Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

In a bantering voice, Don said, “I’m sure glad you think it was so funny, Ma.”

“Donald, you were so comical that day! I have to laugh just to think about it.”

Don looked at Margaret, grinning, anticipating the story.

“I was down at the beach,” Mrs. Gault said. “You were thirteen years old at the time, we had that nice little cottage at Rockaway, remember? And there was this bed, a cot actually. Oh, this is ridiculous!” She began laughing again, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“I’ll never forget that cot,” Don said.

“Anyway, I heard you yelling, and I couldn’t imagine what had happened to you. I came running up from the beach in my bathing suit, and there you were. You’d sat up too suddenly and got yourself caught on the cot.”

“I got caught on the cot, Margaret,” Don said, smiling.

“But you can’t imagine how , Margaret!” Mrs. Gault said. “He was just a boy, but it was so funny, the way he caught himself. Actually, I shouldn’t laugh. He could have been seriously hurt. Oh, but it was so funny. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw him.”

“And I kept crying,” Don said.

“I think you were embarrassed,” Mrs. Gault said. “I think it hurt, too, but mostly you were embarrassed. I shouldn’t have laughed. But it was really comical, Donald. Even you began laughing after I’d got you loose. Oh, my, that was a day, all right. I can remember holding your head against me and both of us laughing to beat the band when it was all over. Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember. Sure, I do. You smelled of suntan oil. You got very brown that summer.”

Mrs. Gault nodded, lost in reminiscence.

In the kitchen, the telephone rang. Margaret rose.

“We had some good times, didn’t we?” Mrs. Gault said. “Remember how our house was a meeting place for all your friends? That little apartment? I used to get a kick out of them. Since you got married, none of them come around any more. Not one of them. Wasn’t I good to them when you were a boy?”

“Oh, sure you were, Ma. But they were my friends. You know how it is.”

“Sammy... Was that his name? The short fat one?” Mrs. Gault burst out laughing. “But he was always eating, that one! Always!”

Margaret was certain, as she lifted the receiver from its cradle, that the caller would be Larry Cole and that he would break the date they had made for Thursday night. She’d been expecting him to back out ever since she’d left him, and the call now did not surprise her.

“Hello?” she said softly.

“Margaret?” the voice asked.

It was not Larry Cole. She was startled by the voice because she had not heard it for some time. And then, recognizing it, remembering it, she began trembling and was incapable of speech for a moment.

“Margaret?”

“You,” she said. “Wh... what do you want?”

“Don’t hang up. Please.”

“He’s home,” she said.

“Please. I only want to talk to you.”

Margaret glanced toward the living room. She could hear Mrs. Gault’s laughter through the closed door. “What about?” she asked.

“Margaret...”

She could feel his voice weakening, and his weakness brought a surge of strength. “Say what you have to say.”

“Can’t I see you?”

“No.”

“For just a few minutes?”

“No.”

“Please. Margaret, please. Say when, and I’ll come. I’ll meet you wherever you say.”

“I say no place, never.”

“Margaret...”

“Listen to me,” she said. “I’m going to hang up.”

“No! Please! Don’t!”

“I have nothing to say to you. Don’t call me again. If I hear your voice, I’ll hang up right away. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you, but—”

“I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want you to call me ever again. If you call again, I’ll tell him. I swear I’ll tell him everything, and he’ll kill you. You know he’ll kill you.”

“He doesn’t scare me.”

“He’ll kill you,” she said. “Now stop annoying me.”

“Margaret, I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t help it. I think about you every minute. I can’t help it. I can’t help it.” He began weeping, and she heard his sobs, and her lashes fluttered, and a bewildered look came into her eyes. Her hand was sweating on the receiver.

“Stop it,” she said.

“I can’t help it.”

“Stop crying. I can’t stand it. Are you a man, or what are you?”

“Margaret, how can you forget what happened? How can you—?”

“I want to forget! Stop calling me!”

“Margaret, I have to call you. I have to hear your voice, just—”

“Stop it, stop it!”

She thought for a moment that she’d spoken too loudly. She whirled toward the living room, but Don and his mother were still talking together.

“I’m hanging up now,” she said coldly.

“No! Don’t! If you do, I’ll call you back. The minute you hang up, I’ll call again.”

“Are you crazy? What’s the matter with you? I told you he’s home.”

“I don’t care. When can I see you?”

“Never!” she said, and she hung up and then fell against the counter. She put her hand to her mouth, biting her knuckles, her eyes squeezed shut tightly. Nothing ever ends, she thought. You pay and you pay. In the other room, she could hear Mrs. Gault’s laughter, and the laughter infuriated her. She leaned against the counter and waited, her teeth clamped into the flesh on her hand. She expected the phone to ring, but when it did, it nonetheless startled her.

She debated answering. But if she didn’t, Don would surely come into the kitchen. Nothing ever ends, she thought, and she picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Margaret—”

She slammed the phone down, kept her hand on it as if that added finality to the gesture. In the living room, she could hear the muffled sound of television voices and the accompanying infuriating laughter of her husband and his mother. She watched the clock. Five minutes passed. Her breathing was even now. She looked at her hand and saw the white marks where her teeth had pinched the flesh. She sighed heavily and then went back into the living room. Her mother-in-law was still talking about a boy named Sammy. Don, sitting at her feet, looked up when Margaret entered the room.

“Who was that, hon?” he asked.

“Betty Anders,” she said.

The radio pushed a rock-and-roll ballad into the girls’ bedroom, adding to the fever of preparation. For this Wednesday night alone, Mrs. Harder had broken her stringent rule forbidding anything but weekend dates. Apparently Lois’s engagement was an important one, and since Linda had found a beau for that night too, the law had been temporarily revoked.

Lois was an active, nervous dresser. She could not sit still or lie still for a moment. Even brushing her hair, as she did now, she stood before the mirror and her feet tapped a constant jig in time to the radio music. Linda sat at the dressing table applying lipstick to her mouth, watching her sister’s gyrations.

“Can I or can’t I?” Lois asked.

“If Mama heard that, she’d flip,” Linda said.

Lois put her hands on her hips and assumed an expression of extreme patience. Standing in her half-slip and bra, she looked full-breasted and narrow-waisted, quite womanly except for the childish petulance of her face.

“Mama would flip if she heard you say ‘flip,’ too.” Patiently, she corrected herself. “ May I or may I not wear the tan belt?”

“You may,” Linda said. “Mama’s always flipping about something or other. Did you notice that?”

“It’s change of life,” Lois said knowingly.