Early Warning

Paul Darnell was more than thirty, and he was a doctor. He had just opened an ear, nose, and throat practice. He was scowling, abrupt, and from Philadelphia. He hated Des Moines, hated Iowa, hated humidity, hated the Midwest, didn’t much like being a doctor, and was vocally glad that ears, noses, and throats only rarely led to sudden death (influenza and scarlet fever he sent to the hospital, and throat cancer he sent to the oncologist). He planned to treat ear infections by day and pursue the passion that his father, also a doctor, had forbidden, by night — playwriting. He thought Claire was not at all plain. Her eyes were diamond-shaped; he took her glasses off and gazed at them. Her hands were slim and graceful. She had great ankles, and a twenty-two-inch waist, and she was funny. On their third date (for dinner, then The Big Country) he said, “I am perfect for you,” and thereafter proceeded as if she had said yes to an official proposal. He did not remind her of anyone she had ever met. Ruth said he was “a catch.”

Paul told her that, in the quiet backwaters of Des Moines, he could write in peace and comfort for ten years, then explode onto the New York scene (though not Broadway — never Broadway, which was far too corrupt to produce anything really meaningful). He talked in a way no one else she had known talked — he ranted, argued, joked, and gave her compliments. He responded to each of her facial expressions as if she had said something. Claire thought that if he just wrote down half of what he said while he was saying it, he would have a play.

Ruth’s idea was that you could tell your intended was getting closer and closer to proposing each time he added a regular date to his schedule. She had gotten Howie Schlegel, and now Ed, from Friday, to Saturday, all the way up to Sunday. Howie had dropped out after about three months, not ready for the pressure. Ed seemed to be holding up, though his family were not already members of the Wakonda Country Club, but over there in Davenport, where they were from, his father and his uncle did play plenty of golf on the public course.

Claire did not want to be spending her Sunday afternoons, or even every Friday evening, with anyone, so she and Paul suited one another, since he liked to have a lot of time to himself, but also to call her at the last minute and ask her out. He did everything abruptly. All of this Claire kept to herself. When Rosanna asked her whether she had any special “beaux,” she said she did not, and Rosanna just put her hands on her hips and got a look that said that she had expected this all along. But Rosanna had been married at nineteen and a mother at twenty, and Lillian was just the same, and even though Granny Elizabeth had been very cruel that day on the beach, well, in the end, was she any crueler than Ruth, who was always suggesting hairstyles and lipsticks? As long as Paul was sure they were going to get married, then Claire’s job was to make best use of her present freedom. No, Paul was not a farmer, and did not remind her of her father, but he was attentive, and her goal was attained: since he was not like Frank, Joe, or Henry, she would not be like Andy, Lillian, or Lois.

—

ONE DAY TOWARD the middle of May, Jim Upjohn called Frank at the office and told him to come after work to the Plaza. There was a man he wanted Frank to meet. Andy was in Iowa, visiting her parents, and Nedra was staying through the weekend, so Frank had been planning a rendezvous at the Grand Canyon with a girl named “Ionia” (really Effie, though Effie didn’t know that Frank had looked through her purse when she went to clean up the last time), but Jim pressed him, and so he went.

The man was an oddball, in the sense that he was wearing a very expensive suit, certainly made for him, but he was so impossible to fit that he looked terrible anyway. When he went to shake Frank’s hand, his hand enveloped Frank’s in a horny clamp even though he was six inches shorter. His hair marched around his red, shiny head in patches, and there was a quality of scaliness to his bald parts. His eyes were bright and suspicious. Jim said, “Dave, I want you to meet Frank Langdon. He might be the man you’re looking for.”

“Not looking for a man,” said Dave (Dave Courtland, it was; Frank had heard of him, though he wasn’t sure where).

“Are you looking for a woman?” said Frank.

“Not looking,” said Dave Courtland.

And Jim Upjohn said, “Well, you better be; otherwise, your kids are going to ease you out of there before you know it.”