

They passed the little run-down bar where’d they’d sat afternoons all winter drinking martinis and talking and talking, and laughing so loud the people at the other tables would turn and smile. Paul waited for Harriet to say something about the bar, but she didn’t even seem to notice it. “There’s Eddie’s Bar,” Paul said.

“Uhuh.” Harriet nodded briskly.

“He’s going to start making his martinis with sherry when all the French vermouth runs out,” Paul said.

“It sounds horrible.” Harriet made a face.

“Is that all you have to say?” Paul said loudly, remembering all the times he’d looked in to see if she was there.