Wheels

This morning, when Erica heard Adam moving around in the bathroom and downstairs, she considered changing the routine and joining him. Then she reminded herself that all he wanted was to move fast - like the go-go cars his Product Planning team conceived; the latest, the soon-to-be-unveiled Orion - and be on his way. Also, with his damned efficiency, Adam could make breakfast just as speedily as Erica - for a half-dozen people if necessary, as he sometimes had. Despite this, she debated getting up, and was still debating when she heard Adam's car start, and leave. Then it was too late.

Where have all the flowers gone? Where the love, the life, the vanished idyll of Adam and Erica Trenton, young lovers not so long ago? O where, O where!

***

Erica slept.

When she awakened it was midmorning, and a watery autumn sun was slanting in through slats of the venetian blinds.

Downstairs, a vacuum cleaner whined and thumped, and Erica was relieved that Mrs. Gooch, who cleaned twice a week, had let herself in and was already at work. It meant that today Erica need not bother with the house, though lately, in any case, she had paid much less attention to it than she used to do.

A morning paper was beside the bed. Adam must have left it there, as he sometimes did. Propping herself up with pillows, her long ashblond hair tumbling over them, Erica unfolded it.

A sizable portion of page one was given over to an attack on the auto industry by Emerson Vale. Erica skipped most of the news story, which didn't interest her, even though there were times when she felt like attacking the auto world herself. She had never cared for it, not since first coming to Detroit, though she had tried, for Adam's sake. But the all-consuming interest in their occupations which so many auto people had, leaving time for little else, repelled her. Erica's own father, an airline captain, had been good at his job, but always put it behind him mentally when he left an Island Airways cockpit to come home. His greater interests were being with his family, fishing, pottering at carpentry, reading, strumming a guitar, and sometimes just sitting in the sun. Erica knew that even now her own mother and father spent far more time together than she and Adam did.

It was her father who had said, when she announced her sudden plans to marry Adam: "You're your own girl and always have been. So I won't oppose this because, even if I did, it would make no difference and I'd sooner you go with my blessing than without. And maybe, in time, I'll get used to having a son-in-law almost my own age. He seems a decent man; I like him. But one thing I'll warn you of: He's ambitious, and you don't know yet what ambition means, especially up there in Detroit. If the two of you have trouble, that'll be the cause of it." She sometimes thought how observant - and how right - her father had been.

Erica's thoughts returned to the newspaper and Emerson Vale, whose face glared out from a two-column cut. She wondered if the youthful auto critic was any good in bed, then thought: probably not. She had heard there were no women in his life, nor men either, despite abortive efforts to smear him with a homosexual tag. Humanity, it seemed, had a depressing proportion of capons and worn-out males. Listlessly, she turned the page.

There was little that held interest, from international affairs - the world was in as much a mess as on any other day - through to the social section, which contained the usual auto names: the Fords had entertained an Italian princess, the Roches were in New York, the Townsends at the Symphony, and the Chapins duck hunting in North Dakota. On another page Erica stopped at Ann Landers' column, then mentally began composing a letter of her own: My problem, Ann, is a married woman's cliche.

There are jokes about it, but the jokes are made by people it isn't happening to. The plain truth is - if I can speak frankly as one woman to another - I'm simply not getting enough . . . Just lately I've not been getting any . . .

With an impatient, angry gesture Erica crumpled the newspaper and pulled the bedclothes aside, She slid from the bed and went to the window where she tugged vigorously at the blind cord so that full daylight streamed in. Her eyes searched the room for a brown alligator handbag she had used yesterday; it was on a dressing table. Opening the bag, she riffled through until she found a small, leather-covered notebook which she took - turning pages as she went - to a telephone by Adam's side of the bed.

She dialed quickly - before she could change her mind - the number she had found in the book. As she finished, Erica found her hand trembling and put it on the bed to steady herself. A woman's voice answered, "Detroit Bearing and Gear."

Erica asked for the name she had written in the notebook, in handwriting so indecipherable that only she could read it.

"What department is he in?"

"I think-sales."

"One moment, please."

Erica could still hear the vacuum cleaner somewhere outside. At least, while that continued, she could be sure Mrs. Gooch was not listening.

There was a click and another voice answered, though not the one she sought. She repeated the name she had asked for.

"Sure, he's here." She heard the voice call "Ollie!" An answering voice said, "I got it," then, more clearly, "Hullo."

"Here is Erica." She added uncertainly, "You know, we met . . ."

"Sure, sure; I know. Where are you?"

"At home."

"What number?"

She gave it to him.

"Hang up. Call you right back."

Erica waited nervously, wondering if she would answer at all, but when the ring back came, she did so immediately.

"Hi, baby!"

"Hullo," Erica said.

"Some phones are better'n other phones for special kindsa calls."

"I understand."

"Long time no see."

"Yes. It is."

A pause.

"Why'd you call, baby?"

"Well, I thought . . . we might meet."

"Why?"

"Perhaps for a drink."

"We had drinks last time. Remember? Sat all afternoon in that goddamn Queensway Inn bar."

"I know, but . . ."

"An' the same thing the time before that."

"That was the very first time; the time we met there."

"Okay, so you don't put out the first time. A dame cuts it the way she sees; fair enough. But the second time a guy expects to hit the coconut, not spend an afternoon of his time in a big gabfest. So I still say - what's on your mind?"

"I thought . . . if we could talk, just a little, I could explain"

"No dice."

She let her hand holding the phone drop down. In God's name, what was she doing, even talking with this... There must be other men.

But where?

The phone diaphragm rasped, "You still there, baby?"

She lifted her hand again. "Yes."

"Listen, I'll ask you something. You wanna get laid?"

Erica was choking back tears, tears of humiliation, selfdisgust.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, that's what I want."

"You're sure, this time. No more big gabfest?"

Dear God! Did he want an affidavit? She wondered: Were there really women so desperate, they would respond to an approach so crude?

Obviously, yes.

"I'm sure," Erica said.

"That's great, kiddo! How's if we hit the sack next Wednesday?"

"I thought . . . perhaps sooner." Next Wednesday was a week away.

"Sorry, baby; no dice. Gotta sales trip. Leave for Cleveland in an hour.

Be there five days." A chuckle. "Gotta keep them Ohio dolls happy."

Erica forced a laugh. "You certainly get around."

"You'd be surprised."

She thought: No, I wouldn't. Not at anything, any more.

"Call you soon's I get back. While I'm gone, you keep it warm for me."

A second's pause, then: "You be all right Wednesday? You know what I mean?"

Erica's control snapped. "Of course I know. Do you think I'm so stupid not to have thought of that?"

"You'd be surprised how many don't."

In a detached part of her mind, as if she were a spectator, not a participant, she marveled:

Has he ever tried making a woman feel good, instead of awful?

"Gotta go, baby. Back to the salt mines! Another day, another dollar!"

"Goodbye," Erica said.

"S'long."

She hung up. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed silently until her long, slim fingers were wet with tears.

***

Later, in the bathroom, washing her face and using make-up to conceal the signs of crying as best she could, Erica reasoned: There was a way out.

It didn't have to happen a week from now. Adam could prevent it, though he would never know.

If only, within the next seven nights he would take her, as a husband could and should, she would weather this time, and afterward, somehow, tame her body's urgency to reasonableness. All she sought - all she had ever sought - was to be loved and needed, and in return to give love. She still loved Adam. Erica closed her eyes, remembering the way it was when he first loved and needed her.

And she would help Adam, she decided. Tonight, and other nights if necessary, she would make herself irresistibly attractive, she'd wash her hair so it was sweet-smelling, use a musky perfume that would tantalize, put on her sheerest negligee . . . Wait! She would buy a new negligee - today, this morning, now . . . in Birmingham.

Hurriedly, she began to dress.