The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [8]
At this point, I now realize, there were several things I could have done. For instance, I could have nodded sheepishly or good-naturedly, or whatever one does with “good grace.” I could have said, “Well, there you have me, I guess,” and he would have said, “Now never mind, and what was it you wanted to tell me?” and I would have said, “Nothing, forget it” and he would have replied, “Well, cheer up, see you around sometime” and he would have, I suppose—sometime. Our Paris, after all, was really very small. And I would have at least been spared one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. No honestly, I don’t think anything has embarrassed me so much since.
It’s crazy but I wonder if all the rest of it—and I mean all the rest of it—would have happened if our meeting had ended then and there and in that way. Who knows? But, anyway, seeing myself and the affair with Teddy suddenly through Larry’s eyes, and realizing that whatever I had done, however original I had thought of it as being before, I was only remaining strictly within the tourist pattern, and having Larry know this—well, at the time it was too much to bear.
To have an affair with a man, and one’s very first affair at that, just because he picks you up under rather romantic circumstances on the Champs Élysées, takes you to the Ritz and things, and above all, because you’re impressed with the fact that he has a wife and a mistress already, what could be more predictable? Tourist Second-Year Disorganized.
No, dammit, I wasn’t going to be stuffed into that category no matter what. Not in Larry’s mind anyway.
“Here’s my advice to you, and you’re old enough to give it to yourself,” Larry was saying sagely. “Stay away from married men. I mean it, stay away.”
“How can you think such things of me? It’s not that way at all,” I moaned. “We love each other. There’s no wife in this at all. How could you think such a thing of me? There’s something much worse though. A crackpot at the Italian Embassy who’s always hated Teddy. Do you know what he’s done? He’s broken into Teddy’s apartment and burned some important papers so that Teddy got into the most awful trouble and he’s been recalled! He has to leave any day now. God knows if he’ll ever be able to straighten this out. It’s torture. We can never meet except briefly like you saw us now, and in the open, as if there were nothing to it, for fear of getting that man on to my trail. Lord knows how he’d use me against Teddy! All I know is that Teddy is going back to Italy and that I’ll probably never see him again.” I was getting worked up by then. “And I love him so much, Larry, I really do. What shall I do?” Lies, from beginning to end.
“You poor kid,” said Larry. He said it so nicely, so sincerely. I was absolutely staggered by the difference in his tone. I was feeling more than a little sorry for myself at this point, but I was also feeling more than a little elated at the way I had cleared myself of the dreaded tourist charge, at the same time getting rid of Teddy so neatly, or at any rate disposing of him in the near future.
“We’ve been desperate these last months. We try not to see each other but it’s no good. I’ll … I’ll die when he goes.” By now I was really moved. My eyelids stung and tears began to roll slowly down my cheeks.
“Poor kid, poor kid,” he kept repeating. How nice Larry was now. Not mocking, not bored, not restless. I looked into his eyes, soft eyes, interested and sympathetic. He gave a short little laugh of encouragement. It stirred me to my roots. I took a long heady swig of Pernod right into the hot molten sun, and brother, that was my undoing.
“Take it easy, take it easy,” he was saying. “Everything’s going to be all right.” He took my hand away from my drink and held it gently in his own. By now I was maybe drunk,