The Best of Everything (57 page)

in the instant it took her to recognize the forgotten but familiar handwriting her eye had traveled upward to where the postmark said Dallas, Texas.

She could not find her letter opener, she slit the envelope with her fingernails, her hands shaking, careful not to tear the letter that was inside. She sat in her swivel chair and read, and as she did the shape of the letters that formed the words was so dear to her, so well remembered, so unchanged, that she almost couldn't breathe.

Deae Caroline:

I was very happy to hear from you. I thought you must have forgotten all about me by now. Your life in New York sounds wonderful. It certainly has been a long time when you think of it—three years—longer perhaps for me than it has been for you. I haven't much to tell you. We havef a daughter, a year old, named Alexandra, Sandy for short. I'm working for my father-in-law, doing something non-geological and nonexecutive, if you can figure out what that is. Sometimes I wonder if he card We have a house in the suburbs, which even though this is Texas is only a half hour by car from my office. And we have a heart-shaped swimming pool, which has to be seen to be believed, and two enormous Dalmatian puppies, which also have to be seen to be believed.

I'm going to he in New York on business about the fifteenth of December, for a week. Could I call you at your office? I'd like to see you again, and if I told you it uxis for old time's sake that would only be half the truth. Perhaps we could have lunch together.

As ever, Eddie

Caroline reread the letter three times before she finally folded it and put it back in its envelope. What did he mean: It's been longer perhaps for me than it has been for you? That a long time makes one forget? Or that he had missed her more than she knew? She knew Eddie well enough to know that he would never write or say a mean thing, even inadvertently; he was much too clever. So he must have meant that it was a long time because he missed her. He misses me! And the other reasons that he wanted to see her . . . She put a piece of paper into her typewriter roller quickly.

Dear Eddie:

I'd love to have lunch with you in New York, so please do call me. This is my office number . . .

She had a calendar on her desk and she would begin to mark off the days. It was only a little more than four weeks to the fifteenth of December.

Chapter 28

The incurable optimists are those who always say, Tomorrow will be better, and mean tomorrow literally, or at the most, next week. Those who are more practical, and more often right, think in long terms, like a year. April Morrison, who had never had a long-term philosophy of life, thinking only, I won't think about it today or else I'll suffer twice, was thinking for the first time in terms of measured change as she sorted and packed her belongings on the tenth of December. A year ago, she was thinking with awe, it was right before Christmas and I was the most miserable girl in the world. And today I'm the happiest.

The night she had gone to Dexter Key's parents' apartment to ask him if he would see her again seemed so long ago that now she could look at it right in the face, without cringing and without pain. It had been a mistake, as her whole alliance with Dexter Key had been, but a girl was entitled to make mistakes. She still thought of her relationship with Dexter sometimes as an alliance, sometimes as a romance, depending on her mood, but occasionally when she thought of the things he had done to her she wondered how she could have been in love with him at all. She remembered how he had always said, It will be all right. Everything will be all right. She remembered especially how he had said it on the night she had told him she was going to have a baby. How happy she had been then, happy and frightened and really believing in the future. She realized now, dimly, that when Dexter said, "It will be all right," he was talking to reassure himself, not her. No matter what, she would

never hold anything against him. She had needed him so badly, it had been her fault not to have understood what he was. And now that she had Ronnie, all the other was like a bad, sad thing that had happened to her years and years ago—and a lovely thing too in some ways, although April was beginning to have to strain her mind to look back and remember why.

With surprise she came upon several gin bottles under the sink, empty ones. She had never thrown them away and then she had forgotten they were there. The memory of other nights came back to her as she gingerly carried the empty gin bottles to the incinerator, nights that hurt her more to remember than any memory of Dexter Key. But all that was over, and eventually she would forget them too.

She had wondered seriously whether or not she should confess everything to Ronnie. He had come back to New York a week ago and they had seen each other every day, and held hands in the street like teen-agers, and talked for hours about themselves and their future as they sat at a tiny round table in an espresso place in the Village, and kissed wonderingly and lovingly in her apartment, and talked about how many children they wanted to have. And finally Ronnie had said, as if she had known all along, "Here I am planning our family and I haven't even proposed to you officially. Wait . . ." And he took her hand in both of his and said, "April, will you marry me?"

Happiness filled her chest and her throat, and her eyes filled with tears and she could not trust her voice to answer for fear she would begin to cry. So she nodded her head and put her cheek on his hand and then finally she looked up at him and said, "Yes, of course I will." They just sat there for a while, Ronnie with his arm around her and she with her head on his shoulder, and all April could think was Happy Happy Happy, like some silly refrain running around and around in her head. And then she began to wonder whether she should tell him about the other boys.

She owed it to him; he would find out anyway when they were married. She was terrified that he would find out. What would he think of her? He wouldn't know how many, but he would know there had been someone. But he was so happy, how could she possibly tell him? You couldn't just bring it up and say, "Oh, by the way,

since we're getting married, I thought I'd mention that I've had a lover." What could she say?

She finally asked Caroline, because Caroline was the most sensible and compassionate girl she knew.

"You're a fool if you tell him," Caroline said firmly. "What do you want to do, hand him a knife and tell him to go cut his throat?"

"But to have a secret like that . . ."

"That's supposed to be a secret."

"Ronnie trusts me. He sort of . . . idolizes me."

"And he's going to have good reason to," Caroline said. "You love him, you intend to be faithful to him and make him happy for the rest of your life, don't you?"

"Of course!"

"Then what are you going to do, tell him you've been a bad girl and you have a guilty conscience? Don't you think he's slept with girls?"

"Oh, I'm sure," April said. "He was in the Army."

"And would you want him to come and describe it to you?"

"Of course not!"

"It's worse if you tell him," Caroline said. "Believe me, it'll be worse. If you had met Ronnie two years ago none of those things would have happened to you. It's just rotten luck. You would have married Dexter if you could have, but he wouldn't. None of us is responsible for the wonderful people we don't meet; we're only lucky when we do meet them. He's interested in your life with him now, from now on, not what you did before he knew you. If you tell Ronnie about Dexter and those others I'll never speak to you again."

"I won't tell him," April promised.

"And you'd better start forgetting about them as fast as you can."

"But . . ." April said. "I . . . he's going to know. He's going to know when we're married."

Caroline bit her lip. "Your first time with Dexter," she asked softly, "did it hurt? Did you have to make him stop? Was there—"

"A sign?"

Caroline nodded.

AprO shook her head wonderingly. "No," she said slowly, rather surprised as she remembered that night as it had been. "No. Everything was just fine."

"Some people are lucky that way," Caroline said. "Go get married to Ronnie, and when I come to the wedding, see if he has a friend for me who's as nice as he is."

"He couldn't have a friend who's as wonderful as he is!" April said happily. "But I'll look!"

So now she was packing, saying goodbye to her apartment and to New York and to the job that she had never really liked enough to miss now. How strange it would be to lie in bed every morning until ten o'clock, and to be able to cut out recipes from the newspaper and make things that Ronnie liked, and to know that there was someone who would come home to her every evening, who would want to come home to her, who would direct himself to his home as a bird flies south in winter, instinctively, for warmth and love and the life he needed. Things that had never seemed so interesting before: tablecloths in store windows, embroidered sheets, silverware, now took on a great significance. She had looked at these household things when she had been in love with Dexter, but then it had been different. Dexter had his own apartment, with his own things in it, and when she had thought of marrying Dexter it had always been with the idea of moving into his apartment with him, into his sheltering arms, not the sharing of a home that she and he might build together. Would Ronnie like blue sheets or white, she wondered, and whichever he wanted he would have. You couldn't ask Dexter if he preferred blue sheets, he would only shrug and look annoyed because such talk frightened him. April realized for the first time that he had been gruff with her because he had been frightened.

The girls at the oflBce had given her a going-away luncheon when she handed in her resignation, and for a few minutes there had been something unreal about having an oflBce party all for herself when for three years she had been contributing and going to parties for other girls. Now she was the one with the corsage and the feigned surprise, and the grin of happiness which she didn't have to feign at all because she was so happy. She liked them all, all those girls, even the ones who had hardly spoken two words to her. How nice they all were to come to her luncheon and to make a fuss over her, and to give her a present. April had opened her present with misgivings, preparing her cries of delight as she untied the silver ribbon that had little paper wedding bells attached to it, because she

knew from experience that the gift was usually some quite ugly thing that one of the typists thought was pretty. But it had been a white nylon nightgown, short and pleated, with little pink and blue rosebuds embroidered on the yoke, the most beautiful nightgown April had ever seen. She caught Caroline's happy glance across the table as she held the nightgown up for all the girls to see, and then she realized that it had been Caroline who had chosen it for her. Of course! Caroline knew just what April liked.

And Caroline had given her a going-away present of her own, to take back to Colorado, a square white leather overnight case with her married initials on it in gold and room under the make-up tray for her new nightgown and slippers. April ran her fingers over the tiny gold initials, A.M.W., as if she were reading braille. How wonderful they looked: A.M.W. So symmetrical. And so natural.

She locked one suitcase and began to pack her new case. Caroline would be here in a moment or two, to help her pack and say goodbye, and then Ronnie would arrive, and then they would get into his new bright-red station wagon and drive away. When April had heard that he had bought the new station wagon just to drive her back home in style, instead of in his dirty old jalopy, she had nearly cried again.

All over the city they were putting up the decorations for Christmas, the great tree in Rockefeller Plaza and the smaller trees along the center strip of Park Avenue. There was Christmas music in the stores where April had bought part of her trousseau, and it made her think of the Christmas before as well as the one to come, so that she felt both excitement and a faint, diminishing sadness. There would always be sounds and things to look at that had special meaning, and it was this meaning that made memories. But from now on all her memories were going to be good. April knew that. Her doorbell rang and she ran to answer it. It was Caroline.

"Hi," Caroline cried, embracing her. "You're nearly all done, what is there for me to do?"

"Just sit here and talk to me," April said.

"Do you want me to hand you things from the closet?"

"Oh, thanks."

"Look at this!" Caroline cried. "Your new suit. It's beautiful."

"That's for after the wedding. To go away in. I'll have to wear a

coat over it, though, it's so cold in February. Look at my new coat, it's in the box there."

Caroline opened the box that was on the table and exclaimed over the coat. "Oh, it's lovely!"

"And did you see my at-home outfit? Isn't it silly?" April held it up, a pair of red velvet overalls and a white satin shirt.

"It's darling. When is your wedding dress coming?"

"They're doing the alterations at the store and mailing the dress to me at home."

Caroline was standing at the window looking out at the winter garden below. "Guess what," she said, "somebody's finally put Christmas decorations on that little tree out there. Poor thing, it hasn't any leaves on it and it looks so funny."

April came to look over her shoulder. "It's kind of a mangy little tree, isn't it?" she said, surprised. "I always used to think it was so wonderful."

"It looks worse in the winter."

"I guess so. But this apartment looks awful too, look at it!" She turned around to face the room, holding her arms out wide. "None of the dishes match, the silverware's tin, and look at that bed in the waU! Nobody has a bed in the wall any more, it's an antique. And do you know what? It had a broken spring in the middle of it that got to just kill me after a couple of years."

Caroline smiled. "Remember how thrilled you were with all of it when you first moved in?"

"I know. . . . And do you know what I was thinking? After I go away, another girl will move in here in a week or two and she'll think it's all so wonderful, the way I did."