“I didn’t want any strangers coming in.”
“Strangers!” he cried. Again he jiggled the knob and then with a sigh put away his key and shut the door. “Yes, I guess we are. Strangers.”
She did not sit down but stood in the middle of the room looking at him.
“Let’s get to it,” she s
aid.
“It looks like you already have. Jesus.” He blinked at the books divided into two incredibly neat stacks on the floor. “Couldn’t you have waited for me?”
“I thought it would save time,” she said and nodded now to her left, now to her right. “These are mine. Those are yours.”
“Let’s look.”
“Go ahead. But no matter how you look, these are mine, those are yours.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” He strode forward and began to replant the books, taking from both left and right sides of the stacks. “Let’s start over.”
“You’ll ruin everything!” she said. “It took me hours to sort things out.”
“Well,” said he panting, down on one knee. “Let’s take some more hours. Freudian Analysis! See? What’s that doing on my side of the stacks. I hate Freud!”
“I thought I’d get rid of it.”
“Rid of it? Call the Goodwill. Don’t fob the dumb books off on strangers, meaning your former husband. Let’s make three stacks, one for you, one for me and one for the Salvation Army.”
“You take the Salvation Army stuff with you and call them.”
“Why can’t you call from here? God, I don’t want to lug the lamebrain stuff across town. Wouldn’t it be simpler—”
“All right, all right, natter, natter. But stop messing with the books. Look at my stacks and then yours and see if you don’t agree—”
“I see my copy of Thurber on your side, what’s that doing there?”
“You gave it to me for Christmas ten years ago, don’t you remember?”
“Oh,” he said, and stopped. “Sure. Well—what’s Willa Cather doing over there?’
“You gave me her for my birthday twelve years ago.”
“It seems to me I spoiled you a lot.”
“Damn right you did, a long time ago. I wish you were still spoiling me. Maybe we wouldn’t be dividing up the damned books.” He flushed and turned away to kick the stacks quietly, gently with the tip of his shoe.
“Karen Horney, okay, she was a bore, too. Jung, I like Jung better, always did, but you can keep him.”
“Thanks a billion.”
“You always were one for thinking too much and not feeling.”
“Anyone who carries his mattress around with him on his back shouldn’t talk about thinking or feeling. Anyone who has bite marks on his neck—”
“We’ve been over that and it’s past.” He knelt down again and began to run his hand over the titles. “Here’s Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools, how in hell did you ever get through that? It’s yours. John Collier’s short stories! You know I love his work! That goes over in my pile!”
“Wait!” she said.
“My pile.” He pulled the book out and tossed it along the floor.