Short Cuts by Raymond Carver Read Free Book Online Page B

what?”
    “Whatever else he did besides kiss you. We’re adults. We haven’t seen the Andersons in literally years and we’ll probably never see them again and it happened a
long
time ago, so what reason could there possibly be that we can’t talk about it?” He was a little surprised at the reasoning quality in his voice. He sat down and looked at the tablecloth and then looked up at her again. “Well?” he said.
    “Well,” she said, with an impish grin, tilting her head to one side girlishly, remembering. “No, Ralph, really. I’d really just rather not.”
    “For Christ’s sake, Marian!
Now
I mean it,” he said, and he suddenly understood that he did.
    She turned off the gas under the water and put her hands out on the stool; then she sat down again, hooking her heels over the bottom step. She sat forward, resting her arms across her knees, her breasts pushing at her blouse. She picked at something on her skirt and then looked up.
    “You remember Emily’d already gone home with the Beattys, and for some reason Mitchell had stayed on. He looked a little out of sorts that night, to begin with. I don’t know, maybe they weren’t getting along, Emily and him, but I don’t know that. And there were you and I, the Franklins, and Mitchell Anderson still there. All of us a little drunk. I’m not sure how it happened, Ralph, but Mitchell and I just happened to find ourselves alone together in the kitchen for a minute, and there was no whiskey left, only a part of a bottle of that white wine we had. It must’ve been close to one o’clock, because Mitchell said, ‘If we ride on giant wings we can make it before the liquor store closes.’ You know how he could be so theatrical when he wanted? Soft-shoe stuff, facial expressions? Anyway, he was very witty about it all. At least it seemed that way at the time.And very drunk, too, I might add. So was I, for that matter. It was an impulse, Ralph. I don’t know why I did it, don’t ask me, but when he said let’s go – I agreed. We went out the back, where his car was parked. We went just as … we were … didn’t even get our coats out of the closet, thought we’d just be gone a few minutes. I don’t know what we thought,
I
thought, I don’t know
why
I went, Ralph. It was an impulse, that’s all I can say. It was the wrong impulse.” She paused. “It was my fault that night, Ralph, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done anything like that – I
know
that.”
    “Christ!” The word leaped out of him. “But you’ve always been that way, Marian!” And he knew at once that he had uttered a new and profound truth.
    His mind filled with a swarm of accusations, and he tried to focus on one in particular. He looked down at his hands and noticed they had the same lifeless feeling they had had when he had seen her on the balcony. He picked up the red grading pencil lying on the table and then he put it down again.
    “I’m listening,” he said.
    “Listening to what?” she said. “You’re swearing and getting upset, Ralph. For nothing – nothing, honey! … there’s nothing
else
,” she said.
    “Go on,” he said.
    She said, “
What
is the matter with us, anyway? Do you know how this started? Because I don’t know how this started.”
    He said, “Go on, Marian.”
    “That’s
all
, Ralph,” she said. “I’ve told you. We went for a ride. We talked. He kissed me. I still don’t see how we could’ve been gone three hours – or whatever it was you said we were.”
    “Tell me, Marian,” he said, and he knew there was more and knew he had always known. He felt a fluttering in his stomach, and then he said, “No. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s all right. Actually, I guess I’d just as soon leave it at that,” he said. He thought fleetingly that he would be someplace else tonight doing something else, that it would be silent somewhere if he had not married.
    “Ralph,” she said, “you won’t be angry, will you? Ralph?