Part 15 (1/2)
They all thought that was screamingly funny.
Yet it was never crowded. People weren't stacked up around the bar on a Friday evening the way they were at Swill's (where they muscled one another out as if they were trying to put down a bet before the window slammed down).
They had tried, as had just about everybody, to get information about the Old Hotel. Each of them had at one time or another tried to talk to the owner-manager to get answers to these questions. But he always seemed to have ”just stepped out” for a moment. They knew (or supposed they did) that there actually was a manager for he had once been pointed out by the bartender to them as he was walking through the Lobby. His name, the bartender had told them, was Duff. That'll be him, sir. I'm sure he'll be glad to answer your questions. I would do myself, but I haven't been here very long myself.
Duff fascinated Saul.
(”He would,” Jamie had said, inscrutably.) Duff was a question mark; he was unfinished; he was pure potential.
So they stopped trying to track down the manager because they apparently weren't supposed to know. Oedipus didn't, did he? Sally had said. There was something that smacked of fatalism in the whole encounter-or rather the lack of one.
”Pittsburgh's changed a lot,” said Ned, as if they'd been discussing this since he brought it up. He finished off the silver bowl of cashews.
”Why're you going, anyway?” Whenever Ned left Manhattan Sally got anxious.
”Research,” he lied.
Jamie sighed heavily to let him know her estimation of this move. ”Just for f.u.c.k's sake don't go to McKees Rocks and come back and run things by me. Do I remember this? Do I remember that? I'm warning you.”
”Remember Duquesne Incline? And the steps up the side of Duquesne Heights? You know how long a trail of steps that was? I went up them.”
Jamie looked as if she could spit. ”No, you didn't! You didn't because they were torn down sometime in the sixties. The early sixties. You wouldn't have been more than a day-old baby, for G.o.d's sakes.”
”Maybe my father carried me up.” Paying no attention to Jamie's pained look, he said, ”Order me another drink, will you? I'm going to the gents.” Which was what it was actually labeled here. GENTS and LADIES . They thought that fit in perfectly with the Old Hotel's diverse styles.
Sally watched him walk away and turned to Jamie. ”You shouldn't ride Ned all the time about Pittsburgh.”
”Why not?” Jamie seemed genuinely surprised at Sally's criticism. She was used to criticism, but only in her professional life, where she got three or four bad reviews to every good one. ”He's so stunningly sentimental about the place.” She saw Saul looking at her. ”Why are you looking daggers at me?”
”Because Pittsburgh's what he is; it's what he has.”
Jamie felt abashed far more by Saul's tone than she had by Sally's. With her, Saul really counted. This only served to stoke her irritation.
Sally said, ”You can be really arrogant sometimes, Jamie.”
Jamie ignored this as she could think of nothing to say in her own defense. ”Ned remembers things that weren't there and things that never happened!”
”How do you know that?”
”Because I looked them up!” Too late did she think of the depths of animosity and even jealousy that might be ascribed to such a thing. Quickly, she added, ”I lived in McKees Rocks, remember. That's right by Pittsburgh.”
Sally gave a little wondering laugh. ”So what? Are you saying Ned's memories have to mirror yours?”
Jamie stuck the olive from her martini in her mouth, glad that the two couples at the next table provided distraction. They were clearly first timers. They looked around the room a little too much for customers who'd seen it before. They were too loud; they wanted to attract attention, which the women were doing anyway, given the waist-deep cleavage of their black and red dresses. They rose rather elaborately, collected purses and cigarette lighters, and moved off toward the stairs.
Saul watched them for a minute and then spoke again. ”It really makes you mad as h.e.l.l, doesn't it, Jamie?”
Jamie frowned. ”What does?”
”Here you and Ned grew up in almost the same place and have many of the same memories-or should have, according to you-so why don't you have the same degree of talent? You feel you have to turn out two or three books a year, which you don't, to make up for your not having his talent, and even though you drown yourself in words, it still doesn't do it.”
Jamie blushed. ”Don't be ridiculous! I'm not jealous of Ned, for G.o.d's sakes!”
”You're not jealous of me. But you are jealous of Ned.” Saul leaned closer to Jamie. ”Let me ask you something: are your parents still there in McKees Rocks? Your brother and sisters? Aunts-no, you've got an aunt in Savannah, you said. But the rest? Are they in McKees Rocks?”
For a moment Jamie didn't answer; she wore the look of a person trying to stay clear of certain danger. ”What if they are?”
”Ned's aren't. What he's got is Isaly's Ice Cream. His family are all gone.”
Jamie looked around the room as if Saul weren't speaking at all. Saul said, ”You're so compet.i.tive; you're so compet.i.tive you even have to compete with yourself-which also might account in part for all of those different hats you wear-”
”f.u.c.k you, Saul! You don't know what you're talking about. And I'm right about those steps. Ned couldn't have been more than a baby-”
”Then he remembers an image someone else supplied, his father or mother, maybe. Ned's a memoirist. Just because it's a memory, that doesn't mean it's sentimental.”
”Well, it's sentimental to hang out on memory lane.”
Saul laughed. ”We all hang out there.”
”Not me. I don't; I don't look back. I don't believe you do, either.”
”I don't? Jamie, I live in a houseful of artifacts. It's drenched in the past. I never change anything, beyond turning a desk around so that it faces a window. I want it to stay the same.”
”That's not the same thing. History is provenance when it comes to antiques; provenance belongs to them.” Here she gave a self-satisfied little smile and polished off her martini. She tapped her gla.s.s. ”Anyone want another?”
Sally said, ”Are we having dinner here or what?” She felt vaguely dissatisfied and depressed and not able to pinpoint the cause of it. Then she thought: Am I afraid he'll go to Pittsburgh and just-disappear?
”What a stupid question,” she answered herself.
”What if he never comes back?”
”Oh, for G.o.d's sakes . . .”
”But what-”
The other voice turned away in disgust. Murmuring.
Sally spied Ned making his way back through the tables-the Lobby was crowded, even more than usual-and watched him as he crossed the room as if he might go up in a puff of smoke if she looked away.
”What's wrong?” asked Saul Jamie had left the table to go to the bar and sulk for a while. This section of the Lobby was smoky. Saul always asked Sally and Ned if they minded sitting in the smoking section (which, oddly enough, seemed to hold the smoke to it, a phenomenon no one had been able to explain. But that was the Old Hotel). Saul always made a point of saying he didn't have to smoke. To which Jamie always retorted, ”Well, I do.” Saul just stomped all over her.
”Nothing,” said Sally, answering his concern. ”I just think maybe I'll go to-” She stopped.
Ned was there, taking his seat again. ”Are we leaving or having dinner?”
”Sorry, I forgot your drink,” said Sally. ”Yes, we're having dinner.”