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“No,” says Lincoln. “Listen, we’ve
got a month or so. Let’s agree to think about it.”
“Of course, whatever you say. And, by the way, don’t you want to edit anything in there—the phrasing, the imagery?”
“No, I think it’s fine as is.” Lincoln explains a few other details of publication and promises to send a contract.
Buford responds with a minute or so of gushing gratitude. “Oh, and I thought you’d like to know,” he adds in conclusion, “my mother is doing much better. Acupuncture. That seems to be doing the trick. Looks as if we can avoid surgery.”
“Excellent,” says Lincoln.
After he hangs up, he sits at his desk, staring at the closed door to his office. Beyond, the halls of Pistakee are silent. Outside in the alley, the Hispanic kitchen workers are chatting in their staccato Spanish while they smoke their cigarettes. Lincoln’s stomach feels a little queasy and his arm aches, but those are just the effects of the tense afternoon. Done.
FALL:
Still Life
16
THREE DAYS BEFORE Bill Lemke’s big promotion at Wrigley Field, copies of his rushed book arrive in a large carton at the Pistakee office. Duddleston makes a ceremony out of opening the box, calling the staff and Lemke himself into the conference room and serving celebratory champagne and pizza. Holding the book over his head like a trophy, the boss pronounces, “This is what we can accomplish if we put our minds to it. The old patterns are falling away. It’s up to small, agile operations like us to find the new paths.”
Unfortunately, two days later, the Cubs are eliminated from any chance of making the playoffs, and suddenly Wrigley Field Night at the ballpark turns into a meaningless contest against a lackluster team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Duddleston belatedly discovers that his wife has tickets to the ballet that evening and asks Lincoln to call Lemke with the news that the boss won’t be able to make it to the game, despite the front-row box seats that the team has provided. Lemke correctly reads the diminished interest from his publisher. “But you’re still coming, right?” he asks Lincoln through his disappointment.
“I wouldn’t miss it!” Lincoln assures, though he’d rather do anything else, short of reading another book about the team.
“Before the game, they’re going to introduce me on the pitcher’s mound and plug the book,” the author reminds him. “And then I’ve got a signing scheduled afterward at the 10th Inning, the bar down the street.”
“I’ll be there!” Lincoln trills, already wondering how long he’ll have to hang around.
“You’re my guy!” Lemke crows.
But on the afternoon before the game, Mary calls for the first time in weeks. She wants to have dinner tonight with Lincoln.
“Tonight?” He is completely upended to hear from her.
“I want to see you,” she says in a soft, pleading voice, and Lincoln imagines that his marital torture is over.
So he calls Bill Lemke again and apologetically explains the turn of events. The old sportswriter, whose long bachelorhood remains a mystery to Lincoln, can’t believe that any man would pass up a Cubs game for an attempt to reconcile with his estranged wife. “You sure you don’t want to see her some other time?” he asks. Lincoln is sure. “Well, if you can get away afterward, stop by the 10th Inning,” Lemke graciously offers.
“I’ll try to make it,” Lincoln promises insincerely.
He spends a jittery afternoon anticipating the evening, not sure what to expect. Mary was always hard to predict, hard to categorize—that was one of her attractions. She grew up in Minneapolis, in a big Swedish family that had married outside the tribe enough times to provide her with luxurious dark hair and vibrant brown eyes, color schemes that contrasted dramatically with her pale white skin. They met when he was at the Tribune and she was a few years out of Northwestern, working as a paralegal for a downtown firm, trying to decide whether to pursue a graduate degree in literature or go to law school. Mutual friends had organized a Ulysses discussion group, and Mary and Lincoln had signed up. She caught his attention immediately. Mary was gorgeous, athletic, lusty, smart, and in love with books. Plus, Lincoln quickly discovered to his glee, she enjoyed exercising a small strain of cynicism—nothing sour or deflating, just enough to blast through the numbing Midwestern niceness.
But she never went to graduate school. Even before they married, she diverted into real estate. She’d always been interested in houses and décor, and a friend who’d become a broker suggested that Mary try it out, at least until she decided what she wanted to do. And Mary turned out to be quite good at it, her style and intelligence winning the confidence of buyers. She joined a small firm and carved out a specialty in North Side Victorians, and within a few years she’d become a star saleswoman. Since North Side Victorians remained popular even through the housing bust, she was one of the few real-estate professionals who continued to do reasonably well.
Did the fact that her career flourished while his stalled contribute to the troubles in their marriage? No, Lincoln decides that he enjoyed her success, admired her for it. Something else had gone awry. Their marriage was like a promising but flawed manuscript, a work-in-progress for which he couldn’t quite find the editing solution. He loved her, he was sure of that (and he assumed she loved him in return), but love alone didn’t prevent them from drifting. The effort to have a baby had been Mary’s idea. Lincoln would have been content for them to go on as before, unencumbered and slightly unstable.
On the long, awful Saturday afternoon when she announced that she needed time apart to figure out her feelings, Lincoln was caught entirely unprepared. Through her sobs, however, he sensed that she was leaving him a small opening: that if he would seize her, whisper his love, demand she love him in return, she would wake from this madness. By then, though, he was so wounded by her desire for a break in their marriage that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but pack his things in an L.L.Bean duffel bag and leave. It took a day or so for Lincoln—lying on the air mattress in Flam’s dusty spare bedroom—to realize that he’d missed his chance, that if he loved Mary, he should have fought for her.
But now, is she giving him a second chance? He entertains a fragile optimism: in their brief phone conversation, Mary had sounded confiding, intimate—as if they’d never been apart. He vows not to let this moment pass. Tell her what he should have told her before.
They’ve arranged the date for the restaurant Erwin, a slightly pricey, artisanal-tilted favorite from their marriage. Lincoln gets there first and sits at the bar, sipping a club soda with lime (better to take it easy until he gets a feel for the flow of the occasion). Within a few minutes, he sees her approaching on the sidewalk. On this pleasant fall evening, she’s wearing a light gray sweater and a silky dark skirt that clings to her thighs as she walks. When she enters, he impulsively jumps up and takes her in his arms, giving her the sort of exuberant squeeze that dropped out of their marriage after a year or two. “Wow!” she says, gently breaking away. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
A waiter leads them to their table. The light, coppery color on Mary’s cheekbones—probably a souvenir of Sedona—reminds Lincoln of sexy excursions they made together to the Caribbean, and the dark hair curtaining her shoulders seems even more vibrant than he remembered.
The talk is awkward at first, but Lincoln orders a bottle of pinot noir, and soon the conversation eases and circles on subjects that are practiced and familiar. “I’ve been so busy!” Mary sighs, half exasperated, half pleased. “We keep signing up these corporate clients, mostly from New York, and the companies keep transferring executives out here.” She looks up from her salad. “Frankly, I think a lot of nonfinancial businesses are nervous about New York these days.”
“They don’t like the association with Wall Street?”
