The Best of Everything (43 page)

"Can I sit down?" Barbara asked weakly.

Her boss laughed. "Sure. Sit down. And here, have a cigarette. We're all very proud of you. You're going to go far at America's Woman, you'll see."

Barbara accepted a cigarette, lighted it, and promptly dropped it into her lap. She jumped up, brushing off the sparks. "I'm so excited ... I'd better go and have a cup of coffee downstairs. May I?"

"Go ahead," her boss said, smiling happily. "You'll have a secretary to bring you coffee in a few months."

Barbara fled downstairs to the luncheonette. The hot coffee burned her tongue and she spilled half of it into the saucer by mistake. So Sidney had done this for her. Why? It was a present, obviously, to sweeten his goodbye, or to thank her for their two days together. He was not the sort of man to send a mink coat or a piece of jewelry; if he had been she would have thrown the gift in his face. He had given her what he had to give, what he thought she could most graciously accept. So this is the way you get ahead, Barbara thought bitterly. Now I'm learning. I may turn out to be a successful career woman after all.

It was strange, she thought as the days went by; she could not help but be excited about her new column, even though she knew why she had been given it. Doors had opened, and with them a much-needed raise and more prestige. She was busier than ever. And when, two weeks later, her period arrived on time, she felt as if this was the end of something tenuous but important that she had had with Sidney, and now there was nothing. She felt empty. Physically she was just as she had been before she and Sidney had ever met. But in every other way she knew that she had changed, and she wondered whether she would ever forget.

Chapter 18

You see them on the bus in the morning: girls reading the newspaper, girls with lending-library novels and girls simply staring off into space. If it is not a rainy day and the bus is not crowded with strap-hangers pushing one another up the aisle you can see each face clearly. Each of them is a self-contained little mask, decorated with cosmetics, keeping its private thoughts secluded in a public vehicle. Some of these girls are going to their offices because each day is another step to the success they dream of, and others are going to work because they cannot live without the money, and some are going because that's where they go on weekdays and they never give it another thought. They go to their typing pool or their calculating machines as to a waiting place, a limbo for single girls who are waiting for love and marriage. Perhaps the girl sitting on the bus reading her plastic-covered lending-library novel is reading of love, or perhaps she is simply looking at the page and thinking of herself. X meets Y and there is magic. Or X meets Y and there is nothing; it might not have been that kind of year, maybe a year or two from now Y would have looked much more desirable to X. Or perhaps X meets Z and falls desperately in love, a kind of self-hypnosis, when a year or two later if X had only then met Z she might have been spared.

In the autumn of 1953 April Morrison began preparing for her wedding, in some ways as Mary Agnes had, and in otliers that Mary Agnes had never dreamed of. For one thing, Dexter had not presented her with a ring, nor had he agreed to set a date. His plans were so nebulous as to be almost nonexistent, but April, who had always felt that a wedding was mostly the girl's responsibility and the boy's bother, was busily writing home to her relatives in Colorado to tell them to expect the good news any time now and to find out when their church would be available.

She had seen Dexter's parents often but briefly during this second summer, to smile at across the room during Hudson View

Club dances, or in passing on the club terrace, and she felt rather disappointed that she had never gotten to know them better. Although both generations went to the same parties at the Hudson View Club they always left each other strictly alone in the interests of a more relaxed time. No one would dream of saying, Hey, Mr. Allison, your son passed out in the men's shower! Did he? Then it was his own responsibility, and the responsibility of one of his more sober friends to drive his date home or to wherever she was houseguesting for the weekend. At dances the younger people congregated around the bar while the older people sat at tables on the terrace, where three aging waiters brought tiiem their drinks. You couldn't plow up to a group and say, I'd like to sit with you; the lines had been drawn years before. April finally decided that there must be another way, and she felt that since she was younger than Dexter's mother the responsibility of breaking the ice was hers.

"Your mother said once she'd like to have lunch with me," April said to Dexter. "That was so long ago. I feel terrible that I never did anything about it. I'm going to call her."

"What for?" Dexter asked. He was reading the newspaper.

"To have lunch with me. Do you think that's all right?"

"Go ahead," Dexter said, as if it had never occurred to him. "She'd probably like that. She likes young girls."

I could wear my dark-green suit with the little mink collar, April was thinking. It was the last thing she had bought before her charge account had been closed down for nonpayment of an eight-month-old bill. She had been terrified for a while that the stores would come to repossess her clothes, but they had not, they had simply continued to send her threatening letters and telephone her warning of law suits, and when she had gotten her summer raise and was finally able to make ends meet she had begun sending the stores part payments. She didn't want to go to jail and have Dexter's family think he was marrying a crook or a female con man or something. It was just that she was so impractical.

The next morning, not too early, she called Dexter's mother from her office, but the maid said Mrs. Key was already out. April left her name and her office number. By five-thirty Dexter's mother had not called back, and since everyone had long since left the office and she was a little afraid to stay there alone, April decided to call her.

"Mrs. Key?"

"Who is this?"

"April."

There was a pause. The voice at the other end was noncommittal and a little confused. "Oh?"

"April. Dexter's April."

"Oh ... oh, of course. Dexter's friend April. How silly of me. Of course." Mrs. Key began to laugh. "You know, when you left your name this morning—'Miss Morrison'—I couldn't figure out who it was. That's why I didn't call you back."

This is the strangest woman I ever spoke to, April thought. Dexter must have told her about me millions of times. Maybe she's drunk or sick or something. These society people drink like fish. "How are you?" April asked politely.

"I'm fine, thank you. How are you?"

"Just fine, thanks. I guess you're wondering why I called."

The laugh that came through the receiver was slightly flustered, but witli an obvious attempt at warmth. "Well, yes, I was."

"I'd like to have lunch with you one day next week if you're free."

"Why . . . that's nice. Is it anything special?"

"I just thought we should get to know each other better," April said shyly.

"How sweet, dear . . . how very sweet. I'll have to look at my calendar."

"I'll hold on."

The pause was very brief. "Let's see now," Mrs. Key said, "I'm afraid next week is just about impossible. I have something every day."

"How about the week after? I'm free every day."

"Could I call you?"

"Of course," April said, disappointed. "You don't have to give me much notice in advance, because I'll break any appointment I have. . . ."

"Well, I'll call you."

"Do you have my number?"

"The maid took it down so it must be here someplace. I'll find it."

"I'll give it to you now," April said quickly. She did, slowly, so that Dexter's mother could write it down. "I'm here every day from

nine to five. It's my office. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you."

"Thank you for calling," Mrs. Key said. "It was very sweet of you.**

April replaced the receiver and sat for a moment with her hand still on it. Something was going through her mind, the kind of ugly thought that one had to keep out by force or risk being one of those people who always feels persecuted. I could swear she didn't know I was someone special. She sounded as if I made her feel uncomfortable. Made Dexter's mother feel uncomfortable! Imagine that!

When she met Dexter for dinner later April didn't know quite how to tell him. She didn't want him to think for a minute that she wanted to imply his mother wasn't polite or, worse, that she might be eccentric. "I . . . phoned your mother," she said finally.

"Yes . . ." he said, looking rather pleased and amused, "she told me. I called her up tonight and she said she thought it was awfully cute of you. Hey, let's have Gibsons tonight instead of Martinis, I bought some onions."

"Awfully cute . . ." April repeated softly.

"Do you want a lot of onions or just one?"

"Dexter! Doesn't your mother like me?"

"Well, how the hell should I know?" Dexter asked irritably. "She hardly knows you."

April felt a flush coming over her face. "I want her to like me."

Dexter smiled. "She will. I'll take you to a party over there sometime and you'll get to know her."

"She wasn't . . . mad or anything, was she, when you told her we were going to get married?"

"Mad? Why should she be mad?"

"Some mothers are more possessive than others—you know. I just thought she might have mentioned something."

Dexter held the Gibson very carefully so that it would not spill over the brim and took a sip at it. He seemed much more interested in the mechanics of the glass and liquid than the situation called for, "As a matter of fact," he admitted casually, "I didn't tell her."

"Dexter!" April said, stunned. "Why notF'

"I was looking forward to having a nice evening," Dexter said. "Do you want to start an argument, is that what you want to do?"

April had never thought she had so much courage, but shock and

indignation and fright made her bold. "I want to find out if you and I are going to get married; that's what I want."

He looked at her levelly for a minute and then his brows drew together. "Well, we're not," he said flatly.

"Dexter, don't tease me," April said shakily. She tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was so pathetic it sounded to her more like a cat's mew. "I just don't have any sense of humor about things like that, I've waited for you too long."

He was almost smiling. "Why, was it such a bore?"

"How could it be a bore when you just nearly gave me a heart attack?" April said. She stood up and went to him and put her arms around him, with her head against his shoulder. "I couldn't live without you, you know that."

He was standing there so stiflBy and so cautiously that she felt as if she were embracing a stranger. "Maybe it was a mistake to go on so long," he said. "I don't know. But you knew what you were doing. I told you a year ago that I never force anyone to do anything. I don't want to feel that your unhappiness is due to me."

"All my happiness has been due to you," April said. "The other too. But that's what happens when people are in love, they aflEect each other."

"Any man could make you unhappy," he said. "He'd snap his fingers and you'd be unhappy." He was mumbling, sounding a little as if he were trying to justify himself. "You don't know about life."

"Life?"

Dexter held his palm out, his fingers bent, and looked at it, as if life were something like an egg that you could hold and look at and feel. "Yes, life." His voice rose. "Life, darling! You don't know anything about it."

"I do so know about life," April said. "I know as much about it as I want to know." She hesitated for a moment and then said it: "I still have nightmares about my baby."

Dexter moved away from her. "That's not what I meant," he said.

"You said you would marry me in the spring," April said. "Then you said the fall. What am I to think? Of course I thought we were going to get married soon; you promised."

She had never seen him so stripped of poise and sophistication; he seemed almost frightened. "When did I promise?" he said.

"Don't you want to marry me? Ever?"

"Why did you have to do this?" he asked. He sounded almost sorry for himself.

"Do what, Dexter?"

"Make everything so emotional."

"Emotional? After a year together how can you say that?"

"You're twenty-two years old," Dexter said. "What kind of big deal is one year in your life?"

"Oh, Dexter! Nothing is sacred to you, is it?"

"You always say that."

"It's true!"

"All right," he said angrily. 'If you say it's true, it's true. Insult me. I'm a libertine. Hm?" He sat in tlie corner of the sofa, behind his knees, and lighted a cigarette, puflBng out clouds of smoke.

"What's the matter with you?" April asked worriedly.

"Nothing."

"Are you angry because I called your mother?"

"Why the hell should I care if you call my mother or not? You can telephone my whole family for all I care."

April stood there looking at him, biting her thumb as she always did when she was excited or nervous, her mind in a turmoil. A year ago if he had acted this way—and he sometimes did—she would have been hysterical. But by now she was used to it and, even more, she herself had changed. Especially in the past seven months, ever since what she secretly thought of as the deatli of her child, she had changed. It was not that she had become harder in any way but she had realized the value of strength. With April strength was more the kind of desperation that comes with weakness, the power that gives a ninety-pound woman drowning in the water the ability to swamp a careless lifeguard. There was only one thing she knew: she had to survive, and survival meant hope and love. If Dexter said marriage, she had to beheve him. If he put it oflF, she had to forgive him and keep her mind fixed on the future date. This was siuvival, this was keeping her life together, this was being a woman. But Dexter was so unpredictable and she herself was so naive that somehow it never seemed to work out as well as she thought it should.