Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [57]
For a little while she was quiet. She appeared to be thinking. Then she said, “Walter, tell me the truth. Did you find me attractive?”
He frowned. “What on earth has gotten into you? All at once for no good reason you behave as if—I don’t know what. You were an attractive girl and you are today an attractive woman.”
“Am I?”
“You are indeed.”
She looked at him playfully. “Would it hurt so much to tell me once in a while?”
“I’m afraid I’m not good at that sort of business.”
“You used to be.”
This was both flattering and embarrassing. He pretended to hunt for something. The night seemed unusually still; he glanced at the window and saw trickles of water darting along the glass.
“Tell me, Walter, because I need to know. Do you love me?”
“Love you? Of course,” he answered. Just then he heard the boom of thunder overhead, the house almost trembled, and the rain increased.
“Before we met, were you in love with somebody?”
“No.”
“Have you been in love since?”
“What?” he asked, incredulous. She rushed over to him and slipped her arms around his waist.
“I’m being silly,” she whispered.
“I should say you are.”
“Do you mind?”
“India, just what in the name of sense . . . ?”
As soon as he said this she released him. She walked to her dressing table where she sat down and began to take the pins out of her hair. The pins dropped into a heart-shaped porcelain tray which she had kept on her dressing table since they were married. He did not know where she had gotten the tray, he assumed it had belonged to her mother or her grandmother. He had never paid any attention to it. Now he stared at it and at the black hairpins summarizing twenty years of marriage.
“Time has such a way of going by,” she said. “I suppose that must be the reason.”
He watched her fingers deftly locating and drawing out the hairpins and dropping them in the tray, and he felt bewildered. Why had she chosen this night to grow nostalgic? They had spent the evening reading and listening to the radio while Carolyn put together a jigsaw puzzle on the card table and Douglas in his room worked on a model airplane. Ruth and her friend Dodie were at the movies. In the kitchen Harriet was chatting with somebody. There had been nothing unusual about this evening; it had been all but identical to hundreds of others.
61 Happy Birthday
Before going to the office he wrote a check, which he left on the breakfast table underneath her napkin. That night when he got home she thanked him for it, showed him what the children had given her, and remarked that it had been a very nice birthday. He wished her many more. Then he suggested that they go for a drive after dinner. The weather was sultry and a drive should be pleasant. She agreed.
They started off along Ward Parkway, turned west on Huntington Road as far as the state line, and from there they drove slowly north past the Mission Hills golf course and the tennis courts until they came to the highway. At this point he turned toward the Plaza. In front of the United Motors display room he pulled over to the curb. In the window under a spotlight a sleek green Lincoln was parked.
She sensed immediately that he had bought it for her. The check he left on the breakfast table had been for five dollars, and all day she had been puzzled because ordinarily he spent so much on gifts. Now it was clear. He had planned a surprise.
He patted her knee and said, “Happy birthday, India.”
She looked at the automobile with an expression meant to indicate that she could not believe such good fortune.
“Walter, you must be joking! You can’t be serious!”
He laughed. “If you’re not satisfied we’ll give it back.”
“Don’t you dare!” she cried. “Oh, my word! I’m overwhelmed! I didn’t expect anything else. I assumed the check was my present.”
“That was simply a trick to throw you off guard. Apparently