Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

“Are you all right?” Eve asked. “Is something the—”

“I’m all right. What is it?”

She was covered with sweat now, a cold sweat that seeped from every pore. She could feel her knees going weak. Uncontrollably, she continued trembling. Say it, she thought. Get it over with!

“We’re having a party at our house next Saturday night,” Eve said. “We thought you and Don might like to come.”

“A party?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, a party. Margaret... are you... are you sure nothing’s the matter?”

She wanted to laugh hysterically. Intense relief flooded her, and the overwhelming gladness.

“What... what night did you say?”

“Saturday. The ninth.”

“I’ll have to ask him,” she said absently. “If it’s all right for us to come.”

“Don?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, Don.”

“Will you let me know? We’d love to have you.”

“I’d love to come,” Margaret said. “I’d love to see your house.”

She was regaining her composure, and with it her sense of immediate danger. Eve had undoubtedly extended this invitation without consulting Larry. She was tempted to accept, but she knew Larry would be displeased. It would, certainly, be the stupidest sort of risk. But still, the idea appealed to her, and she restrained herself from accepting, remembering that her behavior of a few moments before must have seemed very odd to Eve.

“I must have sounded idiotic when I answered the phone,” she said carefully. “I was sleeping and you woke me.”

“Oh, then I am sorry,” Eve said. “Forgive me for waking you.”

“I had to get up anyway,” Margaret said. “To answer the phone.”

Eve laughed. “That’s one of Larry’s favorite gags.”

There was a slight pause. “Larry?” Margaret asked.

“My husband.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You two met,” Eve said. “At the bus stop or the delicatessen, or somewhere. He was crowing like a rooster when he came home. You’d think he’d never spoken to a woman in his life.”

Margaret laughed a forced, light laugh. “Mine is the same,” she said. “They’re all such little boys.”

“I think you’re the only reason he keeps taking Chris to the bus stop,” Eve said, laughing genuinely.

“Really?” Margaret asked, feigning surprise and innocence, hating the game she’d been forced to play, not wanting to talk to Eve, not wanting anything from this woman. Don’t give me anything, please, please, don’t. “Oh, you’re joking. You make me feel terribly embarrassed.”

“I’m joking, of course,” Eve said. “Margaret, do try to come to the party, won’t you? We’d like to meet your husband, and there’ll be a nice crowd. It’ll be fun.”

“I’ll try,” Margaret said. “I’ll call you.”

“Do you have the number?”

She almost said yes, she almost trapped herself into saying yes. She knew the number by heart, could reel it off a hundred years from now if Satan asked for it, but to this other woman she said, “No. Would you let me have it, please?” and she wrote it down as if she’d never heard it before, never known it. And then she promised she’d call tomorrow and then she said goodbye.

She sat down, and for the first time since the thing had started she felt like a bitch, a dirty little bitch.

We’re all bitches, she thought. We have to be bitches to get the things we want and need. I need him. I need him very much, and if I have to be a bitch to keep him, then I’ll be one. I didn’t call her, she called me. I’m a bitch, but I didn’t ask to be one. I have to be one. I couldn’t stop being this way unless I died, and I’d die if I lost him. I’m not a bitch for taking what I need. I’m not a bitch for wanting him. I’m not a bitch.

I’m a bitch, she thought. I’m a dirty little bitch.

“No!” Hank shouted. “Be careful! You’re crossing your... watch your poles! Pull them back! Get your...”

Arms flailing, poles wildly gyrating, knees together, toes turned in, skis crossing, Linda Harder came swiftly down the slope, a wehrmacht in ski pants and bright red sweater. Bending from the waist, powerless to stop her descent as the crossed skis carried her, she pulled up the poles, twin pikes ready to pierce the enemy’s breast.

“Linda, you’re...”

Hank gritted his teeth. Helplessly, he stood at the bottom of the slope, trusting to God that...

“Linda!”

Over she went, the tip of her left ski digging up a furrow of snow, pitching forward headfirst, the poles rotating like the arms of a windmill. She landed in a welter of arms and legs and wood and bright red confusion. Hank dug in his poles and herringboned to the tangle. Quickly, he knelt beside her.

“Are you all right?”

Linda nodded. Her sweater and face were covered with snow. Her black hair hung on her forehead, speckled with crystalline white.

“No legs broken?”

She nodded again.

“Let me help you up.” He rammed his poles into the snow, moved behind her and lifted. Unsteadily, Linda got to her feet, digging her poles into the fresh powder. “What did I do wrong?” she asked.

“Well,” Hank said judiciously, “that’s a little difficult to answer. Where do you want me to begin?”

“Was I that awful?”

“No, no, you were fine. Except, Linda, a snowplow was designed to stop you, see?”

“I wanted it to stop me. It just didn’t.”

“You didn’t edge your skis in. That’s why they crossed. Also, watch your poles. They’re dangerous weapons the way you use them.”

“I love this,” Linda said suddenly.

She threw her head back and sucked in air. It was a sparkling cold day at Bear Mountain. There had been fresh snow the night before, and the powder was crisp when the skis bit into the slope. The sky was a flawless blue, the snow a blinding white. Hank, a thin boy in street clothes, looked magnificent in his bulky ski garments.

“Want to try it again?” Hank asked.

“Yes. But when can I use the tow?”

“After you’ve learned to come down.”

“I have to climb up again?” Linda asked plaintively.

“Yep.”

“What do you call the thing?”

“The herringbone.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “Let’s go.” She started up the slope, Hank behind her.

“Edge in,” he said. “Otherwise the same thing’ll happen backwards. Linda, edge in! Linda, you’re...”

The poles came up again. Slowly, Linda began to slide backward, on a collision course toward Hank. He braced himself.

“Hank!” she shouted. “I can’t stop!”

“You will,” he said, and she struck him, and they tumbled into the snow together. Her left ski came up, narrowly missing his head. Hank’s right boot, released by the awkward pressure, snapped out of the safety binding.

“I fell again,” Linda said, and Hank began laughing. “Well, you idiot, it isn’t funny,” she said. She blew snow from her lips. “If you taught me properly—”

“You know something?” he interrupted.

“What?”

“I love you.”

She blinked. “You do?”

“Yes.”

She sat with her knees up, her skis awkwardly akimbo, the poles dangling from their straps at her wrists.

“Well,” she said. “I love you, too.”

He pushed her down onto the snow. He was kissing her when her skis slid out from under her. “Hank!” she screamed, and he captured her and pinned her and kissed her again, and a skier flashing down the slope shouted, “Hey! Cut it out!”

Felix Anders was man who thought he was well dressed because he wore a carnation in the buttonhole of a Robert Hall suit.