Augusta Played by Kelly Cherry

bucks,” Sid said, just as Norman put his hand on the doorknob and turned it. Norman opened the door. “I won’t lose any sleep over it.” “You probably won’t,” Sid said, sadly. “But I will.”
    11
    G US WAS in her apartment, waiting for Norman, when the telephone rang. It was Richard. “I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said, twisting her long, wavy hair with her free hand, worried. “I’m getting married.”
    â€œOh?” he asked, as if she’d said she was taking a trip, or changing schools. “Since when?”
    She was confused. “Since when am I getting married, or when am I getting married?”
    â€œBoth.”
    She told him.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me before?” Richard said. “Jesus Christ, I feel like a goddamn idiot, Gussie.”
    â€œI didn’t know how.”
    â€œYou apparently know how now!”
    She was sitting cross-legged on the couch-bed, the white receiver at her ear, gazing dejectedly at Tweetie-Pie cleaning his feathers. (Tweetie was a bit of a dandy.)
    She hadn’t wanted to tell him before; she didn’t want to give him up—and more than that, she didn’t want to have to tell him, as she was in effect doing, that she hadn’t been faithful to him. “I thought, since you’re married—”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with it?”
    â€œI’m not sure—”
    â€œWhat’s he do?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œOh, fuck. Your fiancé.”
    â€œYou aren’t being very nice about this.”
    â€œOh, come on, Gussie, you sound like you just ate a persimmon. I feel like a fool, that’s all. I’m going to miss you. I hope you’ll be happy. Of course I hope you’ll be happy.”
    â€œHe’s writing his dissertation in Cultural Musicology.”
    Richard broke out into laughter. “Whoop-de-do!” he cried. “What’s that?”
    â€œHe’s a kind of philosophical psychologist, not with rats, but he’s not a shrink, either—” She knew she was being unfair to Norman, but she owed something to Richard too.
    â€œI miss you,” he said.
    She wanted to say that she missed him—the words were already in her mouth, waiting for her to say them—but it wouldn’t have been true. Occasionally, she missed his attentions, and remembered how dynamic he looked crossing campus with his tie loose, the desperation in his eyes that dissolved into light when he saw her coming toward him. “But you’re married,” she said again, still not knowing exactly what she meant to convey by that. It wasn’t a point that had ever troubled her before.
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me I’m married.”
    â€œWhy don’t you get a divorce?” The subject was safe, now; it had been taboo only so long as she had had an investment in it.
    â€œBecause Elaine loves me.”
    Gus chewed the ends of her hair.
    â€œAnd you don’t,” he added, a little petulantly.
    â€œWould you get a divorce if I said I did?”
    â€œIt’s a hypothetical question now, isn’t it?”
    â€œI guess—”
    â€œIf I said I would, would you say you did?”
    â€œI guess it wouldn’t make any difference if I did, would it?”
    â€œNot if you’re going to get married anyway. To this whatever-he-is, some kind of culture vulture.”
    â€œOf course,” she said, enjoying this new turn to the conversation immensely, “a person can be married and still have affairs. Take you, for instance.”
    â€œBut you aren’t me. There’s no similarity.” He was crooning in her ear, low and sweet, a slight abrasive edge to his voice stroking her eardrum like a wire brush sweeping softly over the snaredrum in an orchestra. “I know your type.”
    â€œWhat’s my type?”
    â€œYou’ll think you have to