Heart Troubles by Stephen; Birmingham Page A

remember?”
    â€œI’m afraid I don’t.”
    â€œWell,” she said, “it was like all the other times I’ve agreed to stay.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œIt was because I thought, Heel that he is most of the time, every now and then he does something wonderful.”
    â€œThose lines,” he said, “sound just as fresh as when they were written by Oscar Hammerstein.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said, “but that was what I thought.”
    â€œAnd what was the wonderful thing I did a year ago?”
    â€œIt was something you said.”
    â€œWhat did I say?”
    â€œI’ve forgotten.”
    â€œLucille—”
    â€œPlease. I don’t want to talk about it any more.”
    He looked at her again. Her right arm trailed out the window, her left hand reposed in her lap, but there was something rigid about her whole pose, something hard and resolute in the set of her shoulders. Her face was turned away from him.
    â€œNine years is a long time,” he said finally.
    â€œI know,” she said. “Very long.”
    â€œYou’d think that in such a long time we might have learned something.”
    â€œOh, I have,” she said. “I’ve learned a great deal.”
    â€œWhat have you learned?”
    â€œI’ve learned all about geniuses.” And she added, “Or should it be genii?”
    â€œGenii are what you get when you rub magic lamps,” he said.
    She laughed dryly. “That’s hilarious, Hugh.”
    â€œGive me a minute and I’ll think of something better. Tell me more about geniuses. What have you learned about them?”
    She leaned back against the leather seat. “Oh,” she said, “I’ve learned that gifted, talented—geniuses, really, like you, are erratic and unpredictable. They have temper tantrums and have to be comforted like babies. You have to pamper a genius or he sulks.”
    â€œI see. And what else?”
    â€œI’ve learned that gifted, talented geniuses like you are extremely selfish and demanding and expect the world to revolve around them.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd I’ve learned that people like you, who write fantastically funny comedies, who were put in the world to make audiences hold their sides with laughter, who can come up with twenty-four brand-new gags a day, are really, deep inside—what is the cliché?—clowns with breaking hearts. And that people like you, who can put everybody at a cocktail party in stitches, actually have great big bleeding, babyish souls.”
    â€œVery good! Excellent!” he said.
    â€œAnd that people like you,” she went on, “feel cruelty and smallness can be forgiven because you’re talented. The world has to overlook your fits of bad temper. And your sulks. Even your fibs. Just because you’re sometimes very humorous. And I’ve learned that—”
    â€œYou’re really wound up,” he said. “Go on.”
    â€œAnd I’ve learned that when people like you promise that someday you’re going to do something great and important and honest and—your own cliché—‘contribute to the great library of human culture,’ that when people like you say things like that, it sounds very pretty but it never happens. Because people like you are really flops.”
    â€œFlops? Do you really think so?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say you’d done too badly, Lucille,” he said easily. “You’ve got a maid, a mink, a house in Pebble Beach.”
    â€œOh, lord!” she said. “Is that the way you measure success? A house in Pebble Beach, a maid, and a mink! Besides, I never asked for those things. You just presented them to me.”
    â€œYou mean you didn’t want them?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œYou’ve had good use out of some of those things.”
    She didn’t seem