Chapter 18
Lou listened to Linda with interest. Her dark eyes met his lighter ones and she knew she had him where she wanted him. She had faith in him. She knew faith can be like rare flowers-some like monuments. She loved him that firmly.
In a moment of great stress a woman in love can achieve immortality and this was her last chance. She must get him to leave the paper and fly back with her to New York. There was a strange stilled silence as they stared at each other. Then she smiled and showed him her white teeth.
"I'm leaving tomorrow morning." She looked at him hard. "I want you to go back to New York, Lou. I'll take you either way-married or on the loose. I'll take my chances and live on hope. What do you say?" she asked.
It was a great chance, Lou knew-opportunities die like flies, passing you by ... they are never reborn. He felt his eyes shrink from her because his decision had failed to materialize since she last approached the idea. She had said her piece in a firm yet subdued tone-almost a monotonous voice-as if other choices did not exist for him.
She waited. "Make the right decision, Lou. Pray if it will help," Linda said.
He stood up and shook his head. "God and I have very little to say to each other, Linda," he said quietly.
He walked like a shaky zeppelin to the couch and touched her beautiful hair softly.
"Dear, dear Linda," he said, "dearest girl."
She stared up at him vaguely and smiled. Hers was a long look in a long moment of taking him in stride. "I think you're going to come with me, Lou," she said.
He smiled back weakly-the kind of smile you see at funerals. "Yes-I guess I will, Linda. As you said-once Marilyn spills the beans there won't be anything left in town for me. I better resign and skip before I'm fired," he said sadly.
She stood up and clasped him tightly. He reached behind her shoulders and crushed her to him. She looked up and said, "I've been too long untouched."
She knew how to set the alarm for him. He wore a little smile as he walked to the bedroom with her. To himself he said-I've gone along this far with Linda but I'm still keeping Lora as my ace in the hole. In some strange, weird manner he tried to keep from responding-he wanted out of her battle plan-but how could he tell her? But when she wrapped herself around him and stabbed her tongue to his and told him he was the greatest lover she had known-he went along. They were on her bed-not his. Her terms ... not his ... He shut his eyes from her and he tensed with thoughts of the negress who had picked the wrong guy to spread her love upon.
His throat was locked as his face hung over hers in the dim light. Did she pick the wrong guy? What made him think of Lora-now-at this studied moment? For days she had been just a dark toy available when he wanted to play. Now everything was opened to full range.
He resumed his caresses and pleased her struggles.
"I picked the right man, Lou, damn it-I picked the right guy," she mumbled with closed eyes. He wanted to shout he was the wrong guy-the damndest wrongest guy ever. But his throat was cotton. She wanted him completely. That was the only weapon he had. He felt like cursing. His hand touched the wetness of the bed and he recoiled from it in horror. He rubbed his face and squeezed his eyes.
It was over and it meant nothing. Not like with Lora. Linda was irrelevant-expendable-a piece of tail in bed. Compared to her bedroom Lora's was an ornate cloud of bubbles-drowning her bitterness and sharing her searching passion. Maybe she couldn't write a magazine story or do research or paint a picture-but she knew how to blow bubbles of meaning his way. Lora never pinned him down to definite patterns and formulas. She understood him ... she could branch off him like a telephone wire on a party line. She was the true custodian of his past.
Linda was a dream and he didn't belong any more. She wanted him to trade rainbows for pots-turn him from a language of love that wobbled preciously before him. He wanted the mood changed ... he wanted a softer mood ... with Lora.
He promised to see her that night again. He went to the office and puttered around the desk and knocked out a few pages. When Lora came in and put some stories on his desk, he said, "I'm coming up tonight. I want to change the landscape for you."
Her eyes widened and she smiled. She always had so little to say. Without waiting to hear more she walked quietly from the desk. He liked her long legs and hard belly and how she combined the two into a trance. She was black so that made her a maligned enchantment ... a fresh funny trick waiting to be solved. A black million dollar baby in a white man's circus.
He called Linda from an outside booth in the lobby at the end of the day and explained in what he was sure she would accept as his futile lie that he couldn't see her that evening. When she put the next question pointblank-"Are you leaving tomorrow with me?" he stuttered for a moment.
Finally he said, "Leave without me. I need more time, Linda. I'll know soon." Then he hung up.
He drove impatiently to Lora's apartment anxious to enjoy a bull market in sex-Lora, the emblem of leisurely passion. He stumbled up the stairs like a lost delivery boy. She answered on his first buzz and smiled sweetly at him. For a second he stared at her with nutcracker severity-then he smiled broadly and took her in his arms.
She poured drinks for both and then they sat opposite each other in the living room.
"Do you want to commemorate a miracle, Lou, or do you want to rescue it?" she asked solemnly.
"What's the miracle?"
She shifted awkwardly. "I think I'm pregnant."
Their distance from the world glanced off each other for a quick second. She felt his quietness turn into a sudden coolness. His silence was frozen-then he smiled politely.
"You think you're pregnant?" he repeated. "I said I think. I'm not sure." He rushed in again. "Suppose you are?" he suggested.
She smiled wanely and shrugged. "So I'll live with our child," she added courageously.
He leaned forward. "And what about me?"
She waved her slender arm. "Oh, I imagine you'll go on taking another drink for the road," she said sweetly, no hint of remorse in her tone.
He got up and raised her chin. "That's where you're wrong, Lora."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to marry you, Lora, and damn fast too," he said firmly.
She shook her head. "It won't do, Lou, never. I may have the white man's world in my eyes but I have Africa at my back. You could never forgive me," she said.
"What the hell are you talking about? This has nothing to do with a kid or race or religion or color. You're a real woman and I love you-you're the very kind of woman I need," he said.
"You're wrong, Lou."
"I don't think I'm wrong about you."
She sneered mildly. "You're wrong about us, Lou. These things rarely work out." She looked up at him. "Is that what you meant in the office when you said you wanted to change the landscape for me?"
He grabbed her. "Yes, God damn you, yes. And I didn't know anything about you being pregnant. I was going to ask you to marry me anyway," he fairly shouted at her.
Then he felt awkward-drained. He could have ran with a pat on the head-straight to the nearest place marriage certificates were dispensed. Then the only sound in the room was her sobbing as she buried herself in his arms. When her sobbing ceased she held him with a passion that seemed more severe than sex. They disrobed rapidly and in the bedroom she pulled him flat upon her nakedness and said, "Oh, Lou, we'll make it-I know we can."