Last Night - James Salter [19]
Beautiful breasts. That was like saying, I love you. She was warmed by it. She wanted to tell Leslie something but it wasn’t the time, or maybe it was. She hadn’t quite told herself yet.
Another number began and they were dancing again, coming together occasionally, arms flowing, exchanging smiles. Kathrin was like someone at one of the clubs, glamorous, uncaring. She had passion, daring. If you said something, she wouldn’t even hear you. She was a kind of cheap goddess and would go on like that for a long time, spending too much for something that caught her fancy, a silk dress or pants, black and clinging, that widened at the bottom, the kind Jane would have with her in Venice. She hadn’t had a love affair in college—she was the only one she knew who hadn’t. Now she was sorry, she wished she’d had. And gone to the room with only a window and a bed.
— I have to go, she said.
— What? Leslie said over the music.
— I have to go.
— This has been fun, Leslie said, coming over to her.
They embraced in the doorway, awkwardly, Leslie almost falling down.
— Talk to you in the morning, she said.
Outside, Jane caught a cab, a clean one as it happened, and gave the driver her address near Cornelia Street. They started off, moving fast through the traffic. In the rearview mirror the driver, who was young, saw that Jane, a nice-looking girl about his age, was crying. At a red light next to a drugstore where it was well lit, he could see the tears streaming down her face.
— Excuse me, is something wrong? he asked.
She shook her head. It seemed she nearly answered.
— What is it? he said.
— Nothing, she said, shaking her head. I’m dying.
— You’re sick?
— No, not sick. I’m dying of cancer, she said.
She had said it for the first time, listening to herself. There were four levels and she had the fourth, Stage Four.
— Ah, he said, are you sure?
The city was filled with so many strange people he could not tell if she was telling the truth or just imagining something.
— You want to go to the hospital? he asked.
— No, she said, unable to stop crying. I’m all right, she told him.
Her face was appealing though streaked with tears. He raised his head a little to see the rest of her. Appealing, too. But what if she is speaking the truth? he wondered. What if God, for whatever reason, has decided to end the life of someone like this? You cannot know. That much he understood.
Give
IN THE MORNING—it was my wife’s birthday, her thirty-first—we slept a little late, and I was at the window looking down at Des in a bathrobe with his pale hair awry and a bamboo stick in his hand. He was deflecting and sometimes with a flourish making a lunge. Billy, who was six then, was hopping around in front of him. I could hear his shrieks of joy. Anna came up beside me.
— What are they doing now?
— I can’t tell. Billy is waving something over his head.
— I think it’s a flyswatter, she said, disbelieving.
She was just thirty-one, the age when women are past foolishness though not unfeeling.
— Look at him, she said. Don’t you just love him?
The grass was brown from summer and they were dancing around on it. Des was barefoot, I noticed. It was early for him to be up. He often slept until noon and then managed to slip gracefully into the rhythm of the household. That was his talent, to live as he liked, almost without concern, to live as if he would reach the desired end one way or another and not be bothered by whatever came between. It included being