Free Oliver's Story by Erich Segal Page B

still, unfortunately, looking.
    Happily for my finances, the third and final Nash was Rodney P., a buyer who had been in Europe for the last six weeks.
    “Where does that leave you?” Steve asked, heroically continuing to join me for the early morning matches.
    “Nowhere,” I replied.
    Also I was plagued by a recurrent nightmare.
    I kept reliving that excruciating fight I had with Jenny in the first year we were married. She had wanted me to see my father, or at least to make my peace by telephone. I’m still chagrined at how I yelled at her. I was a madman. Frightened, Jenny fled to god-knows-where. I sprinted madly, turning everything in Cambridge upside down. But couldn’t find her. Then at last in panic I came home and found her waiting on the outside steps.
    That was my dream exactly, save for one detail: Jenny didn’t reappear.
    I searched as frantically as ever. I returned in desperation as I had. But Jenny wasn’t there at all.
    What was that supposed to mean?
    That I was scared of losing Jenny?
    Or that I wanted (!) to lose Jenny?
    Dr. London offered a suggestion: Was I not of late involved in yet another quest for yet another lady after yet another fit of anger?
    Yes. I was in search of Marcie Nash.
    But what does Marcie have to do with Jenny?
    Nothing, naturally.

Chapter Eighteen

    T hree weeks later, I gave up. Marcie-with-the-unknown-second-name would never call. And who could really blame her? Meanwhile I was very near collapse from my athletic schedule. Not to mention endless finger-tapping, waiting for that phone to ring. Needless to report, my legal work was lousy—when I got around to doing any. Everything was going to hell. Except my mood, which was already there. This would have to stop. So on the three-week anniversary of the Massacre at Méchant Loup, I said, That’s it, the case is closed. Tomorrow I return to sanity. And to commemorate this great occasion, I decided to play hooky for the afternoon.
    “Oliver, where can I reach you if I need you?” asked Anita, who was also near a breakdown from my ceaseless and bizarre demands for messages that never came.
    “No one needs me,” I replied, and left the office.
    Henceforth, as I walked uptown, I would no longer suffer from hallucinations. Fantasies of seeing Marcie just ahead. Naturally they always turned out to be yet another tall and slender blonde. Once I even saw one with a tennis racket. How I sprinted (I was in such splendid shape), only to be wrong again. Yet another almost-Marcie. New York City teems with her facsimiles.
    Now when I reached the Fifties, I would go by Binnendale’s department store precisely as I had before my three-week malady. Dispassionate. The mind on lofty thoughts like legal precedents or what I’d have for dinner. No more costly explorations, no more systematic cruising of the various departments in hopes of glimpsing Marcie in the Tennis Shop or maybe Lingerie. Now I’d simply glance at what the windows pitched, and move on by.
    But hey, since last I looked—that is, since yesterday—there’d been some changes. One new decoration seized my eye: EXCLUSIVE—JUST ARRIVED FROM ITALY. THE LATEST BY EMILIO ASCARELLI .
    And on the handsome shoulders of a Yalie-looking dummy was a cashmere sweater. Black. Emblazoned Alfa Romeo. But the window’s claim that this exclusive item just arrived was perjury. My body could refute it in an instant. For by chance (or maybe not by chance) I had that sweater on right now. And I’d received it several weeks ago. Three weeks, to be precise.
    At last a solid clue! Whoever handled imports must have sold or given one to Marcie in advance. I maybe now could storm the citadel, decked out in evidence, demanding and receiving instant answers.
    But hold it, Oliver. You said the frenzy’s over and it is. Move on. The goddamn cashmere case is closed.
    I was at home some minutes later, going through my vast collection of athletic garments, with a view to running in the park. I’d