_June 28--August 4, 1977_
_Rockland--Tuesday, June 28_
For four days, she’d been waiting for Johnny to leave the house: leave
it long enough so she’d _know_ she had ten minutes’ time all alone.
It was hard to believe it could have gone that far; but when she
thought back, it must have been going on quite a while now. Unless they
went somewhere together, days--or weeks?--might go by till Johnny found
any reason to go even down the road.
They had built the house in the exact center of their own thirty-five
acres: no near neighbors to plague them--or to gossip with or play
bridge, or borrow lawn-mowers, or any one of the things that might take
a man ten minutes’ walk to the next house.
The place was provisioned and stocked for every possible need. They
marketed once a month--together.
On rare occasions, if the heli needed work Johnny did not want to do,
he’d fly down to Nyack; usually, she went along, anyhow, and they’d
have dinner out, take in a show, spend an evening pub-crawling,
something like that.
But the house had everything that he wanted; most of all, it had _her_.
Up till now, that knowledge by itself had been enough to allow her to
overlook, not-notice, or never-mind all the rest.
But now, for four days, she had wanted to make one single phone call
without him around: and there had never been a time she could be _sure_
he wouldn’t wake up, or pick up an extension from some other room,
or--or _some_thing.
The whole thing was ridiculous. Most of all, her own feeling about it
was all out of proportion. She kept telling herself that.
_Just pick up the damn phone and call!_ He was in the shower; how was
he going to hear her from there?
But, again, she jittered around until, just as she reached for the
switch, he came out.
_Damn!_
“Hi, babe.” He came over and kissed her. And at the touch, the easy
relaxation with which he had entered the room vanished. “What’s the
matter, babe?” He sat down and put his arms around her; tilted her face
up with one hand under her chin.
“Nothing,” she said unconvincingly, and tried to smile a response to
him. That was not very convincing either. She saw the small muscles
in his jaw tighten up, and start knotting. _Oh, God damn!_ “Probably
just--time of month, I guess,” she said.
He bought it. He grinned and patted her on the head sympathetically;
his face relaxed; he stood up with the confident nonchalance of
masculinity, not prey to nervous cyclic emotions, and went into the
kitchen. A moment later, he called back: “I’m going out and see what I
can do about that door handle.” The door slammed.
She saw him cross the back lawn toward the hangar. She watched till he
went inside. With her eyes still on the window, she switched on the
phone.
“May I speak to the doctor?” she asked the pert nurse who answered.
Dr. Aaronson looked harassed as usual, but his smile was beatific:
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “All down the line. Don’t give it a
thought. You ought to come in, say, oh, two-three weeks?”
She tried to look as she thought she ought to feel. “That’s wonderful,”
she said. “Look, I’ve got a problem.”
“Hmmm?” His eyes were watching something else off the screen. His
manner said clearly: _I already told you, you don’t have a problem._
“It’s just--well, is there any reason--” It sounded so _silly_, when
you came to ask it. “--reason I shouldn’t take a trip to the Moon?”
“How far--” he’d started to ask before she finished. His eyes swivelled
back sharply. “Well!” It was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh
out loud. “Well!” he said again, satisfied, “I thought I knew _all_ the
questions by now! Offhand, let’s see--I can’t see any reason not to, in
the shape you’re in. When did you plan to go?”
“I’m not sure--two or three weeks? A month, maybe?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll check up, but I don’t see why not.
Stop in for a checkup before you go.”
“Thanks. I will. I’m sorry if I interrupted you--”
“Nonsense. It was a pleasure, believe me. I think that’s the first
_new_ question anyone’s asked me in fifteen years.”
She switched off and sat there a minute, her eyes at last off the
window, her whole self composed for the first time in days.
He found her half-asleep in the sun at the edge of the pool, her orange
swimsuit with the tigerish black stripes a splash of color on pale
green tiles. She lifted her head and squinted at him from some faraway
place inside herself.
“Hi, handsome,” she said.
“Hello, babe.” He dropped into a chair, looking down at her. She was
okay now. She started lifting herself up from the tiles, backbone
first, as if someone had tied a rope around her torso, and was pulling
her up. He watched, fascinated; incredible, what she could do with
herself!
“How’s the water?” he asked lazily.
“Good.” It looked good too. He went inside for his trunks, and she
called after him to switch the player on.
“There’s a tape on already,” she said. “That new one you got.”
The soft beat of African drums was beginning when he came back out.
Lisa sprawled in the grass past the pool, and with each beat, she
raised herself higher, till as the tempo grew furious and swelled into
crashing crescendos she was moving swiftly in a whirling ecstasy of
liquid orange flame and streaked black shadow.
It was a long time since she had danced for him this way, he realized
abruptly. She danced by herself, or unselfconsciously in front of him,
all the time; but this was a performance--planned, staged, presented
for his pleasure. He sat back and let the poetry of her pervade all his
senses.
When the dance was done, she fell in a huddled heap at his feet, the
fingers of one hand outstretched to almost-grasp his toes. She lay so
still that he hardly dared breathe, while the memory of sound died.
Then she opened one eye, half-raised her head, grinned, and winked at
him.
“Swim?” she said.
“You’re on.”
As they climbed out of the pool, she asked, casually, as if were
something they’d just stopped talking about, “Still want to go to the
Moon?”
“Sure,” he said quickly. “Why don’t we make it a honeymoon trip?”
He saw the tautness begin in her face, and he had to do _some_thing:
“Christ!” he said, “What a tin-pan-alley bonanza. Song called ‘Do You
Want a Moon Honeymoon, Honey?’ We’ll make a million, babe!”
“Get a good old-fashioned Turkey In The Straw type tune for it,” she
came back, “and the callers can say, ‘Everybody rise an’ shine, for
_Moon Honeymoon, Honey_--’” But the troubled tension was still there.
And he could feel it stretching the skin on his own face now. “--On the
other hand,” she said, too lightly, “I always did want to live in sin
with a Man in the Moon.”
_Okay, let it go, the kid’s trying_.... “You mean you’d rather have the
wedding _after_ the honeymoon?” he persisted compulsively. “It’s kind
of--unconventional, Lee--” _Stop! For krissake, stop!_
“I never commit myself to more than one drastic action before four
P.M.,” she said primly.
_Commit yourself?_ Well, that was that. _Neatly done, babe_, he
thought. And then remembered that _he_ was the one who had started the
Moon bit.
Okay. Okay, they’d go. What the hell? The Moon was just part of the
Earth’s backyard, that’s all. Right across the street, nothing else.
Okay, they’d go.
“Okay, babe,” he said, stepping toward her. “But if you won’t have me,
I don’t know what I can do about it, except for _me_ to have you....”
Rockland, N.Y.
July 25, 1977