have something easy at home? I’ll get a roast chicken or a duck and some cheese. Once upon a time she liked cheese. Who knows? Perhaps she still does. If she doesn’t, you and I will eat it.
That wouldn’t be right. Not for her first evening with us. I’ll make the dinner. I don’t have classes on Friday afternoon so I can shop on the way home. Like a surprise party.
You’re my love. Don’t let it hurt your feelings if it turns out that she can’t eat this or that. She’s always been picky. God knows what kind of diet she’s on.
Don’t worry. Hey Schmidtie, I haven’t ever seen you so sad. It’s because of the trouble between them?
It has to be. There is no other reason.
They’ve got no kids and you aren’t crazy about him. Maybe they should split. It’s heavy, but you’ll get her back.
I don’t want to think like that. Besides, somehow I don’t believe it. I’m afraid that everything—good or bad—will just put more distance between us. She’ll think that deep inside me I’m gloating, because once more I have told her so. She may be right. Perhaps she’s got my number. There is another thing: if I get her back, what do I do with her? All the time, I rub her wrong. She doesn’t want to be on the telephone with me, telling me how she’s doing, what she’s thinking, day-to-day kind of stuff. That’s what she did with her mother. With me it’s usually to pick a fight. You haven’t seen her take the trouble to come out here to see whether the old man is doing all right.
That’s because of me. She knows I’m here. She’ll do it if I go.
Never. You’re my love. If you leave me, it will have to be because you’ve stopped loving me or you love someone else better.
Hey, remember? When I asked you to tell me that you want me to be faithful, and you wouldn’t? That really hurt my feelings. Schmidtie, there won’t be anybody. Not as long as you want me.
Then don’t worry about what Charlotte thinks.
C’est moi pour lui, lui pour moi pour la vie….
His own unhoped-for sparrow. He took the long hand that lay close to his on the table and kissed the palm. Rather than wipe a tear that was perhaps forming, he blinked and blew his nose. He was desperately happy at her side, in such fabulous luck.
The waiter, profile of a Sioux warrior, thick black hair tied in a ponytail, brought the check and gave Carrie the onceover while Schmidt counted out twenty-dollar bills. Flesh calls to flesh. Will this fine, loyal girl think Schmidt wants her when all he has to offer are geriatric caresses? Unless tedium, living alongside a fuddy-duddy retired gent shuffling among memories, does it first. Count your blessings, Schmidtie: it won’t be long before you are really alone.
III
H EY , you want to see what I’ve cooked?
She had stuck her head out of the kitchen door to get him to come in from the garden, where he was busy giving Jim Bogard a hard time about the job his men had done edging the flower beds. He wanted clean, straight lines. Instead, he had gotten gentle curves, as though they’d been plotting bond yields during a week of market doldrums. And why hadn’t they mulched, when he had especially explained that he wanted the place to look trim and fresh? Not that it mattered: Charlotte wouldn’t be in a mood to notice. Still, getting things right was important to him, for the pleasure afforded to the eye, and as proof that he hadn’t let himself or the place slide. Schmidt left Bogard scribbling in his notebook, promising that the work would be corrected that very afternoon. What a strange way to write for such a gritty and wiry little man: huge capital letters that ended in manic curlicues, followed by script too small for Schmidt to make out without his reading glasses. But at least Bogard didn’tbelong to the insupportable genus of handymen and gardeners who refuse to take notes on what the client wants, claiming they will remember. During his entire professional life, Schmidt had not