The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [5]
Toward the end, she began to withdraw mentally while they were making love. Previously she had blanked out her lover as a specific person. But now she blanked out the act itself and substituted fantasy. While he was astride her, his penis buried within her, her mind would entertain memories of when she had held him between her breasts.
And years later, when she thought of Carl, she would at once see him curled beside her in that car, wiping his seed from her neck and throat, then folding the tissue and putting it away. That was always the first and strongest image that came to mind when she thought of him. It was the most he had ever shown of tenderness, the closest approach he had ever made to concern, and she never forgot it.
She lit a cigarette and went over to the telephone. She lifted the receiver, poised herself to dial, and for a moment her mind lost the number completely. She could not even remember the area code. Then it came back and she dialed the number and her mother answered on the second ring.
She said, “Hello, Mom. How’s everything at home?”
“Linda! What a surprise.”
“I just thought I would call.”
“Dad and I were going to call you on Sunday. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“I was just about to call your father for dinner. He’s out in the garage. We’ve been having a little trouble with the car.”
“I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Well, you could ask him. No use in asking me, for all I understand about mechanical objects. I seem to remember something about a wheel bearer or bearing, if there’s such a thing. I suppose Marc would know.”
“He probably would.”
“He’s still at the theater?”
“Yes. He’s going to be directing a show in the spring, if everything goes right.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. He’ll be the director.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s making progress. It’s a difficult business, isn’t it? The theater. You have to keep at it for years and years. The struggle to get ahead. Do you think—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”
“What?”
“Oh, the usual question, I suppose.”
“There’s really no point in our getting married, Mother.”
“I know it, and I’m sorry I—”
“It would be different if we were living in Dayton, of course it would be different, but we’re not. But here nobody thinks about it.”
“You’d be surprised how many people aren’t thinking about it in Dayton. I suppose I’m old-fashioned.”
“I was married once, and so was Marc. Neither of us wants to rush into it again.”
“You don’t have to explain to me, Linda. I understand.”
“Well.”
“All that’s really important is for two people to love each other, isn’t it?”
“That’s what’s important, all right.”
“Of course if it ever came to the point of having children—”
“Then we would get married. But until then there’s no point to it. We’ve had this conversation so many times, Mother, and I—”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Well—”
“How’s everybody in Dayton?”
She got the question out and closed her eyes and tuned out the answer. Everybody in Dayton was about the same, except that so-and-so got married and so-and-so got divorced and so-and-so had a coronary, his second, poor man, but he was recovering nicely all the same, and Mrs. Something was getting cobalt treatments and when they got to that stage, it was as much as saying there was nothing to be done, but doctors of course would never come right out and admit this so they sent you for cobalt instead of telling you to go die quietly, and—
She said the right words in the right places, grateful for a stream of talk that she could half listen to, the endless stream of vital statistics about people whose names she barely recognized and in whom she had not the slightest