Oliver's Story Read online

“Are you in the fashion business?” I inquired.

  “Partially. And you?”

  “I’m into liberties,” I answered.

  “Taking them or giving them?” Her smile distracted me from telling if she’d been sarcastic.

  “I try to make the government behave,” I said.

  “That isn’t easy,” Marcie said.

  “Well, I haven’t quite succeeded yet.”

  The sommelier arrived and ceremoniously filled my glass. Then I myself began a vintage flow. What you might call a magnum of description. On what progressive lawyers were involved in at this point in time.

  I do confess I didn’t know quite how to talk to . . . girls.

  I mean it had been many years since I’d been on what you might call a date. I sensed that tales of self would not be cool. (“That egomaniac!” she’d tell her roommate.)

  Hence we discussed—or rather I discoursed upon—the Warren Court’s decisions on the rights of individuals. And would the Burger kings continue to enhance the Fourth Amendment? That depends on who they choose to fill the Fortas seat. Keep your copy of the Constitution, Marcie, it may soon be out of print!

  As I was moving to the First Amendment, waiters swooped upon us with Long Island scallops. Yeah, they aren’t bad. But not as good as Boston. Anyway, about the First—the high court rulings are ambiguous! How can they in O’Brien v. U.S. say that it’s not symbolic speech to burn a draft card and turn right around in Tinker v. Des Moines and rule that wearing armbands to protest the war is “purest speech.” What the hell, I ask you, is their real position?

  “Don’t you know?” asked Marcie. And before I could assess if she was subtly implying that I’d spoken far too much, the maîitre d’ was present once again to ask what we would like “to top it off.” I ordered pot de crème au chocolat and coffee. All she had was tea. I began to feel a bit uneasy. Should I ask her if I’d talked a bit too long? Apologize? Still, after all, she could’ve interrupted, right?

  “Did you argue all those cases?” Marcie asked (facetiously?).

  “Of course not. But there’s a new appeal I am consulting on. They’re trying to define a Conscientious Objector. As a precedent, they’re using Webber v. Selective Service, which I argued. Then I do some volunteer work—”

  “You don’t seem to ever stop,” she said.

  “Well, as Jimi Hendrix said at Woodstock, ‘Things are pretty dirty and the world could use a scrub-down.’ ”

  “Were you there?”

  “No, I just read Time magazine to help me go to sleep.”

  “Oh,” Marcie said.

  Did that open syllable mean I’d disappointed her? Or was I boring? Now that I looked back on this last hour (and a half!), I realized that I hadn’t given her a chance to talk.

  “What exactly do you do in fashion?” I inquired.

  “Nothing socially uplifting. I’m with Binnendale’s. You know the chain?”

  Who doesn’t know that golden chain of stores? That forty-carat lodestone for Conspicuous Consumers? Anyway, this tidbit clarified a lot. Miss Nash was obviously perfect for that flashy enterprise: so blond, so firm, so fully stacked, her Bryn Mawr elocution so mellifluous she probably could sell a handbag to a crocodile.

  “I don’t do that much selling,” she replied as I continued with my awkward questioning. I’d figured her to be a sales trainee with grandiose ambitions.

  “Then what exactly do you do?” I asked still more directly. This is how you break a witness down. Keep rephrasing questions that are basically the same.

  “Hey, don’t you get it up to here?” she said, her hand upon her slender throat. “Doesn’t talking anybody’s business bore you silly?”

  She clearly meant that I’d been goddamn tedious.

  “I hope my legal lecture didn’t turn you off.”

  “No, honestly, I found it interesting. I only wish you’d said some more about yourself.”

  What could I say? I guessed the truth would be the best resort.

  “There’s nothing very pleasant I could tell you.”

  “Why?”

  A pause. I looked into my coffee cup.

  “I had a wife,” I said.

  “That’s not unusual,” she said. But sort of gently.

  “She died.”

  There was a pause.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcie said.

  “That’s okay,” I said. There is no other answer.

  We then sat silently.

  “I wish you’d told me sooner, Oliver.”

  “It’s not all that easy.”

  “Doesn’t talking help?”

  “God, you’re almost sounding like my shrink,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought I sounded like my own.”

  “Hey, what did you need shrinking for?” I asked, amazed that someone with such poise could possibly need doctorizing. “You didn’t lose a wife.”

  That was a grim attempt at humor. Also unsuccessful.

  “I lost a husband,” Marcie said.

  Oh, Barrett, with what grace you put your foot into your mouth!

  “Jesus, Marcie,” was the most I could say.

  “Don’t misconstrue,” she quickly added. “It was only by divorce. But when we split our lives and our possessions, Michael got the confidence and I got all the hangups.”

  “Who was Mr. Nash?” I asked, immensely curious to know what kind of guy could snare this kind of girl.

  “Can we change the subject, please?” she said. And sounded—so I thought—a trifle sad.

  Curiously, I felt relieved that somewhere underneath her cool exterior Miss Marcie Nash had something that she couldn’t talk about. Maybe even memories of hurt. That made her seem more human and her pedestal less lofty. Still, I didn’t know what next to say.

  Marcie did. “Oh, my, it’s getting late.”

  My watch informed me that it was indeed ten forty-five. But still I thought that saying it right then meant I had turned her off.

  “Check, please,” she requested of the passing maître d’.

  “Hey—no,” I said. “I want to buy you dinner.”

  “Absolutely not. A deal’s a deal.”

  True, at first I’d wanted her to pay. But now I felt so guilty for my gaucheries I had to expiate by treating her.

  “I’ll take the check, please,” said yours truly, overruling her.

  “Hey,” objected Marcie. “We could wrestle, but we’d have to keep our clothes on and it wouldn’t be much fun. So cool it, huh?” And then she said, “Dmitri?”

  She knew the maître d’ by name.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Dmitri said.

  “Please add a tip and sign for me.”

  “Of course, madam,” he said, and greased off noiselessly.

  I felt ill at ease. First she had upset me with the candid dinner talk. Then the mention of the naked wrestling (though by indirection) made me think: if she was sexually aggressive, how would I respond? And finally, she had her own account at “21”! Who was this girl?

  “Oliver,” she said, displaying all those perfect teeth, “I’ll take you home.”

  “You will?”

  “It’s on my way,” she said.

  I couldn’t hide it from myself. I was uptight about . . . the obvious.

  “But, Oliver,” she added with demureness and perhaps a tinge of irony, “because I bought you dinner doesn’t mean you have to sleep with me.”

  “Oh, I’m much relieved,” I said, pretending that I was pretending. “I wouldn’t want to give you the impression I was loose.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “You’re anything but loose.”

  In the taxicab as we were rocketing to my abode, a sudden thought occurred to me.

  “Hey, Marcie,” I said, as casually as possible.

  “Yes, Oliver?”

  “When you said my house was on your way—I hadn’t told you where I lived.”

  “Oh, I just assumed you were an East Sixties type.”

  “A
nd where do you live?”

  “Not far from you,” she said.

  “That’s nicely vague. And I suppose your phone’s not listed either.”

  “No,” she said. But offered neither explanation nor the number.

  “Marcie?”

  “Oliver?” Her tone was still unruffled and ingenuous.

  “Why all the mystery?”

  She reached across the cab and put her leather-gloved hand upon my nervous fist. She said, “Hang on there for a little bit, okay?”

  Damn! Because there was no traffic at that hour, the taxi reached my place with speed uncommon—and right now much unappreciated.

  “Wait a second,” Marcie told the driver. I paused to hear if she might mention her next stop. But she was much too shrewd. She smiled at me, and with a tinsel brio murmured, “Thanks a lot.”

  “Oh, no,” said I, aggressively genteel. “It’s I who should thank you.”

  There was a pause. I would be damned if I would beg for further scraps of information. So I left the cab.

  “Hey, Oliver,” she called, “more tennis Tuesday next?”

  I was happy she suggested it. In fact, I showed too much by answering, “But that’s a week from now. Why can’t we play before?”

  “Because I’ll be in Cleveland,” Marcie said.

  “All that time?” I asked incredulously. “No one’s ever spent a whole entire week in Cleveland!”

  “Purge yourself of Eastern snobberies, my friend. I’ll call you Monday evening to confirm the time. Good night, sweet prince.”

  Then, as if the cabby knew his Hamlet, he gunned off.

  As I undid the third lock on my door, I started to get angry. What the hell was this?

  And who the hell was she?

  Chapter Twelve

  “Damn it all, she’s hiding something.”

  “What’s your fantasy?” asked Dr. London. Every time I’d make a simple realistic statement, he’d demand a flight of fancy. Even Freud described a concept called Reality!

  “Look, Doctor, it is no delusion. Marcie Nash is conning me!”

  “Mmm?”

  He hadn’t asked me why I was so exercised about a person I had barely met. I’d asked myself a lot and answered that I was competitive and simply didn’t want to lose at Marcie’s game (whatever it might be).

  I then kept my patience and explained in detail to the doctor what I had discovered. I’d asked Anita, who’s my very thorough secretary, to get Marcie on the phone (“Just wanted to say hi,” I’d say). Naturally, my quarry hadn’t told me where she would be staying. But Anita was a genius at locating people.

  Binnendale’s, whom she’d first telephoned, alleged they had no Marcie Nash among its personnel. But this did not dissuade Anita. She then called every possible hotel in greater Cleveland and the fashionable suburbs. When this didn’t turn up any Marcie Nash, she tried motels and humbler hostelries. Nothing still. There absolutely was no Miss, Ms. or Madame Marcie Nash in the vicinity of Cleveland.

  Therefore, Q.E.D. and damn it all, she’s lying. Ergo she is somewhere else.

  “What then,” the doctor slowly asked, “is your . . . conclusion?”

  “But it’s not a fantasy!” I quickly said.

  He did not demur. The case was opened and I started strong. I’d been brooding over it all day.

  “First of all, it’s obvious she’s shacking up with someone. That’s the only explanation for not giving me her phone and her address. Maybe she’s still even married.”

  “Then why would she be seeing you?”

  Christ, Dr. London was naïve. Or else behind the times. Or else ironic.

  “I don’t know. According to the articles I read, we’re living in a liberated age. Maybe they just both agreed to ‘open’ their relationship.”

  “But if she’s liberated, as you say, why doesn’t she just tell you?”

  “Aha, there lies the paradox. I figure Marcie’s thirty—though she looks much younger. That means she’s still a product of the early sixties—just like me. Things were not that loose and free back then. So, since the girls of Marcie’s vintage still are more hung up than out, they tell you Cleveland when they’re swinging in Bermuda.”

  “That’s your fantasy?”

  “Look, it could be Barbados,” I conceded, “but she’s on vacation with the guy she’s living with. Who may or may not be her husband.”

  “And you’re angry. . . .”

  One did not need psychiatric training to discern that I was furious!

  “Because she wasn’t straight with me, goddammit!”

  After bellowing, I wondered if the patient waiting outside leafing through the old New Yorkers heard my blast.

  I shut up for several seconds. Why did I get so excited in the process of convincing him I wasn’t?

  “Christ, I pity any guy that gets involved with such an uptight hypocrite.”

  A pause.

  “ ‘Involved’?” asked Dr. London, seizing my own adjective to use against me.

  “No.” I laughed. “I am extremely uninvolved. In fact, not only am I gonna write her off—I’m gonna send that bitch a telegram instructing her to go to hell.”

  Another pause.

  “Except I can’t,” I then confessed. “I don’t know her address.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I was in the midst of dreaming that I was asleep when—dammit—someone woke me on the telephone.

  “Hi. Did I arouse, disturb or otherwise intrude?” The merry caller was Miss Marcie Nash. Her implication: was I having fun, or simply waiting doglike for her call.

  “What I’m doing’s strictly classified,” I said, implying I was into some lubricious bit of grab-ass. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m at the airport,” she replied, as if it was the truth.

  “Who’re you with?” I asked quite casually, in hope she would be caught off guard.

  “Some tired businessmen,” she said.

  I bet the business had been very tiring.

  “Well, did you get a tan?” I asked.

  “A what?” she said. “Hey, Barrett, are you smoking? Clear your head and tell me if we’re playing tennis in the morning?”

  I squinted at my wrist watch on the table. It was almost 1 A.M.

  “It’s already ‘in the morning,’ ” I replied, annoyed by what she’d done all week compounded by her waking me. And not biting at my baited questions. And the whole continuing enigma.

  “Do we play at six A.M.?” she asked. “Say yes or no.”

  I thought a lot for several miniseconds. Why the hell would she come back from fun and frolic in the tropics and yet want to go play tennis so damn early? Also, why not play with “roommate”? Was I just her tennis pro? Or did he have to breakfast with his wife? I ought to tell her off and go to sleep.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said. Which wasn’t quite what I’d intended.

  I beat her to a pulp.

  Next morning on the tennis court I showed no mercy whatsoever. I was wordless (save for “Are you ready?”) and extremely vicious. Add to this the fact that Marcie’s game was slightly off. She looked a trifle pale. Did it rain down in Bermuda? Or did she spend too much time indoors? Well, that was none of my concern.

  “Heigh ho,” she said with difficulty when the swift debacle ended. “Pancho didn’t humor me today.”

  “I had a week to lose my sense of humor, Marcie.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought the Cleveland joke was just a little much.”

  “What do you mean?” she said, and seemed ingenuous.

  “Look, I’m too pissed off to even talk about it.”

  Marcie seemed confused. I mean she acted like she didn’t have a clue that I was on to her.

  “Hey, aren’t we adults?” she said. “Why can’t we talk about what’s bugging you?”

  “It isn’t worth discussing, Marcie.”

  “Okay,” she said, and sounded disappointed. “Obviously, you don’t wan
t to go to dinner.”

  “I was not aware there was a dinner.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be the prize?” she said.

  I thought a moment. Should I tell her now? Or should I enjoy a lavish meal at her expense and then tell her to go to hell?

  “Yeah—buy me a dinner,” I replied, a trifle gruffly.

  “When and where?” she said, apparently undaunted by my impoliteness.

  “No, I’ll just pick you up. At your place,” I said pointedly.

  “I won’t be home,” she answered. Yeah, a likely story.

  “Marcie, I will pick you up if you’re in Timbuktu.”

  “Okay, Oliver. I’ll call you at your house around six-thirty and I’ll tell you where I am.”

  “Suppose I’m not at home?” I said. A pretty cool riposte, I thought. To which I added, “Sometimes I have clients who invite me to their offices in outer space.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep calling till your rocket lands.”

  She started toward the ladies’ locker room and turned. “Oliver, you know I’m starting to believe you’re really crazy?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Hey, I won a big one.”

  Dr. London offered no congratulations. Yet he knew the action was significant since I’d referred to it in sessions past. So once again I had to abstract Channing v. Riverbank. The latter is the fancy condominium on East End Avenue, the former, Charles F. Channing, Jr., president of Magnitex, a former Penn State All-American, a prominent Republican . . . and also eminently black. His application for the purchase of the penthouse was denied for some odd reason. And that reason brought him to seek counsel. He chose J & M for our prestige. Old man Jonas gave his case to me.

  We won it easily, invoking not the recent open housing laws—which have some ambiguities—but simply citing Jones v. Mayer, last year argued in the high court (392 U.S. 409). Herein the justices affirmed that 1866’s civil rights act guaranteed to everyone the freedom to buy property. It was soundly rooted in the First Amendment. Riverbank was soundly routed. And my client moves in on the thirtieth.

  “For once I even made some money for the firm,” I added. “Channing is a millionaire.”

  But London still withheld all comment.

  “Old man Jonas took me out to lunch. Marsh—the other half—came by for coffee. They were hinting at a partnership. . . .”