The Toynbee Convector Part 25

"Okay," said the wife. "Clear?

"First, do I get a drink?"

The husband stirred.

"Don't move," said the wife, with a deadly coldness in her voice.

"Well, then," said the lady as long as the lovely rivers of France and as beautiful as all of its towers and castles, "here goes. What an incredible woman you are!"

"Me?" said the wife.

"Your husband speaks of nothing else."

"Him!?" cried the wife.

"Goes on and on. Drives me wild. Makes me mad with jealousy. How you met, how you courted, where you dined, what your favorite food is, the name of your perfume, Countessa, your favorite book, War and Peace War and Peace, which you've read seven times-"

"Only six-" said the wife.

"But you're on your way through seven!"

"True," admitted the wife.

"Your favorite films, Pinocchio Pinocchio and and Citizen Kane Citizen Kane-"

The wife glanced at the husband, who shrugged sheepishly.

"Your favorite sport, tennis, and mighty good at it, beat the h.e.l.l out of him. Good at bridge and poker, beat him again, four times out of five. Were the bright whirl at high school proms, in college, and on board the United States s.h.i.+p for England on your honeymoon and last year on a Caribbean cruise. How you won a Charleston contest on board the Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II coming home from France the year before. Your love of Emily d.i.c.kinson and Robert Frost. Your playing Desdemona in a little theater group eight years ago to great reviews. Your tender loving care when he was in the hospital five years back. Your treating his mother as if she were fine Dresden china. Your placing flowers on his father's grave at least four times a year. Your resisting buying two-thousand-dollar Dior dresses in Paris. Your dinner with Fellini in Rome when Federico fell in love with you and almost carried you off. Your second honeymoon in Florence where it poured for a week but you didn't care, for you never went out. The short story you published in the coming home from France the year before. Your love of Emily d.i.c.kinson and Robert Frost. Your playing Desdemona in a little theater group eight years ago to great reviews. Your tender loving care when he was in the hospital five years back. Your treating his mother as if she were fine Dresden china. Your placing flowers on his father's grave at least four times a year. Your resisting buying two-thousand-dollar Dior dresses in Paris. Your dinner with Fellini in Rome when Federico fell in love with you and almost carried you off. Your second honeymoon in Florence where it poured for a week but you didn't care, for you never went out. The short story you published in the Ohio State Monthly Ohio State Monthly; superb..."

The husband was leaning forward now, entranced.

And the wife had grown immensely quiet.

"On and on," said the woman whose name had caused all the commotion. "Babble babble. How he fell in love with you when you were twelve. How you helped him with algebra when you were fourteen. How you decorated this place from parquetry to chandeliers, from bathroom to back porch, and loomed the rug in the front hall and made the pottery on the sideboard. My G.o.d, dear Lord, would he never stop! Gibber-gibber. I wonder-"

The tall, the long, the lovely lady paused.

"Does he ever talk about me this way, when he's with you?"

"Never," said the wife.

"I sometimes feel," said the beautiful woman, "that I do not exist when I am with him. That he is with you!"

"I-" said the husband.

"Be still," said the wife.

He was still.

"Continue." The wife leaned forward.

"No time. Must go. May I have that drink?"

The wife went and mixed a martini and came back as if bringing a blue ribbon to best cat of the show. The beautiful woman sipped it and said, "That's the best d.a.m.ned martini I ever had. Do you foil at nothing nothing?"

"Let me think." The wife sat down slowly and eyed her compet.i.tion. "So he speaks speaks of me, does he?" of me, does he?"

"That's why it's all over," said the lovely lady. "I can't stand it anymore. If you are so crazy for her, if you love her so much, I said, for G.o.d's sake, what you are doing with me me! Get. Go! Vamoose. One more day of The Greatest Wife that G.o.d Ever Created will drive me absolutely bonkers. Scram!"

The lovely woman finished her drink, closed her eyes on the savor, nodded, and arose, story after story, lovely battlement after battlement. She stood above them, like a summer cloud, motioning them not to get up.

"Now it's scram for me, too. I'm off to the airport. But I had to come clear up a few things. It's not fair to ruin lives and not rebuild. It's been fun, George-"

"My name is Bill."

"Oops. Dear Bill, much thanks. And Annette-"

"Anne."

"Anne, you've won. I'll be gone four months. When I'm back, don't call me, I'll call you. So long, good wife. So long, Charlie." She winked and charged for the door, where she turned.

"Thanks for listening. Have a great life." The front door slammed. The taxi, out front, could be heard motoring away.

There was a long silence. At last the wife said, "What was that that?"

"One of those hurricanes," said the husband, "that they name for women."

He wandered off toward the bedroom where she found him packing a suitcase. "What do you think you're doing?" she said, in the doorway. "Well, after all this, I thought you'd want me to get out-"

"What, and move into a hotel?"

"Maybe-"

"Where she she could come get her hooks into you?" could come get her hooks into you?"

"I just imagined-"

"You think I'm going to let you run free in a world where people like that are lying in wait? Why, you poor custard-"

"You can't get hooks into a custard."

"But she's got a big spoon! Take those s.h.i.+rts out of the suitcases. Now put those ties over there, and put those shoes under the bed, and come out and have a drink, dammit, and sit down and eat any d.a.m.n dinner I make for you."

"But-"

"You're a beast and a rat and a b.u.m," she said.

"But-"

Tears ran down her cheeks.

"I love you! G.o.d help me. I do."

And she ran but of the room.

He heard her fiercely rattling ice into a shaker, as he dialed the phone.

"Put the stupid son of a b.i.t.c.h on," he said.

"Junoff here. Well?"

"Junoff, you brilliant mastermind, you incredibly inventive helpmate friend! Who is she? How did you do it?"

"She? Who?" said the voice from Lake Arrowhead.

"How did you remember so much from my sessions with you years ago? How could you tell her her? What theater group is she from and is she a fast learner and quick read?"

"Haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about Who is this?"

"Liar!"

"Is your wife there? What's her name?"

"Annette. No. Anne."

"Put her on!"

"But-"

"Get her!" her!"

He walked out to the bar and picked up the extension phone and handed it to his wife.

"h.e.l.lo," said Junoff's voice, one hundred miles away on top of a mountain near a lake.

His voice was so loud his wife had to hold the phone an inch away from her ear. Junoff shouted: "Anne? I'm giving a party up here next weekend!"

And then: "Come. And bring Constance Constance!"

Junior

It was on the morning of October 1 that Albert Beam, aged eighty-two, woke to find an incredible thing had happened, if not in the night, miraculously at dawn.

He witnessed a warm and peculiar rise two-thirds of the way down the bed, under the covers. At first he thought he had drawn up one knee to ease a cramp, but then, blinking, he realized- It was his old friend: Albert, Junior.

Or just Junior, as some as some frolicsome girl had dubbed it, how long, oh G.o.d... some sixty years ago!

And Junior was alive, well, and freshly alert.

Hallo, thought Albert Beam, Senior, to the scene, that's the first time he's waked before me since July, 1970.

July, 1970 1970!

He stared. And the more he stared and mused, the more Junior blushed unseen; all resolute, a true beauty.

Well, thought Albert Beam, I'll just wait for him to go away.

He shut his eyes and waited, but nothing happened. Or rather, it continued continued to happen. Junior did not go away. He lingered, hopeful for some new life. to happen. Junior did not go away. He lingered, hopeful for some new life.

Hold on! thought Albert Beam. It can't can't be. be.

He sat bolt upright, his eyes popped wide, his breath like a fever in his mouth.

"Are you going to stay?" he cried down at his old and now bravely obedient friend.

Yes! he thought he heard a small voice say.

For as a young man, he and his trampoline companions had often enjoyed Charlie McCarthy talks with Junior, who was garrulous and piped up with outrageously witty things. Ventriloquism, amidst Phys Ed. II, was one of Albert Beam's most engaging talents.

Which meant that Junior was talented, too.

Yes! the small voice seemed to whisper. Yes Yes!

Albert Beam bolted from bed. He was halfway through his personal phonebook when he realized all the old numbers still drifted behind his left ear. He dialed three of them, furiously, voice cracking.

"h.e.l.lo."

"h.e.l.lo!"

"h.e.l.lo!"

From this island of old age now he called across a cold sea toward a summer sh.o.r.e. There, three women answered. Still reasonably young, trapped between fifty and sixty, they gasped, crowed, and hooted when Albert Beam stunned them with the news: "Emily, you won't believe-"

"Cora, a miracle!"

"Elizabeth, Junior's back."

"Lazarus has returned!"

"Drop everything!"