They didn’t see each other until Christmas Eve day when the lunches were packed. They were all small parties, four of them going off at the same time, all with the same menu, give or take. All of them were inexpensive-item, business-sponsored lunches, not personal parties by individuals. So it was lots of chicken breast to sauté, rolled filet of sole second choice. Chicken or fish.
Because there were four parties and because the number of covers added up, the banquet crew was full. Bill saw Beverly the moment she stepped into the kitchen, one of a group of waiters who walked in together. Nora was in the group too. Her hair was ever the same in the page boy, and her lips were ever thick-red painted.
“Bonjour,” Nora said as she passed by Bill. “How’s it going?” she asked in English for a change.
“It’s going,” Bill said. “You?”
Nora gave him her most droll expression and said, “What should be different?” Her voice was deep, sexy, swell.
Bill smiled. He was in the midst of sauté standing at the stoves next to Victor. Jimmy Banquet Chef was working the same sauté on the other side of Victor, and Jimmy G was, like always, tending to the vegetables, or reading his magazine while the stewards did the work.
Everyone passed by and said hello. Bill knew the waiters now too, most of them by name and most of them by the way they worked as well. Some were better than others, the older professionals much more serious and efficient. The younger ones, a couple of them, did not look upon this as their career and were less serious about the work. Bill paid them no mind for the most part and made sure not to ask them for anything.
When Beverly came by, Bill noticed she had a second earring in on the left side. He smiled at her and said hello, made sure she saw that he saw. She looked ever herself, pretty and made up as her usual, not much, not fancy, just to accentuate her natural look.
The chef had prepared a table for the waiters set at the glass window of his office. The setup wasn’t just for the waiters, it was for the laundry people and some of the others who worked this day, maids and maintenance people who would ordinarily eat in the employee cafeteria.
The chef had set a long, long buffet table on which was a whole host of different foods ranging from cheese platters and fruits to eggs with bacon, sausage and ham, all buffet style. Then there were breads, rolls, croissants, brioche and pastries.
This was all set away from the work areas so the employees could get their plates and eat without disturbing the banquet crew. Since almost everyone knew everyone on some level or other, those who came in to eat made sure to find a way to say hello to the banquet crew who had prepared the buffet and were busy at work on the lunches.
The buffet table had been set up and arranged to start at about nine in the morning and it remained there and was replenished till noon. For the afternoon, after the banquets were done, the chef had planned a cold meat buffet and desserts. Those people who had eaten breakfast could come back for lunch too, or just for snacks. There were no limitations, and the same deal was set to be there for Christmas day as well. No banquets were scheduled for Christmas, not because they didn’t work on Christmas but simply because it worked out that way this year.
“Hey,” Beverly said to Bill.
“Hey,” he said as he continued the sauté work. “How’s it going?”
“Same old same old,” Beverly said. “Maybe I’ll see you over at the buffet table.”
“We’re working through,” Bill said. “We’ll see how it works out.”
“Well, see you at dish up if not before then.”
Bill was starting to flip the chicken in his pan. “Okay,” he said.
By Peter Weiss
Bill kissed back in kind but he did not advance or initiate anything. When Beverly took his hand and started to place it on her, he withdrew.
“Don’t be a bully,” he said.
“What? Why a bully?” Beverly was taken aback by the choice of words.
“You know we shouldn’t do anything until you’re settled into what you’re doing.”
“I am settled.”
“You aren’t, not until you take an action.”
“Please,” Beverly said. She was still holding his hand, put it inside her blouse on her bra. Bill immediately took it back to himself and sat with his hands clasped.
“Bill,” she said.
“Listen, I’m going back to the kitchen. I don’t want to influence what you do or how you do it. You’ve got to deal with this, or not.”
“I can get someone else, you know. I can bring them right here.”
“It’s your life, your reputation, your job. You have to work here all the time. Want me to tell you what happens the moment you go with one of the waiters?”
“I already know,” Beverly said. “I’ve seen it just not with me.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill said. “You think you do, but you don’t have a clue.”
“And you do?”
“We’ve had this discussion. I know what it is to go home and have to look my wife in the eyes. I know what it is to have to lie. I know what it is to feel like a, well you know what, and to have to run to take a shower before I can touch her. What do you know? And then on top of everything, do a waiter and you’re done here. I think you think this is a good job.”
There it was. She started to cry again. It was a quiet, head-in-her-hands cry.
Bill melted seeing it. He melted so much he took her in his arms next to him and held her tight.
“I’m so lost,” she said.
“Sometimes you have to get lost to find your way,” Bill said. “But it only feels like you’re lost. You’re not so lost.”
“That what happened to you?”
“What?”
“You got lost?”
“Me? No. I needed a job. I needed a job so bad I would have shoveled shit in a pig pen if I could have found the work. The kitchen is what it was and it led to all this stuff I wasn’t looking for.”
“What harm would there be if…”
“You still gotta go home. You still gotta look him in the eyes. I know we’ve already done things, but it wasn’t with what we both know now.”
“I want it to be you. I like you. I like you and I want you. And why did you say not to be a bully?”
“Because if you go on and force me, that’s the same as bullying me. You know if you force it, I’ll do what you want. I’ll do what you want because it’s a better option than you going elsewhere, unless you know someone outside of here.”
“I don’t know anyone. I don’t know anyone here either. I just know more than half those waiters salivate looking at me. Me, I like you.”
“I was lost,” Bill said. “Almost immediately after my mother died. So I picked up alcohol and then drugs. That put me in places I should never have been, led to things I should never have gone to. Then it all culminated with me getting arrested and not being able to get a job.
“It gets better too. That’s just the stuff, you know, the circumstances. Then we can talk about me, about my lack of confidence, about my guilt and shame and feeling unworthy. And more. We can talk about self-destructiveness too. That what you want for yourself?”
Beverly, still weeping, looked at Bill. “I just want to get laid,” she said.
By Peter Weiss
So they sat next to each other without touching at all.
Beverly was curious and wanted to know more about Bill. Bill told her there wasn’t much more to tell. He told her she pretty much knew everything about him, or at least everything that was worth telling. When he said that, she told him it was pretty much the same for her.
“I haven’t had sex in weeks,” Beverly finally blurted out. She looked at Bill and smiled. “I’m young and vibrant. It’s not that I can’t go without it, but Jesus Christ, I don’t want him anymore. How could he do this to me?”
It was a fair question. It was a question Bill had no answer for. All he could think was he hoped his wife didn’t know. He hoped she had no clue, no idea, not even the slightest inkling.
As he thought back upon it, all he could think was that shit happens. He didn’t go to meet that professor to go to the demonstration. He didn’t help that kid who was getting beat up to get arrested. He helped him to do the right thing. He didn’t plan to get convicted of anything, to go to jail, to not be able to get a job using his college degree. He didn’t plan to become a college graduate bus boy, then a broiler cook. He didn’t plan to spill soup on that customer and then have to defend the waitress because that customer was being a major asshole. He didn’t plan for her to thank him the way she did or for that to start something.
It did start something. But that something would have started anyway because Alfreda wanted a piece of him, Bea was licking her chops and Marie wanted some white meat. Then there was Norma. Drenovis sicced her on Bill except it didn’t go the way Drenovis expected. Norma and Bill had a grand time.
And then there was Mother Mary. Drugs. Alcohol. Fatigue. Dissatisfaction with the way life had gone…
Mother Mary was just one of those what-the-hell existential decisions. He was high. He was drunk. He came upon her as she was bent over with her hands busy and her head just about inside that oven.
It wouldn’t be the only time he reached up a girl’s skirt. It wouldn’t be the only time he’d felt someone up uninvited and just because. It wouldn’t be the only time it turned out not unwanted, not discouraged. It wouldn’t be the only time it was the beginning of an invitation.
But he loved Mother Mary. He cared for Arlene and he cared for Lorraine but he loved Mother Mary. It wasn’t just that she rocked his world, which she positively did. She touched his soul and she grabbed his heart.
“You know I’m a grown up girl,” Beverly said.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, really. And I am starting to know what I want.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“I want to be free of him.”
“You can do that. All you have to do is do it.”
“I’m gonna confront him. I’m gonna let him know I know and let him know it’s over.”
Bill didn’t say anything. In part it was because he was still stuck on her question of how he could do that to her.
This wasn’t an unfamiliar question for Bill. It wasn’t a question he hadn’t grappled with.
He wanted to tell her that he had discovered something that might temper her seeming decision. He wanted to tell her that you could love more than one woman at the same time. He wanted to tell her that it had happened to him, that without looking for it or wanting it or even understanding it, loving two women at the same time had surely happened to him.
He might have said something or started to, but Beverly turned and kissed him. She kissed him passionately.
“See,” she said. “I am a grown up girl.”
By Peter Weiss
It wasn’t going well, or it was going better than she thought. That was the gist of what Beverly told him in the little time they’d had in the morning. She hadn’t confronted her husband and he hadn’t said anything to her. But he hadn’t approached her sexually and she told Bill that her sense was the intimacy they’d once had was gone.
That’s how far they’d gotten. That’s what she’d said and that was all she’d said. Bill sensed she could have said more and he knew he would push her to do so.
For the lunches, although she was in the kitchen with the other waiters and waitresses, actually Nora, the sultry Frenchwoman, was the only other waitress, Beverly was not near to Bill. She worked with her Captain on the banquet she was assigned to while Bill and the other cooks did the work for all the banquets. They, all the waiters and the two waitresses, had their meeting and then went out to their respective party rooms to complete the set up.
Kalista was in the kitchen. She came in to make sure the salads were done and set up on time. Her great-niece Adonia was there too and they were working hard. It wasn’t just the lunches they had to set up. They were setting up the dinner parties too even though Kalista, Bill and Jimmy G would not be there to do the dish-up.
Then it was dish-up and things in the kitchen went into hyper-gear. Jimmy Banquet Chef controlled it all, worked like a seasoned traffic cop. But his crew all knew what they were doing and he had his key people in the key places.
Bill’s station, like the three other stations, did the dish-up and settled all the dinners, actually luncheons, into the warmer trucks. Then, at the service they did the saucing and the plates went out.
Done deal, like every other set of banquets. These two went off just about simultaneously and then they were done and the stewards took away the warmer trucks to clean them while the kitchen crew and their stewards cleaned up the kitchen and began the set up for the night banquets.
Like always, Bill did all he had to do and more. Then he sat with Jimmy G., Victor, Kalista, Adonia and Jimmy Banquet Chef. They drank espresso and rested and talked about the night upcoming. The Greeks talked in Greek. Bill and Adonia talked a bit about how she was doing in college before she joined the rest of her family in the Greek discussion.
Beverly was waiting. Bill found her on the same stair she was on before and he sat right next to her.
“Did you eat?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Beverly said. “I had a piece of fish and some vegetables.”
“Fish was good, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I made it. Victor and I set them up. But I made the sauce.”
“Well you did a good job.”
“I’m a quick study. Jimmy’s been teaching me a lot.”
“What did you eat?”
“I didn’t,” Bill said. “I ate this morning and I’ll eat dinner with everyone out there by Falstaff about four-thirty. You done for the day?”
“Yeah. Just waiting on my sister. She’s done at four. We don’t usually travel together, but the way it worked today, we did. I’m spending a bit more time with her these days.”
“Talking about your situation?”
“She’s my best friend. My only friend really. Except maybe you.”
“You told her about me?”
“Course. And I told her I’m gonna do you.”
“Oh you did huh? And when was this?”
“This morning.”
“What did she say?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“She said she didn’t blame me.”
“You tell her I wasn’t so cooperative? Cause you know I’m not.”
“I told her everything we’ve done, how we kind of stopped doing anything, and everything we’ve talked about.”
“And?”
“And nothing. She just listened. She’s on my side.”
“I would hope so,” Bill said.
By Peter Weiss
December sped by. Bill worked almost all the time. He was used to working all the time since at Suburban he was on a split shift. Working banquets and then The Falstaff Room was like being on split shift especially when there were early banquets. Then it was a fifteen hour day, sometimes even more, and lots of overtime. He had an hour break between banquets and Falstaff set up unless something was really crazy. Usually things were not crazy, just hectic.
In effect, as it worked out, Thanksgiving weekend was the only break they got even though it was busy in its own right. The Falstaff Room worked, was full most of the time. They did not do overall records, but they did Thanksgiving records. The room ran at near capacity from opening to just-about closing. Jo Ann worked late as was her new routine and she cut out only when she could without disrupting any service.
Beverly did not wear that second earring in her left ear until one day late in the second week of the month. They had a breakfast banquet she was working, a full set of luncheons and two large dinner banquets too. It was one of those banner days where everyone was working all day. The Falstaff Room was completely booked with reservations, but this was nothing new now since they were booked well in advance and it was near impossible to get a reservation.
The breakfast went off without any hitches. It was a simple one, scrambled eggs, choice of sausage or bacon and home fries for six hundred. The hardest part of this one was the size, not the prep or anything like that, but the dish-up. That was fast and furious from four dishing-up stations. Even Jimmy G worked hard at it.
Bill now had his own banquet crew. Or, what that meant was that for dish-up he had his own crew of stewards who worked with him every time. This made it so they all knew each other, knew each other’s ways, knew what each other was doing and what they needed to do. It also meant that they worked with Bill’s being left handed. His being a lefty meant things had to be set up differently in order to be most fast and efficient.
Bill ate bacon and sausage. He loved bacon and sausage. He did not eat while he worked the dish-up, but he ate during the prep when things were done and getting put into serving pans.
One of the nicer things of this banquet was that the rolls and breads were superior, including specialty items like hot, fresh croissants. Nothing better than a fresh, hot croissant with espresso.
He was able to pass Beverly a croissant. Passing food was a little tricky sometimes and he did not do it as a matter of policy, but for this banquet, due to size, the waiters were not stopped from such things. In fact, he and Beverly had a moment while she ate her croissant and he worked. They talked. This was nothing unusual since all the cooks knew the waiters and did the same with their friends. They didn’t talk about anything other than the weather, the day, the holidays.
They found each other in the staircase about ten. Bill told her straight up that he didn’t have much time, that he was on a short break before they started for the lunches. She grabbed him and kissed him profusely, hard, deep, wild. She also took his hands and put them all over her.
“I am so horny,” she said.
Bill withdrew from her, but not immediately. He indulged her a moment, kissed back, allowed himself to feel her over her clothes, then pulled back.
“I can come around two,” he said.
“Me too.”
“How’s it going?” he asked.
By Peter Weiss
Beverly melted under his touch, relaxed under his hands. She didn’t say anything. Bill didn’t say anything. He rubbed her shoulders, massaged her back and down her sides.
After spending a good amount of time working on her, he finished with her neck. He bid her put her head forward and lean forward so he could get a good hold of her and make his way up and down. She was verily pleased.
The last thing he did was plant one quick kiss right in the middle of her neck. Almost instantaneously he could see it gave her goosebumps.
“That was wonderful,” she said. She leaned back against him. Bill spread his legs so she could settle in. “I owe you,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Bill said. “You needed it. And I was happy to do it.”
“I guess I have my work cut out for me.”
“You’ll do what you do,” he said.
“I guess I will.”
“Just remember, no action is an action.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Beverly said. “Wanna kiss me?”
“No,” Bill said. “Well, yes I do, but no I won’t.”
“Too bad for you.”
“Yeah, but it’s right I can’t say I always do what’s right so maybe God will put up one on my plus side.”
“You’re funny,” Beverly said. She stood up, turned so she faced Bill and kissed him. “I’ll let you know with our signal for meeting again.”
“Okay. But all you’re gonna get is talk.”
“I’m okay with a friend.”
“Me too.” Bill stepped past her. “Weekend doesn’t seem too busy cause of the holiday. Don’t know about The Falstaff Room, but I’m guessing it will do okay.”
“See you when I see,” Beverly said, mostly toward Bill’s back as he started to walk off.
The Falstaff Room that weekend was moderately busy. Rosie and Edelgarde were ever themselves. Kalista still did not fill Bill in on the details of that one waitress and Caesar. Jimmy G spent most of his time out of the kitchen whenever he could and he was happy. Jimmy Banquet Chef came out by them to eat dinner both weekend nights and they all had a jovial time and ate well. He went home early both nights because this was “it” until after New Year’s. Between this weekend and the end of the year banquets were packed and reservations at The Falstaff Room were plentiful.
Toward the end of that night Rosie came by Bill when he was alone in the kitchen. It wasn’t a flirty visit and it wasn’t to ask Bill if he wanted anything. It was to warn him regarding something she’d inadvertently heard. Apparently Caesar had not given up on attempting to get Bill into some sort of trouble.
Caesar’s plan was simple. It didn’t involve the girls or Millie and it wasn’t even about the food’s not being cooked properly. Rosie told Bill she heard Caesar talking to someone on the phone and from what she could glean they were plotting to have whoever it was say that he or she’d seen Bill spit in the food.
When Rosie came out with it, with that being it, Bill laughed. His initial reaction was to say “Is that all he’s got?”
“Seems to be,” Rosie responded.
Bill didn’t say anything. He was already thinking. He was thinking, and he couldn’t exactly say why, about Mr. Jim. He was thinking about all that Mr. Jim must have gone through when he was starting out in his career, even, maybe, all the gruff he’d had to take working on the dining cars. He was thinking how Mr. Jim would probably tell him to simply make all the food great and not to worry about anything else. Everything else would take care of itself — that’s what Mr. Jim would say.
Bill wasn’t so sure but he was sure that everyone around him would take care of him. If Caesar was so stupid as to try something like that it would surely backfire.
By Peter Weiss
“So let me tell you a few things,” Bill said. “You’re not looking at it clearly. In the times we’ve been here together, we’ve done what we’ve done and that’s simply what it is. We can’t take it back. But I can tell you about guilt. I can tell you about feeling like a dog, you know, like a dirty dog. I can tell you about having to run into the shower so your wife don’t know you been with someone else.
“You want to know about those things?”
Beverly looked at Bill. She didn’t move away from him. She didn’t say anything.
“I can tell you about being with someone else and then coming home and your wife wants to be with you. I can tell you what if feels like inside your mind, inside your soul. And I can tell you about having to lie, having to say your spouse is the only one… about looking down to your feet because you don’t want to look them in the eye.
“I can tell you about all that shit,” Bill said, “about what it’s really like. But then of course I can only tell you what it is for me. I don’t know how other guys feel or what they feel. I don’t how some people are who they are and do what they do.”
Beverly reached out and took Bill’s hand. “What would you do if you were me?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Bill said. “Absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t do anything with anyone until I was a hundred percent sure what I was gonna do in my marriage. Gonna tell him you know and give him a second chance? Gonna kick him out the door? Gonna go for revenge-sex and make him pay with spite, venom and your nastiness? Gonna do nothing? Not say anything, do anything and hope it blows over?”
Beverly squeezed Bill’s hand. “Those all my options?” she asked. She leaned in toward Bill like to kiss him, but he leaned away.
“I could probably think of a few others,” Bill said. “Give me some time.”
“What would you do?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy, baby. I’m no better than your husband if you want to look at it honestly. And I know you want to look at it honestly. So a real answer is like what I already said. If I were you, I’d do absolutely nothing but some real soul searching. I’d take a good look at my life and what it is and then see what I want it to be. Then, only when I had a sense of that would I start to think about taking any actions.”
“You might never get to have me.”
“And that would be right if that’s what you decide you want.”
“You’d be good with that?”
“How is that a real question here?” Bill asked. “I mean how does what I’m good with affect what you need to consider for you?”
“Why can’t I just have a little time off?” Beverly asked. “Why can’t we just have some fun and call it just that?”
“Don’t work like that, baby. And you can have it if it’s what you want. Get one of them waiters who wants to get in your pants and go have some fun. Go have all the fun you want. But don’t come crying when it doesn’t turn out to be the fun you thought it would be.”
“I’d want it to be you. I’m already getting to know you and care about you. And you kiss good too.”
Bill smiled at Beverly. “Come here,” he said. He led her to the stair one down from where they were and settled her in front of him. “I’ll rub your shoulders,” he said.
By Peter Weiss
Emptiness.
That’s what they had in common.
After Beverly told him “Tell me about it” they sat awhile in silence again. They didn’t look at each other. They sat looking at that half wall/half window directly before the staircase. Then, still without saying anything, she reached to him and hooked her arm through his.
“That emptiness is what we have in common,” Beverly said. “Nothing is gonna bring my baby back and nothing is ever gonna fill that void I feel all the time now.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bill said. “Nothing’s filled mine yet, not even writing. Writing only fills it for when I’m writing. And then it’s like I’m a empty ship looking to find my cargo, going here and there getting things but never getting my cargo, the one that I’m looking for.”
“What things?”
“A wife, a relationship. Maybe I thought she could fill it, but that’s not happening.”
“What else?”
“Not girls,” Bill said. “Not like that anyway. I mean pussy is nice but looking for it, no. I think I’m looking for friendship, a closeness that might fill the void. But guys don’t want to talk about this shit, so it’s mostly girls and when you get to talking about deep, intricate and intimate stuff, you know what happens.”
“What?”
“C’mon Beverly. You know where this is going.”
“Where?”
“To a place where this staircase ain’t gonna be enough.”
“Oh yeah? And why’s that?”
“Because sooner or later we’re gonna start to feel for each other, you and me, and one time, while we’re commiserating, maybe when we’re just talking, one of us is gonna cry and the other one is gonna hug them and we’re both gonna be overcome with passion.”
“You really think that?”
“Sure as I’m sitting here.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t be sitting here.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t. That what you think? What you want?”
Beverly slid herself closer to Bill, her arm still hooked in his. “I want that emptiness to go away.”
“No matter what happens with us, I can’t make it go away. You can’t make mine go away either. Best we can do is hold each other and maybe distract each other.”
“Who was Robert?” Beverly asked.
Bill turned toward her and kissed her then. He kissed her long and deep and hard, so much so that their faces were tightly pressed together. It was not playful kissing. He kissed her roughly, purposefully, seriously. Bill felt Beverly kissing back, felt her kiss just as hard.
“I wanted that,” she said when they stopped. “I wanted to feel someone wanting me, wanting to smother me with themselves.”
“See what I’m saying?” Bill said.
“If that’s why you kissed me, fuck you,” Beverly said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you kiss me just to show me what you were saying about where this is going?”
“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I kissed you because I wanted to taste you and I wanted to be kissed. I kissed you because I wanted us to be close.”
“Do you want me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple and straightforward one.”
“It’s not like that. It’s not like I just want to get with you. I want us to be right there.” Bill pointed from his forehead to hers. “You know, here. And I don’t want anything from you. You have no idea what you’re doing. You know a little about what you’re feeling and what you think you might want. But you don’t know what comes with it.”
“That a yes or a no?” Beverly asked.
By Peter Weiss
Beverly was eager to get the conversation away from her. Bill wasn’t all that eager to speak about himself. He’d already told her how ugly he thought he was when he was younger, how he hadn’t had any woman success until he was in the kitchens when all of a sudden all the women wanted him. Irony of irony of course was that he was married.
“Tell me about you,” Beverly said. “About your life, about what you really want.”
“My life,” Bill said. “Not much to tell about my life. About what I want, that’s easy. If I had my way, I mean if I really could have my way, I’d just stay at home all day long and write. That’s all I care about.”
“You don’t care about your wife?”
“Course I do. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is the only thing I love doing is writing. I’ve always loved it and I don’t know about the future, but I can’t imagine not loving it forever.”
“Writing now?” Beverly asked.
“Short stories.”
“When?”
“Well, that’s the rub. Working all the hours I do, it’s hard. See, when I went to that party I wasn’t looking for a girl. I wasn’t looking to pick anyone up, to meet anyone. I was living alone and happy at it. I went to school, I wrote, poetry then, and that was my day, every day, every day the same.”
“Were you happy?”
“I don’t know what happiness is,” Bill said. “And I don’t trust happiness. I feel it every now and then, and then it goes away. Every time I’ve come to let myself be happy, or so I think, something takes it away from me.”
“That’s sad,” Beverly said. “I think I was happy until my baby died. I think if I start to measure out what’s been in my life, like on a scale, I was happy until that day. Mostly. You know. Not every day or every moment of every day can be happy.”
“At least when I’m writing I don’t think of anything else,” Bill said. “I’m totally lost in what I’m doing. When I’m not writing, I don’t mean like today or yesterday, I mean like for long periods, I get miserable. Then something always brings me back to it.”
“I think you’re lucky to have something like that in your life.”
“Me too.”
“Now what about your marriage?”
“Well I surely wasn’t looking for it. I wasn’t looking for anything and I had my whole life planned out in like one sentence, which was that I wasn’t gonna do anything but write. Course that all changed. She’s a dancer and dancers have to dance while they’re young.
“So I decided that I’d work to support her and then she’d kind of do the same for me. That’s where we’re at. But honestly, we didn’t decide that. I volunteered, and to this day I don’t know why the hell I did that. I do know that she eagerly and unhesitatingly accepted my proposal for things to go that way.”
“I understand deals,” Beverly said. “We made the deal to have the baby and for him to support us. Shit happens.”
“Happened to us, to me,” Bill said. “Before I got busted, I thought I’d be like a social worker or a teacher or something using my BA. Never thought I’d be a cook. Never thought I’d be around all these girls who wanted me, or, really, wanted something from me and were happy to do me so they could get what they wanted.”
“Tell me about it. You know how many waiters been trying to get in my pants?”
“Not really,” Bill said.
“No,” Beverly said. “I guess you wouldn’t know.”
“Except for Mary, I never initiated anything with anyone,” Bill said. “Maybe it was cause I’m missing something. I always feel that way,” Bill said, “like there’s something missing, like there’s an emptiness in me I can’t fill.”
“Tell me about it,” Beverly said.
By Peter Weiss
Beverly cried then. She didn’t mean to cry, maybe. At least Bill didn’t think so. Bill thought once she began articulating things she wanted she might be able to work through some stuff. He didn’t expect her to have an epiphany. He didn’t even expect her to make any decisions. He thought in speaking it out loud she might simply begin to get some clarity.
Her crying was tender. She didn’t bawl or weep. Tears rolled softly down her cheeks. Bill thought she looked wholly vulnerable. He also thought she looked positively beautiful.
So he just sat back and looked at her. He did not reach out for her, did not offer her a hanky. He simply sat and watched. He saw her makeup smear, saw her eyeliner run. That was sexy.
“What?” she asked.
“What?” he said.
“I miss my baby.”
“That why you’re crying?”
“No. I’m crying for everything. Because it’s all messed up. I’m sad and happy and worried and relieved. I’m all mixed up.”
“You don’t have to do anything now. You don’t have to do anything today. Sometimes if you don’t do anything, something will get done. You never know,” Bill said. “You never know anything except what you really know.”
“What do you know?” Beverly asked.
“For sure? Not much.”
“That helps a lot.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t it?”
“Really,” Beverly said, “what do you know for sure?”
“I know I never thought about being a cook, ever in my whole life. I know I needed a job so bad that when Robert came for me that day in the probation office, I would have done anything as a job. Anything. I know I wasn’t looking for a wife the day I met my wife. I simply went to a party that she was at. I didn’t even want to go to that party. I had a car…I told you.”
“Yup, you did,” Beverly said. “But you can keep on.”
“Nothing much else to say about that. She told me later the only reason she was at that party was cause of her friend who wanted to meet boys. My wife told her she’d go with her, help her meet someone.”
“Chance. Fate?”
“What do I know about fate? What do I know about anything?”
“You know stuff,” Beverly said.
“I know I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was fifteen. I know I didn’t do anything wrong, not really, at that demonstration. I wouldn’t even have been there if the professor I was meeting hadn’t wanted to see what was happening.
“I know I got railroaded by the system, entrapped by an undercover agent who tried to sell me weed out in the street some six weeks later. I know sure as hell we are sitting here and I have no clue why we are sitting here other than to be having this conversation.”
“I initiated it,” Beverly said. As she said this, she turned the extra earring in her left ear.
“Yes you did.”
“Well,” Beverly said, “sometimes you just need someone to talk to who is outside of everything else in your life. Sometimes you just need a free shot.”
“Yes,” Bill said. “And I’m a free shot for you just as you are for me.”
“What about the sex?”
“What about it?”
“You and the others.”
“I told you,” Bill said. “I take half the responsibility. Just like I never thought about being a cook, I never thought about cheating. I never thought about other women. There just came a point where it was easier to say yes than to fight it every day.”
“You never initiated anything?”
“Only with one woman, Mary P. And I loved her, sure as I love my wife. That’s something I need to look at. Me. Just me inside myself.”
