Threesome - Lawrence Block [11]
Because I’ve always wanted to make it with my sister? I don’t think so, and neither would anybody who knew my sister. My sister is three years older than I am (and always has been) and she passed Gene Fullmer’s fighting weight before she passed seventh grade. And hasn’t quit yet. It’s not glandular, it’s that she eats ten or twelve meals a day. At the present time she is living in a middle-income cooperative apartment building in Queens and wearing all of Sidney Greenstreet’s old clothes. Her husband is a public accountant with hopes of one day becoming a certified public accountant. I’d say he’s certifiable, all right.
Of course Edith is the family success story. Her accountant is, after all, a nice Jewish boy (he married her under the assumption that she was a Zim Line cruise ship) and they live within subway distance of Mama Kaplan and have produced four children. That these four little bastards are the most singly obnoxious children in recorded time doesn’t seem to matter to anyone, except perhaps me.
I, on the other hand, am this bum who changed his name and married, oy, a blonde shicksa and lives God knows where, you couldn’t even get there on a train, not that you’d want to, oy, and has not produced a single grandchild, not that anyone would want him to, because what kind of a child would you have, a mongrel, that’s what kind of a child you would have.
They should, by all rights, drop dead.
But forget all this Jewish family shit. It was Tuesday when Rhoda’s letter came, and I wanted to drag Priss to the bedroom, and made an effort, toward which she chose to be purposely obtuse. All right, fair enough. I couldn’t blame her. I was trying to use her to shake something that she hadn’t inspired, and while everyone does this, it ought to be done more subtly. Fair enough.
I kept thinking about Rhoda. Wondering if there would be anything between them, either in the mind or in fact. Wondering how I would feel about it. Weaving, in spite of myself, weird, three-in-a-bed fantasies.
And what would happen, I wondered, if I should happen to loft a pass Rhoda’s way. The uncertain divorcée, her wedding ring gone, her maiden name hers once again—folklore marks them as easy game, like widows and betrayed wives. Did I want Rhoda? Yes, dammit. Did I want her right there in Prissy’s house, Prissy’s ex-roommate and ex-lover in Prissy’s house?
Indeed I did.
Or perhaps she would want to come into the city on a Wednesday. I go to New York just about every Wednesday, getting up early enough to drive the old Chevy to the station and catch the first train. Sometimes but not always Priss comes along and shops while I make the rounds of editors and collaborators and agents. Sometimes we then do something in the evening, like catch a play or a movie. When we first moved up here she came in almost every week, but now it’s more like once a month. We have told each other various reasons for this—that it’s a long trip, that she has things to do that are more important to her than shopping. We both know better. When people are together all the time, alone with each other as much as we are, they need a break from each other. I prefer the Wednesdays when I make the trip alone.
I went in alone the day after Rhoda’s letter came. I hit the half dozen magazine offices I generally hit, showed the new work I’d done in the past week, and peddled most of it, which was gratifying. I dropped in on my agent, told her about the sales I had made and dropped off the unsold work for her to send around. She would try the major markets and what remained unsold would be returned to me to try on my own if I wanted. She doesn’t like to bother with cartoon submissions to minor markets; it’s unprofitable for her, but by stubbornly keeping all of those old chestnuts in motion I generally add