396
PARTISAN REVIEW
seemed just right. But he did not win easily.)
In
time Charlotte Carson over–
came her shyness about telephoning Ceci as if on the spur of the moment–
"J ust to say hello!"
Ceci Riegel had no such scruples, nor did Paul, who thought nothing of
telephoning friends - everywhere in the world: he knew so many people–
at virtually any time of the day or night, simply to say hello.
The confidence born of never having been rejected.
Late one evening the Carsons were delighted to hear from Paul in
Bangkok, of all places - where he was on assignment with a Life photogra–
pher.
Another time, sounding dazed and not quite himself, he telephoned them .
at 7:30
AM.
from John F. Kennedy Airport, newly arrived in the States and
homesick for the sound of "familiar" voices. He hadn 't been able to get hold
ofCeci, he complained, but they were next on his list.
Which was enormously flattering.
Sometimes when Paul was away on one of his extended trips Ceci
was, as she said, morbidly lonely, so the three of them went out for Chinese
food and a movie, or watched videos late into the night; or, impulsively,
rather recklessly, Ceci got on the phone and invited a dozen friends over, and
neighbors too, though always, first, Charlotte and Barry - "Just to feel I
ex–
ist."
Barry had not had a male friend whom he saw so regularly since col–
lege a nd the nature of his work - he was an executive with Bell Labs -
seemed to preclude camaraderie. Charlotte was his closest friend but he
rarely confided in her all that was in his heart: this wasn't his nature.
Unlike his friend Paul he preferred the ragged edges of gatherings not
their quicksilver centers. He was big-boned with heavy-lidded quizzical eyes,
a shadowy beard like shot deep in the pores of his skin, wide nostrils, a
handsome sensual mouth. He'd been an all-A student once and carried still
that air of tension and precariousness strung tight as a bow. Did he take
himself too seriously? Or not seriously enough? Wild moods swung in him,
rarely surfacing. When his wife asked him why was he so quiet, what was
he thinking, he replied smiling," othing important, honey," though resenting
the question, the intrusion. The implied assertion
I have a right to your secrets.
His heart pained him when Ceci Riegel greeted him with a hearty little
spasm of an embrace and a perfumy kiss alongside his cheek but he was not
the kind of man to fall sentimentally in love with a friend 's wife. Nor was he
the kind of man, aged forty and wondering when his life would begin, to fall
in love with his friend.
The men played squash daily when Paul was in town. Sometimes, af–
terward, they had lunch together, and a few beers, and talked about their
