Sounds like pita.
Such a lovely name. Rita. Is she pretty?
I’ll tell you tomorrow.
Do you want me to lock up when I leave?
Yes. Lock up. And krafty.
What?
Crafty with a ‘k.’ Those handymen are always spelling things with Ks. For your krossword.
Crafty has six letters.
Oh.
Goodnight Art.
Goodnight Wanda.
Good luck to you.
And to you.
?
I took the elevator down to the lobby of my building. The bellman was nowhere to be seen. He was thought to be having an affair with a woman on the thirteenth floor. We were all thought to be having affairs, I thought, as I walked out of there. I’m having an affair, I thought. I’m having an affair behind my wife’s back. This isn’t right.
And then I heard my wife.
It is right, Art.
No it’s not, Adeleine.
Honey, I’m dead. No use in worrying about me anymore. Go on and live your life.
I don’t want to live it without you, Adeleine.
Oh Art. That’s such a funny thing to say.
It’s not meant to be funny. It’s the truth.
What about Meg? She needs you.
Meg doesn’t need me, Adeleine, and you know that. Meg hasn’t needed me in years. And now with you gone, she needs me even less than ever.
You’re not doing enough to reach out to her.
What am I supposed to do? She doesn’t return my phone calls. I send her letters and never receive a response in return. For all I know she never returned to Tulane. She may be working in California for all I know.
Art, you worry too much. I’m dead. There’s no need to think of me anymore. Move on with your life. Be happy. You only have one life to live. You don’t know how long you have left. You may live to old age like I always thought you would, or you may die tomorrow.
I would like that. I can’t take you not being here.
But look what you have in your hands.
What do I have?
You have two champagne glasses and a bottle of champagne.
Do you want to sit down and have champagne with me?
No. I don’t want to have champagne with anyone anymore. Not after what happened.
Oh, Adeleine. About what happened…
No use worrying about it now, Art. What’s done is done.
What was done? Did you suffer?
I suffered. Yes. That I can say. I suffered. More than words can say. But it’s over now.
Don’t tell me you suffered. Please don’t tell me you suffered. I can’t take it that you suffered.
But it’s over now, Art, and it’s time for you to move on.
It’s not time for me to move on. Quit saying that. I want to be with you.
No, go find that woman. Drink your champagne while it’s still cold, while there’s still dew on the bottle.
Our bed is still warm. I swear I feel you at night when I fall to sleep.
I’m gone, Art. There’s no reason to hold on. Go find your lady friend. Where did you meet her, by the way?
You know where I met her.
No I don’t.
Of course you do.
No, seriously.
No, seriously!
Art, please. Your champagne…she’s waiting.
I’ll go under one condition.
Say the word, darling.
Under the condition you’re never far from me.
I’ll never be far from you, Art. Now go and enjoy your life. Seriously. Listen to me. Don’t be foolish.
?
I crossed traffic and was nearly run down. I couldn’t keep my directions straight. I looked right when I should have looked left. I was confused all of a sudden. Out of sorts. I tried to get back to Rita as soon as possible, before the bottle of champagne cooled.
And the intimacy didn’t feel intimate. In fact, I felt exposed laying with her…exposed. I didn’t know how to escape…
And then I was trembling. Trembling while she tried to calm me. I found I suffered bouts of terror. Post-traumatic stress syndrome. And this talking of hurt and brokenness was more than I could take.
I awoke in the middle of the night, still in my clothes while she slept the sleep of the dead next to me.
In the morning she was gone, and there was a note: Call me, R.
PART II: JUST SHOOT ME
The interview should have been innocuous. I don’t recall anything about the situation that seemed abnormal. A man and a woman were getting divorced. I was hired by the wife’s lawyer to interview the husband. His name was Adolph Meyer. At the time, it meant nothing to me.
?
That was then. This is now. Since Adeleine died, the adventure of my life has worn thin.
Maybe it’s the detective business and all the disappointments that have made me surly. I don’t know. Maybe it’s everything combined.
I feel at heart as if I’m a nice person but I also know that I don’t come off that way, not since Adeleine died. A lot of people find me difficult to get along with. Just look at Rita. We’ve spent five years together, on and off, and we’ve been at an impasse the last year or so. She feels I’m too crabby. I’m always down in the dumps. She doesn’t like the attitude.
I tell her—I say: There are facts and attitudes, Rita. If you don’t like my attitude, change the fact.
Don’t worry, buster, I might, she keeps threatening.
I keep making pledges to be nice to her. I try to be friendly when I see her. I always make a point of keeping a smile on my face when I talk to her, but she’s not convinced.
You’re not happy, she tells me.
Yes I am.
No you’re not.
Yes I am, I tell her. Just look at the smile on my face.
You may have a smile on your face, but there’s a tone in your voice and I don’t like it. It’s irascible.
What do you mean? Irascible?
You know what I mean.
No I don’t.
Yes you do.
No.
Yes.
And we go back and forth like this until not only is the tone in my voice irascible but whatever smile I had plastered to my face is gone and I’m shouting at her with genuine rage and anger.
Maybe this thing with Rita isn’t meant to be. I’ve never fought with a woman so much my entire life. Adeleine and I never fought.
I once told Rita this in the heat of an argument.
What is it with you? I asked her.
With me?
Yeah. You’re always causing arguments. It seems like all we do is fight.
You’re the one who does all the fighting, Art. I want nothing to do with fighting.
Then stop starting them.
It’s you, Art, who starts them.
It is not.
Yes it is.
Listen, I tell her. Before I met you I never had an argument my whole life. Adeleine and I were married for eighteen years and we never had a single fight that I can think of.
That’s because you’re idealizing her, Art. Don’t you see this?
I am not idealizing her. I wish she were here right now to support me on this issue. We never had a fight.
Yeah right, Rita says. If you’re so holy, how come you don’t talk to your daughter anymore? If you’re so high and mighty, why has your daughter estranged you?
It was the accident that estranged me and my daughter.
Then it’s the accident that has made you irascible.
It is not.
It is too.