The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [92]
“What do you—”
“Now don’t tell me that lunatic had a kernel of truth to work on. I thought Mr. Wealthy Writer was taking up the bulk of your time. You don’t mean to say you’ve got time left over to rob Gretchen Vann’s cradle, do you?”
She fought a blush. “No, of course not. Peter and I are friends. We became very close because he needs someone to talk to.”
“I suppose that’s as good a way as any for it to start.”
“Oh, stop, Olive. I could never feel that way about Peter. Or vice versa. And lately I’ve hardly even seen him at all.”
Olive rubbed the point of her chin. “Now if I were guessing—”
“There’s nothing to guess.”
“—I would have to guess that you’ve already been to bed with him. But you haven’t.”
“No.”
“And, since I know for a fact that you’re clearly incapable of falsehood, that’s the end of the matter. But there’s one thing I’ll tell you. The older I get, the more certain I become that there’s only one thing that’s sufficient cause to keep a person going. And that’s the pleasure of laughing your head off from time to time, and the only thing worth laughing at is the goddamned incredible things people find to do with their lives. The average human being is miles funnier than all the monkeys in the circus.”
“But sometimes you can’t laugh.”
“The older you get, the more you have to.”
After the show that night Peter stopped at the Raparound for a Coke. The girl who brought it seemed on the point of saying something but walked away without speaking. He looked after her, wondering. Probably stoned, he decided. Which struck him as not a bad idea at all. Head back home, blow a couple of jays, and slide inside of his skull to find out what was happening.
He hadn’t smoked in weeks, not since the day after That Night. The night with Linda. And smoking had turned out to be a bad idea then, taking him places he did not want to go.
Had the night with Linda been a bad idea, too? He didn’t know. There had been such magic that night. He could close his eyes now and bring every bit of it back, every inane word either of them had spoken, every bit of shading and nuance. It had been the best thing that had ever happened to him and he hoped the memory of it would stay as vivid for the rest of his life.
He made circles on the table top with his glass, a row of overlapping circles like penmanship exercises. A perfect night, and he treasured it, but since then his relationship with Linda had changed. As of course it had to change.
They were wary of each other now. They talked warmly when they met each other in the hallways or on the street. Now and then she watched Robin for him. On slow afternoons he might drop in on her at the Lemon Tree. But they held back, and if they did not consciously avoid each other, still their long conversations were less frequent, and not as long as they had been.
Neither had spoken of That Night. But it was there, it existed, it had happened, and now it constituted a barrier between them. He sensed she regretted their love-making, and the thought saddened him. It—
“Peter? Got a minute?”
It was Anne. “Oh, hi,” he said, and she dropped into the chair across from him. There was a film of perspiration on her forehead and her waitress uniform was visibly damp under the arms.
She said, “God, what a night.”
“Rough, huh?”
“Danny’s lucky I’ve got tomorrow off, because otherwise I’d quit. How are things with you, Peter?”
“Oh, no complaints.”
She picked up his glass, sipped some of his Coke. “I guess I’d better tell you, then. Gretchen had a couple of bad hours tonight. No, everything’s all right now; home, Robin’s all right, everything’s all right.”
“What happened?”
“I got all this second hand. Or maybe tenth hand.”
“Meaning everybody’s talking about it.” So his waitress hadn’t been stoned, just off-balance. Though of course she might have been stoned too. “Shit,” he said. “Fuck all of this, anyway.” Tourists at the next table turned at his words, and he glared viciously at them until they looked away, embarrassed.