Into the Night

“From there I went into a package store and bought a half pint of bourbon, which was the smallest amount I could get. Since it wasn’t intended for drinking, there was no use spending too much money on it.

“I tried to think of what else might conjure up a fictitious masculine presence, but nothing further would come readily to mind. I was determined to make this as realistic as possible, no holds barred.

“There was a little elderly man, well, I should say about sixty, on the late-afternoon to late-evening elevator shift in our building. All the others were youngsters. I went outside to the hall and rang for him, after he’d come on, and handed him the two cigars with one of the strangest requests I bet he’d ever had yet from a woman tenant.

“‘Smoke these,’ I said, ‘but be sure you bring me back the butts. I want both butts back. And not too... er... soggy, if you can help it.’

“He did a very good job of covering up whatever surprise he must have felt. ‘Will tomorrow be all right?’ he asked. ‘I’ll smoke one when I get my coffee break at six, and I’ll save the other for tonight when I get home—’

“‘No, no, no!’ I said quickly. ‘I’ve got to have them both back, and no later than five-thirty. You’ll have to work it out the best you can.’

“‘It’s kind of heavy smoking,’ he said dubiously.

“I went inside and got the rest of the stage setting ready. I got out two highball glasses and poured about an inch of the whiskey in each one. Then I stood them side by side, very close together, on our knee-high refreshment table in the front room. Then I filled a big bowl with ice cubes, and ran hot water over them from the faucet, so they looked like they’d been slowly melting away for hours. Then I got hold of all the cushions in the room and scattered them all around that one particular place on the sofa opposite where the drinks were, throwing some on the floor, to make it look like there’d been quite a hot thing going on there.

“I went into the bedroom and I took particular pains with the bed. I pulled it all apart first, so that it looked like an earthquake had hit it. Then I telescoped the two pillows one on top of the other, and kept punching my hand into them until I had a big hollow in their centers. Then I got out a pair of my pink nylon underpants and shoved them down underneath between the sheets, but letting them show just enough. I mean, even beds that had had it happen didn’t look that realistic.

“I disarranged my hair a little bit, but not to an extreme, because the first thing a woman will do is see to her hair, no matter how preoccupied she is or was. I put on more lipstick than I usually use, and then I took a Kleenex and purposely smeared it offside from one corner, as though I’d been wildly kissed. Then I took the whiskey bottle, and using it like you do toilet water, put a drop here and a drop there and a drop behind each ear. The rest I sprinkled all over the carpet, so that I had the room smelling like a distillery.

“The bell rang and Dave had brought back the two cigar stubs sitting atop an empty envelope. ‘I kept one going on top a corner of the mailbox in the lobby,’ he said, ‘and the other on top a fire extinguisher on the fourteenth floor, and every time I had the car empty I’d step out and take a few puffs. But I feel kind of bilious. I never smoked two at once like that before.’

“I tipped him for his trouble and took the cigars. I balanced one on a tray beside the two whiskey glasses. I took the other one into the bedroom and put that in a tray right next to the bed. To get any closer it would have had to be in the bed.

“Then I sat down and waited. Waited for him to come home and be jealous. And be interested again in me.

“It would have been just the kind of luck I ran in not to have him come home at all, after I’d gone to all that trouble. He often stayed out like that on nights when he was seeing her; went straight from work to pick her up for dinner or whatever it was they had on, throwing me a terse ‘Staying downtown tonight. Be back later on’ by phone on his way over. He couldn’t have made those messages more impersonal if he’d tried — he even left out the I’s and You’s. And never even a reason given anymore. I wasn’t even worth lying to!

“But I got a break in this one small thing at least, if nothing else. A taxi stopped at the door and I saw him step out and come into the building.

“I stood up and got on cue for the curtain to rise.

“He put his key to the door and opened it, and I gave a startled little hitch, as if I’d been taken by surprise. ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘I didn’t expect you so soon.’

“‘When did you expect me?’ he said, with complete neutrality, complete disinterest.

“I saw that he had as little an eye for the room as he had for me, and he was going to miss the whole thing if I didn’t point it up to him.