Kate Christensen - The Great Man

“Back in the late forties, when I was in college,” said Abigail, “Oscar used to take me to jazz clubs up in Harlem and in the Village. I would go because I loved Oscar, but I hated jazz. It was so squawky and honking, such a lot of posturing, I thought. Oh boy, though, did I love Oscar. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me to marry him, I really couldn’t. I was his pal.”

“You were so lucky,” said Lila.

Abigail considered her, liking her immensely now that she’d admitted her new romance wasn’t as thrilling as she’d been intimating. Abigail hadn’t had a close female friend since Maribelle had died. Maxine, of course, didn’t count. “Are you shocked that I had an affair with Ethan’s doctor?” she asked.

“No,” said Lila hesitantly. “After all, Oscar…I mean, you were even.”

“Did you ever?” Abigail asked. She had been wondering. “With Oscar.”

Lila’s eyes flared. “Me, no, I was Teddy’s best friend. I would never have, even if he’d shown any interest, which he never did.”

“Oscar seduced his best friend’s wife.”

“Well, Oscar,” said Lila indulgently.

Abigail poured a little vinegar-and-shallot dressing on an oyster and slurped it down with pleasure. “It ruined Moe’s life,” she said. “He threw his wife out and divorced her, and she died of an overdose. Oscar was such a schmuck. You know, he barely acknowledged his own son. He would just go around the apartment pretending Ethan wasn’t there.”

Lila laughed. “Horrible,” she said.

“Yes, I know, we all just laugh and go on adoring him. How did Oscar get away with everything? Even this flap over Helena is bolstering his reputation. No matter what, he can’t be tarnished.”

“Some people are golden,” said Lila. “Blessed by the gods, allowed to do as they please without any repercussions.”

“Well, he still had to die,” said Abigail. “But he died exactly as he had wanted to. A little ahead of schedule, but in his sleep, comfortably, of a heart attack. I’m sorry I didn’t call Teddy to tell her. I didn’t know her number; that’s the truth.”

“She suffered a lot,” said Lila. “She still mourns him.”

“To tell you the truth, I think she was far more in love with him than I was. But their love affair was always illicit. I know from my own how sexy that is. It never got old with Edward. I never tired of him, and I always felt passionately toward him.”

“How long did your affair last?”

“Three years!” said Abigail. The thought now astonished her, that that handsome young man had maintained his interest in her for so long. “It only ended because he moved away when his wife got sick, to Arizona, for her lungs. Oh, I was heartbroken. It’s funny how heartbreak fades gradually. When he left, I truly thought I couldn’t go on. I loved that man, but after a few years, I woke up one morning and found that I wasn’t pining anymore. Life went on with Oscar.”

The waiter took away the oyster tray and empty glasses, smirking.

“Did Oscar know about your affair?” Lila asked.

“I doubt it,” said Abigail, “but if he had, he wouldn’t have cared at all.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Lila.

“It’s true.”

“I bet he would have been devastated.”

“No,” said Abigail, thoughtfully. “Maybe at first, but he would have gotten over it.”

Lila let it drop, although it was clear she disagreed. “The old days,” she said. “I remember one night over at Teddy’s when Oscar was there, a party they were having. Does it bother you to hear about this?”

“After all this time, I’m well past anything but curiosity,” said Abigail.

“Well, they had on some sort of wild music, as usual. I always loved jazz, unlike you. And candles lit, a fire in the fireplace; it was magical and bohemian. Teddy was making something, probably a big paella, in the kitchen. Oscar was sketching a young dancer who must have been about his daughters’ age, twenty or thereabouts. Samantha and Ruby had both left home by then. The young girl was so smitten with him. I watched from a couch…. Oscar must have been in his early sixties then, which made him more than three times her age. She was sprawled on Teddy’s couch…long legs draped over one arm. Big brown eyes, hair messy in that seductive way, her limbs all sprawling. He drew her as if…you know. I remember watching her seduce Oscar, waiting to feel envious, and feeling only curiosity. It was then that I must have realized that I wasn’t pining for Oscar anymore. I watched her and admired her as if I were him.”

“Oh yes, I remember when young girls looked so delectable to me suddenly,” said Abigail. “It wasn’t a sexual thing, I don’t think; it was just getting on to the next phase of life. If we’d lived in a primitive sort of tribe or something, we’d have been elevated to wise old crone status, helping the young girls mate and raise their young. There must be a biological component to that feeling. It’s like lust, in that it’s a kind of sensual fascination, but it isn’t lust. But it makes us love to watch them all the same.”

“All right, I have to know something,” said Lila. The wine had arrived, and they were now well into their first glasses. The color in Lila’s soft cheeks was high. Her eyes sparkled. Abigail was smitten anew; Lila looked so much like Emily Robinson, the pretty blond girl she’d admired in her class at Brooklyn College. Emily had been sexily plump like Lila, with that same endearing, beguiling combination of earnestness and intelligence.

“Okay, what?” said Abigail.

“I can’t ask Teddy, for some reason,” said Lila. “All right, here it is. What was Oscar like in bed?”

Abigail burst into a guffaw. “Oh my!” she said. “What a question.”

“Sorry,” said Lila. “I hope you’re not offended.”

“Not at all,” said Abigail. She lifted her wineglass and took a sip. Then she put her glass down and said, “He didn’t interest me at all that way. We didn’t have great chemistry, I guess. I preferred Edward. Edward was sensitive and gentle, thoughtful. Oscar didn’t care about anything but his own pleasure. Like a big dog.”

Lila’s eyes turned inward, as if she were picturing this. “That’s what I thought,” she said. Abigail could almost see her mouth watering. “My husbands were both so irritatingly sensitive and gentle, I sometimes wanted to shake them. You know…not at the same time, of course. But somehow I always ended up with those poetic types. I really would have preferred a big dog.”

“Well, you should have shtupped Oscar! Everyone else got to.”

“My friend’s lover?”

“I agree, it would have been very bad form.”

“Anyway, he wasn’t interested in me.”

“Oh, sure he was.”

“I swear he wasn’t.”

“I don’t see how he possibly couldn’t have been,” said Abigail. “I am sure that the only reason you never went to bed with him was that you were loyal to Teddy. If you hadn’t been…”

Abigail and Lila both laughed.

“That’s funny,” said Lila, “you, reassuring me that your husband really did desire me.”

“I guess that’s just the kind of man Oscar was,” said Abigail.

“Actually, I think it’s more that that’s the kind of woman you are,” said Lila.

“That I’ll take as a compliment,” said Abigail, “although I don’t know why.”

“Yes you do,” said Lila.

Maxine had a sour taste in the back of her throat from all the smoking she’d been doing lately. It was incredible that she had avoided getting even a smoker’s hack, let alone emphysema or lung cancer. The only bad effect seemed to be this foul taste in her gullet. Maybe back in the dim, unremembered dawn of her life, she had made a pact with some devil or minor demon for consequence-free smoking in exchange for her mortal soul. What did she need with a mortal soul? She needed to smoke.