A Week as Andrea Benstock Read online

  “Aren’t you active in politics these days?”

  “I go through the motions now and then but it takes a lot of effort. Dallas took all the fun out of it.” He emptied his glass and set it down heavily on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. Other glasses had bleached white rings on the lid of the trunk, and cigarettes had left scars. “The hell of it is that I never really thought that much of the son of a bitch. But you have to give him one thing. The deader he is, he better he looks. And the war goes on.”

  “I signed a petition today.”

  “Well, that should end the war in a hurry. It’s good to see the suburban middle class putting its ass on the line for the cause of peace and freedom.”

  “I signed my maiden name.”

  “Andrea Kleinman.”

  “Andrea Beth Kleinman. And for my address I put my old apartment on Jane Street.”

  He took her chin in his hand and studied her face as if to decipher a secret message. “Is that the truth? Really?”

  “Yes. What’s so remarkable about it?”

  “Christ, kid. You can’t go home again. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”

  “Which home can’t you go to, Jack? That’s the part they didn’t tell me.”

  Before Dallas, Harry Benstock had hated John Kennedy. It was a sly hatred, not like the open enmity the rich had shown for Roosevelt a generation earlier. It exemplified itself by little jokes and slurs. Andrea’s father-in-law had owned The First Family, Vaughan Meader’s comedy album. And he had delighted in a rather mindless record on which the singer took the part of the President’s daughter Caroline.

  My daddy’s the president

  What does your daddy do?

  We live in a big white house

  On Pennsylvania Avenue. …

  Now there was an unutterably tasteless portrait of JFK, with Jackie at his side, hanging in Harry Benstock’s den. And Harry Benstock was voluble on the subject of the martyred president, and how the best hope of the generation had died with him.

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” Andrea had heard him say often. “There’s no way Little Brother is ever gonna measure up to him. He’ll never fill those shoes.”

  He had taken the book from her. He uncapped a pen, opened the book to the flyleaf.

  “Hell,” he said. “You’re going to have tell me again. I keep thinking Beanstalk and that’s not it.”

  “Just Andrea is fine.”

  “C’mon, what’s your last name? Just so I’ll know.”

  She told him, and spelled it for him. He wrote rapidly for a moment, then closed the book and capped the pen and put them both on the trunk top.

  “You can’t read it now.”

  “The whole book? I didn’t intend to.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. She was waiting, and she did not have to wait long before he insinuated his arm between her shoulders and the back of the couch. She did not move. Her eyes remained closed and she waited.

  She felt his breath on her cheek, breathed it in, registered the aromas of whiskey and tobacco. After a moment his lips just touched her cheek. Then she felt him draw away from her.

  She did not say anything. She heard him strike a match and draw on a cigarette.

  “It’s good seeing you, Andrea.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning what I just said. It’s good to see you. People lose touch.”

  “Why is that, do you suppose?”

  “They swim in different rivers. Something like that.”

  “We’re in the same river now. Don’t you feel like spawning?”

  “Well, that’s pretty direct.”

  “I’ve always been pretty direct, haven’t I?”

  “Yeah, I guess you have.”

  “Well?”

  He only hesitated for a moment. Then he kissed her and she surrendered immediately to the kiss, welcoming his arms around her, his mouth on hers. She did not hold anything back, but neither did she feel anything except an unfamiliar tightness in her chest.

  This afternoon belonged to her. It existed independent of all other aspects of her life, past and present and future. It might or might not turn out to have meaning, but if it did the meaning was one she would probably not know for a long time. For the time being she was in a special limbo, answerable to no one, not even to herself.

  All of this came to her in the middle of a kiss. When the kiss ended he released her and took up his cigarette from the ashtray. He took a drag on it and offered it to her. She drew on it. He said, “You don’t have to do this, Andrea.”

  “Don’t you think I want to?”

  “I’m not sure you know what you want. I’m just telling you there’s nothing you have to finish just because you started it. We’re both of us too old for that number.”

  “I know.”

  He leaned forward to put out the cigarette. “You were saying you’d have to meet your husband—”

  “Not for a while.”

  “That was a while ago.”

  “There’s time.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Just don’t say anything,” she said. “Just, just let me do this. Just be still.”

  She changed position on the couch, curling fetally with her head in his lap. She put one hand high on his thigh and cupped his groin with the other, holding him snugly. He expelled breath in a quiet sigh. She held him and rubbed her cheek against the back of her hand, then moved to blow warm breath between her fingers.

  From that point on it had its own existence. She opened his zipper, extricated his penis. He sat quite still, altogether passive. She drew his pants a little ways down over his hips. Then, without any teasing, she took him into her mouth. And closed her eyes.

  Yes. Oh, yes. How very nice this was, how pleasant, how tender, how warm. Men did taste different, one from another, and why shouldn’t they? So many other things served to distinguish one man from his fellow. Why should their taste be identical? Not that she could have specifically recalled the taste of this particular man. That was a nice conceit but scarcely true.

  Ah, how exciting to serve as the vehicle of his excitement! To feel him grow in her mouth. How nice.

  After a time he could not sit still. After a time his hips gave thrilling little twitches. He put a hand on her cheek, tangled the fingers of his other hand in her hair. It seemed to her that this last was an impossibly tender and thoughtful gesture, to tangle his fingers in her hair.

  He spoke her name then and started to lean forward. But with one hand on his chest she made him sit back again, and her hand remained there, telling him that she wanted things this way, that this was her scene to be played out as she willed it.

  And he sighed heavily and relaxed.

  Of course. Because this was what men wanted. To be passive. Not to do but to lean back with their eyes closed and be done to. Oh, they would always want to make the gesture. They were willing, even anxious, to throw you a gentlemanly fuck. And they wouldn’t want you to think that this was what they really craved. That they were such passive individuals, receivers rather than givers. That what they wanted could be done as well, if not better, by another male. No, they would not want you to think that, and they would not want to think it themselves, but it was true nevertheless. This was what they wanted—to be very still and very silent, to be passive, to tangle their fingers in your hair while you sucked them.

  His orgasm was abrupt and unanticipated, rather like a sudden cough.

  By the time Mark returned to their hotel room, she had showered and dressed for the evening. He was in an excellent mood. His meeting had gone well and he was pleased with himself.

  “Well, you’re certainly in good spirits,” she said.

  “The best spirits. And it’s been a beautiful day, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a bea
utiful night, and I’ll have a beautiful girl on my arm. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And Joel Lieberman recommended a French restaurant around the corner from the theater and insisted I make reservations, which I did. And which we can cancel if you don’t feel like French.”

  “It sounds fine.”

  “So if you’d like to call your mother and find out how our pride and joy is behaving, and then we can get the show on the road.”

  She placed the call and established that Robin was doing fine. They walked to the restaurant, a small and intimate room on West Fifty-first Street called Trompe l’Oeil. He talked at length about how he had spent his day and she tried her best to pay attention. It was difficult, because she could not really follow what he was saying. But she had long since learned to keep an alert attentive expression on her face, to nod at the right time, to show interest. And it was not really hypocritical, was it? Because she was interested in anything that concerned him. She simply had trouble paying attention.

  The dinner was good enough. Mark’s menu French was quite competent and he had developed an enviable facility with a wine list. They skipped dessert and had ponies of cognac with their espresso.

  “We’ve got to come here more often,” he said.

  “This restaurant?”

  “I wouldn’t mind, but I’d hate to drive this far just for dinner. No, I meant we have to come to New York more often. It’s what, seven hours on the Thruway? We should make it a point to get here twice a year. Hit some restaurants, see a couple of shows.”

  “Well, it’s fine with me.”

  They lit cigarettes and he asked her how her day had gone. She covered most of it. Shopping, the museum, the Village. She avoided mentioning the man in the museum, and of course she did not mention John Riordan. She was prepared to elaborate on some Village art galleries she could claim to have visited, but it wasn’t necessary; he looked at his watch and announced it was time they headed over toward the theater. He signaled for the check and caught the waiter’s eye almost instantly. He was very good at that sort of thing.

  The show, Fiddler on the Roof, was the hardest ticket on Broadway. The New York lawyers with whom Mark had had business had managed to obtain a good pair of seats in the center section of the orchestra. There were other shows Andrea would have, preferred to see had she been consulted, but by the time the house lights dimmed and the orchestra was playing the familiar music of the overture, she decided she was just as glad they were seeing Fiddler.

  Because it would demand nothing of her. Mark had owned the album for months and she couldn’t begin to estimate how many times he had played it. The action on stage, while colorful enough, did not require that much attention to be paid to it. She could sit in the theater as if in a concert hall, letting the music wash over her, sending her thoughts wherever they wanted to go….

  After the act in John Riordan’s apartment they had both reached out at once, she for a cigarette—one of her own this time—and he for the wedge-shaped Glenfiddich bottle. He filled his glass while she scratched a match and lit her cigarette. He took a long drink, put the glass down, and smothered a burp with the back of his hand.

  She said, “I’d better be on my way, Jack.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It’s the fucking American dream, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The disposable girl. As convenient as a TV dinner and about as nourishing.” He rearranged his clothing, worked his zipper. “You fall out of my life for a few years, then fall back in for an hour. No muss, no fuss, no bother. A man doesn’t even have to take off his clothes. Just put his head back and close his eyes and get his tubes cleaned, then put the whole tab on his Diner’s Club card.”

  “I thought you enjoyed what we just did.”

  “What we did? I don’t remember doing anything myself. What you did, you mean.”

  She looked at him.

  “Of course I enjoyed it. You’ve got a definite talent there, kid. If you ever want a testimonial in writing you can have it. I could even write you up in the Voice.”

  She was on her feet now, looking down at him. “I don’t understand you at all,” she said.

  “No?”

  “You’re acting as though I took advantage of you. You’re like a girl who just lost her virginity. I swear that’s what you’re acting like.”

  He drank whiskey and looked at her over the brim of the glass. “We keep losing our virginities,” he said. “We shed our virginities like peeling onions until we find they’re all we ever had.”

  “The Celtic Poet number’s wearing a little thin, don’t you think?”

  “The hell of it is I’m going to get drunk tonight and I hadn’t planned to. I don’t every night, you know.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “How indeed.”

  “Jack?” She paused until he raised his eyes to meet hers. “Jack, do we have to be cruel to each other?”

  His face softened and for a moment she thought he was on the verge of tears. “No, of course we don’t,” he said, his rasp of a voice thickened now.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Quite the reverse. We have to be very gentle with each other.” He stood up and reached to take her hand. “I wish you the very best, Andrea. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “I’ve always wished you the best, the very best. And I’m sorry for, well, for all the things I’m sorry for.”

  “Don’t be sorry for anything. And neither will I.”

  “That’s fair enough.” He walked her to the door. “By God, Andrea. It has been good seeing you, you know.”

  “For me, too.”

  “Drop in next time you’re in the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, we’ll see.”

  “Or don’t, but we’ll keep on running into each other down through the years. I’m afraid we’re in the same karass.” When she looked puzzled he said, “Cat’s Cradle. Don’t you people read Vonnegut up in Buffalo?”

  “I only read the Book-of-the-Month. And of course the Reader’s Digest condensed books, we never miss those.”

  “Now it’s you who’s putting me on. You might enjoy Vonnegut, though. He’s got an interesting head. Have you got my book?”

  “Yes, right here.”

  “It’s a failure. That’s not modesty talking, just a realistic appraisal. I found out it was harder to write a novel than I thought. But I did a lot of the things I set out to do in the sense of getting things out of my guts and onto the page. And found things out about myself in the course of writing it.” He shrugged elaborately. “Maybe you’ll find it an interesting read, anyway.”

  On the way back to her hotel she had stopped to read the inscription on the flyleaf.

  To Andrea/With every good wish/from an old-timey friend/John Riordan

  What he had written seemed to her to be almost deliberately remote and innocent, as if written to be read by someone else and passed over as the scrawl of a casual acquaintance. The signature—not Jack but his full name.

  Had he written it that way out of consideration for her? Or was there something snide about the words he’d chosen?

  Or was she overanalyzing things, as she had always done in her relationship with John Riordan?

  The book would pose no real problems. It could be shown to Mark easily enough. But did she really want to have that conversation? For that matter, did she really want to read his novel? How awkward if it turned out to be a staggeringly bad book. And how disconcerting if it had things to say to her that she did not want to hear.

  She could always borrow a copy from the library.

  If they didn’t have it at her branch they could order it from downtown.

  She tore out the flyleaf and shredded it, then dropped the scraps of it and the rest of the book into a litter basket.

  After the final curtain they walked a few blocks to g
et clear of the crowd, then took a cab to a bar on Central Park South just down the block from their hotel. The room was done in dark wood and red leather. A pianist did a competently unobtrusive job with show tunes and standards. They talked easily about the show and about people they knew.

  “I suppose you got to the theater all the time when you lived here,” he said.

  “Hardly at all.”

  “Really?”

  “I couldn’t afford it, in the first place. I was a working girl. And the crowd I ran with, we didn’t go to plays much.”

  “Funny to think of you running with a crowd.”

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “Uh-huh.” He signaled for another drink. She still had most of hers left. He said, “I think we probably take more advantage of cultural events in Buffalo than your average New Yorker does. There’s less to do but we grab everything that comes along. Gordon Kramer was telling me today that he hasn’t taken his wife to a Broadway show in almost a year. Of course they’re out on Long Island and with a baby-sitter and dinner and all it costs him a hundred dollars to spend a night on the town, but he could afford it if he wanted to. And Joel Lieberman, they live right in Manhattan and hardly ever get to a show. He says there’s no urgency, you know if you don’t go one night you can always go the next night, and so as a result you don’t go at all.”

  The waiter brought his drink. He raised his glass to her, took a sip. “I might get just the least bit high tonight,” he announced.

  “You might even be on your way already.”

  “It’s entirely possible.”

  “You had a good day today, didn’t you, darling?”

  “I had a wonderful day. And I’m having a wonderful evening. Something I haven’t told you yet. They offered me a job. Kramer and Lieberman.”

  “Oh?”

  “Very offhand, but it was a real offer. ’If you ever get sick of it up there in Alaska, you’re the kind of person we’d like to have with us.’ Hell, it wasn’t a job they were offering me. It was an invitation to come in with them.”