Found in the Street by Patricia Highsmith Page B

surprise visit, and her connection with the man who had returned his wallet, but he hadn’t told her, because they had talked so much about the play Fool for Love, which Natalia had liked more than he. But Jack felt that if he told Natalia about Elsie, and then about Linderman’s letter of this morning, it might be only disturbing to Natalia, and not funny enough to warrant telling for amusement value.
    He remembered a morning about three weeks ago, when he and Amelia had gone out together to buy something at Rossi’s, and Amelia had suddenly pointed a finger and said, “Look! There’s that man you drew, Daddy! With the dog!” And so it had been, Ralph Linderman across the street (Bleecker) watching God lifting his leg. “You’re not going to say hello to him?” Jack had replied, no, not now, and had tugged his daughter along.
    Ralph kept odd hours. That was an added nuisance, making Jack think of a three-man, round-the-clock, eight-hour-shift eye on him. The girl Elsie kept odd hours. But matter of fact, so did he, working sometimes till 2 a.m., and if he felt hungry, he went out for a hamburger at some all-night place in the neighborhood.
    Jack decided to ignore Ralph Linderman, pretend not to see him or hear him, if Linderman tried to talk to him on the street. Linderman would tire of the game, maybe switch to someone else Elsie might be seeing.
    Since Ralph Linderman seemed to walk God along Bedford, Jack began to avoid that street on his morning runs, which he did not take every day anyway, and head west for Hudson on Grove. And sometimes Natalia was in the mood in the early mornings, came half awake and awakened him with a slide of her arm across his waist, a part of his body—of all places—which was the most erotogenic for him, at least at the beginning of things. Often Natalia fell into sound sleep afterward, which pleased Jack because it made him think he had pleased her, and he would awaken her later with a cup of black coffee, if she had to get up for some reason, and otherwise let her sleep until she awakened.
    The following week brought a small disappointment and a small note of cheer. The disappointment was that the book offered to Jack to illustrate was vulgar, strained and unfunny, in Jack’s opinion. This was from another publishing house called Flagship. It was nothing more than a joke book—Joel’s Half-Understood Dreams was a novel by comparison—so Jack declined politely. A glance at the manuscript or joke pages in the office was enough. One of the jokes had a crude pun on the word cockpit. John Sutherland’s drawings were supposed to make and sell the book, Jack supposed. Surely Trews hadn’t known what junk it was. Jack did not like the editor with whom he had to speak either, or maybe by association with the joke book did not like him, so Jack wildly elevated his prices. “I’m asking a thousand a drawing now, plus royalties to be adjusted, and . . .” Did the editor believe him? His eyes went wide, anyway, and perhaps the news of his price would get around, which, as Natalia would say, wouldn’t hurt. Jack decided not to mention this hiccup to Trews, unless Trews asked him about the Flagship interview.
    The bright spot was a postcard from Elaine and Max Armstrong, their favorite neighbors, who lived on West Eleventh Street. They were coming back from Paris in early November and wrote that they hoped Natalia and Jack would be on Grove. Max was a lawyer, nearly forty, and had been sent to Paris for four months by his firm. The Armstrongs had a six-year-old son, Jason, a fact which had led to their meeting the Armstrongs at the Little People’s Theatre in the Village. Elaine worked for an interior decorating company, and was several years younger than Max. It was Max’s second marriage.
    â€œI missed them,” Natalia said a few minutes after she had read their postcard. She said it in the earnest way she had