The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [51]
—•—
At the office, Mimi told me that there was another of Dorrie's acquisitions that needed to be edited.
I stood at her desk, looking at the bulky manuscript. "Wow," I said. "This is a long one."
"The author's been calling me and yesterday he called Richard," she said, referring to the editorial director. "So it's sort of a rush."
I didn't pick up the manuscript. I pinged the rubber band. "Did you look at it?" I asked, stalling.
She turned her head—not a no, not a yes. "Jane," she said, " I can get a freelancer. Or do it myself over the weekend. But it would be great if you could help out."
It was hard turning down an opportunity to be great. When I did, I saw her delicate eyebrows go up.
—•—
At Tortilla Flats, Jamie introduced his current girlfriend, a waitress named Petal. She had a little daisy tattoo on her ankle and seemed light and sweet and sure of herself in the particular way a very young woman can.
At our table, I asked Sophie if I was ever like that.
"Like what?" she said.
"Like Petal in any way," I said.
She said, "You used to be twenty-two."
"Jesus," I said, "Jamie must be thirty-five."
"Twisted," she said, and got up to go to the bathroom.
I looked around me. It was Thursday, a party night, and I could feel that bar-generated electricity—the buzz and spark of sex-to-be. Everyone appeared to be having a great time, flirting and drinking and half dancing to R & B, which I loved and never heard at Archie's.
When Sophie returned, I said, "I think being with Archie makes me feel older than I am."
"You do live his way," she said. "It's an older person's life."
X I X
Archie was elated that I felt better.
On our way up to the Berkshires, he asked me to think about moving in with him.
I didn't speak.
He forced a laugh and said, "I didn't mean you had to start thinking about it right this minute."
—•—
Saturday morning, I felt the way I had as a child, waking up in the summer and sensing what I could expect that day in the suburbs: the dry cleaner at the back door to drop off my father's suits; the damp smell of the changing room at the public pool; the dusty shade in the garage.
Maybe Archie could sense it. He suggested we go to the swimming hole, a muddy pond he'd called the Butt-hole and had refused to go to in our last life. We swam in old sneakers.
On the way home, we stopped at the farm stand for vegetables and fruit. He made dinner and we had a picnic underneath the apple tree in back. He read Washington Square to me by flashlight.
When he got into bed and I smelled his aftershave, I said, "Can we just fool around for a while?"
"What does that mean?"
I couldn't think how to say it without hurting him. "Not be so focused on The Problem. You know," I said, "less goal oriented."
"Goal oriented?" he said. "What kind of talk is that? That's like interact and lifestyle." He turned his back to me. "You know I hate that kind of talk."
In the morning, he wouldn't speak to me. I said, "You're mad just because I used the expression goal oriented?"
He said, "I don't like the way you talk to me."
—•—
We drove back to New York in silence.
"Harrisburg, Pennsylvania," I said finally.
He said, "What?"
I said, "I'm willing to play one of your stupid road games, if you want to."
"I don't feel much like playing one of my stupid road games," he said. "But thanks."
On the West Side Highway, he said, "What street are you on?" It didn't seem strange to him that he didn't know.
When he stopped at my building, I said, "I tried to talk to you about something important."
He leaned over me and opened my car door.
I went upstairs into my apartment. It had that unlived-in feel. Dust on my aunt's pictures. No diet root beer in the refrigerator.
I got a bottle of scotch from her liquor cabinet and one of her crystal glasses. I went out to the terrace. It was raining a little. After a few minutes, though, I heard voices coming from the terrace below mine; I saw a tall woman and a shorter man. I couldn't make out words, but they seemed to be having an argument, and I didn't want to hear it.