Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“That sounds like a press agent’s plant.”

“Maybe it is. I read it in one of the columns. Anyway, I guess I was testing you.”

“Why?”

“Because... well... do you want the truth?”

“Yes. Please.”

“I... I was a little afraid of the way I felt when I... when I saw you. Then you asked me if I was Jewish, and I figured if I said I was, and it made a difference, then, well then I’d have had an excuse for ending it right there.”

Gillian smiled. “I’m glad it didn’t end right there.”

“I am, too.”

“And I’m glad you said you were Jewish.”

“No, I’m Scotch,” Charlie said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Charlie,” Gillian said. “Why didn’t you go to school in Talmadge?”

Charlie shrugged. “I went to P.S. 80,” he said.

“I was talking to the gentleman,” Gillian said, smiling.

“Oh, that’s all right, you’re excused,” Charlie said.

“I wanted to get away from Talmadge,” David said. “I wanted to be on my own for a while.”

“Did your parents object?”

“Only my mother’s living.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Well, my father died a long time ago.”

“Both my parents are still alive,” Gillian said. She turned and peered through the window of the car. “We’ll be passing where I used to live soon.” She turned back to David. “Do you like N.Y.U.?”

“I did at first. To tell the truth, I’m not sure any more. Everyone else seems to know where he’s going, and I guess I don’t. Most of the guys are veterans, you know, and...”

“Like the lost generation,” she said, and nodded.

“Well, not exactly. Didn’t you always feel they were a little dramatic about their rehabilitation problems?”

“Oh, I think they were very sweet-oh,” Gillian said. “Sitting in their Paris cafés and talking about shooting trips to the Black Forest and the novels they were going to write. That’s very sweet and very sad.”

“Maybe I ought to leave school and find a Paris café,” David said. “Become a sort of a bum.”

“No,” Gillian said.

“Does that scare you?”

“No, but... well, I don’t think you should be a bum.”

“Why not?”

“There are too many things to do. No one has the right to be a bum.”

“That’s it,” Charlie said. “She hit the nail on the head. Eat, drink, and be merry.” He turned to look at the station platform as the train pulled in. “Where are we, anyway?”

“Burnside Avenue,” Gillian said.

“That’s good,” Charlie said, “because I haven’t the faintest idea where Burnside Avenue is.”

David looked at his watch. “We’re going to be late,” he said.

“I don’t mind,” Gillian said. “We don’t have to go at all, you know. Wouldn’t you rather talk?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“Why don’t we get off at Fordham Road and walk around a little, and then maybe stop for a drink later? I’d like that.”

“You would?”

“Yes, David. I really would.”

“Well then...” He dug into his coat and pulled out the theater tickets. He handed them across Gillian’s lap to Charlie.

“Thank you, sir,” Charlie said with dignity, “but I am not a panhandler.”

“These are tickets to a show,” David said. “We’d like you to have them.”

“Thank you, sir, don’t mind me.”

“Will you accept them as a gift?”

“Thank you,” Charlie said, taking the tickets. “What are they?”

“Tickets to a show.”

“Oh. Very well then. Thank you. Where am I?”

“You get off at Kingsbridge Road and walk to Hunter College.”

“Thank you. Are we in Brooklyn?”

“No. We’re in the Bronx.”

“Thank God for that,” Charlie said. “If we were in the Bronx, I’d lose myself completely. Do you know who discovered the Bronx?”

“Who?”

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “Sir, you are a gentleman. Thank you, don’t mind me,” he said, and he rolled over onto the seat and fell asleep immediately.

“I like you,” Gillian said suddenly, and David did not understand why she chose to say it at that precise moment.

They got off at Fordham Road and walked east toward the Grand Concourse. He bought her a charlotte russe and then later a jellied apple, and they walked to Poe Park, and Gillian pointed out the Poe cottage to him, and then they sat in the darkness on one of the benches and he recited two stanzas of “The Raven,” which he had learned by heart in high school. They began talking about poems they both liked, and he told her about a teacher he’d had in elementary school who’d made him memorize “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and how terrified he’d been when it came time for him to recite because she was a monstrous-looking woman who was a little cross-eyed and who was deaf in one ear, so that you had to shout lines you weren’t too sure of, anyway. Gillian told him about a teacher she’d had who’d rubbed her nose across the blackboard while trying to explain a problem in algebra. “You multiply this by this ,” she’d said, her hand clutched in Gillian’s hair, rubbing her nose across the board from one algebraic symbol to the next. They began talking about games they used to play as children, Johnny-on-a-Pony, and Ring-a-Leavio, and I-Declare-War. “And Rattlesnake, did you ever play Rattlesnake?” Gillian asked.

“No, how does it go?”

“Oh, everyone winds in and out, and gets all twisted up, and you chant, don’t you know it? R-A-T, T-L-E, S-N-A-K-E spells Rattlesnake! You never played it?”

“No, not in Talmadge. How about Statues? Did you play that?”

“Oh, yes,” Gillian said delightedly. “Where you swung the other person out and he had to strike a pose? Yes, I loved that game!”

“And Flinch? No, I suppose that was a boy’s game.”

“Do you remember ‘Oh, I won’t go to Macy’s any more, more, more, there’s a big fat policeman at the door, door, door’?”

“That’s strictly New York, I think.”

“Did the girls in your town say ‘One-two-three a-learie’ or did they say ‘One-two-three a-nation’?”

“‘I received my confirmation,’” David said.

“‘On the day of declaration, one-two-three a-nation!’ Right! How about choosing sides? How did you do that?”

“‘Ink-a-bink, a bottle of ink, the cork fell out, and you stink! ’”

“Yes!” Gillian said, squeezing his hand. “And what was the one the boys all did? Something about wine? When they were challenging someone to a fight.”

“Oh, wait, yes... wait a minute.” He thought briefly and then rapidly blurted, “‘Three-six-nine, a bottle of wine—’”

“‘I can lick you any old time!’” Gillian completed triumphantly, and they burst out laughing.

It was midnight before they knew it. They walked across the street to the tavern and asked the bartender if he knew how to make hot rum toddies, and he said, “Lady, this ain’t England.” They settled for whiskey sours. When they reached Gillian’s apartment again, it was two o’clock in the morning. She leaned against the door sleepily and said, “David, I had a marrr -velous time.”

“We didn’t do very much,” he said apologetically.

“Oh, but we did a lot.”

“Can I see you tomorrow, Gillian?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Sunday. We could spend the whole day together. If you want to, that is.”

“Yes, I want to.”

“Good. I was afraid...”

“Yes?”

“I was afraid you might not want to,” he said, and shrugged.

The hallway was very silent.

“I’d like to hold you, Gillian.”

“Yes. Hold me.”

“I’d like to kiss you.”