The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [23]
She said, "I wouldn't care if he was Hemingway." "You mean because he's an alcoholic. Because he's twice my age."
She reminded me that he was more than twice my age. "But no," she said. "I mean because he's larger than life."
—•—
Jamie left a message on my answering machine, telling me how much he missed me and that he was delaying his return another week or so.
I called Archie. "You want to go to the movies?"
"No," he said. "All right."
The only movie he wanted to see was Key Largo at the revival house on Eighth Street. Afterward, walking out, he told me that while Bogart was dying, Lauren Bacall slept with Frank Sinatra. "Don't ever do that to me, okay, honey?"
I said, "I don't even like Frank Sinatra."
So, back at his house, he put on a Sinatra record. "Don't tell me you don't think that's beautiful," he said.
I said, "You're scaring me."
—•—
In a cab home from a jazz club, he said, "You act like I just want to sleep with you."
He said, "I want to everything with you."
Which was when I touched him for the first time. I slid my fingers underneath his sleeve and touched his forearm.
He took my other hand. "But if you just want to sleep with me, that's okay, too."
The cab pulled up in front of my building. "Call me if you change your mind," he said.
I nodded and got out.
He leaned out the cab window. "Call me any time of the night or day."
Upstairs, Jamie was asleep in my bed.
—•—
I had forgotten everything nice about Jamie, and especially the main thing. His fingertips swirled as light as smoke on my skin, and my body gave in right away, before I told myself, You can't be blamed for what you do in your deep.
We had breakfast in the diner around the corner.
"So," Jamie said, "what've you been doing?"
"Nothing," I said, and coughed. "Thinking a lot."
He nodded, putting some jelly on his toast.
I said, "I've been thinking we shouldn't go on like this."
"Like what?" he said. "I've been away for two months."
I said, "I feel like I have to shrink myself to fit into our life together."
"Well, cut that shit out," he said, and grinned. "I missed you."
"Look," I said. "I think there's somebody else."
"Jesus," he said, and his voice got a little mean with exasperation. "There is nobody else."
"There is," I said.
That made him sit up. It was the first time he'd sat up in a long while, if he ever had, and I admit I was glad to see it.
—•—
I called Archie, but the phone rang and rang. I picked up his novel and read it again. I was still holding it when I woke up.
In the morning, I took a walk over there. I knocked on his door, waited and knocked again.
The door opened. "Well," Archie said.
His hair was sticking out funny, and even though he was smiling, he didn't seem glad to see me.
I wondered if he already had a guest over.
"Come in," he said.
The house seemed big and dark and formal. We sat down at the big mahogany table in the dining room.
I told him about finding Jamie in my apartment and breaking up with him the next morning.
He said, "About time," and came over to me. I stood, I held him, and we kissed, but it was not what I expected it to be.
—•—
He lit cigarettes for both of us and lay back. He was quiet, so I was; he was thinking, so I did. We lay there in the dark.
I said, "What?"
He didn't answer for a long time, so long I thought he wouldn't. Then, finally, he said, "Everything."
Even now, remembering the sound of his voice chastens every word I say.
—•—
In the evenings, he'd work upstairs in his study, and I'd edit manuscripts at the big mahogany table, where I could worry a sentence for an hour.
He'd come down to refill his iced tea and look in on me. "What is it?" he'd ask.
Standing behind me, he'd read. He'd take the pencil out of my hand and cross out a word or a sentence or the whole