Free Close Relations by Susan Isaacs Page B

me, took in a fast gulp of air. Paterno looked at Jerry and attempted an ingenuous smile. He failed, managing only to display a lot of teeth.
    “Someone
like
Lyle LoBello,” Jerry said. “Tell me, Bill, who is like LoBello?”
    Lyle LoBello was unique, at least in Gresham’s organization. He had been the governor’s appointments officer, his closest adviser, dearest pal, big-ass buddy, and, thus, the second most powerful man in New York State. He and the guv had even double-dated, and it was rumored that they frequently switched girls mid-evening. “What do you mean?” Paterno said. “No one is like LoBello. He knows upstate and—”
    “Where does he come from? Syracuse? Watertown?” Jerry demanded, letting his chair return to all four legs.
    “Brooklyn,” Paterno mumbled. “Red Hook, I think.”
    “Red Hook,” said Jerry. “Perfect. Go get him, Bill. He’s just what you need—an upstate Protestant who just happens to look and act and sound like a Neapolitan pimp and who comes from Red Hook. Really a shrewd political move, Bill. Ace.”
    “Are you nuts, Morrissey? Jesus, I’ve never seen anyone so touchy. All I did was mention LoBello and—”
    “Where are you going to put him in a campaign? On the mimeograph machine? Collating petitions? Or are you going to stick him in as something like—well, like campaign manager when I step out for a second to take a leak?”
    “Of course not!”
    “Do you think he’d take a secondary role? I mean, old Lyle’s used to being a mover.”
    “I don’t know. I mean, he’s out of a job.”
    “And he needs the money?”
    “No. It isn’t that. But—I mean, he offered to help. It was really nice of him, especially since he’s so down in the dumps about Gresham. It was just decency on his part.”
    “For which he expects nothing in return.”
    “All right. I’ll call him. Right now.” Paterno’s hand stretched for the intercom box, to jingle one of his secretaries. “I’ll tell him no thanks, that you feel you can handle upstate and that we don’t need him. Is that what you want?”
    “That’s what I want,” Jerry answered.
    Paterno pulled his glance away from Jerry’s glare and looked toward the sofa. “Excuse me, ladies,” he muttered. Eileen and I shuffled our feet, unsure whether we had received a courtesy or a dismissal.
    Jerry interpreted for us. “Out,” he said, never taking his eyes off Paterno.
    And that night, he would not take them off the ceiling. “Jerry, talk to me.”
    “What?” he mumbled, trying to will me far away, where he would not have to listen to my analyses of Paterno’s motives.
    Lying beside him on the bed, I propped myself up and leaned over, putting my face near his, interrupting his examination of the ceiling. “You’d be happier if you talked about it.”
    “No, you’d be happier. Come on, Marcia. I need some quiet.”
    “Jerry,” I murmured and leaned over to kiss his one flaw, a chicken-pox scar right below his eyebrow.
    “Marcia, just leave me alone.”
    I rolled back to my side of the bed and opened a paperback that seemed to be about a young American doctor uncovering a huge cryogenic facility with thousands of icy Nazis about to be defrosted. The cover assured me the book would not only be a breathtaking thriller but be spellbinding as well. For the third time that week I put it down. I watched Jerry watch the ceiling.
    I wanted to cradle him in my arms, pacify him with deep, humming noises. Jerry wanted silence. I wanted to lie on top of him, a shield between his heat and the cold community we worked in. Jerry wanted his own side of the bed. I wanted to recite the lines from
Othello
I had been saving since college: “Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee; and if I love thee not, chaos is come again.” Jerry wanted to listen to the ten o’clock news.
    “Listen,” he had said, about three days after I had moved into his apartment. I was sitting on top of the toilet seat, watching him shave.