One thing led to the next and at nearly 2:00 AM Bill found himself calling home to tell his fiancé he was staying out in Whitehall, which was true technically since Arlene’s apartment was in Whitehall, the same actual city the steakhouse was in. Except there was no answer at home. So he imagined she was sleeping, which wasn’t all that likely because the phone would’ve wakened her, or that she’d gone to babysit Tim once again. This was the most likely of the alternatives. Either way, in effect, he could breathe easy.
Arlene kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet under her where she sat on the sofa. Bill sat as he had been sitting, relatively close to her but not imposing on her space. A time passed where no one said anything.
In the silence Bill thought about how since his mother had died he’d been afraid of everything all the time. He thought about how, worse than being afraid, for a long time he wasn’t aware that it was fear he was feeling. In reality, most of the time in his life thus far he had no clue what he was feeling or why. There was just this cloud hanging out there over him and this lead ball of near-nausea that endlessly sat in the pit of his stomach. On top of those was his impulsivity. His impulsivity was what got him busted and ultimately why he was sitting here with a waitress instead of at home sleeping with his fiancé. He wasn’t consciously aware of his impulsivity issue either. If he were, he might have already been a…
What-if was a dangerous game. Bill didn’t play what-if yet because he was too stuck in the here-and-now. His life was his life and here he was in it. He did things because they were there to do or because they needed to be done and that was it.
“So…,” Arlene finally said, “a penny for your thoughts.”
“How about you first.”
“I was wondering, since there was no answer at your house, if you were planning to stay the night.”
“That’d be presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“What would?”
“My planning to stay the night.”
“Why?”
“We went out for coffee, to talk.”
“And here we are. So let’s have a glass of wine and some Quaaludes if you have them and let’s lay down on my bed and talk.”
Later in his life, quite a bit later in fact, when he was in his mid-thirties, a waitress would ask him if he wanted to go bowling. Bill would discover that bowling was a euphemism of sorts, a type of code. It really stood for going to bed together. He would discover that he was her trophy and that even in his mid-thirties and married he was gullible, able to be seduced like a naive child.
He had gone bowling. Boy had he gone bowling.
Except he was not being seduced now. He got up from the sofa and went over to his coat. Arlene went into the kitchen. He took a bottle of pills from his pocket and sat back down on the sofa. Arlene came back with two glasses of red wine. She handed him a glass. He handed her a pill.
“Come on,” she said. She reached out for his hand and led him into her bedroom.
The bedroom was typically female. The bed was made tight, magenta covers and comforter, frilly and soft. Throw pillows were settled over the bed pillows, neat like ducks in a row.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Bill sat on the edge of the bed. He placed his wine glass on the night table and untied his shoes. He was unsure whether or not to put his feet up, so he sat on the edge of the bed and waited.
