Schmidt Steps Back Read Online Free PDF Page B

about the project from Gil and would have liked to ask her whether there was anything Joe wasn’t touchy about. But before he could speak, she tapped his hand and said, Ah, here at last.
    Canning was heading toward the table. One might havesaid he was sauntering over if he hadn’t been slightly dragging his left foot, possibly owing to a small stroke or a back problem or, as seemed more probable to Schmidt, the acting out of his reluctance to draw nearer. At last, he deposited a kiss on the top of Caroline’s head and sat down looking straight through Schmidt and disregarding the hand that Schmidt had held out. This was par for the course. What a preposterous man: a lawyer doing something or other in the management of an insurance company who remakes himself into a writer, divorces a wife as unpleasant as he, and promptly marries this splendid lady, who is to boot a noted and respected biographer! He pulls off that coup even before publishing his first novel, which makes him famous, and remains as appalling ever since. Why does he have to go through some variant of this insulting routine each time we meet? He retracted his hand.
    Joe, said Caroline, Schmidtie’s here, he’s been trying to greet you. And on the other side of him is Elaine.
    Yes, yes, Canning answered peevishly, even in my diminished state—
non sum qualis eram
—he! he! I can still recognize my old acquaintance from college and law school, and also the wife of my occasional collaborator, himself a college acquaintance. I see them here often enough. Shall we say each time I set foot here? What would that be, twice a day? Or does Gil now count as a friend? I can’t tell.
    This could have been taken as a cue for Elaine to assure both Cannings of Gil’s and her devotion, or for Schmidt to throw his glass of red wine at the novelist, if that could be managed without splashing Caroline. But Elaine said nothing, and Schmidt didn’t take the bait, only saying to himself, Goddamn Canning, he has gotten under Elaine’s skin, a feat hitherto thought impossible. Out of compassion for the politeand clever Caroline, he spoke to Canning: I’m very glad to see you, Joe. I’ve just returned from Europe. It’s been quite a while since we last met.
    It really doesn’t matter. One doesn’t pay attention to such trivia.
    His voice trailed off, but he went on staring at Schmidt. Could Canning be waiting for an answer to some question he thought he had put? Schmidt had had more than enough of him, and since inexplicably neither Elaine nor Caroline seemed ready to redirect the conversation, he decided to do it, even though Caroline was left with only her husband to talk to. But that was her business. Mike and she had good reasons for indulging Canning’s whims, including where he was placed at table, and for suffering the minor consequences, but Schmidt emphatically did not. You could count on Canning to make you disregard duties of friendship.
    Taking advantage, therefore, of a pause in her conversation with the emaciated Meadow Club stalwart on her left, he said, Dear Elaine, I’m so glad and so grateful that you’ve asked Alice and me to dinner tomorrow. She was a bit nervous, but I think I’ve reassured her, and being able to talk to Gil tonight should make her see it will be all right. I want nothing more than for you and Gil to get to know her well—and to like her.
    Of course, it will be all right, my darling Schmidtie. Elaine took his hand and squeezed it.
    It was necessary to speak to her about Alice, and now it was done.
    Thank you, Schmidt said, however many times I say that to you tonight it won’t be enough. Let me ask you about the girls. We may not get much of a chance to talk about them tomorrow. How are they?
    The girls were three in number: Lily, Elaine’s daughter from a brief first marriage, and the two she’d had with Gil. Girls! That was what they used to call them twenty years earlier, and even then they were already young women. Schmidt