Death Pulls a Doublecross [= Cowards Kiss]

“More than great,” she said. “It’s marvelous and magnificent and delirious and delovely and everything.” Her face went serious again. “This could be that break we were talking about, Ed. Kaspar has a hell of a reputation and the play is beautiful. Really beautiful. And the critics will eat it up. They always go nuts over Lorca revivals — there was one a year and a half ago, just a short run, and I saw it and it was the most amateurish mess with a terrible cast and rotten direction. And they got rave reviews.”

She paused and breathed again. “It could be a tremendous break,” she said.

“When do you go into rehearsal?”

“Maury wasn’t sure. Kaspar didn’t say a word on the subject, of course. He never says anything. But Maury said Kaspar was talking about rehearsing upstate and opening out of town first. He’s done that before. We’ll probably leave New York around the middle of the month and spend the summer in some hole upstate, then open in New Haven or Boston at the start of the season. That’s a guess, anyhow.”

She smiled at me. “Will you miss me, Ed?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Will you?”

“Uh-huh. Especially at night.”

And then, while we talked about other things, all in preparation for the inevitable trip to the bedroom which we both wanted and needed very much, I thought about some other things that had been going through my mind. Thoughts about how she looked in the morning, how she would be to come home to. How the name Maddy London sounded.

That kind of thing.

Those thoughts seemed sort of silly now. Adolescent. In a week or two she’d be clearing out of town for a few months. She’d go without a thought, and by that time I’d watch her go without a thought myself. Maybe something would happen with us when she came back in the fall.

And maybe not.

We carried our cups of coffee into the living room. She put soft music on the record player and we sat on the couch and listened to it. I had a little brandy. She relaxed against the arm I put around her.

“Nice place,” I said.

“You like it here?”

“Uh-huh. It’s easy to unwind here.”

She smiled softly, and when she spoke there was a little extra emotion behind the words. “You should like it,” she said. “After all, you’ve been here before.