parents brooded briefly between the last two of these options and then reluctantly permitted marriage.
Arlene was quite happy to leave school and miss her algebra and chemistry finals; they were married over the Easter holiday and she began working to help support Jake through his schools. Arlene’s education had thus come from life, and since her life had been spent clerking at Gimbel’s, girl-Fridaying at Bache and Company, typing at Woolworth’s and controlling a switchboard at the Fashion Institute of Technology, her education was a limited one. In the seven years since she’d stopped working, she had devoted herself to philanthropic causes of which no one had ever heard (The Penny Parade for Puppies, Dough for Diabetes, Help Afghanistanian Sheepherders!), and reading lurid fiction and advanced psychoanalytic journals. It’s not clear to what degree she understood any of her activities.
The day of his marriage was apparently the last time Jake had bothered to give a thought to the pursuit of women. He seemed to have acquired Arlene in the same spirit with which in later life he acquired a lifetime supply of aspirin, and, a little after that, a lifetime supply of laxatives. Moreover, just as the aspirin and laxative were guaranteed not to produce any annoying side effects, so too he saw to it that periodic use of Arlene would be free of such effects also. There was an ill-intended rumor that he had Arlene take the pill and use an inter-uterine device, a diaphragm and a douche, while he used a contraceptive, always used her anus anyway and then always practiced coitus interruptus. Whatever his methods, they had worked. They were childless, Jake was satisfied and Arlene was bored and longed to have a baby.
So my first option was clear: no more affair. Feeling rebellious I wrote as number two option, ‘I’ll do whatever Arlene says we ought to do’ (rather courageous in those days), number three, I would attempt to re-seduce Arlene as soon as possible. Too vague. I’d try to re-seduce her, hummm, obviously Saturday evening. (The Ecsteins were having a cocktail party.)
Number four, I – I seemed to have exhausted the three obvious courses of action – no, wait, number four, I would say to her whenever I could get her alone that although I loved her beyond words, I felt that we should keep our love Platonic for the sake of the children. Number five, I would play it by ear and let my impulses dictate my behavior (another chicken’s squawk). Number six, I would go to her apartment Tuesday afternoon (the next time I knew her to be alone) and more realistically rape her (i.e. no effort at softness or seduction).
I looked at the options, smiled happily and flipped a die: four: Platonic love. Platonic love? How did that get in there? I was momentarily appalled. I decided that it was understood by number four that I might be dissuaded from Platonism by Arlene.
That Saturday evening Arlene greeted me at the door wearing a lovely blue cocktail dress I’d never seen before (neither had Jake) with a glass of Scotch and with a wide-eyed stare: representing awe, fright or blindness from being without her glasses. After handing me the Scotch (Lil was upstairs still dressing), Arlene fled to the other side of the room. I drifted over to a small group of psychiatrists led by Jake and listened to a consecutive series of monologues on methods of avoiding income taxes.
Depressed, I drifted after Arlene, poetry poised like cookie crumbs on my lips. She was yo-yoing from the kitchen-bar to her guests, smiling bigly and blankly, and then rushing away in someone’s midsentence on the presumed pretense of getting someone a drink. I’d never seen her so manic. When I finally followed her into the kitchen one time she was staring at a picture of the Empire State Building, or rather at the calendar beneath it with all the banking holidays squared in orange.
She turned and looked at me with the same wide-eyed awe, fear or blindness and asked in a frightening loud, nervous voice:
‘What if I’m pregnant?’
‘Shhhh,’ I replied.
‘If I’m pregnant, Jake will never forgive me.’
‘But I thought you took the pill every morning.’
‘Jake tells me to but for the last two years, I’ve substituted little vitamin C tablets in my calendar clock.’
‘Oh my God, when, er, when … Do you think you’re pregnant?’
‘Jake’ll know I cheated on him and didn’t take the pill.’
‘But he’ll think he’s the father?’
‘Of course, who else could be?’
‘Well … uh …’
‘But you know how he detests the thought of having children.’
‘Yes, I do. Arlene …’
‘Excuse me, I’ve got to serve drinks.’
She ran out with two martinis and returned with an empty highball glass.
‘Don’t you dare to touch me again,’ she said as she began preparing another drink.
‘Ah Arlene, how can you say that? My love is like …’
‘This Tuesday, Jake is going to spend all day at the Library annex working on his new book. If you dare try anything like last night I’ll phone the police.’
‘Arlene …’
‘I’ve checked their number and I plan to always keep the phone near me.’
‘Arlene, the feelings I have for you are …’
‘Although I told Lil yesterday that I’m going to West chester to see my Aunt Miriam.’
She was off again with a full whiskey and two pieces of cheesed celery, and before she returned again Lil had arrived and I was trapped in an infinite analysis with a man named Sidney Opt of the effect of the Beatles on American culture. It was the closest I came to poetry that night. I didn’t even talk to Arlene again until, well, that Tuesday afternoon.
‘Arlene,’ I said, trying to rope in a scream as she pressed the door convincingly against my foot, ‘you must let me in.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘If you don’t let me in I won’t tell you what I plan to do.’
‘Plan to do?’
‘You’ll never know what I’m going to say.’
There was a long pause and then the door eased open and I limped into her apartment. She retreated decisively to the telephone and, standing stiffly with the receiver in her hand with one finger inserted into presumably the first digit, she said:
‘Don’t come any nearer.’
‘I won’t, I won’t. But you really should hang up the phone.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘If you keep it off the hook too long they’ll disconnect the phone.’
Hesitantly she replaced the receiver and sat at one end of the couch (next to the telephone); I seated myself at the other end.
After looking at me blankly for a few minutes (I was preparing my declaration of Platonic love), she suddenly began crying into her hands.
‘I can’t stop you,’ she moaned.
‘I’m not trying to do anything!’
‘I can’t stop you, I know I can’t. I’m weak.’
‘But I won’t touch you.’
‘You’re too strong, too forceful …’
‘I won’t touch you.’
She looked up.
‘You won’t?’
‘Arlene, I love you …’
‘I knew it! Oh and I’m so weak.’
‘I love you in a way beyond words.’
‘You evil man.’
‘But I have decided [I had become tight-lipped with