Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

She took his arm and said, “Where’d you park your sled?”

“Downstairs in the hall.”

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into these things.”

“Where’s your scarf?”

“I don’t need one.”

“It’s cold out there.”

“Eskimo girl very hardy,” Gillian said, and they went out of the apartment. The street was silent with flying snow. The sky was gray. The world was hushed.

“David, we’re alone in the universe,” she whispered. “Just you and I.”

She took his hand.

Like children, they discovered snow.

February, and St. Valentine’s Day. He sent her fourteen cards, the first arriving on February first, each card a little bigger than the one preceding it until the last gigantic card arrived on the fourteenth. She tacked them all to the white wall just inside her doorway, and above the fourteen cards, in red paint, she lettered the words DAVID LOVES ME!

When he picked her up that night, he said, “You ruined your wall.”

“You ruined my life,” she said.

“How did I do that?”

“I can’t think straight any more.”

“Why did you use red paint?”

“Because red paint shouts. If I had a tall ladder, I would paint it across the front of the building.”

“Why don’t you rent a billboard in Times Square?”

“Or put up three-sheets on station platforms from New York to Washington. ‘David Loves Me.’ I think I’ll do it.”

“He does love you.”

“How much?”

“The world.”

“Enough to take me to dinner?”

“Well, now, I don’t know,” David said dubiously.

“Can I bribe you?”

“How?”

“I bought you a present. For St. Valentine’s Day.” She turned abruptly and went into the bedroom. He could hear her opening the dresser drawer. When she returned, she was carrying a small box in her hand. She held it out to him.

“What is it?”

“Open it.”

He took the box. Holding it on the palm of one hand, he began unfastening the ribbon.

“This makes me nervous,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. Yes, I do. I don’t need presents from you, Gillian. You’re the biggest present I ever got in my life.”

“That’s very sweet, David,” she said softly, suddenly shy.

“I love you,” he said.

He lifted the lid. A tiny tie tack rested on the cotton batting. Its rim was gold, encircling a miniature Italian mosaic wrought in delicate slivers of marble, capturing the image of a fly or a beetle or some fantastic insect with wings of red and gold and eyes of bright green, crawling on a background field of blue, skillfully and meticulously put together piece by piece. He looked at the pin and then took Gillian into his arms.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“I love it.”

“It’s a tie tack.”

“I know.”

“It was made in Italy.”

“I know.”

“You know everything, don’t you? Such a smart-oh.” She paused. “I picked a bug because I’m crazy about you, and being crazy is being bugs. Did you know that, too?”

“What kind of a bug is it?” he asked, looking at the pin again.

“Why, I think it’s the Green Hornet,” Gillian said in surprise.

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, darling,” she said softly, “it’s a love bug.”

The touch of her, the wonderful touch of her, to be touched by her, to touch her in return. The hard line of her jaw beneath his exploring fingers, the high firm cheekbones and the sudden surprising gentleness of her mouth in the darkness in a face of planes exquisite to his finger tips, the taut skin on her neck swiftly curving to the hollow of her throat, he could feel the pulse beneath her skin, beating, her shoulder bones seemed glistening to the touch, bone-white like polished ivory, sight in his hands. Her breasts and softness there, wide and full, deep to his touch, the satin suddenly erupting in a coarse circle of sex skin, the hard flat buttons of her nipples, and the gentle undercurve where her bosom sloped back toward her body, gliding, the smooth flawless skin of her abdomen, and the yielding flesh of her thighs, the deeper moistness, the ultimate softness, fold upon fold of warmth, the touch of her, the wonderful touch of her.

Gillian was a crowd. She wore a million faces, she was a million people, and he loved them all, and waited for their appearances, like a man familiar with a repertory company. Gillian the lady, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, with her hair sleekly brushed, her lipstick immaculate, her lashes blackened with mascara, her seams arrow-straight, her high heels chattering in eternal femininity. Gillian the girl child, her green eyes wide in a questioning face, her lips slightly parted as she listened in awe, her body twisted into the ludicrously relaxed postures of the very young, believing in witches and magic and fairy godmothers and princes on white horses. Gillian the flirt, whose eyes flashed at men, who appreciated the wolf whistles that accompanied her provocative sway, who unashamedly used her most seductive voice when setting up an appointment on the telephone, who infuriated him once by starting a conversation with a teen-ager in a black leather jacket in the lobby of Loew’s Sheridan. Gillian the madwoman, who kissed him without warning wherever they happened to be, on a bus, in a restaurant, in a pew at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where they had gone to escape the bitter cold, who would suddenly seize his hand and run with him down Broadway, who once in a cigar store on Fifty-seventh Street walked up to the counter, put her hand into her purse, and said to the owner, “Don’t move a muscle. This is a stick-up!” Gillian the actress, who talked passionately of Stanislavsky and The Method, who left the performance of a play deeply brooding about technique and staging, who tried voice variations and mannerisms on David, who suddenly bent over into the stooped posture of an old woman and hobbled toward him on an imaginary crutch, whose hands moved emotionally when she tried to explain a point of theory. Gillian the uninhibited, who sometimes entered her bed with the rapacious appetite of a nymphomaniac, who experimented with every female wile, who tried on sex the way she would try on spring hats. Gillian the tender mistress, who made love gently and shyly, who brought to the act of love a glowing wonder that was almost religious. Gillian the businesswoman, who totaled her accounts like a bookkeeper, who kept her appointment book with stop-watch precision. Gillian the cook, Gillian the waif, Gillian the tyrant, Gillian the vulnerable, Gillian laughing, weeping, sleeping with the sheet curled below the curve of her breast, her red-brown hair spread over the pillow, an innocent smile on her mouth, Gillian the woman.

They could hear the February wind rattling the window on the other side of the room. The brass headboard behind them was cold to the touch. When they spoke, white clouds of vapor trailed from their lips. They had been in a giddy mood all night long, like tipsy partners in a comic vaudeville routine, and now they made love in the same way, feeling silly and passionless, laughing at themselves and each other, totally absorbed in a love that transcended the simplicity of love-making, not caring a jot about their clumsiness, mating haphazardly, an act that was necessary to their mood, silly and inept, but as binding as mortar.

“I’m freeeeeeezing,” she said.

“I’ll bang on the radiator.”

“You’ll wake the whole house,” she said, and suddenly began singing.

“Talk about waking the whole house.”

“I feel melodic.” She giggled and began singing again.

“At least sing something appropriate.”

There was a silence in the room. A fresh wind lashed the window, and the pane shuddered with its force. Gillian took a deep breath and sang,