Taking a holiday from lies is like living in huge mansions
with giant windows to the world.
The phone startled me. It was Tony.
"Had breakfast?" he asked.
"No."
"Aren't you guys hungry?"
"Breakfast?" I repeated. "What time is it?"
"It's late!"
"All right. In half an hour, Tony."
"Meet you in the coffee shop in thirty," said Tony and hung up.
I took Heather's letter along. Tony had already ordered. When he saw me, he motioned the waitress to come back. Mechanically, I ordered the usual; fried eggs, toast, coffee, orange juice. We were at the table by the window with the view of the beach, the same table that Heather had chosen the day before.
"It's about time," he said in a sharp voice. He looked at me angrily. "You wanted to go early! Look at the time, man! And where the heck is Heather? Fixing her? It's funny how the beautiful sex always has time for getting pretty. It's more important, almost than eat'n." He gave a casual glance in my direction while loading a heap of jam on his toast.
Without answering I handed him the letter.
He took the envelope and put his toast aside. His anger melted away as if he could guess what it meant.
"From Heather?" he asked in a quiet, now gentle voice.
I nodded.
"What happened?"
He turned it over and handed it back. "I can't read this, Pete. That's for you. Letting me read this, wouldn't be fair to her."
He reached for his toast again. I stopped him. I insisted that it would be all right if he saw the letter.
"It contains no secrets, Tony!"
He put his toast down again and took the letter.
"So she's left you," he said quietly, after a long silence, and shook his head.
"I found this as I woke up."
He gave the letter back and reached for his toast again. "Well? What the heck did you expect? Couldn't you see how she had hoped you would find some way of making this thing last? It probably never entered your mind."
"Believe me, I had hoped there would be a way. But what could I have done, Tony? My hands are tied. There are limits."
"No, that's not what's eating' you," he said angrily. "You're mad because you would have called the thing off anyway in Pittsburgh, just as she said in her letter, but she beat you to it. Isn't that so?"
"Some friend, you are," I muttered. "I hoped for some sympathy, not for a lecture."
"Sympathy!" he laughed. "You have my sympathy. I'm as shook up about this as you are, for a different reason mind you. I know she isn't the beauty queen of the world, by a long shot, but she is pretty enough and quite wonderful as a person. I would have loved to start something with her, but I thought you had something better going. I really thought you would work this thing out, considering all the fancy stuff you told me about East Germany. I had looked up to you, envied you, but you blew it! Some scientist you are! Free from marriage! Ha, haah!! If you only knew how deeply you're in it! Up to your ears, don't you see? Your attachment to your wife has forced you into the isolation that Heather laments in her letter. Attachment is isolation; can't you see that? And then there is the way you were attached to her as though you owned her, which must have felt to her as if you were isolating her from the rest of the world. Attachment is a form of isolation. I learned that in the Air Force."
