Boys and Girls Together: A Novel Read online

  “We gotta crawl?” Sid said.

  “After a big meal I don’t speed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You should learn to enjoy your food.”

  “What?” Sid stopped dead.

  “If you’re not going to eat, don’t order.”

  “You kept me waiting!”

  “What?”

  “For an hour and a half. A lousy hour and a half she keeps me waiting and then she tells me to enjoy my food!”

  “You lie!”

  Somehow her venom equaled his; her eyes burned just as bright. Sid quailed. “Huh?”

  “I know you big shots!” She moved up right next to him, almost touching (but not quite), and let fire. “I knew you were gonna keep me waiting. You wait two weeks to see me, you wanna make me suffer. I read you, Mr. Big Shot. You kept me waiting forty-five minutes. Well, I kept you waiting forty-six. One minute more. Just one minute. But one minute more.”

  “Just you hold your water, Tootsie.”

  “You hold yours. Nobody made you see me. Nobody but you. I’m the belle of the ball, Sport. Everybody wants me. Everybody wants little Esther. Well, goody for little Esther is what I say. She’s king of the mountain and she’s happy up there.” She stopped talking but her eyes still burned.

  Sid looked away. “I’m sorry, Esther,” he mumbled, hoping like a bastard it sounded sincere. “I’m really sorry. I should be shot, talking to you like that. Forgive me, Esther. Please.”

  “Forgiven,” she said, and they started walking again, neither speaking. She was busy dreaming again of the life inside the doormanned buildings. Sid was busy making plans.

  Obviously she craved him as he craved her. (Why else the outburst?) And obviously he was going to satisfy her cravings (the little bitch) because he was a gentleman and liked leaving the ladies happy and because nobody yelled at him like that and got away with it. Nobody mocked him. Not her; not nobody.

  “I hate myself sometimes,” Sid said, the words catching in his throat the way they always did when he wanted them to. The last syllable, “times,” had an almost authentic sobbing quality. She looked at him but he turned away perfectly, his face to the wind. The wind made him blink and luck was with him—one tiny tear formed in the corner of his eye. Sid turned back to her, made certain she saw it, then shook his head. “You pegged me, Esther. From the very start.”

  “I did?”

  Sid nodded. “Dead through the heart.”

  He pointed toward the lake and she nodded, so he took her arm gently, guiding her toward the water. The night was cool here, the great dark-waves muffled against the shore. Sid smiled shyly at her and the sight of Esther in the moonlight spurred him on. “I’m a phony,” Sid said. “I talk too much like a big shot. But I’m no big shot.” He blinked furtively, waited a moment for the tears to glisten, and then faced her, whispering, “I’m nothing, Esther. Nothing. Just like you said.”

  “Oh, I never said that.”

  Sid shook his head, dropped his chin to his chest, and moved a few paces away from her. She was interested now, but he had to be careful. Slow and easy. One step at a time. Women had always been a snap for him. Always. Always.

  “Maybe it’s because I’m short.”

  She moved to him. “What, Sid?”

  He moved away. “The whole thing. All the talking, all the front. Maybe if I was taller—”

  “What’s tall got to do with it?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know. I’m always afraid people are going to laugh at me. Because I’m strange-looking.”

  “Strange-looking? Oh, Sid, you’re not. Believe me, you’re not.”

  Bet your ass I’m not, Tootsie. “You really think that, Esther? Don’t kid around now.”

  “I promise you. I wouldn’t ever kid about that.”

  “You’re sweet, Esther, you know that? You’re afraid to show it—you try like hell to hide it—but I see, Esther. I see.” That particular ruse had never failed to score him points, so he let it sink in and moved away from her again, along the lake. She hesitated, then followed.

  “Sit here a while?” Sid pointed to a rock. Esther nodded and sat.

  When she was down he joined her, but a considerable distance away. Come to me a while, Tootsie. You will. You will.

  “It’s pretty,” Esther said quietly.

  Sid nodded. “I love this lake. It’s like part of my family. The day my mother died, I came here. To hide, I suppose.”

  “When did she die?”

  Sid took a deep breath. It was just about time for the stories of his life. But which stories? Which life. “You don’t want to hear about me, Esther.”

  “I do, though.”

  “After my father died, I guess my mother didn’t want to live either.”

  “Oh,” Esther said, moving closer to him across the rock.

  Sid’s voice was very low. “See, my father never came back from the Great War.” That was absolutely true. Of course, his father had never departed for the Great War either, having been shot over a crooked crap game in Pittsburgh. “The Germans killed him.” That was also true. His father’s slayers, the brothers Neumann, Fritz and Erich, were one-hundred-percent German. (They were tried for manslaughter but acquitted. Or, at least, so his mother informed him.)

  “Damn the Germans,” Esther said, moving next to him, her tender leg brushing Sid’s. “I hate them.”

  Sid nodded. “You sure you want me to go on with this, Esther?”

  “Please.”

  “Well, like I said, once he died, my mother gave up.”

  “Gave up?”

  “A broken heart.” Medically, that was true. Her heart had been broken. Along with the rest of her body. By a North Side streetcar as she rushed heedlessly across a busy intersection because she was late for her nightly tryst with the grocer.

  “First one, then the other?”

  “Yes,” Sid whispered. “First one, then the other.” Whenever he chose this story he carefully omitted that there were seven years between the two fatalities.

  “Oh,” Esther said. “Oh.”

  Proud that he had correctly guessed she would be a sucker for schmaltz, Sid hurried on. He spoke of his boyhood struggles, of making his lonely way, of nights spent shivering on benches and in doorways, of days spent searching through garbage cans for food, of the beatings he absorbed, the whippings and the scorn, of the times he had been cheated and lied to and left for dead by the Wayside of Life. But never once in the recounting of his tragic journey did he allow a note of self-pity to enter in. (That was his secret. Let them supply the pity. Every so often women wanted to feel like women. Happens in the best of families.) He was closing in now, the end in sight, so he stood up abruptly and, as if deep in thought, moved close to the shore of the lake. On cue, Esther followed. Sid faced her. The setting couldn’t have been better: moon, water, clean cool air. She stood before him, gazing, her head tilted ever so slightly to one side. Sid was about to make his move.

  “Don’t even try!”

  He couldn’t have heard her. She could not have said that.

  “Keep your hands to yourself, Sport, O.K.?”

  “My hands?” Sid’s fingers flew into an innocent knot behind his back. He tried to appear confused, which was easy.

  And then she started laughing.

  “I tell you the story of my life and you laugh?”

  “I laugh at what’s funny.”

  Whipped, Sid brought her home. It took forty minutes on the bus (enough was enough) and not one word was spoken. When he got her to her door he told her he would never see her again but somehow it came out, “When can I see you again?” Her reply was “A week from Tuesday” and his answer to that was “Never.” Except someone said, “O.K., a week from Tuesday,” and then she disappeared into the apartment, wagging her tail behind her.

  Sid muttered his way back to his place, undressed and went to bed. Six glasses of water later, he slept.

  Their second escapade was no im
provement on the first. Not to Sid’s mind. If anything, it was worse. Esther’s dark skin was stained shades darker from the summer sun and she served herself up totally in white—skirt, blouse and shoes—and the blouse was of such flimsy material, sheer almost, that as they walked through the Loop (Sid surreptitiously eyeing her profile) he had to restrain himself actively from roughly unveiling her then and there, on State and Madison, for all to see. But the sweetness of her body had not sugared her tongue. Lip she gave him, in full measure. Whatever pose he tried, she mocked. (Nobody mocked him.) Gallant, worldly, humble, witty, sad, fey—she mocked them all with obvious relish. But he endured her tongue with false smiles (visions of her body in rhythmic action supported him and his strength was as the strength of ten) and spent his money (too much, too much) on her like a fool (filet, she had to order) and when he followed her, at evening’s end, up the stairs to her apartment (that ass, ooooooooohhhhhh) he asked her meekly when he might again have the pleasure, and her reply of three weeks from yesterday brought from him a nod, a grin (false), a thank-you, a goodbye.

  The third time around was no cause for hosannahs. Esther went Mexican—sandals, black swirling skirt, red peasant blouse scooped low. Standing up straight, she was enough to wet his palms; but when she bent over ... when she bent over ... (Did she bend over more tonight than she had in the past? Sid wasn’t sure. Yes or no, the flash of white at the top of her bosom blinded him.) They dined on the steak for two at Barney’s and took in a movie at Balaban and Katz’s Chicago (Garbo’s face was better, but Esther won the body) and walked along the lake again. As they walked she did her customary skillful job of scorning him, but Sid did not seem to mind so much. Because a very sad dawning had commenced to flicker way back in his head and it told him intermittently to prepare for second place; he, the mighty Sid, conqueror of countless breasty maidens, had maybe come a cropper at last. Sid looked longingly at the fiery body clad in swirling black and flashing red. Nobody got the best of him, but without exceptions, where would rules be? So when he took her home he honestly hesitated before inquiring after her future freedom, and her surprising answer of this coming Saturday filled him with less than joy.

  But he arrived for the joust punctually (and subdued—three strikes are out, four are ridiculous) to face Esther in yellow. Esther in yellow was better than Esther in anything except maybe Esther in nothing. Her shape jutted and curved sublimely; she was a masterpiece (and Sid would have chuckled at his pun had she not been so ruthlessly unobtainable).

  “You look wonderful, Esther. Absolutely wonderful.”

  Sincere sincerity is not usually difficult to spot, and in Sid’s case, because of the rareness of its appearance (he, like most, was long on the other kind), the occasional truth gleamed like a wistful star.

  But he scored no points with Esther. She simply accepted the gratuity with a nod (though Old Turk must have detected something, because he grunted to life in his soft chair, the Daily News tumbling down around him in disarray). They left the apartment, Sid and Esther did, Sid then hailing the hated inevitable cab, instructing the driver to take them to Chicago’s feeble answer to Coney Island. They wandered through the summer heat, licking ice cream, and the screams of the myriad children saddened Sid. It was a bad idea coming here, and his wish that Esther might cling to him during a roller-coaster ride (hope springs eternal) was dashed brutally as she sat bravely throughout the entire journey with her arms crossed, her eyes wide open. The Ferris wheel was no better, and Sid missed the target with a rifle, so Esther won no doll. Four teenagers followed them for a while, whistling at his yellow dreamboat, but Sid did not bother discouraging them; experience had taught him that Esther was fully capable of defending herself, capable and then some. The evening spun painfully along. Sid, without half trying, was able to list at least thirty-two zoftig succulents with whom he had been unquestionably successful, so why with this one, this yellow vision, did he have to fail? He would gladly have traded at least twenty-five from his list for one turn with Esther. Twenty-five, hell; all thirty-two. Sid sighed.

  “What’s the matter? I’m boring you?”

  “No. I’m just tired. Hard day.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “The exit’s over this way,” Sid said.

  “It’s Saturday night. Not even eleven o’clock.”

  “Hard day,” Sid repeated, and he started toward the exit. He was not remotely fatigued, but he wanted to remember one affirmative action on his part. In his future daydreaming he could expand on it, amplify it, color it to his advantage, removing at least part of the sting from the shellacking she had so skillfully inflicted. He chatted with her as amiably as he could, and when the taxi stopped before the deli Sid held the door open for her, paid the driver and followed her up the stairs, waiting politely by the door of her apartment as she fumbled for the key, waiting only to say goodbye. When she had the key held firmly, the yellow dress tilted abruptly, carrying the encased juts and curves into his arms as her red lips ambushed his mouth. Her strong tongue fired barrage after barrage while her shape locked itself against him. Sid reeled before the ferocity of the blitzkrieg, the apartment door finally halting his backward voyage, and, braced, he launched an attack of his own. His arms had barely touched her warm flesh (at last, oh, at last) when she broke from him, inserted the key, opened the door, told him she was free next Friday and, eyes fiery (yes, with passion; it had to be that), disappeared.

  Sid could not move. He sent a tentative order to his legs but, when they were slow to respond, rescinded it. His body still felt her pressures, and he closed his eyes briefly, pushed back through time for thirty seconds and relived the moment, framing it forever in his mind: shock, surprise, pleasure, heat—all. Finally he turned, descending the stairs to the warm street, and started to walk. For a block or two he basked, a smile curling his strong mouth.

  The night heat was not oppressive; actually, it was relaxing, and Sid swung along at a loose gait, close to humming, for he had kissed Esther Turk, he had, he had. And this coming Friday he would kiss her again. Definitely. Sid stopped. Would she let him? Sid nodded and resumed his walk. Of course she would let him. Who ever heard of one kiss? Impossible. But he had to be careful—he could not assume it was his God-given right; then she would squelch him like a bug. Back to the Red Star Inn. (Women loved going back. Memories ... memories ... ) Sid hummed the tune aloud. And after the Red Star they might just happen to walk along the lake again. And again they would sit on the rock. And they would laugh (a little off-color joke was always good for openers) and stroll and stop and then into his arms with her. What a kiss it was going to be! Here an hour before he had been happy to accept defeat and now he was back in the running. What a kiss. Whaaaat a kiss. A kiss to end all kisses. Suddenly Sid stopped dead. What? What? A kiss? “Christ,” Sid said aloud. “A kiss!” The humiliation! He, the one and only Sid Miller, the killer of the South Side, was plotting a kiss; he, who unquestionably could make a living as a full-time gigolo, was working up a sweat over a nineteen-year-old delicatessen keeper’s daughter. “Christ,” he said again. With one flick of her body she had sent him spinning. One seemingly unplanned embrace (she knew what she was doing, that tootsie did; she knew all right) and God’s gift to women was grappling for another peck on the lips. It was like Rockefeller scheming over a gallon of oil. But there it was.

  She had hooked him.

  The little bitch had hooked him.

  But good.

  Schmuck! That was the word for him. Sid seethed. Ohhh, she was clever. A shrewd slut, that little Esther. She saw he was getting away, leaving her in the lurch, beating her at her own game, so she threw out a little smooch to string him along. “Hah!” Sid said, and he spun into a candy store, ordered an egg cream and downed it in a swallow. Quenched, Sid pierced the hot night, fingers snapping fast. Well, he would take her anyway. Take her, then leave her; have her to the hilt, then drop her by the wayside. He had tried being charming, he had tried being sweet; kindnesses he had
showered. Could anyone have been nicer? He had wooed as a gentleman woos, and where were the results? In return for his investments she had paid him with ashes. But no matter; he would still win the day.

  By being evil.

  Because he had to have her. He just had to.

  That, or go mad.

  Wellington never mapped a campaign with more care. Sid stayed up late every night, pondering, fretting, pacing the floor. By Wednesday he had his plan and Thursday evening he went over details till he was bleary. No plan is perfect and neither was Sid’s; he needed one break from the Almighty.

  Heat.

  Chicago was in the midst of an August bonfire and Sid prayed for it to hold. He listened to the weather forecasts on the radio every hour on the hour. At one in the morning he first heard reports of a cold front moving down from Minnesota and that news sent him quickly toward despair. The two-o’clock news repeated chill words of the arrival, but Sid, exhausted, could not wait for further bulletins. He fell asleep, the radio still going full blast. When he awoke, groggy, he staggered to the window and said hello to Friday.

  It was a steamer.

  For the rest of the day Sid moved. Down to the Loop for a furtive transaction with Whittaker, the Negro train porter, then back north for peanuts, quickly to another store for dry potato chips, then a long bus ride west for the best tomato juice in town. When he arrived back at his apartment he forced all the windows shut and tried to nap, first going over everything one final time. The alarm woke him on schedule and, not taking time to stretch, he burrowed through his closet for his oldest suit and, with surgical care, ripped the left trouser leg along the seam. That done, he rumpled the coat, dirtied his face good, dressed, eyed himself one final time in his full-length mirror and went forth to do battle.

  “What happened to you?” Esther said, opening her apartment door, staring out.

  “I tripped.” Sid hesitated in the doorway, looking at her. She was dressed all in black; black was his favorite color.