"Where did you go to school?"
"Before my time," she says.
"Not me."
Q: Of course she was too shy. In those days people didnt go around saying, This is the clitoris and this is what its proper function is and this is what you can do to help out. I finally found it. In a book.
"What did you do?"
"Guy she met at the laundromat," Anne says. "Hes a broker. Hes with Smith Barney."
Q: Youre not tired.
"That snout."
A: None of that. They were, most of the time, very good to one another.
"Youthful arrogance."
"Electrical engineering."
"He hasnt said yea or nay. I gather things werent so wonderful in Philadelphia."
"Morose," she says. "I get a definite moroseness."
"Not more disturbed than any other children. Just ordinary children."
"You cant generalize, they were all different. Not every child feels the same thing at the same time. They were all different. For example, some of them were male."
"Is that Machiavelli?"
"I just worked with them. Ordinary children. The children need a lot of work. Theyre just like anybody else. They need a lot of work. Theyre not finished. We glued things to paper plates. I worked with them. Daily. On a daily basis."
"No. Maybe kind of."
"Im ready."
"But thats only temporary."
"I worked with them. We worked together, me and the children."
"You had a place where you worked with them?"
"If hes a broker whats he doing at the laundro?mat?"
Q: Yes its supposed to be quite good. The drug houses send people around, detail men, they leave me samples of all sorts of things, I give them to patients. Free.
"What does she think of you?"
"Its fascinating."
"Very wrong. Still --" He puts an arm around her. "The first car I ever bought was a Hillman Minx. Ever see one of those?"
A: As a situation, as a domestic situation, it was not unstressful. There were, naturally, competing interests, people whose interests at any one time were not con?gruent --
"You getting on me?"
A: No Im not a bit tired.
Q: You mean they fought.
"And I was going to take us for oysters at the Oyster Bar."
At the Oyster Bar under Grand Central they sit at a table next to four men in business suits. One of the men has no arms and has removed his shoes. He has mittenlike socks on his feet and holds, between the big toe and the next of the right foot, what looks to Simon like a Gibson.
"You think Simons been all right lately?"
DORE sitting in the back of the house, watching a bird-fight. Two black birds are struggling in midair near the ailanthus.
"I dont mean it."
Q: Also, Ive given up smoking. It was quite a battle. The second finger on my right hand used to be brown, a yellow-brown. Now its not.
A: They were sisterly most of the time. Once in a while they fought.
Q: How are the headaches?
Q: Using what means?
"Simon!" Anne exclaims. "Youre being possessive!"
"Id still like to think everything was funny."
"Is that a good place for it?"
"That one sucker is going to get the other sucker," she says. "Going to clean his clock for him."
"You think he wants to go back to Philadelphia?"
"By me everythings temporary. Good things and bad things."
A: You feel better.
"Carol."
"Probably with Thag," Dore says.
"I can see her in long red robes with a little red yarmulke on her head and a big gold cross on a chain around her neck and a ring that you have to kiss. Standing just to the left of the throne and whispering into the ear of the king."
"Probably having a great time. The time of her life," says Dore. "Theyre probably sitting there drinking Dom Perignon and buying and selling Carbide right now." Dore reads the financial pages of the newspapers carefully and has fifty shares in a concern that is mar?keting a corrective for dry eye, or the inability to tear, a painful and depressing condition that afflicts hundreds of thousands of Americans and countless foreigners, she says.
A: Perhaps your wife?
Q: That doesnt mean they wont come back.
"Disturbed children?"
Q: Not laceration of the skin by fingernails, hair-tearing,bosom-bashing. . .
On the street Simon and Anne gaze at a brand-new Honda, the paint a glittering candy red.
"Cornell."
"So what were the children like?"
A: The aspirin did the job.
"I dont like what Honda did with the front end this year," he says.
"I used to work with children," Anne says.
A: German?
"Well if she doesnt get her ass back here pretty damn quick Im going to give her bed away."
A: Yes I suppose you could think that.
"Thag? Who is Thag?" Simon asks.
A: Mouth, mostly.
A: I assume you dont drink. Except in moderation.
"I think its a beautiful name," Dore says. "Very Scandinavian."
A: Did the job.
Q: You must be tired. Fatigued.
"A boxy little ragtop. Had all the power of a lawn-mower. Never had a car after that I liked as much."
"A certain dryness sets in. The situation dries out, as it were."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Yeah it was a kind of nursery. Painted greige. Gray-beige. The color is thought to have a bearing on how the children feel. Some places have a lot of bright colors, thats another theory, this was a soothing calm?ing color. Greige."
A: Thats extremely generous.
A: You mean mentally tired?
"I didnt mean to pry."
"Its okay."
Simon makes a shaping gesture with his hand.
"Whats your wifes name?"
"So hes thrifty. She should have called, though."
"What did you study?"
"Yeah. Thats kind of what I was talking about. Some people cant stand prosperity."
"What kind of a name is Thag?" Simon asks irrita?bly.
"That must be fascinating. The indeterminacy."
VERONICA is missing. Not precisely missing, absent, rather. For several days nobody mentions the fact. Then on a Monday Anne says, "I wonder where the hell Veronica is."
Anne nods.
A: I thought so.
Q: All of that. . . activity must have left you a bit tired.
A: No Im not tired. I feel fine.
"I didnt know that, no."
"Everybodys wife is named Carol. You ever notice that?"
Q: Dutch.
A: Havent been having them.
"When I was young I thought everything was very funny. I cracked up a lot. Dont do that anymore."
"Is she pretty?"
"Oh. Whats she like?"
Q: It wasnt aspirin it was Tylenol. Extra-Strength Tylenol.
"Yeah, its insensitive."
Q: Physically.
"I was thinking more of that guy who worked for Nixon."
"Thats the way it is in this world," says Tim. "What does he win if he wins?"
"Dont know."
"You dont want me to be possessive."
"During which marriage was that?"
Q: Well otherwise theyd just rot, wouldnt they? I mean I have buckets and buckets. All brightly colored.
"Not much. I work at the car wash, remember?"
Q: Remarkable.
Q: When I was first married, when I was twenty, I didnt know where the clitoris was. I didnt know there was such a thing. Shouldnt somebody have told me?
"I know. Thats the hell of it."
Q: I feel a little less stupid. So you were pretty much in hog heaven, there, with the three women, for all those months. . .
