Chapter 3
They had been home from the Ryners' for half an hour or more and Paul was calling Nadine from the bedroom. "Mom, I've got to get up early. I just phoned the airport ... Sherry's plane comes in at eight-fifteen."
"In a minute!"
Nadine nudged the encyclopedia volume (B to Bird's Foot) back into its niche on the bookshelf. Not a damned significant clue under "Bear."
"Come to bed!"
"I said I'll be there in a minute!"
"You've been saying that for half an hour!"
"Five minutes!"
"Half an hour. Honey, we had plans...."
"Okay, one more minute!" Nadine called the promise out absently. Damned if she'd be able to fall asleep wondering what Leila had meant in that final exchange before they dropped her off! They had left the party early, Nadine dutifully agreeing when Paul had whispered in her ear that he probably had to be up early the next morning, and there was some unfinished business to attend to at home that appealed to him more than harmonizing "On Wisconsin!" or, "When You Wore a Tulip." Nothing was going to top that breathless intrigue with Monty, anyway....
But there had been no reason for Leila Stroud to leave early. The Ryners or the Allegrettis or anyone from the neighborhood would have driven her home later. The presence of an unattached male with Monty's attractions should have been enough reason for Leila to linger behind. But she had chosen to go home wtih Paul and Nadine.
Paul had kidded about the smoothly executed departure. "One word from me, Mommy hops in the car," he'd said. "I've got her trained."
"Like a seal!" Nadine had laughed.
And Leila had smiled sweetly and muttered, "No. Like a bear. I read an article about trained bears once."
Small talk, but with so definite an emphasis upon the "bear," and so much left hanging and only implied, that Nadine was possessed now with a desire to fathom whatever subtle significance might have been contained in the casual phrase. Like a bear.
Strange, the way Leila's broadest remarks had never before brought forth any response, yet here it was going on one-thirty, Paul feeling sorry for himself in the bedroom, and Nadine finding herself in the den with a passionate determination to know why a trained bear differed from a trained seal, excluding the obvious physical differences. All of this knowing that Paul might possibly fall asleep and be the morose, neglected martyr in the morning. Not a good idea, Sherry coming home. It ought to be a fun day. Paul full of the old Harry and looking young and vigorous, as always after a particularly satisfactory session in bed.
"B-E-A-R-S, a family of large, heavy, long-haired, plantigrade, carnivorous mammals...."
Carnivorous. No, Leila wouldn't draw that square an analogy. But what the hell did "plantigrade" mean?
"Nadine, this isn't fair!" Paul was beginning to sound martyr-like already.
Hurriedly, deciding to skip "plantigrade," and acknowledging Monty's dogmatic warning about friends (for the first time admitting Leila as a possible source of trouble), Nadine resorted to a worn volume dedicated to natural history for children-one of Sherry's old books.
"Mom...?"
It was buried in paragraph three. A bear, Nadine discovered, was peculiar in that it could never be completely domesticated. The most friendly, the most superbly trained bear could not be trusted at any time ... bears had been known to turn on their masters after years of apparent tameness and affection....
That was the bit, the whole stinking, ridiculous bit! Leila had merely tied in one of those irrelevant bits of information we all possess but seldom find use for. But Leila had gone even further this evening. The little cracks loomed up suddenly as a darkening menace. Cross Leila off the list. Don't get too close. Always the possibility that she knew why Roy had left her!
Nadine slammed the idiotic book shut and returned it to its place. So much for Leila Stroud! She walked to the bedroom slowly, her mind shifting to a heady awareness of herself as a woman-of her body, of the reaction it generated in men, of her ability to choose the right locutions, the exact mannerisms, of her precious talent for fulfilling and perhaps even exceeding the ultimate requirements of her sex.
At the Ryners', she had finally gotten around to consuming two or three vodka gimlets, so that it was easy to abandon herself to the pervading mood. And she had enjoyed the close harmony, so that now she felt like carrying on-pulling her dress over her head as she approached the bedroom and singing a hoked-up version of the burlesque standard to which more professional but less confident strippers had been peeling it off since the Year One:
"A pretty girl ... Is like a ... mel-o-dy ... That haunts you ... night and day...."
Nadine tossed the new black job across the vanity bench, turning to face Paul, feeling delightfully smiley and wicked inside, and pleased to see that he had overcome his pique at her Lysistrata-like delay. He hadn't bothered with pajamas or covers and he had doused all the lights except the cute little floorboard nightlight that had been installed by some sexy little electrician who knew how a bedroom ought to be lighted, bless his nasty little heart....
"Just ... like the st-a-rain ... Of a something-something-I forgot-the-words ... re-frain ... "
"Haunting," Paul said, his eyes riveted to her body.
Nadine laughed at her confusion with the lyrics and disposed of the black slip. Over the head. Mussing up her hair. Nice wanton effect.
"My crazy, wonderful...." (Paul's voice hoarse and crowded with admiration.)
For a microinstant, Nadine wondered if she could expect the same rise from a man less devoted to her, a man to whom gazing upon this sort of nonsense (shapely babes with parasol props, or telephones or haystacks) was part of a working day. She waltzed over to where the vanity mirror afforded a dim glimpse of a brief black pantie-girdle and matching bra, both logically filled, regretting the inadequate reflections which did not include her legs, then decided, looking down at their nyloned slickness, that Monty Carrell might be blase, but not that blase....
Then, because Paul was so obviously enjoying the procedure, and because she was doing exactly what she felt like doing, Nadine made a few rhythmic steps toward the bed, humming the overworked melody and playfully working at the stubborn hook-and-eye snaps that separated her breasts from his view.
Nadine stretched herself languidly, arching her back and feeling not unlike a sleek, black cat, wondering ... when it took so little effort or imagination to make a man happy, why was it that so many women resigned themselves to stodgy middle age because, like Mabel, they had two half-grown kids and had been married for sixteen years, or why someone as energetic as Gwen Allegretti replaced sex with statistics on hot-selling pinball machines.
So little effort ... and here was Paul, who could put every other woman's husband to shame, superbly happy in the process of making love to her ... the procedure working both ways, especially since Nadine could close her eyes and visualize another room, another time in which someone she had just met, someone amazingly like herself, might enact this very scene, also with her. And it might not be better, but it would be different. Not that there was anything wrong with what Paul was doing now ... but it would be different.
Reluctantly, Nadine erased Monty from her thoughts. Anything a person did merited complete attention. She concentrated her every effort upon the business at hand.
Later, when their breath was even and the floorboard light had been extinguished, with his face cradled against the hollow of her neck, she heard Paul say sleepily, "Mom?"
"Mm?"
"Little observation. You do this unconsciously, I know. Don't take it as criticism on my part."
"Mm?"
"Oh ... you have a habit of making ... I'm not complaining now...."
"Making what?"
"Sort of ... sexy-breezy talk. You don't mean anything by it and I'm not asking you to stop. You're so damned unaware of it, I think I ought to call it to your attention."
"I make sexy-breezy talk?"
"It's just your way of talking. But some people might get the wrong impression."
"Like for instance?"
"Oh, look ... you're still a damned good-looking woman. Throw a few lines at a man ... say, a man whose wife ... you know what I mean."
"I don't know what you mean."
"All right, a single man. A guy on the prowl. In all innocence you throw out some of that ... double-entendre chatter. I know it's just ... glib talk. But another guy might get completely off-base ideas about you."
"I can't imagine."
"I know you can't. That's why I'm telling you."
"I talk the way I talk."
"Sure, Mom ... I wouldn't want you to change. But do it with me around. Sit on my lap if you have to, but let the boys know it's just talk. You're my girl."
"No more going our separate ways at parties? I'm assuming this observation came to you at the Ryners'?"
"That's the general idea. I don't mean you've got to stick to me like glue. But you know the old South Chicago advice." Paul laughed, his breath warm against Nadine's flesh. "Hang aroun' the guy what brung ya."
They giggled together in the comfortable understanding of two people who share the implied as well as the spoken.
Then, somberly, sleepily, Paul said, "I don't want anybody getting the wrong impression of my baby." His arms tightened, hugging Nadine with the sweet, sexless affection that is only possible after the most fulfilling union. "Not even an old pal like Leila."
"She did make a few funnies tonight."
"Well, no more. Okay, hon?"
Paul's voice drifted with him into peaceful, sonorous sleep.
He was dead to the world when the phone rang. Electrifying sound. Nadine lifted the receiver from its cradle and laid it gently on the night table.
It could only be Vince. Poor Vince. Poor Warren, for that matter. But Warren was probably too busy with his guests now to be concerned. Vince was home by now. It was cruel not to talk to him when he needed so desperately to talk with her. But it was impossible, of course. Think of something else.
"Every woman is unlike every other woman I've ever known." There were a number of hidden possibilities in that sentence. Any number of hidden possibilities in the man who had said it. She would see him again, of course ... think about where or when later.
"This could be terribly refreshing ... Apply the crackle test...."
Crackle, crackle. Nadine smiled in the darkness and then yawned. Stretching first, she curled herself against the warm curve of Paul's body. The telephone near her ear made no sound. Except for Paul's relaxed and heavy breathing and the ticking clock, the room was still.
Who would understand why she loved them all, needed them all, and knew with a firm conviction that she was neither immoral nor amoral? For there had been a time when she had been starved for love and the cupboard had been bare. Was there something evil in indulging yourself after a long, painful period of fasting?
No one was being cheated! Did Paul feel neglected or unloved? How could there be anything wrong with requiring and having enough love to go around ... enough for everyone who reached out...?