572
PARTISAN REVIEW
the zero weather. Corinne's classic knees decorated either side of an
enormous thigh of a paralyzed middleman who desperately tried to
avoid her eyes. But then she giggled mercifully, and everyone relaxed.
The men all had on heavy college rings, wedding bands, and
nameplates; Harold, Dick, and Fitz. Corinne had the same, except
hers were a bit smaller. In fact, everybody on the entire plane seemed
to have on rings and nameplates, from the Jewish rear stewardess,
T.
Rich, to the imperturbable Scandinavian Captain Anderson.
The men were talking a highly technical language, perhaps out
of some long forgotten embarrassment. They were not your everyday
salesmen, but some kind of engineers, probably petro-chemical or
geo-morphological. Corinne winced out of the window. New Jersey
appeared like a load of soiled, forgotten diapers. The men were el–
bowing each other, fighting for breathing room, the cabbie was
talking about getting mugged, the windows were steaming up.
Somebody said, "Well, what the hell do they expect me to do? Start
over at forty-two?"
Then they were above the city on a spiral ramp, with the cabbie
calling out for hotels; the Sheraton for Dick, the Hilton for Harold,
and the St. Regis for Fitz, the latter of which they now approached .
Fitz, who had crushed his legs into a corner for the entire trip to avoid
touching Corinne , now tapped her on the knee with
U.S. News
&
World Report
and asked her if she were free for dinner. Freed from
the anonymous bulk of his fellows, he appeared not at all badly put
together .
About the only unattractive thing about Corinne Huff was her
laugh, or rather the lack of one . Her jubilation had been so un–
abashed and full throated, and her school friends had teased her
about it so severely, that she had taken to stopping it by opening her
mouth so theatrically wide as to cut off the epiglottis, and it was this
noiseless guffaw at his odd, officious approach, which now spent
itself upon Fitz, furrowing his clear brow.
I I
Look, " he stammered ,
I I
I didn't mean . . . "
Corinne didn't know whether she was ashamed of belittling his
casualness or put off by his ultimate tentativeness; she had told her–
self recently and repeatedly that women's greatest foolishness was
their over-concern about how they were treated initially and their
circumspection at how they were treated eventually . She closed her
mouth on this thought.
