About Schmidt - Louis Begley [96]
Shangri-la, says Schmidt.
Bryan whines: Don’t look at the plot, Albert. It can be landscaped any way you want.
Of course.
I swear to you. McManus didn’t clean up the land because the guy broke the contract. I have the key. You want to go in?
One entire segment of the X is a long room with two fireplaces and a kitchen that’s all counters and no walls placed toward the farther end, the other two half segments that cut across it are like separate wings and contain sequences of bedrooms and bathrooms. Oak floors with a chic finish and white walls. Even though the sky has clouded over, the house is very light.
Schmidt has never been the first occupant of a house or an apartment. It must be a strange experience. Every nick in the paint, every scuff mark on the woodwork, would be one’s own. He walks around, opens closet doors, looks at the plumbing and kitchen fixtures as though he knows what he is doing, asks about the cellar.
It’s great, Albert. Come on, take a look.
In fact, it is a nice, clean cellar, with two crawl spaces. Basta. In another minute Bryan will whip out the contract for him to sign. He must be working on a commission.
Thanks, Bryan. Nice house. Shall we go now?
Carrie has been doing some looking of her own.
You could put me in this room, she announces, and leads Schmidt to the bedroom at the end of one of the wings. It has a door that opens on what will be the garden.
That’s a deal.
If Albert buys the house you can look after him without sleeping here. It’s real close to Sag Harbor. Right?
Bryan puts his arm around her waist.
At the Sag Harbor hotel, Carrie has a rum and Coke, Bryan has two beers, and Schmidt a brandy. During the short ride over, Bryan has smoked another reefer, sharing it with Carrie. Schmidt feels dreadfully put-upon. He asks for the check, pays with cash because it’s quicker, and gets up, saying, See you soon, Bryan. I’ll think about the house.
It doesn’t work. Bryan has left his truck sitting in Schmidt’s driveway. Carrie races along the turnpike. If the police stop her, they will find Schmidt in a car blue with hashish smoke, driven by a local waitress, with a pusher in the back. That’s front-page news for the local press. But they make it back safely.
Bryan doesn’t roar away in his truck. He follows them into the house. Carrie has gone upstairs without a word, perhaps meaning to shake him off. What is Schmidt to do? He fusses with his mail while Bryan sits in the corner of the library, working on his nails. Some time passes before Schmidt finds the solution. He walks over to Bryan, holds out his hand, and says, I had better take a nap now. We’ll see each other soon.
Bryan rises to shake his hand and sits down again.
I’m waiting for Carrie, he informs Schmidt.
In Schmidt’s room, the bed is turned down. Carrie holds out her arms to him. What took you so long?
Bryan. How to make him leave. In the end, I told him I needed a nap. But he’s still here. He said he is waiting for you.
Yeah. He wants me to go back to Sag with him.
Do you have to?
He gets crazy when he’s like this. Come on, Schmidtie.
She is already naked. Squatting on the bed, she unbuckles his belt, opens his trousers.
Later she renews her question: You still love me?
More and more.
And Bryan. You’re not mad at me?
I wish he’d drop dead.
I belong to you, Schmidtie. Please love me. I’ll be early. You’ll wait for me?
The truck is pulling out, going too fast on the gravel. He had been so deep inside her, and now she is going to get under this guy and open her legs, her buttocks. Whatever time she returns, she’ll nuzzle his neck and whisper, Let’s go to sleep, darling. Fatigue? Satiety? Perhaps it’s also a sort of modesty: wanting to be fresher when he takes her.
The photographs of Mary and Charlotte,