“Do you know what I’ve done for this community?” Fay said. “I’ve done more for this community than anyone else; when they were trying to get rid of the Principal over at the grammar school I went down to San Rafael and got my attorney and paid him to look up the laws and see how Mr. Pans, the Principal, could be kept on in spite of the school board; we found six or seven ways.”

“Good for you,” he said.

“You bet good for me,” Fay said. “And I got the petition up and circulated it for putting in the street lights; when we moved in up here there wasn’t a single street light in Drake’s Landing. It’s unincorporated. And we did a lot to get the old firehouse torn down and the new one built.”

“Incredible,” he said.

“Why do you say that?” She shot him a brief glance.

He said, “You’ve practically made this area over singlehandedly.”

“It sounds as if you resent it.”

“I resent your making so much out of it.”

To that, she said nothing; she seemed to shrink back. But then, when she had turned the Buick into the cypress-lined driveway of their house, she said, “You know, you didn’t have to come over. I know how you feel about me; you think I’m heedless and demanding and indifferent to other people’s welfare. But I’ve done more for other people’s welfare than anybody else around here. What have you done for this area, since you moved in?” She said it all calmly, but he saw that she was upset. “Well?” she said.

I think he’s night, he thought. Charley is right about her. At least to some extent. She does have a childish quality, a sort of brashness.

Then why am I here? he asked himself.

Can’t I say no to her?

“You want to go back?” Fay said. Stopping the car she put the automatic transmission into reverse, and, with a squeal of tires, backed out of the driveway, swinging the car wildly into a turn as it reached the road. The front end missed the mailbox on its post by inches; he automatically tensed himself, waiting for the sound of metal against wood.

“I’ll drive you back,” she said, shifting into forward range and starting back down the road. “I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to do. The decision’s yours.”

He said, feeling as if he were talking to an angry child, “I don’t mind helping you with your bills.”

At that, to his surprise, she said, “I didn’t ask you to come over to help me with the bills. The hell with the bills.” Hen voice rose. “What do I care about the bills? That’s none of my business. It’s up to him to pay them, the god damn bills. Fuck the bills. I wanted you to come over because I’m lonely. Good god—” Her voice grated. “Charley’s been in the hospital for over a month and I’m going crazy sitting around the house; I’m about ready to go out of my mind. Cooped up with the kids driving me nuts! And that nutty motherfucking brother of mine. That fruit.”

She sounded so mad, so fed-up and exasperated, that he was amused. The strident clamorousness of her… it did not go with her appearance, her leanness, her slight, almost underdeveloped body. Now she had begun to cough: deep, hoarse coughs, as if a man were sitting beside him coughing, a man’s cough.

“I’ve been smoking three packs of L & Ms a day,” she informed him. “Good god, I never smoked so much in my entire life! No wonder I can’t gain any weight. God.” She said it with stunned amazement. “What do I pay that hick psychiatrist three hundred dollars a month for? That asshole…

“Calm down,” he said to her. “Drive back to your place; we’ll get the bills done, and then we’ll have a drink or a cup of coffee and then I have to get back to my studies.”

“Why didn’t you bring your books over, you asshole?” she said.

“I thought I was coming over to work.”

“God,” she said. “Good god. I never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. My goodness.” She seemed utterly floored. “I went to so much trouble to find something that wouldn’t bring that—1926looking wife of yours along. It doesn’t bother you if I talk about your wife, does it?” Slowing the car, driving with one hand, she turned toward him, saying, “You know you’ve stimulated me even since I first laid eyes on you. Don’t you? My god, I’ve as much as told you half a dozen times. Remember that night I asked you to wrestle with me? What did you think I wanted to wrestle with you for? I was sure your wife caught on. And my god, all you did was throw me on the floor and walk off and leave me. Did you know I had a black and blue mark on my ass for a week afterward?”

To that, he said nothing; his head was swimming.

“God,” she said, more composedly, now. “I’ve never been so attracted to a man. I was attracted to both of you, you in your big old wool sweaters … where did you ever get those sweaters?” Without pausing she said, “Why do you ride a bike? Didn’t you have a bike as a child? Didn’t your family give you a bike?”

He said, “There’s nothing wrong with a grown person riding a bike.”

“Can I ride it sometime?”

“Sure,” he said. “Of course you can.”

“Is it hard?”

He said, “You haven’t ever ridden a bike?”

“No,” she said.

“This one has a gearshift,” he said. “It’s English.”

Now she did not seem to be listening to him; she drove in a preoccupied manner, her face somber. “Listen,” she said after a while. “Are you going to go running home to your wife and tell her about me propositioning you?”

He said, “Are you propositioning me?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not. You propositioned me. Don’t you remember?” She said it with absolute conviction. “Isn’t that why you came over? Good god, I wouldn’t dare let you in the house. That’s why I’m driving you back.” They had gotten almost to his house, now, and he realized abruptly that she really intended to drop him off. “I’m not letting you into my place,” she told him. “Not without your wife. If you want to come over you bring her along.”

With anger he said loudly, “You’re a nut. A real nut.”

“What?” she said, faltering.

“Don’t you pay any attention to anything you say?”

That seemed to crush her. “Don’t pick on me,” she said. “Don’t you get picky. Why do you pick on me?” Her tone reminded him of the younger child’s tone, the whining, self-pitying tone. Perhaps she was calculatedly imitating her child’s tone; he had an intuition to that effect. It was both a satire and a theft. She used it and satirized it simultaneously, waiting to see how he reacted.

“I think you’re a real kick,” he said. And he did. She intrigued him, her flashing moods; he could not tell at any moment which way she would jump. She seemed to have an infinite supply of energy. She went on and on, without fatigue.

“You don’t take me seriously at all,” she said, and then she smiled at him, a mechanical, even formal, smile. “Well, thanks for wanting to help me.” They had come to his house and she was stopping the car. She evidently was quite angry at him, quite cold. “I really am furious with you,” she said in a dead, level voice. “I really am. I’ll never forgive you for your treatment of me. The hell with you.” She leaned over and grabbed at the car door. “So long.”

“So long,” he said, stepping out.

The door slammed; the can roared off. In a daze, he started up the steps to his own porch.

The next day he telephoned her, not from home but from his real estate office. “Hi, Fay,” he said. “I hope I didn’t catch you when you’re busy.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not busy.” On the phone her voice had a thin, brisk quality, as if he were talking to a woman accustomed to doing a great deal of her business transactions on the phone. “Who is this? Not that fink Nathan Anteil?”

He thought, And this is a thirty-two-year-old woman. He said, “Fay, you use the worst language of any woman I’ve even known.”

“Stick it up your ass!” she said animatedly. “Did you phone me to pick on me some more, on what? Yes, why did you phone me? Just a second.” He heard her throw down the phone and then go shut a door. Back again, she said deafeningly in his ear, “I’ve been sitting here going over what happened last night. Evidently I don’t understand the masculine mind. What got into you? For that matter, what got into me?”