Alison Lurie - Last Resort

“Well, that’s—Thank you,” Jenny said, smiling nervously and looking down, suppressing the impulse to tell Gerry how grateful Wilkie had recently been.

“I mean it.” Gerry reached out, not for his drink this time, but for her hand. Partly out of politeness, she did not pull it away. After all, he was very good looking; and (though irrationally) she valued compliments more when they came from good-looking men.

“That’s what I need: someone like you. I know it now.” He fixed her with his long-lashed dark eyes.

“Oh, I don’t really ... Jenny murmured. Men had often said such things to her before, and she had always gently, firmly, almost automatically discouraged them, putting on what someone had once described (though not to her) as “Jenny’s go-thither look.” But today her response was slower; something sore and lonely in her wanted to savor the moment.

“If you’d like me to look over your proofs, I could,” she said, gently but firmly withdrawing her hand.

“Thanks.” Not discouraged, Gerry leaned closer and shifted his grip to Jenny’s bare arm just above the wrist. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. But it means a lot to me, that you should offer.”

“No, really. I’d be glad to help.”

“You’re a wonderful woman.”

“Not at all, it’s nothing,” Jenny stammered, both warmed and embarrassed by the current of feeling directed at her. “Wilkie doesn’t need me all the time right now.” She swallowed painfully, thinking, He doesn’t need me, doesn’t want me, any of the time. “I mean, I’m sure he’d be glad to share me,” she added with an awkward light laugh.

“Yeah?” Gerry put his other hand on her arm, further up. “That wouldn’t be my reaction,” he said. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t want to share you with anyone.”

“Oh, I don’t know ... she heard herself reply inanely. You see, she said in her mind to Wilkie. Some people still want me and think I’m wonderful. “Wilkie says—” She didn’t know how to complete the sentence: she only knew she must mention his name again, to remind both of them again that she was married.

But it was Wilkie, really, who should be reminded of this, Jenny thought. He was the one who had forgotten. And if he had forgotten, why shouldn’t she? She liked Gerry: his enthusiasm, his seriousness, his thick, curly, graying hair. And he was a famous American poet. Her mother always said, two wrongs don’t make a right. But why shouldn’t they? Wouldn’t that be fair?

“I’m sure you don’t mean—” she said distractedly.

Gerry, paying no attention to these fragments of speech, began to move his hands up Jenny’s arm, like a boy eagerly climbing a soft white rope. “You’re the woman I’ve looked for all my life,” he said. “You know that?”

“No I’m not—” Jenny began, but the rest of the sentence was smothered in an enthusiastic embrace. Still clutching her arm, Gerry launched himself toward her. He smudged a warm, damp kiss on her mouth—as might have been expected, it tasted of vodka and tonic. Then he browsed sideways, finally burying his face in her hair, while Jenny, stunned by the suddenness of it, did nothing.

“Jenny, my sweet Jenny,” he mumbled. “I love you so much.”

Jenny gasped. For the first time in months someone was holding her and kissing her and saying fond romantic things. But it was all wrong, because she didn’t love him.

“Please, don’t!” she choked out, pushing the heavy warm arms and face away, almost weeping with the effort and the disappointment. “I can’t—I mean, I love my husband and he loves me.” It was something she had said before; something she regularly had to say now and then when some acquaintance tried to push a flirtation or a friendship too far.

Always in the past, as these words were uttered, they had magically formed themselves into a delicate but impenetrable thorny hedge. Now, though, they fell to the ground and lay there like the plant debris round the pool outside, broken and faded, because they were a lie.

But Gerry didn’t know this. He moved back, gazing at her, blinking his long eyelashes. “Oh, Jenny. God, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help—”

“That’s all right,” she said weakly, trying to catch her breath.

“I had to give it a try, I guess.” He grinned. “I mean, well, the way I figure it, when you really want something, you go for it.”

“Mm,” Jenny uttered, though in fact this had never been true for her.

“I suppose you’re furious with me.”

“No. Of course not.” Jenny smiled gently.

“God, you’re wonderful.” Gerry spread his arms, as if to embrace her again, this time theoretically. “Most women these days, they’d set the PC police onto me.”

Breathing more normally now, she managed a smile. “Oh, I’d never do that.”

“And you won’t say anything to Wilkie,” he added uneasily.

“Of course not,” agreed Jenny, who had never revealed such incidents in the past. “I wouldn’t want to worry him.”

That’s not true, she thought. I would like to worry Wilkie. I would like him to know that another famous gifted man is romantically interested in me.

Gerry sighed. “It makes me desperately unhappy, your loyalty to him,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I respect it; I honor it. Only, goddamn it, I think it’s a mistake.” Again, he leaned toward Jenny and put his hand on hers.

“Please, don’t—”

“Wilkie doesn’t need you anymore, not the way I do. You have to realize that. He hasn’t published anything important for, I don’t know, maybe ten years. His career is pretty much over. Anyone can take care of him now.”

“That’s not true,” Jenny exclaimed, her voice trembling. “He’s just finishing an important new book—”

“And he’s not all that considerate of you, either. I’ve noticed—Anyone can see it. The other evening at dinner, cutting you off when you were talking, and complaining because the coffee wasn’t already on the table—”

Again, Jenny suppressed the impulse to confide in Gerry. “That was nothing,” she said. “And Wilkie does need me,” she added. “Anyhow he will, as soon as his book is finished.”

“But I need you more.” Gerry smiled. “I’ve got so many projects—Besides, I need you as a woman.”

“Wilkie has lots of projects too,” Jenny said, refusing to hear the implication. “As soon as he finishes this book, there’s so much to do—There’s so many speeches and articles he’s promised—It’s only now, while he’s still writing, that I could possibly have time for your proofs.”

“You mean the offer still holds?” Gerry looked at her with the expression of a large hungry dog.

“Yes, why not?”

“That’s great.” He smiled broadly. “God, you are a wonderful woman,” he added for the third time; and Jenny did not protest the repetition.

But the warming trend caused by Gerry’s romantic enthusiasm had been short-lived. That evening, going through the proofs of his collected essays and reviews of poetry, Walking on Fire, a reaction had hit Jenny, followed by a depression that was with her still. A very well-known and attractive American poet had embraced and kissed her, and though briefly amused and flattered, she hadn’t cared really, because she didn’t love him.

She didn’t love Wilkie either, Jenny thought now. Maybe she even hated him. The only person in Key West she really loved and wanted to see was Lee Weiss.

As she pulled into the driveway, Jenny saw that Lee was on the front porch, framed by the orange and gold of her trumpet vine and—thank goodness—alone. She wore a scarlet mumu, and her lap was full of crimson cloth; but in the brilliant sunlight these usually clashing colors were somehow beautiful, like a flock of tropical birds.