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."
"Probably with Thag," Dore says.
"Thag? Who is Thag?" Simon asks.
"Guy she met at the laundromat," Anne says. "Hes a broker. Hes with Smith Barney."
"If hes a broker whats he doing at the laundro?mat?"
"So hes thrifty. She should have called, though."
"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.
"What kind of a name is Thag?" Simon asks irrita?bly.
"I think its a beautiful name," Dore says. "Very Scandinavian."
"Well if she doesnt get her ass back here pretty damn quick Im going to give her bed away."
"Simon!" Anne exclaims. "Youre being possessive!"
"I dont mean it."
"I know. Thats the hell of it."
"You dont want me to be possessive."
On the street Simon and Anne gaze at a brand-new Honda, the paint a glittering candy red.
"I dont like what Honda did with the front end this year," he says.
"Yeah, its insensitive."
Simon makes a shaping gesture with his hand.
"That snout."
Anne nods.
"Very wrong. Still --" He puts an arm around her. "The first car I ever bought was a Hillman Minx. Ever see one of those?"
"Before my time," she says.
"A boxy little ragtop. Had all the power of a lawn-mower. Never had a car after that I liked as much."
"During which marriage was that?"
"You getting on me?"
"Not me."
"And I was going to take us for oysters at the Oyster Bar."
"Im ready."
"A certain dryness sets in. The situation dries out, as it were."
"I didnt mean to pry."
"When I was young I thought everything was very funny. I cracked up a lot. Dont do that anymore."
"Youthful arrogance."
"Id still like to think everything was funny."
"I used to work with children," Anne says.
"Disturbed children?"
"Not more disturbed than any other children. Just ordinary children."
"What did you do?"
"I worked with them. We worked together, me and the children."
"Can you be more specific?"
"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."
"You had a place where you worked with them?"
"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."
"So what were the children like?"
"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."
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.
Q: You must be tired. Fatigued.
A: No Im not a bit tired.
Q: All of that. . . activity must have left you a bit tired.
A: Yes I suppose you could think that.
Q: Youre not tired.
A: You mean mentally tired?
Q: Physically.
A: No Im not tired. I feel fine.
Q: How are the headaches?
A: Havent been having them.
Q: That doesnt mean they wont come back.
A: The aspirin did the job.
Q: It wasnt aspirin it was Tylenol. Extra-Strength Tylenol.
A: Did the job.
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.
A: Thats extremely generous.
Q: Well otherwise theyd just rot, wouldnt they? I mean I have buckets and buckets. All brightly colored.
A: I assume you dont drink. Except in moderation.
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: You feel better.
Q: I feel a little less stupid. So you were pretty much in hog heaven, there, with the three women, for all those months. . .
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 --
Q: You mean they fought.
A: They were sisterly most of the time. Once in a while they fought.
Q: Using what means?
A: Mouth, mostly.
Q: Not laceration of the skin by fingernails, hair-tearing, bosom-bashing. . .
A: None of that. They were, most of the time, very good to one another.
Q: Remarkable.
A: I thought so.
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?
A: Perhaps your wife?
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.
A: German?
Q: Dutch.
DORE sitting in the back of the house, watching a bird-fight. Two black birds are struggling in midair near the ailanthus.
"That one sucker is going to get the other sucker," she says. "Going to clean his clock for him."
"Thats the way it is in this world," says Tim. "What does he win if he wins?"
"Dont know."
"You think Simons been all right lately?"
"Morose," she says. "I get a definite moroseness."
"Yeah. Thats kind of what I was talking about. Some people cant stand prosperity."
"You think he wants to go back to Philadelphia?"
"He hasnt said yea or nay. I gather things werent so wonderful in Philadelphia."
"Where did you go to school?"
"Cornell."
"What did you study?"
"Electrical engineering."
"Is that a good place for it?"
"Its okay."
"Whats your wifes name?"
"Carol."
"Everybodys wife is named Carol. You ever notice that?"
"I didnt know that, no."
"Is she pretty?"
"No. Maybe kind of."
"Oh. Whats she like?"
"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."
"Is that Machiavelli?"
"I was thinking more of that guy who worked for Nixon."
"What does she think of you?"
"Not much. I work at the car wash, remember?"
"But thats only temporary."
"By me everythings temporary. Good things and bad things."
"That must be fascinating. The indeterminacy."
"Its fascinating."