The gray-haired man straightened his back and placed the flat of his free hand on the top of his head, and said, “Now, do you mean?”
“Yeah. I mean if it’s all right with you. I’ll only stay a minute. I’d just like to sit down somewhere and—I don’t know. Would it be all right?”
“Yeah, but the point is I don’t think you should, Arthur,” the gray-haired man said, lowering his hand from his head. “I mean you’re more than welcome to come, but I honestly think you should just sit tight and relax till Joanie waltzes in. I honestly do. What you want to be, you want to be right there on the spot when she waltzes in. Am I right, or not?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t know.”
“Well, I do, I honestly do,” the gray-haired man said. “Look. Why don’t you hop in bed now, and relax, and then later, if you feel like it, give me a ring. I mean if you feel like talking. And don’t worry. That’s the main thing. Hear me? Willya do that now?”
“All right.”
The gray-haired man continued for a moment to hold the phone to his ear, then lowered it into its cradle.
“What did he say?” the girl immediately asked him. He picked his cigarette out of the ashtray—that is, selected it from an accumulation of smoked and halfsmoked cigarettes. He dragged on it and said, “He wanted to come over here for a drink.”
“God! What’d you say?” said the girl.
“You heard me,” the gray-haired man said, and looked at her. “You could hear me. Couldn’t you?” He squashed out his cigarette.