Late in the evening the four of them left the BV to go somewhere, anywhere, needing a change. They felt no particular duty to food but were certain they wanted more to drink. Beneath the dripping awning outside they waited pointlessly for the downpour to stop, then pushed open umbrellas and walked, waddling with drunkard’s feet. Their words hung in the fog, street lamps illuminated airborne wings of rain.
Three blocks further into North Beach and up two floors they came to Jay’s, huddled under the eaves of the building. The rooms had wood floors and high ceilings, there was a cold fireplace and a harsh overhead. Charlotte collapsed, shivering, into a brown sofa and Robin sat burrowed with her feet under cushions of an overstuffed chair. They drank wine. Jay and Bill talked about their days as radio jocks. Wacky tales of drugs, sex and depraved broadcasting. They all laughed. Jay and Bill retold the same stories better and they all laughed harder. Men’s reminiscences. Charlotte studied Jay, bulky and graceless, his unruly tufts of hair and brash manner, then looked at Bill Fowler, flawless and comfortable in his lovely body. He was too predictable, she thought, self-absorbed and distant.
They ran out of wine and switched to beer. Jay dug out his radio tapes, air checks. He pulled tapes off the shelf to loop into an old reel-to-reel recorder, and they listened and hooted and drank until Charlotte knew she should leave before she passed out or threw up on Jay’s brown sofa.
Bill found her in the hallway retrieving her coat and umbrella. “Wait,” he said. “Come in here.” The room was chilly and contained only a double bed splayed under another blazing overhead bulb. He closed the door and began absentmindedly unzipping her skirt, unhooking her bra, never pausing to embrace her. Charlotte began removing his clothes, her hands trembling with cold and longing, the light burning a surreal image of Bill’s fine, slender body into her wobbly brain.
He turned off the merciless overhead and they fumbled as two people will in their first effort together; oversized nocturnal souls whose intimacy was reduced to narrow moves by torpor, unfamiliarity and the size of the mattress. But there was nothing about Bill’s faculty or ardor, no veiled lust revealed beneath his unruffled surface or discovery of a tremendous pleasure that impressed Charlotte. Plainly he expected accolade, though she said nothing. This was an imagined obligation to Mary Ann, to Jay and Robin, to all of those who saw them leave the BV together. They were drunk, fulfilling expectations, it was duty; a useful biological act. Not for ten years had Charlotte dived so gracelessly into instinct with a near stranger. Grasping the edge of the mattress she slept. Before daybreak her dreams hovered somewhere in that swamp between flights of desire and a muzzy, restless reality.
She woke just after dawn, close to seven, dressed, paused to hold back a ruinous hangover, left her number and crept into another bleak February day. Picked her way down the hill to her small haven to wash away the night and shore up her rectitude, there was no honor left in yesterday’s clothes.
At five that afternoon Mary Ann strolled by Charlotte’s desk. “I hear you two got together last night. Bill said he’d give you a call this weekend.”
Charlotte glanced sideways, out from under her hair. “We got awfully sozzled, I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
“Good for you, wish I could’ve been there. Did you ever see such a body?”
“Would’ve been crowded with you there, don’t you think? I was surprised when you left the BV so suddenly.”
“You were a lucky woman last night.” she said, “My kid’s a real hunk. I’ll send along your regards.”
Friday evening after work Charlotte went directly home, anxious for refuge, still hung over, last night’s opinion of Bill now masked in promise. She nibbled at dinner, then slept, swaddled in a void unbroken by phone calls.
Saturday morning she awoke clear-headed, despite the ubiquitous fog. There was something buoyant to a weekend free from captivity. That Bill had not called occurred to her mid-afternoon like a stomach cramp, while she stood at the laundry. When she returned home there was a message on her machine, not from Bill, but from a research firm in the Cannery, asking her to talk about a job. Even thoughts of escaping her dreary position at the import house barely obscured an inexplicable, rising ache about Bill. Sunday she felt compelled to linger near the phone, unable to leave. By that evening hope faded, reprisal took its place. Bill deserved to know she wasn’t interested, but not until he was interested in her. She could be as aloof as he was, as unattainable. The indignity was painful.
At lunch on Monday she went for the interview at the Cannery. Charlotte returned to her desk to find Mary Ann tucking paper into a file folder.
Mary Ann looked up, flipped the file closed. “Did he call?”
“Nope.” Charlotte tossed a sandwich bag onto her desk.
“Huh. I’ve been trying to reach him myself, I guess he’s out of town. He does that to me sometimes, tries to escape; changes his number and doesn’t tell me. He hides but I find him. He’s my best pal – we’re so close; he just doesn’t appreciate everything I do for him.” Her words were a grumble. “When I talk to him should I tell him hello from you or something?”
“Sure,” Charlotte said, unwrapping her sandwich, “or something.”
On Wednesday the people from the research firm in the Cannery called, asking Charlotte to meet with them at the BV after work. They sat drinking weak drinks while they talked salary. What they offered was twice what she made, but it was still disappointing. She’d hoped for more, they held fast. She was bad at these exercises, disliked bargaining.
Bill came in early that evening, his arms encircling small, beautiful Robin, with her smooth tan skin, graceful neck and large brown eyes. They sat across the room, Bill facing Charlotte but staring at Robin, stroking her hand, newly infatuated.
As much as she’d felt drawn to Bill this weekend, now she knew she’d been gulled. Bill’s intention was never more than a lark – she’d been a gift, unwitting prey. Seeing Bill and Robin paired Charlotte felt discarded. The dull thud in her stomach diminished her enthusiasm for this conversation about salary. It was all she needed to relent, she accepted their offer. Charlotte was her own albatross.
She left Sweeney Imports at the end of the month for her new position in the Cannery, more interesting work and some travel. Now she ate lunch at the BV regularly, drank there often. She came to know the bartenders, Martin and Woody.
Charlotte moved to new digs further into North Beach, still within range of the BV. This was sanctuary: larger, chic, had a view of the bay. She became preoccupied with her move and immersed in her job, until the jetsam of Bill and Robin and Mary Ann was swept away.
That was twenty years ago. Charlotte had been gone for eighteen, lived in Chicago, hadn’t been back. Now she was in town for a conference. Twitchy by the second evening, she stood at her hotel window looking out, persistent rain obscuring her view of the city. She took a cab from Union Square down to the BV, past her old garage apartment, dark and snug in the pitch of the hill.
Charlotte sat at the bar. She looked around and remembered, gazed at the table where the four of them had sat that night Little was changed in the room itself, only in what she’d become, where she’d been since then. Aware that now she was the flush nighthawk, Charlotte wondered if she’d grown wiser or just more experienced.
The bar was quiet. She asked for a draft, handed her American Express card to the bartender. He was an interesting looking man, with unruly tufts of hair and a pleasant face, an overhang of a nose. She asked about Martin and Woody, if they were still around. The bartender studied Charlotte, thinking. “No,” he said, “I’d sure remember those names. You’ve been here before, though, I believe,” he looked at the name on her card as he handed it back to her, “I can almost recall.” He smiled and held out his hand. “My name is Jay.”
Charlotte felt a buoyancy lift from between her shoulders, move to the open transom over the door of the BV, out to the underside of the awning and paused before it floated over the bay and away into the night sky.
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