The Best of Everything (49 page)

for almost all of her four years, and that Hillary loved her, and so she said, "Yes, Mac. Come over." He evidently thought it would be bad taste to introduce his wife to Barbara as well, and Barbara did not suggest it. She did not think she could face meeting the wife of a man she had once loved, it would remind her too much of Sidney. So on a Sunday morning Mac arrived at the apartment and took Hillary by the hand and led her out to the street where his wife was waiting in their car by the curb, and Barbara had the strangest feeling: that she was a stone in the middle of a wildly rushing river, stationary and buffeted, always the same, while life went by and changed all around her.

On the first really warm spring day, when automobile sounds came in through the wide-open windows, two things happened, Barbara remembered it afterward as a very strange day, because in the course of four hours she changed from believing in nothing to believing that everything in life was good. She ate lunch at her desk because she had a great deal of work to do, and then she suddenly decided she could not bear another moment of air conditioning on a fine spring day and so she opened her window and leaned out over the sill looking at the people and taxis down below, like colored specks, and the office buildings blocks away, misty in the afternoon warmth. She breathed deeply and her heart began to pound. And then all of a sudden she was crying, not with tears but a kind of dry, straining contortion, throat aching, mouth open without sound, eyes tightly shut. She was shaking all over, because it was spring, because it was warm, because she was alone, and because it seemed at this moment as if she could never bear another instant of her life. It wasn't anyone special she was crying for, she had gotten over that, it was simply that she was shaken with a need to give, to love, to expand with the warmth of every living thing in the changing season, and no one seemed to care. When the telephone rang she hardly heard it, and finally she turned as if in a trance and picked the receiver up.

She didn't know why she had answered it, because she knew she was going to hang up in an instant. It was ciuriosity that made her answer, that was all. "Hello."

"Barbara . . ."

"Oh . . ."

"Barbara . . . it's Sidney."

"Oh," she said again. She sat down, holding the receiver in her two hands.

"I didn't think you'd be in," Sidney said. "I thought I'd take the chance."

"How are you?" she said, amazed at how well her voice was holding up, not betraying her feelings at all.

"Wonderful. How are you?"

"Fine."

"I was wondering," he said, "have you had lunch yet?"

"Lunch?" she repeated stupidly.

"I know it's the last minute. I just had a business lunch date broken and it's the only day I have free this week to do whatever I want. So I thought I'd call you."

"I'm surprised," Barbara said.

"Could you have lunch with me?"

She was trembling. "Yes," she said, her voice very steady, "I'll meet you downstairs if that's convenient for you."

She waited for him in front of her office building, as she had those two evenings so long ago and she wondered whether he would think she had changed. She had no idea why he had called all of a sudden but she would not let herself analyze it. All she knew was that one moment she had been leaning out a window feeling like the most insignificant speck on earth and now she felt as if something extraordinary was about to happen to her. She tried to think of the worst thing that could possibly happen, so that she would not be disappointed. He doesn't want me to write the column any more. That was pretty bad. It was also unbelievable.

He stepped out of a taxi and he looked so completely unchanged that it frightened her. She was back in that moment to last summer, and nothing had changed at all. She knew she still loved him, that she had never stopped loving him, and that frightened her the most.

He walked over to her and smiled, holding out his hand as one does to a business acquaintance. Not knowing what else to do, Barbara shook hands. "Hi," Sidney said. "You look exactly the same."

"Do I?" She was smiling, terrified, so intent on what she would say to him to hide her feelings that she almost did not have any feelings at all.

"Do you want to eat outside?"

"Yes."

They began to walk toward the place that had been the skating rink in winter and now was an outdoor cafe with small tables and umbrellas. "You look happy," Sidney said, glancing at her as they walked, "or I should say, exceedingly content. Your life must be agreeing with you."

"I like my job," Barbara said. "It's very exciting."

"You look like a girl who's in love. I hope you're not just in love with your job?"

"I don't think I'm that type, really," Barbara said lightly. She shrugged. "Maybe I'm just in love with spring. That happens."

"I haven't seen you for such a long time," Sidney said.

They walked down the steps to the outdoor cafe and foimd a table next to the fountain that spurted from the statue of Prometheus. "This is nice," Barbara said.

"What would you like to drink?"

"A Martini, please."

"I haven't seen you for such a long time," he repeated. "I thought you'd be engaged by now. I used to look in the papers sometimes.'*

"Did you?"

He nodded.

"Well, I'm not."

"You're in love, though."

She smiled, as if it didn't matter in the least. "No, not today."

The waiter arrived with their Martinis, and Barbara and Sidney smiled at each other and sipped at their drinks and smiled at each other again, like idiots. Barbara felt as if she were going to faint.

"I missed you," he said finally.

"Not very much."

"Very much."

"I missed you too," she whispered.

"Barbara . . ."

"Why did you call me?" she asked.

His voice was so casual it was almost as if he had said, *Tm going to Florida for my vacation." He said, "I'll be divorced in two more weeks."

"Divorced . . ."

"Those things happen."

"I guess they do."

His voice was still casual but very gentle. "My wife's going to re-

marry after the divorce. Someone we've known for years. Those things happen too. I wanted to tell you that so you wouldn't feel uncomfortable; you have a way of feeling uncomfortable about the oddest things."

"My husband remarried last month," Barbara said. "Spring must be marrying time."

"Yes."

"That's funny," Barbara said. Hold on, she told herself, hold on to yourself, don't fly apart. This isn't the time, you don't even know if it will ever be the time again. She kept looking at him, carefully, to see if she was saying the wrong thing, to know when to stop. How could you expect someone else to go on feeling the same way you had for all those months? It was too much for any rational person to hope for. "Do you have any special plans?" she asked casually.

"For what?"

"For the spring. For summer. For people."

*^es. In a way."

"Oh?"

The waiter came over then, brandishing two menus, and Sidney waved him away. Barbara leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly in her lap so he would not see how they were trembling. "Such a long time," Sidney said.

"It was a hundred years ago and it was yesterday," she said.

"For me too."

She tried to keep her voice detached, as if she were discussing a love aflFair that had happened between two other people. "Sometimes I used to think it was a shame I felt the way about you that I did, because it's so much worse to lose something special than never to have it at all. And then I thought . . . it's better just to have had it."

"You sound as if it's over."

"No," she said, "no, it isn't. For me at least. I don't think it is."

"I used to hope you would start to dislike me," Sidney said. "I thought I was doing you a favor. Then I was afraid you did dislike me."

"I'd never dislike you."

The waiter came over again, insistently, because it was the height of the lunch hour and it was crowded. "Another drink, sir?" Sidney nodded impatiently and the waiter whisked up tlieir empty glasses and went away.

"Oh," Barbara said. "Hold my hand."

He did, instantly, and something that had been holding them apart seemed to break away with their mutual touch so that each clung to the other with both hands, and they looked into each other's face with a look that was pained and showed the beginning of amazement. Suddenly Barbara didn't care any longer if she said the wrong thing or not. She blurted it out and as she did she could hear her voice thicken in her throat and she didn't care about that either. "I love you," she said. "I've always loved you. Don't hurt me again. I'd just gotten over it and now it's all back, just the same. If you care about me tell me now, but don't make me wait any more and don't make me guess. I never want to have to guess about anyone again."

He was holding her hands so tightly that she could feel his pulse through his fingers. "You'll never have to guess about me again," he said, and he sounded almost as if he were the one who was asking for the favor. "I love you too."

She said it again, because it was such a warm, beautiful feeling to be able to say it, "I love you."

"I love you," he repeated softly.

"God, let's get out of here. I'm going to cry."

"Don't you dare."

He stood up, pulled out Barbara's chair, and dropped some bills on the table. As they left they nearly collided with their waiter, who was carrying a small round tray with tlieir fresh drinks on it and who looked very vexed. "We never seem to finish a meal together," Barbara said, laughing.

"I know."

"What do you want to do?"

"Look at you. Talk to you. Hold you. What do you want to do?"

"The same."

"It's been so long," he said again.

"Yes. And all the time I thought it was I who was missing you."

"No, darling," Sidney said. "Do you have to go back to your office this afternoon?"

Barbara shook her head.

"Won't they mind?"

She smiled up at him, winding her fingers in his, feeling him return the pressure immediately, as he always had, as she knew now he

always would. "No," she said. "And I don't care if they do. I don't care if I never go back to my oflBce again."

Chapter 23

It was Caroline's third summer at Fabian and she felt as though she had been there for ten years. She knew the summertime routine by heart: the hot sleepless nights, the escape to air-conditioned offices where one often caught a summer cold, the relaxed, desultory pace, the planning for the two-week vacation (made rather frantic because you knew it was the only vacation you would have for another entire year). She had gotten the small raise Mr. Shalimar had promised her and she was now making ninety dollars a week. She knew that was only five dollars more than Mr. Shalimar's executive secretary made, and sixty dollars less than Miss Farrow had received for the same job, and although she tried not to, she knew she felt resentful. Although she had never been materialistic and had never been poor enough to feel the fright of poverty but only its small annoyances, Caroline was beginning to realize more and more that in the business world one's ability was judged by the amount of money one made. There was always a great deal of secrecy about raises at Fabian, but you always found out, and if you knew that someone else had gotten a larger raise there was a certain amount of jealousy. It was like not winning a prize, and you knew you had to wait until the following Christmas before you could try again.

She had her own secretary, a girl of eighteen named Lorraine, who had just been graduated from Katherine Gibbs and looked as if it had been only a year or two since she had taken the braces oflE her teeth. Caroline was startled to find how young this girl seemed to her. She was so young, so eager, so innocent, so anxious to make good, the way Caroline herself had been only three years before. Through this girl's eyes Caroline saw everything diflFerently. Mr. Shalimar was an austere and famous editor, April was her ideal of the girl from out of town who was now glamorous in New York, and Caroline herself was "so lucky to have that marvelous job." Caroline

wondered secretly how long it would be before Lorraine became jealous of her, accustomed herself to the exciting new work, and began to wonder why she herself couldn't do exactly what Caroline was doing and just as well,

April, who had been shifted around from boss to boss during her three years in the typing pool and as Miss Farrow's secretary, had finally been given a minor pubHcity job. She liked it because it gave her more independence and more money and it was interesting. She seldom managed to come into the oflBce in the mornings before ten o'clock. Caroline knew that April went out nearly every night, and it seemed as if every month she had a new romance, someone who telephoned her at the office every day and took her out to cocktails and to dinner.

"He's crazy about me," April would say, rather flattered but completely unaflFected in any other way, and then after a few weeks she would be talking about someone else who was cra2y about her. Caroline wondered whether the reason April always seemed so unaffected by these attentions was that she knew underneath that the men were not really in love with her at all. She smiled frequently and brightly, without warmth, and covered up the circles under her eyes with a hghter shade of powder base, and spoke in a quick patois that was composed of all the newest expressions and affectations. If it was fashionable among the supper clubs to speak like a bopster, that was how she spoke; if the fad was trade expressions from the theater, then April knew them. She was having an education.

Caroline spent nearly every summer weekend at Port Blair, lying on the second-story terrace outside her bedroom window dressed in a towel, or at the beach. On Saturdays Paul Landis would drive up in time for lunch, go to the beach vnih her, and take her to a restaurant for dinner and then to the movies. Their Saturday routine was always the same, and although it was pleasant and certainly more interesting than sitting at home with her parents, sometimes she would feel she couldn't bear to do it one more time and then she would lie and tell him she had another date. Once in a while April or Gregg would come up for the weekend or for one day of it, and if it was a Saturday Paul would take out Caroline and her friend. He liked April and Gregg because they were Caroline's closest