Threesome - Lawrence Block [40]
“Well, I guess Harry must be in the city by now,” I said.
“I’m sure he is.”
“That’s a long trip to make every week.”
“Well, it’s important for him to keep up personal contacts. With editors and other cartoonists and people in other areas of the business.”
“Uh-huh. Think he’ll see a girl today?”
She dropped the trowel, spun around to look at me. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. Just making conversation.”
“No, I’m serious. Why on earth would he want to start something with a girl in the city?”
“The usual reasons, I guess. Because it feels good, because it’s fun, because—”
“But he’s got us, silly.”
I felt like rewinding the tape and recording a better conversation in this one’s place. Instead I pushed doggedly onward. (I had a dog once who used to push humanly onward.)
I said, “You told me a couple of times that you were convinced Harry had a woman in the city. Or a variety of girls that he used to see.”
She raised her eyebrows and squinted, her Puzzled Priscilla expression. “So?”
“Did you mean it?”
“I suppose so, sure. So what?”
“So why should he have purged himself of the habit of capping off a New York Wednesday by getting laid? If he’s enjoyed it over the years, why quit now?”
“Because he’s got us.”
“He had you and that didn’t stop him.”
“That was different.”
“What’s the difference? As far as I’m concerned, you’re a really yummy fuck.”
“But I’m only one person. He needs more than I’ve got for him, I told you that. Oh, shit, Rhoda, I think you’re just being purposely argumentative.”
“Well, if I am, I’m sorry.”
“We all of us need more than we can get from one person, isn’t that the point of this relationship?”
“I thought the point was that we loved each other.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Is it?”
“Rho, you’re not making sense.”
“I’m sorry, then.”
“Rho?”
“What?”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, why?”
“I don’t know. Would it bother you if Harry did have sex with a girl in New York this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Well, you must have. You brought it up.”
“I mean, what right would I have to be bothered?”
“The same right I have.”
“Do I? For Christ’s sake, you’re his wife, Priss.”
“So? That doesn’t make me any closer to him that you are.”
“Oh, I think it has to.”
“Oh, do you really? Is that really what you think, Rhoda? Is it?”
“What’s the matter?”
She stood up. She was not sobbing, she was in control of herself that way, but tears were of their own accord welling up in her eyes and spilling out and trickling down her cheeks. Her long blonde hair was in her eyes and she brushed it impatiently out of the way.
“Priss, tell me what’s the matter.”
“Nothing.”
“Priss, baby, I was in a bad mood and I took it out on you. God knows why. God knows what I was in a bad mood about, what I’ve got to be in a bad mood about. You know me, Priss-puss, I’m an idiot. Give me something good for once in my life and I keep looking to see what the catch is. Baby, come here.”
She leaned toward me, started to fall. I caught her and held her head to my breast and stroked her hair. She tilted up her head and we kissed with a clinging urgency that contained a feeling of need which was in its own way far more erotic than our recent combinations and permutations of bedroom athletics.
We made love in the garden.
And afterward I smoked a cigarette and held her in my arms, and she said, “I’m so afraid sometimes.”
“Of what?”
“You and Harry.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess I can’t talk about it.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, I just have the feeling that, that you and Harry, that the two of you are close in a way that I’ll always be shut out of because I’m