The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [131]
She was discontented, and wondered why. The evening had been a pleasant one. A good dinner at Tannhauser’s, a drive in the country, a walk in his woods where they had lazily undressed before making gentle love in soft grass. It was a perfect night for outdoor lovemaking and their bodies had worked together to match the mood of the evening. It had been good for her and good for him, and after it they had gone into his house for a drink and his daughter Karen had joined them. Then Karen went diplomatically and with little awkwardness to her room, and they might have made love again, she might even have stayed the night, but the discontent set in and she wound up pleading tiredness. She had asked to be taken home, and now she was home, and if she had felt tired before she was certainly not tired now.
“Linda?”
She started at her name, then recognized Tanya Leopold.
“You were just standing there staring,” the little actress said. “You okay?”
“I was just thinking about something.”
“What was it? Not to be prying but you had this really intense expression on your face, and I was wondering how it got there. This play I’m in, Veil, not the one I’m in now but the one we’re rehearsing, we’re doing it next week, and I’ve got this one scene where I’m supposed look pensive, and I don’t have it down yet. Looking pensive. And you know, the Method, all of that, I oughta be able to find something to use to look pensive, so thought, oh, but what makes you look pensive wouldn’t do me any good, would it?”
“I don’t really know.”
“The thing is to find something in my past that had me looking pensive, but I could go bananas trying to think of something. Unless that would work. Do you think so?”
“Do I think what would work?”
“Trying to think of something to use. Did I look pensive to you just then?”
“In a way.”
“I think the problem is I don’t think very much. It blows my mind that some people will just sit still for hours, and all that time they’re thinking, thoughts are running through their brains. Are you going upstairs now or what?”
“That’s what I was trying to decide. Whether to go up now or not.”
“You got that look on your face just from whether or not you’re going upstairs?”
“More or less.” She smiled suddenly. “That’s what it boils down to, anyway. In a very pensive way, evidently. Are you going up? I’ll walk with you.”
On the way up the stairs Tanya said, “You’re looking so good lately, Linda.”
“I am? Why, thank you.”
“I’m glad you’ve got somebody,” she went on, avoiding Linda’s eyes. “What I said that other time—”
“Oh, forget that, Tanya.”
“I felt awful afterward. I just jump in and say things before I think about them. Do you think you’ll move in with him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s working on a book now, you know.”
“Bill’s always painting. At least he always was before the rain. Did the rain stop Hugh from writing?”
“I think it slowed him down some. It slowed every body down.”
“It stopped Bill cold. But even if he’s working, you know, he wants me with him. I couldn’t imagine not living with somebody.”
“I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I don’t just mean the sex. It probably sounds as though I just mean the sex, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“But I mean having somebody to be with. But maybe getting used to it makes a difference. I hope I never have to find out, to tell you the truth.”
Tanya went on chattering as they climbed the stairs to their floor. The girl was just the sort of companion Linda needed at the moment, and she smiled at the discovery. It seemed paradoxical, as Tanya’s conversation centered on precisely those subjects Linda would have preferred not to think about, but she was able to bathe in the rushing stream of Tanya’s words so that they oddly took her mind off what Tanya was saying. The girl would never look pensive, Linda thought,