Gurgle. “Oh, Vivs. I do love you.”
I turned away from Doctor Paul’s elegantly poised body and watched my finger travel along the smooth dark plastic of the telephone, the spiraling cord, the little twin buttons that could sever this excruciating connection in an instant. I whispered: “I love you, too, Gogo.”
“Good night, Vivs.”
“Good night, sweetiest of pies. Feel better.”
The line clicked. I hung up the receiver with both hands and stared at that damned apparatus, that instrument of divine retribution, waiting for Doctor Paul to speak first, because I surely to God could not. I surely to God could not say what I had to say.
A coffee cup clattered before me, black and hot and smelling strongly of cheap brandy. “From the sound of Gogo’s voice, I thought I might just get a pot going,” said Sally.
“Always prepared.” I sipped. The coffee-to-brandy ratio was just about where I needed it. Which is to say, six of one, half a dozen of the other.
“And now,” Sally went on, with a long red kimono stretch, “I think I’ll just slink on back to my cave and give you two a little privacy. There’s more brandy in the cupboard if you need it. Enchanted to meet you, Dr. Salisbury.”
“Pleasure.”
I waited until the bedroom door closed. “She’s wrecked. We wrecked her.”
“I wrecked her. You have nothing to do with it. It’s on my conscience, Vivian, not yours.”
“Gallant to the last.”
“This is not the last.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid it is.”
“Will you look at me, at least?”
I turned. He’d pushed himself away from the door frame and stood on his own two feet. His eyes were wide and desperate.
“I can’t, Paul. I can’t do this. I’m not perfect, God knows, I’m no angel. But I can’t do this to her. I will sink like a stone if I do. I will be beyond human hope.”
“You’re not doing anything to her. It’s my fault. I’m the one who led her on.”
“You didn’t lead her on. It’s just Gogo. She’s . . . she’s romantic. But that doesn’t change anything. In fact, it makes things worse. If she saw us together, if she knew . . .”
Doctor Paul was shaking his head. “So we’ll wait a bit. We’ll give her a week or two—”
“No. Never.”
“A month. Two months. Whatever it takes. We’ll be as quiet as mice.”
“Never, never.”
“You’re not serious. She’ll understand, Vivian. She’s a beautiful girl. She’ll find someone else in no time.”
“You don’t understand. Not ever, do you hear me? Do you not understand a single thing about women? If she were to fall madly in love and marry and have a dozen kids, and if you and I were to start an affair when we were sixty, it would still not be okay. It just wouldn’t.”
He stood still and stricken, about ten feet away. The shadow from the lamp made his cheeks hollow.
“And there’s my job,” I said. “Lightfoot will fire me faster than a Soviet rocket.”
“Your job?”
“My gig, my career. A writer at the Metropolitan. It’s all I ever wanted from life.”
“Vivian, there are other magazines. Look at you. The most dazzling woman in Manhattan. They’ll be clamoring for you. You are sitting there, Vivian, and throwing away our happiness with your two hands.”
“For God’s sake. Listen to yourself. It’s Monday. When you woke up Saturday morning you didn’t even know I existed.”
“Saturday morning I was a different man.”
“Oh, lose the melodrama. This is not Saturday night at the Met. People don’t just fall in love in a minute and a half.”
“It was twelve hours. Plenty of time for a quick study like me.”
“You’re a quick something, I’ll give you that.”
Without warning, he whipped around and slammed his fist into the door frame.
I jumped to my feet. “What the hell was that?”
“You can’t, Vivian. You can’t just send me away. You can’t pretend this never happened.” He spoke into the plaster next to his fingers.
“I’m a Schuyler, kiddo. Watch and learn.”
“I don’t understand. I cannot comprehend why you’re doing this.”
I whispered: “Yes, you can.”
Here’s the thing about New York, the thing I love most: there is no such substance as silence. If you stop talking, and he stops talking, the city takes over for you. A siren forms a distant parabola of sound. A door slams. The old couple in 4A argues over who will answer the telephone. The young lovers in 2C reach an animalistic climax. A million other lives play out on your doorstep, and not one of them gives a damn about your little problems. Life goes on and on and on.