Chapter 3
Martinis with the Merry Widow
A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER, about a month after Dudley’s death, his wife, Eliza, telephoned me and said that she would like to see me. She had, she said, a proposal that she would like me to consider.
A proposal? A proposition? I was on my bicycle in a minute. Riding southward toward the five-way light that marked a point in the boundary between the old, genteel Babbington, and the new, vulgar Babbington where I lived, I speculated about the proposal Eliza intended to make. I was, I remind you, a thirteen-year-old boy (more precisely, nearly thirteen and two-thirds) just finishing the ninth grade, since I had skipped the third, so I fervently hoped that the proposal would have something to do with sex. It seemed not impossible to me that Eliza might want me to provide her with a sexual outlet now that Dudley was gone. She would propose a sophisticated and civilized arrangement. I would assure her that I would be more than happy to comply, that I would gladly provide her with any sexual services that she cared to teach me to provide.
How old was Eliza then? Let me see: she was considerably younger than Dudley and, of course, considerably older than I. It would be a good guess to say that she was thirty-two or thirty-three, just about my mother’s age.
She interviewed me in the living room. It was, as I recall, early afternoon. She was wearing something cream colored, silk, possibly thin enough for me to make out the outlines of her underwear, but I can’t be certain about that, because I find that when I bring the women of my past to mind, their clothing has become far finer and sheerer in memory than it ever was in fact, and I can see lovely bits of them now that I know I never saw then.
She was drinking a martini. I’m sure of that.
“Do you want anything?” she asked.
At thirteen? I wanted everything.
“Um, no,” I said, as I’d been taught to say when offered anything I wanted. “No thanks.”
“Some lemonade or something?”
“Well — do you have Coffee-Toffee?”
“Coffee-Toffee?”
“It’s soda, a kind of soda.”
“No, I don’t have that. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
She raised her eyebrows, gave a little laugh, and got up. She took a cocktail glass from a cabinet, and she filled it from a shaker on a sideboard where there were several cut-glass decanters and equipment for the making of drinks.
“This will be mostly water,” she said, “but you can tell your friends that you spent the afternoon drinking martinis with a merry widow.”
I tried it. It seemed strong to me. “Mmm, delicious,” I said.
“Let me explain what I have in mind,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, trying not to seem too eager.
She sighed and lit a cigarette.
“I’m going abroad for a few weeks.”
“Huh?”
“Abroad,” she repeated, shaking the match out, dropping it into an ashtray, removing the cigarette from her mouth, exhaling. “Overseas. To Europe.”
“Oh.” This was a surprise. Europe. She wanted me to join her for an extended stay in Europe. Of course. She understood that I had always been attracted to her, and she had developed an attraction for me, but Babbington was no place to carry on a liaison with a boy considerably less than half her age. On the other hand, from what I’d heard Europe was just the place. This would be a great opportunity for me. I would learn a lot from Europe and from Eliza. I would be richer for the experience. I would have stories to tell when I returned. I would stand out from all the Babbington boys who had never traveled through Europe with Eliza. Patti would notice my European patina, my worldly air, savvy and cynical demeanor, my je ne sais quoi. It would be wonderful.
“I’m going away so that I don’t have to endure all this sympathy.”
“I understand,” I said. I didn’t. I hadn’t noticed that she had had to endure much sympathy.
“Or maybe I’m just going away to be away for a while. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.” She knocked the ash from her cigarette. She used her cigarette much as Dudley had used his pipe, using the business of smoking to create a rhythm for the things she said. After a moment had passed in the business of smoking, she said, “Peter, I want to offer you a job.”
“What is it?” I asked. Translator seemed a possibility, since I had started taking French. I didn’t have much of a vocabulary yet; I’d have to get to work.
[to be continued]
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