Heart Troubles (12 page)

Sally looked directly at him and smiled. “I guess we're just a couple of dancing fools!” she said. She leaned over and kissed Mr. Fenimore lightly on the cheek.

Now we are back upstairs in our room, and Sally has been counting and re-counting the money; there is more than $1,100. I would feel better if we could give it back, but Sally insists that we keep it. “This is more money than you'd make as a lawyer,” she says. “Ed Fenimore is right. Those old fools don't need it, but we do!”

It disturbs me to hear her speak this way. It reminds me of the time, before we were married, when I gave a fellow some legal advice at a party. I gave him a hint about setting up a contract, and he called me up later to thank me. My advice had saved him some money. When I told Sally about it, she wanted me to send him a bill. I tried to explain that I couldn't—that I was still in school, that I didn't even have a degree. “Pretend you have a degree,” she said. “You can have a phony letterhead printed. Why should he make money, and not you?”

Behind Sally's lovely face there is a mischievous streak, something a little daring and wanton. Perhaps that is why I love her so. I feel she needs me to control this in her. I must, by my example, help her to be less reckless, to think more of what is right.

I have agreed, however, to stay on at the hotel for a few more days.

Acapulco, January 30

All day I have been worried about keeping the money. It doesn't seem honest. But, Sally points out, there is nothing dishonest about it. She reminds me of what Mr. Fenimore said. She reminds me of how much we need the money. And now she has another plan.

Her plan sounds fantastic. And yet, she explains, it worked once. Why shouldn't it work again? And again and again? Why shouldn't every night bring us a thousand dollars, for a thousand and one nights, for as long as we wish? After all, there are hundreds, thousands of resort hotels like this one all over the world. Places where rich Americans gather to play, to be entertained, and to spend their money. A dance contest like the one last night is not an unusual thing. Aren't there other hotels—in Cuba, Nassau, Bermuda, France, Italy, Majorca—where the same thing would work?

For a while I didn't think she was serious. “Why don't we just set up a night-club act?” I asked her joshingly.

But, no, she explained patiently, that would not work. That was not it at all. Didn't I realize, exactly, what our assets were? We weren't sleek, polished professionals. Our assets were my boyish face, my crew cut, my fresh-out-of-college look, my Ivy League suits. Her assets were her impish face, her soft brown curls, her tiny waist and feet, her pretty backless cotton dresses, her fresh sun tan.

“We look well scrubbed,” she said. “We're attractive, and we're
young,
don't you see?” She tried to find the exact word to describe us. “We're cute!” she said finally. “We look like somebody's son and daughter, like Joe Bowler drawings. We look innocent. The dancing we do is fresh and youthful and clean-cut. Don't you see?” she asked me. “That's the secret of our appeal. It's our charm!”

I asked her if she had always thought of us this way. It surprised me that she could analyze us so objectively. She said that it had just come to her today, when she was thinking about what Ed Fenimore had said. And, of course, her pretty little speech, holding the champagne bottle cradled in her arms like a baby, had been part of it, too, she said. So was her breathless, starry-eyed, deep-in-love look at me.

“Is that deep-in-love look something you can turn on and off whenever you want?” I asked her.

She laughed her small, tinkly laugh. “Of course!” she said.

I am opposed to the whole idea. But it is hard to refuse her. This evening, in the room, she has been rehearsing that little speech again and again. It must always sound spontaneous, she points out. It must always sound innocent.

I have agreed to try it just once. Tomorrow we are flying to Mexico City. We will try it there.

Mexico City, February 3

Last night it worked. We collected $800. It was a smaller room. Sally is beside herself with excitement. Today I have begged her not to make us try it again. I am sure that if it works again she will never let us stop. But she is obsessed with the idea. Tonight I looked at her, and suddenly I didn't know her. She was a different girl, a girl I'd never met.

Sally wants to try it once more. She feels—and I'm sure she's right—that we must not stay in Mexico. We are apt to be recognized. She is busy now with a travel book, figuring out where to go next. I feel that I should take a firm stand.

Palm Beach, Florida, February 9

We have done fairly well in Florida. We have covered two hotels, one in Miami and one here. Fourteen hundred dollars altogether. It seems incredible, but it is working. I have never seen Sally like this.

Sea Island, Georgia, February 27

The last three places have not been successes. Little things have been going wrong—intangible things that we can't explain. After each failure we have sat up at night trying to analyze it, trying to put our finger on the mistake. We are dealing in emotions, in moods. Sometimes we simply cannot seem to create the mood we need. Even the little speeches have been going wrong, although Sally has rehearsed and rehearsed. She has hit upon the idea of suggesting, very casually, to the social director or to the orchestra leader that a dance contest be held. But in the last place the orchestra leader refused. Was it because he was suspicious? And even when the leader agrees we're never sure that the hat will be passed. Last night the hat was passed, but we collected only a small amount, silver and a few dollar bills.

I had hoped that these failures would persuade Sally to let us give it up. But she is determined now to try the West Coast—California. Fortunately, we still have some money left.

Tahoe, California, March 3

Success again here last night. Five hundred dollars, which is really all we ever hope for in one night. Sally's plan is to go down the California coast—Santa Barbara, La Jolla, Caliente.

Santa Barbara, California, March 9

More bad luck today. Last night a newspaper reporter took a picture of us as Sally was making her speech. It is in this morning's paper. We are ruined now in this part of California. We must cancel La Jolla. Sally has mentioned a hotel in Las Vegas that is supposed to be very expensive, very rich. I am afraid there may be a Chicago crowd there that would recognize us but, as Sally points out, there is no way of knowing that until we get there. We will go and take our chances. I have persuaded her that there will be no more airplane travel for a while. We will go by bus. Funds are getting dangerously low.

Las Vegas, Nevada, March 12

Again a failure. I am convinced that our luck is running out. Our money is dwindling, and it frightens me to think of what will happen when it is gone. Sally wants to try Europe next, but it will take many good nights and bad nights. This morning we quarreled badly.

I begged Sally to let us stop, to let us go home.

“Just one more night,” she insisted. “I'm sure we'll hit it the next place we go. There's a big hotel outside of Phoenix—let's try that.”

I asked her to promise that, no matter what, the night in Phoenix would be the last.

She gave me a small, curious look. “And if I won't promise?” she answered.

I said I would go home without her.

She continued to look at me. “Very well,” she said. “You can go home. I'm going on. Do you think you're the only man in the world who can dance with me? I'll find another partner. It won't be hard.”

Sally was a poor girl. Perhaps that is the reason. She had no home, really. She had to work for everything she ever had. And now she is possessed by the promise of money. I can't leave her—I know that. But tonight I realize that in my own weakness I am bound to her forever—but not by love, as I had thought. Our hands and feet are bound together in dance steps, my arm about her waist.

Phoenix, Arizona, March 15

It began well last night. An elimination dance was started without, Sally's suggestion, which is always a good sign. For then it all seems unplanned, spontaneous. The audience enjoys it more. There were perhaps 150 people in the room—women in minks and sables, men in dinner jackets. If it worked, I figured it might be seven or eight hundred dollars. The contest began, and soon, as usual, Sally and I were the only couple left on the floor.

The music quickened, as it always does when the orchestra catches our tempo and recognizes our skill. It was the most challenging moment of the evening, when the mood had to be right. I tried to do my best. But behind Sally's smiling, laughing eyes I could see what no one else could see, the dark shadow of fear. I realized we were dancing for our lives now. So much depended on the next few minutes. The next few minutes would tell us whether the audience would be ours, whether the applause would rise. If we succeeded, the future would be passed to us in a paper hat. If we failed, there would be no return. We would have to move on. “Now!” Sally's voice breathed the signal. And we began our fantastic twirls.

I suddenly wondered where we were spinning to, with the lights above us whirling like crazy stars. I felt we were on a merry-go-round far out beyond the limits of the night. Would we catch the brass ring? Perhaps, I thought, looking at her, if there was an answer, it lay hidden somewhere behind that impenetrable smile, in that look of fear. But, twirling her faster and faster, the answer eluded me again, as it has before. “Smile!” I heard her say.

With a burst, the music stopped. We stood, breathless and swaying, clinging to each other in the center of the floor. A spotlight fell upon us. Then the applause rose. It was going to be a good night. The prize—a purple orchid for Sally and a red carnation for me—was ready. The microphone was being moved toward us.

“I guess—I guess—” Sally began breathlessly. “I guess you'd call us a couple of dancing fools!” She laughed her little glittery laugh. She went on with her speech.

I looked out. Beyond the spotlight the room was dark. I could make out no faces. She came to the part about my going back to Evanston to practice law—how she wished we could stay on here, continue our honeymoon forever, it was so beautiful. But, alas, we had almost no money left. So we would be going home, and she would be helping me out, every step of the way. I already had my law books, she said—most of them. She was adding a little to the speech, but it was essentially the same. I could hear, in the darkness from the tables, the sound, the hushed voices, that told me that the hat was being passed. Sally squeezed my arm. We were both bowing, thanking them, smiling. The lights came up, and we headed toward our table. “Make this the last time,” I whispered. It was then that I noticed a stout man in a white dinner jacket, heading toward us, pushing between the crowded tables, smiling curiously. For a moment I couldn't place the man's face. Then, with a kind of horror—I saw that it was Ed Fenimore. And I saw that his diamond ring was gone.

Montego Bay, Jamaica, April 22

Tomorrow we move on. There is a new place, a hotel in the Bahamas, that is supposed to be very fancy, very rich. Our reservations were confirmed this morning. After that we may try South America. We have decided that too long a stay in the West Indies would be dangerous; the news of us is beginning to spread. I don't know how long it will last. Sally says two more years, at least. Perhaps it will. Sometimes, when I remember all the dreams I had for us, I think my heart will break. The dreams I had for me, for Sally. It is hard to believe that the girl I married, and will live out my life with, could have brought us to this. Was I weak? It is too late now to ask.

Last night was very good. Nearly $1,000. It helps, as Sally knew it would, to have someone in the audience now, to start the hat around. We have worked things out so that Ed Fenimore stays in a different hotel from ours. That way no one suspects that we are traveling, as it were, together.

BLIGHTED CEDAR

“Come on,” he said.

The wide stretch of coral sand in front of the hotel led out in two directions—eastward, toward Hamilton, and to the southwest, around the point, toward the Cambridge beaches. There were a few stragglers left, but most of the swimmers had gone in from the beach to their Martinis and their thin toast sandwiches, and, a strait-laced few, in to the colorless interiors of the more conservative hotels for their tea.

The woman was wearing a peach-colored bathing suit and a broad straw hat. Over her suit she had tossed a bright yellow terry beach robe. The man was in knee-length shorts and a sweater. As they turned together—they had taken the eastward stretch of beach for their walk—and started back toward the hotel they scuffed their sneakered toes deeply and rebelliously into the sand, kicking it out in wide splashes at either side, leaving a broad crablike trail behind them. Their legs were caked with sand. Their faces had achieved almost exactly matching tans from the Bermuda sun, and from the cosmetic lotion that they both used, and if, anyone had watched them from the distant terrace of the hotel they would have appeared as two small, brown, strutting birds.

“I
am
interested in your character,” the woman said, “but I'm also interested in Barbara's future. Why can't you give me a direct answer to things?”

“What difference does it make what I say?” he said.

“I just want to make it final, that's all,” she said. “Please, Frank, say yes or no.”

He didn't answer her, but increased his pace, making her do a little two-step to catch up with him.

The beach was different now from the way Frank remembered it as being—in those wonderful prewar days. Then, he remembered, there had been many more children romping in the sand. There had been stately English nurses who sat erect in their private
chaises
and knitted while their eyes followed the children. There had been lifeguards in spanking white trunks, and the sudden dark contrast of colored boys who brought cocktails out to you on the beach. Now there was a different crowd, mostly Americans like Louise and himself. And the beach didn't seem to be kept as clean. Long, curved festoons of drying kelp gathered in rows, marking each foot or two of receding tide, and the beach boys seemed too busy to sweep them away. The line of shore behind the beach was different, too, with the blighted cedar trees standing gnarled and gray and graceless, leaving the white-roofed houses of the archipelago looking oddly startled and naked.