The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [106]
The Wapshots went over to the Tellermans’ for a drink one night and Coverly found them friendly enough. The Tellermans’ house was furnished exactly like the Wapshots’, including the Picasso over the mantelpiece. In the living room the women talked about curtains, and Coverly and Max Tellerman talked about cars in the kitchen while Max made the drinks. “I’ve been looking at cars,” Max said, “but I decided I wouldn’t buy one this year. I have to cut down. And I don’t really need a car. You see I’m sending my kid brother through college. My folks have split up and I feel pretty responsible for this kid. I’m all he’s got. I worked my way through college—Jesus, I did everything—and I don’t want him to go through that rat race. I want him to take it easy for four years. I want him to have everything he needs. I want him to feel that he’s as good as the next fellow for a few years. …” They went back into the living room, where the women were still talking about curtains. Max showed Coverly some photographs of his brother and went on talking about him and at half-past ten they said good night and walked home.
Betsey was no gardener but she bought some canvas chairs for the back yard and some wooden lattice to conceal the garbage pail. They could sit there on summer nights. She was pleased with what she had done and one summer night the Tellermans came over to christen—as Betsey said—the back yard with rum. It was a warm night and most of their neighbors were in their yards. Josie and Betsey were talking about bedbugs, cockroaches and mice. Coverly was speaking affectionately of West Farm and the fishing there. He wasn’t drinking himself and he disliked the smell of rum that came from the others, who were drinking a lot. “Drink, drink,” Josie said. “It’s that kind of a night.”
It was that kind of a night. The air was hot and fragrant and from the kitchen, where he mixed the drinks, Coverly looked out of the window into the Frascatis’ back yard. There he saw the young Frascati girl in a white bathing suit that accentuated every line of her body but the crease in her buttocks. Her brother was spraying her gently with a garden hose. There was no horseplay, there were no outcries, there was no sound at all while the young man dutifully sprayed his beautiful sister. When Coverly had mixed the drinks he carried them out. Josie had begun to talk about her mother. “Oh, I wish you people could have met my mother,” she said. “I wish you kids could have met my mother.” When Betsey asked Coverly to fill the glasses once more he said they were out of rum. “Run down to the shopping center and get a bottle, honey,” Josie said. “It’s that kind of a night. We only live once.”
“We only pass this way once,” Betsey said.
“I’ll get some,” Coverly said.
“Let me, let me,” Max said. “Betsey and I’ll go.” He pulled Betsey out of her chair and they walked together toward the shopping center. Betsey felt wonderful. It’s that kind of a night, was all she could think to say, but the fragrant gloom and the crowded houses where the lights were beginning to go out and the noise of sprinklers and the snatches of music all made her feel that the pain of traveling and moving and strangeness and wandering was ended and that it had taught her the value of permanence and friendship and love.
Everything delighted her then—the moon in the sky and the neon lights of the shopping center—and when Max came out of the liquor store she thought what a distinguished, what an athletic and handsome man he was. Walking home he gave Betsey a long, sad look, put his arms around her and kissed her. It was a stolen kiss, Betsey thought, and it was that kind of a night, it was the kind of a night where you could steal a kiss. When they got back to Circle K, Coverly and Josie were in the living room. Josie was still talking about her mother.