Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Did you get the part?”

“No. They were looking for a blonde.”

“Can’t you bleach your hair?”

“Why should I?” She frowned. “Don’t you like my hair?”

“I love it. I thought if it meant getting a part...”

“No one suggested it. Besides, I like my hair the way it is. David, I’m getting very irritable. We’d better order quick.” She picked up the menu and said, “They have those wonderful butterfly shrimp here. Would you like to try them? The ones wrapped in bacon.”

“Good,” David said, “and some char-shu-din, all right?”

“No spareribs?”

“Sure, spareribs, too.”

“That’s two pork dishes.”

“Where does it say we can’t have two pork dishes?”

“David, we can have three if you like.”

“All right.”

“I’m sorry. I’m starving. Let’s just order, all right?” She looked at the menu again. “How about the chicken in parchment?”

“Fine.”

“And some soup. They’ve got fried-won-ton soup. Shall we try it?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, fried-won-ton soup, no egg rolls, all right? We don’t want to stuff ourselves. And some barbecued ribs, and the butterfly shrimp, and the chicken in parchment. There! That sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“You left out the char-shu-din.”

“David...”

“What?”

“I hate char-shu-din.”

“I like it,” he said.

She looked at him solemnly for a moment. “Are we having an argument?” she asked.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“I feel very bitchy.” She paused. “Please get the waiter. I’m so hungry, I feel faint. Get the waiter, please.”

He called the waiter. Gillian rested her head against the back of the booth.

“You ready to order!” the waiter said sharply.

“Yes,” David said. “We want the fried-won-ton soup and—”

“Are the won-tons good and crisp?” Gillian asked weakly.

“Yes, ver’ crisp!” the waiter shouted.

“Good.”

“And a small order of spareribs,” David said. “And the... uh...”

“Butterfly shrimp,” Gillian supplied.

“Yes, and...”

“And the chicken in parchment.” Gillian leaned forward, smiled, and said, “ And the damn char-shu-din.”

David smiled back at her. “Waiter,” he said, “would you please bring some tea and noodles right away? The lady is very hungry.”

“You want fried rice!” the waiter shouted.

“Gillian?”

“Yes, all right.”

The waiter left the table and returned almost immediately with a pot of hot tea and a bowl of noodles. The tea brought the color back to Gillian’s face instantly. She drank two cups of it, and then sat munching contentedly on the noodles.

“Oh my,” she said, “that’s much better. Forgive me, David.” David was frowning. She caught his expression, and then looked at him quizzically. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“I’ll bet I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

“What am I thinking?”

“You’re leaping to the male conclusion.”

“And what’s that?”

“I was irritable and bitchy and I felt a little faint. I’m sure those must seem like classic signs to you.”

“Signs of what, Gilly?”

“Pregnancy.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking of that at all.”

“You were.” She paused. “Would the idea frighten you?”

“No.”

“Would it make you angry?”

“No.”

“But you wouldn’t love me as much if I were fat and bloated, would you?”

“I’d love you no matter how you were.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I were pregnant?”

“No. I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m not,” Gillian said.

David nodded.

“That’s relieving, isn’t it?”

“I told you I wasn’t thinking that,” David answered.

“Then what were you thinking?”

“About char-shu-din. I like char-shu-din.”

“Well, we ordered it, didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

The table went silent.

“David?”

“What?”

“I went to the doctor yesterday.”

“Why?”

“To be fitted for a diaphragm.” She paused. “I thought...” She shrugged. “This tea is very good,” she said. “Did you notice about the waiter? The way everything sounds like a command?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“What is it, David?”

“I want to leave school,” he said. “I want to get a job.”

“Well, what’s so terrible about that?”

“Why didn’t you order a drink?”

“What?” she said, surprised. “I didn’t want one, that’s why.”

“That’s not true. You didn’t order it because you knew if we both had drinks it would have added a buck and a half to the check, and you were worried about whether or not I could afford it.”

“That’s an absolutely paranoid statement, David. And besides, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near a dollar and a half.”

“A buck twenty, at least.”

“You know, we could have stayed home, for that matter. I have food in the house.”

“Well, I have to get a job.”

“All right, so get one.”

“I’m tired of this college-boy allowance. And I’m not learning anything. I’m not interested any more. I have to get a job.”

“David, if you want one, go out and get one!” she said sharply, and suddenly realized there was more to this than he was stating, sensed at once that he wasn’t truly arguing with her but with something deeper inside himself, and wondered what it was like to be someone without any real goals, her own goals had always seemed so clear to her. Perhaps their relationship changed in that fleeting instant. Perhaps, staring at him across the table while the rain lashed the plate-glass front of the restaurant, she knew that something more was expected of her as a woman, as David’s woman. The thought frightened her a little. She felt inexplicably like a stranger to him, felt she was in love with a man she did not know at all. He sat across the table from her in hooded silence, surrounded by a shell she could almost reach out to touch. She was face to face now with the question of whether or not she wished to penetrate that shell, and this was what frightened her. She felt suddenly threatened. If she opened those doors, if she truly explored this man she claimed to love, became for him more than she now was, she had the oddest feeling she would lose her own identity somewhere along the way. She suddenly wanted to run.

The waiter brought their soup and put it down. Gillian picked up her spoon and began chattering nervously.

“You’d be surprised how many places don’t serve fried-won-ton soup,” she said brightly. “I once had a big argument with a Chinese waiter who told me there was no such thing as fried-won-ton soup, after I’d eaten it at least a dozen times. ‘Won-ton soft,’ he said. ‘ Soft . All light, you fly won-ton, it get hard. You put it in soup, it get soft again. Why bodder fly it in first place? No such thing as fly won-ton!’ I almost hit him over the head with the teapot. Oh, this is good, isn’t it? They are crisp.”

“Yes,” David said.

She watched him and she thought, What do you want from me? What more can I give you than I’ve already given?

She knew. And when she was tied to the sacrificial stone, and when he drank her life’s blood and was nourished by it, and when he found himself somewhere in the maze of her body and her mind and her trust and her faith, what would be left of Gillian Burke? Silently, she weighed her love.

Nervously, she said, “Do you know the Orson Bean routine about the two Chinese who go to an American restaurant?”

“No.”

“It’s very funny,” Gillian said. “You know how he starts his act, don’t you?”