I led outside, opened the passenger door for him and put him in. Then I got in myself and drove home-his home, at least, and the place I had to call home, as I seemed to be living there. I drove around to the garage and put my car away, then walked back to the front door with him. All this time he was holding in whatever it was he wanted to say. As soon as we made it inside the drawing room, he burst out: “What was the idea? Disgracing me? Earl K. White’s wife doesn’t work in a cocktail bar!”
“Earl K. White’s wife did work in a cocktail bar, as Earl K. White well knows-and Earl K. White’s wife can do as she goddam well pleases, and it pleases her, when left alone for an evening, to spend it with friends, and if they need help in the work, to give it. Any more questions?”
“… Why don’t you ask one?”
“Such as which one?”
“Why don’t you ask where I spent the evening?”
“It’s none of my business, that’s why-but since you make it my business, O.K., where did you spend the evening?”
“Massage parlor.”
“You mean, a junior whorehouse?”
“… O.K., call it that.”
“I call it what it is-at least as I’ve heard, in such way as to believe it. And you enjoyed your little visit?”
“You bet I did.”
“Then I’m glad.”
“I thought you would be. You might be interested to know it proved you wrong, and Dr. Cord wrong. I had myself what we can call a massage, two of them, matter of fact-with no fatal results, as you see.”
“That’s wonderful, Earl, but it doesn’t prove Dr. Cord wrong.”
“It doesn’t? I’d say it does.”
“Not if by ‘massage’ you mean what I think you mean, namely a young woman working you over with her hands. All right, she took the towel off at the end and worked a little more than she’s supposed to under the law-you might have died from that, and thank goodness you didn’t. But there’s a difference between that and what you were proposing we do, and if you don’t know what the difference is I’m not going to be the one to tell you.”
“I survived the one, and I would survive the other just the same.”
“You might as well say, I can step off the curb so I can step out a window.”
“You’re saying you think the act with you would be that much more tremendous?”
“I’m saying you do, or you wouldn’t be pursuing it so single-mindedly. Earl, I’ve seen what happens to you when you get excited. A woman you’ve never met and will never see again cannot excite you like your wife, and the touch of a woman’s hand cannot excite you the way possessing her entire body would. You’ve learned something tonight about what your body can withstand, but you haven’t learned enough to say you’re ready for what you want. And the only way you could find that out is too dangerous.”
“And you know that how? You’re an impressive woman, Joan, I don’t say you aren’t-but I don’t recall your having a medical degree. Let me show you something ” He got up and pulled over a little stairway, a mahogany thing no more than eighteen inches high, with two steps on it, for use in front of the bookshelves, which on one side of the room were quite high. “Journal Dr. Jameson lent me-has an article in it, on angina.”
“Won’t change my mind, but all right, show me.”
Fuming, holding onto the shelf with one hand for balance, he climbed up, stood on top, and reached for a narrow volume. Suddenly, instead of getting it, he clutched his chest and turned to face the room. I knew a seizure had hit him, and that if something wasn’t done quickly he’d topple and fall. I got to the stair and wrapped my arms around his legs. Then, “Lean on me, Earl,” I whispered. “Don’t try to step down-lean on me and slide down.”
He did, and then was down on the floor. I’m fairly strong, and was able to half carry him to a chair. Then: “Your pills are by your bed, the way they were in London?”
“Yes! Yes!” He whispered it, and then: “Joan, hurry! For Christ’s sake, get them, quick!”
I hurried. I didn’t even know which room was his, but by opening doors I found it, then found the vial, in the corner at the head of his bed. I grabbed it and ran downstairs. He was still in the chair, in agony. I got him a pill and put it in his hand. He popped it into his mouth, and I could see him roll it under his tongue. He held out his hand for another one and I gave it to him. He popped it in and after a moment his breathing began to ease. Whispering hoarsely, he started in again, as he had in London, about what to do if he should die this time.
“Will you, goddam it, shut up?”
He exhaled hugely, his whole face red and tortured.
“You won’t die this time. I’m here, and I’ll see you don’t.”
“You don’t want me to?”
“What do you think?”
“… Joan, you don’t love me, not even a little bit, but I love you, I can’t help it.”
“Earl, I love you, but know no way of loving a corpse.”
“O.K. O.K.”
Little by little his seizure passed. “When it starts going away, that’s the worst of all. Feels like a hand was there, squeezing the air out of your lungs-not your heart, your lungs, though of course your heart is the cause of it all.”
“Take it easy.”
“Joan, I’m trying to.”
And then, all of a sudden, it was over, and he half lay in the chair, still in a state of collapse. When he was somewhat recovered, so he could sit up, I asked: “Now-can we talk?”
“… O.K. What is it, Joan?”
“About the massage parlor.”
“… All right, but I want to add something to what I told you. It all happened as I said, except that it happened with you, not the massage girl at all.”
“Oh?”
“I pretended, that’s why. Pretended she was you. In my mind, in my heart, she was you-it’s what I wanted to say. I’m trying to tell you, spite of everything, spite of how you feel toward me, I do love you. I do.”
There, once more, was the thing Liz had suggested, to fix everything up by pretending. I suddenly realized I had, back in the early days of my marriage, when Ron and I were still trying, and I’ve since read it’s something the whole human race does, at one time or another. But with Earl I just couldn’t. No amount of pretending would help.
He waited, and then: “But I interrupted you, Joan. What was it you wanted to say?”
“About the massage parlor-please don’t go there anymore.”
“Will you give me a reason not to?”
“You can still ask me that, after what just happened?”
He didn’t even look abashed. “It wasn’t the parlor that did it,” he said, “it was the argument with you, the strain of it-”
“It was both, Earl. It was the combination. And even without the argument it might have happened if what came before had brought you to a similar emotional peak. And if that happened with me, as a result of my allowing you what you’ve been begging for-I couldn’t live with myself, knowing I’d been the cause of it. Do you get my full meaning, why I can’t, won’t let myself, say yes? Do you realize what that would mean?”
“But do you realize, Joan, what it would mean to me, to know I can be normal-live the life everyone leads-and forego it just because you are afraid? I cannot promise that, Joan. I can’t.”
“… Then, if you must have it, at least we can remove as much of the risk as possible.”
“Meaning what?”
I said: “You liked her, that girl in the massage place?”
“Believe it or not she was very nice-kind, understanding, and sweet.”
I couldn’t help myself, and snapped: “I’m sure she was.”
“It wasn’t cheap, what I did.”
“Who knows better than I that you couldn’t be cheap, Earl? So O.K., do you know her name?”
“Bella.”
“Do you know the name of the place?”
“Kitty-Cat, in Arlington.”
“Then, if, as, and when, tomorrow night or whenever, you feel the urge coming on, and can’t resist or don’t want to, I want you to call them-I’ll look up the number for you-and have Bella come here.”
“Joan, that would be messy-”
“Nothing like as messy as what could happen, in the Kitty-Cat, if you had a seizure there. Earl, to them you’d be just a problem, something to be got rid of, to be put out in the street before the police could get there. We can’t have that happen to you.” I brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. “The same as you need to know how I feel, and accept it, it’s up to me to know how you feel and accept that. And-I guess I do. I wish, for your sake, you didn’t-but you can’t hold back Niagara-and it seems to be that strong, this compulsion you have.”
“You’d actually want me to …?”
“If you have to, I want you to do it that way. So that you’re here, where we know what to do with you, and how to get hold of the doctor, in case he’s needed.”
“If you put it that way-”
“I do put it that way.”
“You’re remarkable, Joan.”
Next day, he went in to the office, but came back almost at once, as I was finishing breakfast. He said, “Something occurred to me, driving in, that I want to get out of the way-that I’ve been intending to do, but realize I had better do now. Can you come with me now, to the bank?”
“But of course.”
I took a coat, went out with him and got in the car while Jasper held open the door, and drove with him to the Suburban Trust in College Park. There the manager, Mr. Frost, came bouncing out of this office, to shake hands and be introduced to me, as of course the marriage had been in the paper. “Dick,” Earl told him, “I want to change all four of my accounts, the checking, the Special No. 1, Special No.2, and Savings, from single, in my name, to joints, in my name and Mrs. White’s-so she’s protected in event of my death.”
“… Which seems highly unlikely, Mr. White, but if that’s the arrangement you want-?”
“It’s not only likely but certain-give God time, it’s amazing what He can do.”
“He always has his little joke,” said Mr. Frost, smiling at me.
“Oh, always.”
He cut off with the small talk then, and took us into his office, a sizable one, enclosed in glass. We sat down, Mr. Frost called a girl, and then told her to bring certain forms, which ones I don’t recollect. Then we signed-Earl, to O.K. me as joint holder on the accounts, I to give specimen signatures on four different cards. The Special accounts, it turned out, were for taxes, one for federal, the other for state. I was put on all four, and finally, Earl called for the balance showing on each. I was stunned. On the checking account it was over $600,000, on one Special $230,000, on the other $90,000, on the savings $65,000. I had known he was rich, but had had no idea how rich. When we were done, I shook hands with Mr. Frost and thanked him, and Earl gave him a nod. Then we were at the door, going out, but Mr. Frost took the nod as a dismissal, and didn’t come with us. In the glass vestibule at the bank’s entrance, Earl suddenly took my arm, and said: “Joan, I said some bitter things last night, as a man in love does, every so often. Make no mistake, Joan, I am a man in love. I love you insanely, and-”
“I love you, Earl.”
I said it without a hitch in my voice this time, without hesitating, and without, I hoped, Tad’s look of fear in my eyes.
“Maybe so,” he said, “in your own way. At least I do know you don’t wish me dead, as if you did you’ve had plenty of opportunity to let me die, last night included. But still and all-” He waved back in the direction of the bank. “… I’m glad to get this done. Now you have every bit as much with me alive as you’d have with me gone.”
“Please don’t talk like that.”
“I just don’t ever want it to be an issue, in your mind or anyone else’s.”
That night, he was as I wanted him to be, quiet, courteous, and not demanding, physically, I mean. We watched television, and when I, very nervous about it, said I wanted to go to bed, he patted me, kissed me, and took me upstairs, but made no attempt to follow me into my room, and didn’t knock after I turned in. What a relief! At last I could sleep without fear sleeping with me. In the morning he came in and kissed me, I being still in bed, then drove off to work with Jasper. In the afternoon he came home, changed his clothes for his walk, set out for the Garden, and returned without incident.
That evening was another like the one before, and likewise the one after that. Next evening, however, things weren’t the same, even a little bit. He took his walk as usual, came home, and kissed me, but in a queer, guilty way, and at once went upstairs, asking me to stay off the phone so he could make a call. Then when dinner was served he didn’t come down. I went up, knocked on his door, and pushed it open, and found him sitting with his intravenous mechanism attached, the rubber tubing feeding his medicine from an elevated bottle into his arm. He started, looking embarrassed, almost as if he’d been caught at something, which was silly, since I knew he was taking the treatments and he knew I knew. I said nothing about it, just informed him that dinner was on the table, and he said he didn’t want any- “not just yet anyway.” It was an odd way of putting it, as though he was hungry but was putting off food for some reason. He didn’t look at me, and I went down, had dinner myself, and tried to figure it out, with no success. I was in the drawing room later when the doorbell rang. No one was due that I knew of, and I had a sudden feeling about it. “I’ll take it,” I called to Myra, who had started for the door to answer it.
When I opened, a girl was there, in a sort of nurse’s uniform, a coat over her shoulders, a cab in the drive behind her. She blinked, then said: “… If you’re the housekeeper, I’m Bella, calling on Mr. White.”
I confess I felt rocked down to my feet. She was here at my suggestion, no doubt about that, but actually to see her, with her cab waiting outside, set my head to spinning around. “Oh yes,” I said, “I think Mr. White is expecting you-come in, please.”
She did, and I got my bag from the drawing room, went out and paid off the cab-twelve dollars and something. I gave him fifteen, then went back inside. Running upstairs I knocked on Earl’s door and called: “Earl? Company!”
I guess I did it with malice, at least a little bit, as someone had told me once that that’s what a madam calls when a visitor comes-“Girls! Company!” Anyway, I beckoned her up, showed her the door to knock on, and went down. When I heard it open and close, I went to the kitchen and told Araminta, “Mr. White has a visitor. He’s not to be disturbed, but if anything happens-if he has an attack-you can reach me at this number.” I wrote the Garden number on her kitchen memo pad. To make sure she understood, I asked her: “You understand about his attacks?”
“You mean the pain he gets in the chest?”
“That’s it. Let me know, at once. You can give him his pills if he needs them, but don’t call anyone else, even the doctor, till I get here. It’ll take me no more than ten minutes.”
“Yes, Mrs. White. I got it.”
She looked at me very oddly, but I felt warmth under the squint, and felt things would be under control. Then I put on my coat, got out my car and drove down to the Garden.
It was a Friday in early November, with the hatcheck open again, the first time in months, as of course in summer no hats are worn, or coats, or anything checkable, and October had still been warm. A new girl was on the booth that I didn’t know, but it’s where the phone was and I had to depend on her. I gave her a buck and when I told her my name she knew who I was, and was quite excited at meeting me. I guess I was known as the girl who’d made good. I told her: “I’m expecting a call, a very important call, and I’ll be in the bar. Don’t fail me please. I may be helping Liz, so if you don’t see me, tell her.”
“You can depend on me, Mrs. White.”
“Joan.”
Liz first seated me at the bar between two other customers, then moved me to my regular little table when it opened up. I didn’t really expect any call, and was happily losing myself in helping her with her orders when something touched my arm, and when I turned it was the new hatcheck girl. “Call for you, Joan. Woman says it’s important.”
It was Araminta: “Get out here, Miss Joan-it’s hit him. He’s bad off this time-real bad.”
I parked the car out front, and she had the door open by the time I jumped out. I went in and upstairs. Myra was there, in a chair by the bed, and Earl was there, under the covers with no clothes on, judging by the pile strewn on the floor, pants, shirt, underwear and all. Beside it was a dainty lace brassiere, left behind by its owner in her hurry to exit.
He was holding his chest and had his eyes tightly shut, but when he heard me enter he forced them open. “Thank God you’re here, Joan,” he groaned, each word coming at a great cost. “This is it-you win.”
“Win? Win?”
“You were right, I’m trying to say.”
I told Myra: “O.K.-you’ve done the right thing, all of you. Now-”
“Let me know if you need me, Miss Joan.”
She went and I asked: “The girl left you like this?”
“… I told her, go. She was scared.”
I saw the pill bottle lying on its side on the bed, empty. “The medicine didn’t help?”
“Not this time. This time’s the end, I can feel it. You-win.”
“Will you please stop saying I win? If it turns out the way you say, I’m the biggest loser of all time.”
“It will turn out that way. It’s not only the pain this time-I can’t get my breath-a new twist. It can’t go on. If I’d only listened to you-”
“Stop it. Stop it.” I had the phone in hand and looked up Dr. Cord’s number in the book beside it. There were two numbers, one with an ‘H’ alongside, which I took to mean it was his home; when you’re rich enough, and I suppose sick enough, I guess your doctor gives you his home number to call him day or night. Sure enough, Dr. Cord picked up at home, and before I got through a sentence of explanation he said he’d be over at once. When I returned to Earl’s side, he looked worse, his jaw clenched against the pain. Through it he said: “I heard you-beat a guy up once-at the Garden.”
“… I certainly did beat him up.”
“For-trying something with you.”
“Yes.”
“If you’d only-beat me up. Just once. If you’d beat some sense in my head.”
For a couple of minutes then he didn’t say anything, and I didn’t either, just watched him struggle to get air and held onto his hand. He let out a little whimper.
“It’s my fault,” I said. “This whole thing was my idea, I thought you’d be safer here-”
“No. Not-your idea.”
“I was the one told you to call her.”
“I had the idea-weeks-before you popped it out. It was so crazy — couldn’t make myself say it. But I had it. Joan, listen-there’s one thing still unsaid.”
“Yes, Earl. What?”
He raised up on one elbow to say it, but what it was I didn’t find out and don’t know to this day. When he fell back he was gone, and at that moment a man walked in that I’d never seen, who I realized was Dr. Cord. I told him: “Thanks for coming, Doctor. However, I think you’re too late.”
He went over to Earl and felt for a pulse, and finding none let Earl’s arm gently down. “He was long overdue, Mrs. White.”