This could have been a series, I suppose, but then I unexpectedly started to generate sequels. Maybe there is less pressure on the author that way. This is a sequel to
Doreen Whips Up Some Dinner,
which itself was a sequel to a story from nearly a year earlier,
Ellen and Doreen, Punished Together.
The narrator has taken up with his wife's best friend after his wife has walked out on him. This is in Brooklyn, NY in the fall of 1981.
*****
The next morning, a Saturday, it was a bit awkward to wake up with Doreen in her bed and then have breakfast with her in her apartment. A lot had changed with her in the last forty-eight hours, but I wasn't quite sure where I stood with her by that point.
Sometimes she could be quiet, even a bit shy. I wasn't the most voluble person around either. I wasn't even close to formally separated from my wife yet; all I had to go on was the nasty note she left for me the day before. For all I knew, she might have changed her mind overnight and decided to reconcile with me.
After we ate, I said, "We should go over to the apartment today and see what's going on there. Besides, I need a change of clothes."
"Aren't you a bit worried about finding Ellen there?"
I thought about it. "I guess I am, but at least I'd find out what she's thinking." Then I said, "Before we go over there, let's walk over to the Owl's Head Pier. I just want to get some fresh air."
It took us about a half-hour to get over there, but it was a nice warm day in the early fall. However, we said very little along the way, and she didn't take my hand. I glanced over at her a few times, this slender Irish girl with the reddish-brown hair she had pinned back with a hairband across the top of her head.
What was she to me? My new girlfriend now? We had a couple of bouts of oral sex the evening before, but now it almost felt like that had never happened. She was still my companion for the moment. Yet I didn't know what to do with or say to her.
When we got to the end of the pier, just to have something to say, I pointed to the St. George Ferry Terminal over a mile away on Staten Island. "Until the Verrazano Bridge opened, there used to be a ferry from here over to there."
"I guess it wasn't needed anymore."
"But if you don't have a car, how do you get there? It used to be just a short hop on the boat."
"Yeah, I see what you mean."
"Now you have to get down to Bay Ridge, take another bus across the bridge, then probably a third one to St. George or wherever." I felt a need to keep talking, so I also told her about the lack of a walkway or bike path on the bridge, but that didn't seem particularly relevant. I hoped I wasn't boring the hell out of her.
She said, "Anyway, I get it, it left a big gap in access, didn't it -- I mean the loss of the ferry?"
I had to look away from her for a moment. "Doreen, what are we doing here together?"
She leaned over the railing. "Paul, come over here and talk to me."
As I leaned next to her, she said, "Look, I don't know what exactly is going on either."
I expressed my doubts to her. "What if we go over to 59th Street and Ellen is there?"
"We won't know until it happens, will we?" Then she added, "Before we get there, call your number from a payphone. Do you think she'd answer?"
I knew Ellen's habits pretty well. "Yeah, she'd pick up the phone, I'm sure of that."
We eventually walked north on Fifth until we reached my block at 59th. I tried a very lame joke. "So where is the Plaza Hotel?"
"Oh, that is at the
other
59th and Fifth."
What we did have was the storefront of the local gang down on Fourth Avenue. They were so bold that they had a sign above the windows that announced their name, The Dirty Ones. One would think they were like Walgreen's or something similar, but that was long before Giuliani time.
My apartment was on the third floor of a yellow-brick row house about halfway down the block. I was cautious as I unlocked the front door of the place, but there was no Ellen inside. I wandered into the front bedroom of our railroad flat. Doreen followed me in, then she boldly sat down on the side of the bed where Ellen usually slept. She patted the mattress and said, "Come on, sit down and talk to me for a while."
I felt that I needed a drink, immediately. "I'm going to get a glass of wine. Would you like one too?"
She looked at her watch. "It's only eleven-thirty in the morning, but okay."
"What is that expression? It's always six P.M. somewhere."
In a deadpan voice, she said, "I believe it goes, 'it's always five P.M. somewhere.' "
I laughed nervously, "Oh yeah, I guess I messed that one up. Anyway, I'll be right back."
In the kitchen, I had the urge to pour the red wine we had into water tumblers, but I restrained myself and went with wine glasses I wanted to take the bottle with me, so I tucked it under my arm as I carried the two glasses into the bedroom. Doreen was sitting against the headboard and I sat on the edge of the mattress
When we were there sipping our wine, we stopped for a moment to assess each other. Doreen was simply dressed in a long-sleeved white blouse, brown corduroy trousers, and ordinary black shoes with socks. I tried to josh with her about her footgear. "So, what's with sexy shoes?"
"Well, I wanted to be comfortable while walking. I had a question for you too, actually." She was quite casual as she said, "I was wondering; when you came in here and caught us in bed together -- well, didn't occur to you to have a threesome with us?"
Wow, that caught me by surprise.
I must have done a double-take or something because she was amused by my reaction.
I fumbled for a reply, "I guess I never considered that, I mean, being with you two."
"I think I know what it was."
"Really? Because
I
don't know what it was."