Loving (29 page)

"Why?" He looked surprised.

"Because I'd like you to come and see my play and tell me what you think. But since you are who you are, Ollie"--she smiled up at him as she used the name-- "the producer would have a fit." And then she had a thought and looked up at him again. "Will you be the one who reviews it?"

"Probably."

"That's too bad." She looked woeful.

"Why?"

"Because you'll probably cream it, and then I'll feel awkward with you, and you'll be embarrassed, and it'll be awful.... " But he was laughing at her predictions of woe and despair.

"Then there's only one solution to the problem."

"What's that, Mister Paxton?"

"That we become fast friends before the play opens, so it doesn't matter when I review it what I write. How does that sound?"

"It's probably the only solution."

When they got back to the hotel he asked if he could take her for a drink. She told him her son was upstairs and she wanted to make sure he was all right.

"A son--you and Ivo had a son? Oh, my, this is confusing."

"No, the son is my child by my third husband."

"My, my, what a popular lady. And how old is this son?" He hadn't looked particularly impressed by her three marriages, and she was relieved as they walked on.

"He's four and his name is Alexander, and he's wonderful."

"And let me guess. He's your only child?" He smiled benevolently down at her as she nodded.

"He is."

Then he looked at her carefully. "And the young man's father? Has he been disposed of or is he in New York too?" The way that he said it made her laugh, despite her serious worries about John.

"Well, he's not too pleased about our coming to New York, which he is convinced is Sodom and Gomorrah. And he is furious that I'm doing the play. But I'm still married to him, if that was your question. He stayed in San Francisco. But I wanted Alexander with me."

"Can I meet him?" It was the only thing he could have said that brought him closer to her heart.

"Would you like to?"

"I'd love it. Why don't we make it a very early dinner before the theater tomorrow and take him. Then we can bring him back to the hotel and go out afterward. Sound reasonable?"

"It sounds wonderful. Thank you, Ollie."

"At your service." He bowed impressively, and then hailed a cab. And it wasn't until she got upstairs that Bettina began having qualms. What was she doing going out with this man? She was a married woman, and she had promised herself she wouldn't go out with anyone while she was in New York. But he was a friend of Ivo's, after all.

She had heard nothing from John since the day they'd left. He answered none of Bettina's calls and letters, and his secretary always insisted that he had just gone out. Bettina let the phone at home ring again and again and again, but to no avail. He either never answered it or was never there. So maybe it wasn't so awful that she should have dinner with Oliver Paxton. And no matter how much she liked him, she was not going to have an affair.

And she told him that bluntly the next night after they left the theater and went to the Russian Tea Room for blini and drinks.

"So who asked you?" He looked at her in enormous amusement. "Madam, it's not you I want, it's your son.

"Have you ever been married?"

He smiled sweetly at her. "No, I've never been asked."

"I'm serious, Ollie." He was rapidly becoming a real friend. And whatever their attraction to each other was, they both understood that it would go no farther than the friendship they had. As far as Bettina was concerned, it couldn't. And Ollie respected that.

He was smiling at her now as their blini came and he dug in. "I was being serious too, and no, I've never been married."

"Why not?"

'"There hasn't been anyone I wanted to get stuck with for the rest of my life."

"That's a nice way to put it." She made a face and tasted her blini.

He looked at her. "So Number Three doesn't approve of all this?"

She began by trying to defend him, which told Ollie its own tale. And then slowly she just shook her head. "No."

"That's not surprising."

"Why not?"

"Because it's hard for a lot of men to accept a woman with another life, either a past or a future, and you happen to have both. But you did what you had to do."

"But how do you know that?" She looked so earnest that he couldn't resist reaching out and rumpling her soft auburn curls.

He smiled at her slowly. "I don't even know if you remember it. But there's something in a book of your father's. I came across it one day when I was trying to decide if I should take the job at the Mail and come to New York. Your father would approve of your choice.... "

She looked at him and her eyes widened, and they quoted it together word for word. "My God, Ollie, that was what I read the day I told them I'd come here. That was what changed my mind." He looked at her strangely.

"It did that for me too." And then silently they toasted her father, finished their blini, and walked back to her hotel arm in arm. He didn't come upstairs with her. But he made a date for Saturday to go to the Bronx Zoo with her and Alexander.

By the end of October Bettina was working on the play almost night and day. She spent endless hours in the drafty theater, and then more hours late at night making changes back at the hotel. Then back to the theater again the next morning to try out the changes and change them again. She never saw Ivo, she hardly saw Ollie, it was all she could do to see Alexander for half an hour a day. But she always made time for him, and sometimes when she was at the theater, Ollie came by to play with him. At least it gave Alexander a man to relate to. And they still had heard nothing from John.

"I don't understand why he doesn't call me." Bettina looked at Ollie in irritation as she threw her hands up and hung up the phone. "Anything could have happened to him, or to us, and he wouldn't know. I don't know. This is ridiculous. He doesn't answer my letters or my phone calls. He never calls."

"Are you sure he didn't say anything more definite when you left home, Bettina?" She shook her head, and despite a strange premonition, he didn't dare say anything more. He understood that she considered herself married, and he respected what she felt. The subject changed quickly to her latest agonies about the play.

"We'll never be ready to open." She looked slightly tired and thinner, but there was something wonderfully alive about her eyes. She loved what she was doing and it showed. And Ollie was always encouraging when she told him her woes.

"Yes, you will be ready, Bettina. Everybody goes through this. You'll see." But she thought he was crazy as each week they drew nearer to the big day. At last there were no more changes to be made. They went to New Haven for three performances, Boston for two. She made half a dozen more changes after the tryouts, and then she and the director nodded in agreement. Everything that could be had been done. All that remained was to get one night of decent sleep before the opening and spend an agonizing day waiting for night to come. Ollie called her that morning, and she had already been tip since six fifteen.

"Because of Alexander?"

But she only chuckled. "No, dummy, because of my nerves."

"That's why I called you. Can I help keep you amused today?" But he couldn't. For that day and that evening he was The Enemy, a critic, a reviewer. She couldn't bear to spend the day with him and then have him lacerate her play. Because she was certain that he would.

"Just let me sit here and be miserable. I love it."

"Well, tomorrow it'll be over."

She stared gloomily into space. "Maybe so will the play."

"Oh, shut up, silly. Everything's going to be just fine." But she didn't believe him, and after pacing nervously around her hotel suite and snapping at Alexander, she finally arrived at the theater at seven fifteen. They had more than an hour until curtain but she had to be there. She couldn't stand being anywhere else. She stood in the wings, she walked into the theater, she took a seat, she got up and walked down the aisle, she went back to the wings, then into the alley, back to the stage, back to the seat she had abandoned to roam down the aisle. Finally she decided to walk around the block and didn't give a damn if she got mugged, which she did not. She waited until the last of the stragglers were in the theater, and then she walked in and slipped into an empty seat in the back row. That way if she couldn't bear the tension, she could always leave without making the rest of the audience think that someone hated it so much, they had left.

Bettina didn't see Ollie in the theater, and when it was over, she didn't even want a ride in Ivo's car. She avoided everyone and left as quickly as she was able, hailed a cab, and went back to her hotel. She had the switchboard tell everyone she was already sleeping, and she sat in a chair all night, waiting to hear the elevator open and the man drop the morning paper outside her door. At four thirty she heard it and she leaped to her feet and ran to the door. Panicking, she tore open the paper, she had to see it ... had to ... what had he written ... what had he ... ? She read it over and over and over as tears poured slowly down her face. Trembling, she went to the phone and dialed his number, and shouting and laughing and crying, she called him names.

"You bastard ... oh, Ollie ... I love you ... did you like it? I mean really like it? Oh, God, Ollie ... did you?"

"You're a maniac, Daniels, do you know that? Crazy! Stark-staring crazy! It's four thirty in the morning and I tried to get you all night ... now she calls me, now after I finally gave up and went to bed."

"But I had to wait to see the paper."

"You moron, I could have read you my review at eleven fifteen last night."

"I couldn't have stood it. What if you had hated it?"

"I couldn't have hated it, you silly ass. It's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!"

"I know." She absolutely glowed at him, purring. "I read the review."

But he was laughing and happy, and he promised to meet her for breakfast in a few hours, whenever she called him after she got some sleep. But before she took off her clothes and went to bed, she asked the operator for another number. Maybe at that hour she'd find him at home, or he'd be caught unaware and he'd answer the phone. But still there was no answer. And she had wanted so badly to tell John that the play was a success. Instead she decided to call Seth and Mary, and they were thrilled for her even though she'd gotten them out of bed. And at last, as the sun came up, Bettina settled into her own bed, with a broad grin on her face and the newspaper spread out all over the bed.

"So, kid, what now? Now that you're on the road to fame." Ollie grinned at her happily over poached eggs and a bottle of champagne. They had met in Bettina's hotel for their late breakfast and she still looked stunned and worn out and elated and shocked all at the same time.

"I don't know. I guess I'll stick around for a couple of weeks and make sure that everything goes smoothly, and then I'll go home. I told John I'd be back for Christmas, and I guess I will." But now she looked a little vague. She had had no contact with him for three months and she was seriously worried about him, and about what she would tell the child.

"And professionally, Bettina? Any other stroke of genius in mind?"

"I don't know yet." She grinned at him slowly. "I've been playing with an idea lately, but it hasn't taken hold in my head."

"When it does, can I read it?" He looked almost as happy as she.

"Sure. Would you really want to?"

"I'd love it." And then, as she looked at him, she realized that she was going to miss him terribly when she left. She had gotten used to their long chatty exchanges, their phone calls every day, their frequent lunches, their occasional dinners with Ivo and, whenever possible, alone. He had become almost like her brother. And leaving him was going to be like leaving home. "What are you looking so morbid about all of a sudden?" He had seen the look of anguish on her face.

"I was just thinking of leaving you when I go home."

"Don't get yourself too worked up about it, Bettina. You'll be back here before you know it, and you'll probably see me more than you'll want to. I go back and forth to the Coast several times a year."

"Good." She smiled at him a little more happily. "By the way do you want to have dinner with me and Ivo, my last night in New York?"

"I'd love to. Where are we going?"

"Does it matter?" She grinned at him.

"No, but I figure it'll be some place wonderful."

"With Ivo it always is."

And it was. It was La Cote Basque, at his favorite table, and the dinner he had specially ordered was superb. There were quenelles to begin with, after they had had champagne and caviar; there was a delicate hearts of palm salad, filet mignon, wonderful little mushrooms flown in fresh from France, and for dessert a souffle Grand Marnier. The three of them ate with a passion, and then sat back to enjoy coffee and an after-dinner liqueur.

"So, little one, you leave us." He looked at her with a gentle smile.

"Not for very long though, Ivo. I'll probably be back soon."

I hope so." But as Ollie walked her back to her hotel she thought Ivo had looked oddly pensive.

She turned to look at her friend then. "Did you hear what he said to me when he kissed me good-bye? "Fly well, little bird.' And then he just kissed me and got Into his car."

"H'e's probably just tired, and he's probably sad to see you go." And then he smiled at her slowly. "So am I."

She nodded. She hated to leave him too. Hated to leave them both. Suddenly it felt as though she belonged here. She had put her roots back in the sod of New York in the last three months. It was cold, it was dreary, it was crowded, the cabbies were rude, and people never held doors open, but there was a bustle, a texture, an excitement. It was going to be tough to match in Mill Valley, waiting for Alexander to come home from school. Even Alexander had felt it, and except to see his father, he wasn't very anxious to leave.