Free The Body Of Jonah Boyd by David Leavitt Page B

Boyd.”
    “Jonah.”
    “Jonah. I appreciate that.”
    “Oh, Nancy, you must miss him,” Anne said, sitting down on the bed. “And on Thanksgiving!”
    Tears rimmed Nancy’ eyes. “I do miss him,” she said. “But I also respect that he’ doing what he feels he has to.” She straightened
     her back. “Well, you two must want to wash up. I’ve got the turkey to attend to. Whenever you’re ready, just come into the
     living room, and Ernest will make everyone drinks.”
    We left, closing the door behind us. Back in the kitchen, Nancy blotted her eyes, gave Daphne an unwanted hug, and checked
     to see if the turkey’ thermometer had popped. (It had not.) Then she arranged some crackers around a cheese ball rolled in
     pecans and a pile of rumaki, and we adjourned to the living room, where Anne was settling herself on the cat-stained leather
     chair, Boyd on the sofa. By now it was fairly obvious, at least to me, that the Boyds had been fighting, and that this was
     probably why they had been late. You could tell from the puffiness of Anne’ eyes, the slight rasp in her voice—a weeper’ rasp,
     as opposed to a smoker’. And Boyd himself was smiling too broadly and talking too loudly, in that way of men who believe in
     always putting on a brave face, even when the house is falling down around them. Every now and then he shot a glance of irritation
     at his wife, who was clearly incapable of such emotion-masking niceties.
    Soon Ernest came down from his eyrie. He kissed Anne, and shook Boyd’ hand manfully.
    “The Boyds would like drinks,” Nancy said. In those days, women did not mix drinks.
    “Certainly,” Ernest said. “What’ll it be?”
    “Just Coca-Cola for me, thanks,” said Boyd.
    “And you, Anne?”
    “Gin and tonic. And make it strong. After that trip, I need it.”
    “Oh, was there turbulence?” Nancy asked.
    “Only in the car on the way from the airport.”
    Nancy gave a trill-like laugh. “Anne, always such a card!”
    “No, but seriously, Ernest, I want your professional opinion on something.”
    “Honey, do we really have to go into all that?” Boyd asked.
    “Be quiet, Jonah—it’ about a problem that arose on the way here from the airport, and not for the first time, and frankly
     I’m very, very upset about this, even though my husband insists on pretending nothing’ the matter.”
    “Oh yes?” Ernest said. (As a rule, psychoanalysts loathe being asked to give free advice.)
    “Darling,” Boyd said, “I really can’t imagine why Dr. Wright should be remotely interested in our trivial little—”
    “Ernest, you’re a shrink. Wouldn’t you agree that there’ sometimes more to the trivial than meets the eye?”
    “I suppose,” Ernest said, handing Anne her drink, “though of course, as Freud himself noted, not everything has a hidden meaning.
     Sometimes a cigar and all that. Well, cin-cin.”
    “Cheers,” said Nancy.
    “This really is a beautiful house,” Boyd said. “Why, do you know this is the first time in my life I’ve been to California?”
    “He keeps losing them.”
    “Losing what?”
    “Sweetheart—”
    “His notebooks. That’ why we were late. He left them on the plane, in the seatback pocket. We were halfway here in the car
     when suddenly he says, ‘They’re not in my briefcase.’ And then we have to turn around and make a mad dash back to the airport
     and run screaming down the concourse to stop the plane before it takes off again.”
    “Notebooks?”
    “Sorry, I should have explained. He writes in notebooks. His new novel.”
    “My lady wife is making a mountain out of a molehill,” Boyd said. “It’ true, in a moment of inattention, I left the notebooks
     in the seatback pocket, thinking I’d already put them in my briefcase. But then I realized they were missing, we went back
     to the airport, and I retrieved them. The cleaners had taken them off the plane and left them with the gate agent. All this
     running screaming down