The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin Read Free Book Online

tucked around me;
how Philipa and I would have mussed it! Inserted so neatly between the bed and
the sheets, I thought how much I must look like a pocket pencil. My body was so
present. I was aware of my toes, my arms, my weight on the bed. There was just
me in a void, wrapped in the low hum of existence. The night of Philipa had led
me to a quiet, aesthetic stillness. You might think it odd to call a moment of
utter motionlessness life, but it was life without interaction, and I felt joy
roll over me in a silent wave.
    As long
as I remained in bed, my relationship to Elizabeth was flawless. I was able to
provide for her, to tease out a smile from her, and to keep her supplied with
Versace stretch pants. But I knew that during the day, in life, I could not
even cross the street to her without a complicated alignment of permitting
circumstances. The truth was—and in my sensory deprivation I was unable to
ignore it—I didn’t have much to offer Elizabeth. Or for that matter, Philipa
(if that were to happen) or Zandy (if she were to ever look at me).
    I
guessed that one day the restrictions I imposed on myself would end. But first,
it seemed that my range of possible activities would have to iris down to zero
before I could turn myself around. Then, when I was finally static and
immobile, I could weigh and measure every exterior force and, slowly and incrementally,
once again allow the outside in. And that would be my life.
     
    The next morning I decided
to touch every corner of every copying machine at Kinko’s. Outside the
apartment I ran into Brian, who was lumbering toward Philipa’s, wearing what I
suspect were the same clothes he had on yesterday. He had the greasy look of
someone who had been out all night. Plus he held his cell phone in his hand,
which told me he was staying closely connected to Philipa’s whereabouts. His
size touched me, this hulk. And after last evening, with my canny near-seduction
of his girlfriend, I felt I was Bugs Bunny and Mercury to his Elmer Fudd and
Thor.
    I
decided to pump Brian to find out how much he knew about my night with Philipa.
I trudged out my technique of oblique questioning: I would ask Brian mundane
questions and observe his response.
    “I’m
Daniel. I see you sometimes around the building. You an actor, like Philipa?”
    Now if
Brian cocked his head and glared at me through squinted eyes, I could gather
that he was aware of my escapade with his girlfriend. But he didn’t. He said, “I’m
a painter,” and like a person with an unusual name who must immediately spell
it out, he added, “a house painter.” Then he looked at me as if to say, “Whadya
think about that?”
    His demeanour
was so flat that not only did he not suspect me, but this guy wouldn’t have
suspected a horned man-goat leaving Philipa’s apartment at midnight while
zipping up his pants. He didn’t seem to have a suspicious bone in him. Then he
rattled on about a sports bar and a football game. Staring dumbly into his face
to indicate my interest, I realized Brian would not have been a cuckold in the
grand literary tradition. In fact, he was more like a mushroom.
    I had
felt very manly when I first approached Brian, having just had a one-nighter
with his girl, but now I felt very sheepish. This harmless fungus was innocent
and charmless, but mostly he was vulnerable, and I wondered if I was just too
smooth to be spreading my panache around his world. “Hey, well, best of luck,”
I said and gave him a wave, not knowing if my comment was responsive to what he
had been talking about. Then he said, “See ya, Slick.” And I thought, Slick?
Maybe he is on to me after all.
    My
Kinko’s task was still before me, so I turned west and headed toward Seventh
Street, drawing on all my navigational skills. Moving effortlessly from one
scooped-out driveway to the next, I had achieved Sixth Street in a matter of
minutes when I confronted an obstacle of unimaginable proportions. At my final
matched set of