Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

They stood between his station wagon and her ancient Minx.

“Old Saturday night,” she said. “Sunday morning.”

“One of each every week.”

“You are down, aren’t you, dear?” She moved closer to him, put her hands on his waist and looked up at him. “Got all dressed up and ended up with no place to go. We could share a little gesture of friendship. I’m not being brazen. Just cozy. And it wouldn’t matter a hell of a lot either way.”

He kissed the bridge of her nose and said, “Follow me,” and got into his car. Her lights followed him up the Key and down his long driveway. She saved out some breakfast eggs and scrambled the rest. They talked aimlessly for a little while and went to bed. Just before they went to sleep, she rubbed the coal of her cigarette out in the bedside ashtray, settled back down against him and said, “Who is she, Jaimie?”

“Who is who?”

“Don’t give me that. I told you my long sad story of unrequited love a long time ago, with tears and everything. Remember? Who is she?”

“She’s somebody who isn’t going to work out.”

“On account of Gloria?”

“On account of a lot of things, Mitchie.”

“She married?”

“You talk too much, honey.”

She changed position, put her arm across him, nestled more closely and sighed. “I know. Anyhow, I feel more even with you. People like us, Jaimie, we have two things we can go with. One thing, you can wake up in the morning and know you’re alive. That’s something, I guess. The other is this. Having somebody close to hold onto sometimes.”

“Mmm hmm.”

“But neither is really so much, is it, when you think about it?”

“Go to sleep, Mitchie.”

Toward dawn a great raw clangor of thunder awakened him. He heard the lisping roar of heavy rain moving toward the cottage, moving across water and tropic growth. He was trying to pull himself far enough awake to go see to the windows when he heard them being closed. He thought Gloria was closing them, and then he remembered Mitchie. The heaviest rain came. As it began to die away after ten minutes he heard a small thin whining sound. He was on the edge of sleep. He wondered if some animal was under the house. He tried to fall back into sleep and could not. Finally he sat up. The world was a drab dark gray. The rain was almost gone. Both the bedroom and the kitchen opened out onto the small screened porch on the back of the cottage. The door was open. He could barely see the pale figure of Mitchie standing out there on the porch by the screen, naked, making that stifled whimpering sound. He lay back. In a little while the sound ended. The rain was gone. He heard the sound of her bare feet on the wooden floor, heard the rattle of a towel rack in the bathroom. Soon the bed moved as she eased back into it. He rolled toward her, pretending to embrace her in sleep. Her skin was cool, freshened by the rain which had blown against her. He mumbled and held her and kissed her eye and tasted salt with the tip of his tongue. While they made love he wondered exactly what had been in her mind as she had stood out in the rain, crying. Perhaps she thought of nothing but her own tears.

She woke him at eleven. She had gone back to her place to change, and she had picked up some fresh orange juice on the way back. When he finished his shower, the eggs, toast and bacon were ready. He was glad she had awakened him, but he wished she had done it by phone. He did not relish having her around, not in the morning. She came cheery and too bawdy and too much at home. She came down too heavily on her heels when she walked. Her hips looked heavier than he had realized they were as she stood at the stove in her chocolate-colored shorts and her yellow blouse. And she made weak coffee. She could not possibly be the same person who had wept in the dawn rain.

She sat across from him with her coffee and said, “Cheer up, pal. I’m not here for keeps.”

“It’s nice to have you here.”

“And it hurt your mouth to say it, poor boy. But no matter how churlish you feel right now, you do look better.”

“I haven’t slept this late in a long time, Mitch.”

“We had a good rain. Did you hear the rain?”

“Vaguely.”

“When I drove to my place the air was wonderful. All clean and fresh and sweet. Now it’s like hot soup again. Are you in any kind of trouble?”

He looked up from the paper. “Huh?”

“Trouble! Are you in any?”

“I’m with you. My sister wouldn’t approve.”

“Laura is a dull, righteous frump, and she always has been. I remember you were about fourteen. I was eleven. You were teaching me how to throw a curve. I came over on Saturday morning. She chased me out of the yard with a rake. Called me boy-crazy. She was wrong. I was curveball-crazy. I wasn’t boy-crazy until I was twelve.”

“That’s when you started teaching me how to throw curves.”

“Not throw them, darling. Appreciate them. Oh God, remember how we were going to wing up to Georgia and get married? What was I then? Fifteen, I think. Look at us, honey. Could we have done any worse?”

“I forget why we didn’t go to Georgia.”

“Because Willy wouldn’t loan us his car. Anyhow, Jaimie, you were my first. Remember the guilt? God, how wicked we felt! We pledged our sacred honor we’d never slip again. And we didn’t, did we? Not for three whole days. Can you remember what we fought about?”

“No.”

“You went away to school. End of romance. And here we are again. But without the romance. I wonder what kind of life we’d be having if we’d... if Willy had been a little more generous with his car. Have you slept with her, Jaimie?”

“What? Who?”

“With the gal who’s messing you up.”

“No. And it’s none of your business, Mitchie.”

She poured more coffee. “Maybe that’s what you have to do. To break the spell.”

“Get off it!”

She made her eyes wide and round. “Ho, ho, ho, yet. So with my dirty mouth I’m soiling some princess? This is Grace Kelly you’re swooning over?”

“Mitchie, for God’s sake!”

“Are you a grown man? What kind of a kid-stuff torch are you carrying? Listen to the voice of experience, dear. I have been around. Oh, way way around, and back several times and out around again. I’ve still got my disposition, half my looks, and twice my early talent. The bed part is pure mirage, until proven otherwise. Friendship is a bigger part of the rest of it than anyone will admit. One little smidgin is magical romance. Anybody who mistakes the smidgin for the whole deal is retarded.”

He stared at her. “Mitchie, I am fine. I am nifty dandy.”

“Then you got more on your mind than a girl.”

“What I have on my mind is how late I’m going to be getting to the shop.”

“I’d like to see you better adjusted to whatever the hell you’re adjusting to.”

“I don’t cry in the rain, at least.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You know, you’re a bastard sometimes.”

“You learned that a long time ago. You keep forgetting.”

She stood up quickly, grabbed her purse and headed for the door without a word. She stopped suddenly. Her shoulders slumped and she turned slowly and came back to him with a small smile. She put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him on the mouth. “Enough old friends I haven’t got, Jaimie. Last night seemed sweet. Even the tears were sweet. If I had any luck left, I’d give it to you. You know it. I wish one of us was happy. It would seem like a better average.”

He smiled up at her. “You make horrible coffee.”

“It’s the only thing in the world I do badly, dear.”

He sat and heard the rackety motor of the Minx start, and heard it fade as she drove out to the highway. He put the dishes in the sink and went downtown to work.