Threesome - Lawrence Block [15]
Getting there is sometimes less than half the fun.
Prissy was telling me that I should have called, that the cab rates were outrageous, that she could have picked me up at the station. I just kept nodding and not quite smiling. I had thought of calling but had deliberately decided not to, and for no rational reason, but as if covering every bit of the distance under my own power was somehow necessary, would somehow prove something which somehow had to be proved.
“Where are your things?”
“Here.”
“Just one suitcase?”
“Can we go inside?”
“Of course. Harry’s out back, I’ll get him—”
“Don’t disturb him if he’s working. Not yet. I have to get my bearings, I—”
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” And then, using a part of my mind to shake the other part, “Oh, hell, I guess I’m all right. I’m being dramatic, that’s all.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just a rotten endless trip, that’s all. No, I don’t want coffee, thanks, but I’ve had so much coffee and so little sleep—”
“Would you like to lie down?”
“Not yet, I have to unwind first. I feel over-wound. Do you remember when I broke my alarm clock and you took it apart and tried to fix it? Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“I just have the one suitcase.”
“Do you have trunks coming, or—”
“No, nothing. I think I need a drink.”
“Sure. Scotch? Just a sec. This won’t knock you out or anything, will it?”
“If it does, throw a rug over me. Thanks. Do I have a trunk. No. Just this suitcase. Before I went to Las Vegas, before I went to Las Vegas—”
“Take it easy. Tell me later.”
“—I walked around that fucking apartment trying to figure out how to pack, what to take, put things in storage, ship them somewhere, what to do with everything. And I realized that there was nothing there I wanted. Things, just things, I didn’t want any of them. I filled one suitcase and walked out the door. I was going to call the Salvation Army, tell them to take the rest, but for some reason or other I didn’t. Maybe I forgot. Or it was something about not wanting to be around to let them in, that was it.”
“Come this way, Rho. I want you to get to bed.”
“Can they do anything to me? It’s not against the law to abandon your fucking possessions, is it? Can they say it was a case of littering your own apartment? They can’t do that.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I had to come here. I’m sorry, Priss. I fucked up my whole life and now I’m in everybody’s way.”
Sleep helped, and solid food, and more sleep. Staying in one place helped. Sitting in the house or walking in the yard. The view helped. It is good to be able to rest one’s eyes with distant scenes.
And of course the company helped. Two good people, easy and comfortable in conversation, a dual relief from forced conversations with strangers and the burden of having only oneself for companionship.
If it was a time of slow mending, the surface symptoms went away almost at once. At least I hope they did; I’d hate the thought that I was as dismal on subsequent mornings as I was that first day. The outpourings of self were bright and cynical and wryly humorous, typically Rhoda, spoken through Rhoda’s typical surgical mask.
Ecchhh!
Why am I typing out all this garbage? Too heavy a remembrance of things past. Marcel Proust is a yenta, after all. This is supposed to be a bestseller, clever and groovy and sexy and all, and if it stays maudlin like this how can anyone tell the nitty from the gritty?
Get with it, Muir.
Evenings, in those first weeks, were the best times. We three would sit around the living room, drinking but rarely getting sloshed. From the first there was no need to make conversation per se; conversation made