The Slipper (12 page)

“Thank you for being so honest,” she said quietly.

Compton straightened a few more papers and then, taking her elbow, led her out of the office. He closed the door behind him, locked it and, sighing heavily, led her down the dimly lit hallway. Carol was silent as they stepped outside. Compton turned off the light and locked the side door, fumbling with the keys. Carol put her hands into the pockets of her coat and touched the volume Julie had given her and smiled a wry smile. No chance of my ever playing in an O'Neill drama. If I'm lucky I may get a bit in an episode of
December Bride
.

“It's grown colder,” Compton said, wrapping the vivid red-and-green muffler around his neck. “Bound to snow tonight.”

“It looks that way.”

“Thank you for helping me with the packages, Carol.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Compton looked at her, so elegant in the stylish pale blue coat, so classy and composed. This little girl from Kansas brought Grace Kelly to mind, She had the same serene beauty, the same cool poise. None of the talent, alas, but oh what studio lighting and a film camera could do with that bone structure and those lovely eyes. If only they wouldn't require her to speak and emote. Am I being fair to her? Compton wondered about that. She's not yet eighteen, won't be until next month, if I remember correctly. She's got a lot of time to learn. In the meantime, it's Christmas Eve and she's all alone.

“Listen, Carol,” he said, “my wife's cooking her traditional English Christmas dinner tonight—stuffed goose, plum pudding, all that sort of thing. We always have it Christmas Eve. I'd love for you to join us—Andy would, too. There'll just be the two of us—and the monsters, of course.”

Carol smiled. “Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Compton, but I'm afraid I can't make it.”

“You've got other plans?”

“Pattie is giving a party in her rooms tonight,” she said. “I told her I would be there, and I—I really couldn't disappoint her. Please wish your family a Merry Christmas for me.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too, Carol.”

He gave her a warm smile and walked around to the parking lot. Carol went back to the dorm, but she didn't go to the party. She couldn't face anyone tonight, couldn't force herself to be friendly and bright. She made a cup of tea on the hot plate she and Nora illegally kept in their room and turned the radio on low and sat at the window, gazing out at the deserted campus and listening to the Christmas carols. The sky grew darker. Shadows lengthened and twilight came and, just before nightfall, snow began to swirl softly in the air. Carol took her robe and soap and went down the hall to the showers, and at eight she was back in the room, ready for bed. She hadn't eaten anything, but she wasn't hungry. Maybe she'd have another cup of tea before she went to sleep. Pattie and the girls were undoubtedly having a festive time downstairs. Why did people always make such a big deal over the holidays? She was alone, yes, but it wasn't important. Carol turned off the radio and picked up a book and attempted to read.

At ten o'clock the telephone at the end of the hallway began to ring. It rang and rang, shrill and insistent. She expected someone to get it downstairs at the switchboard, but then she remembered that everyone was at the party and the switchboard was probably shut down. Someone was ringing the number directly from outside. Carol ignored the noise for a while and finally, impatiently, put her book aside and hurried down the hall and picked up the receiver.

“Yes?” she said.

“Jesus! You took your own sweet time answering. If you knew the trouble I had getting through in the first place.”

“Nora? Is that
you
?”

“No, sweetie, it's Mary Pickford. You bitch, I thought we agreed we weren't going to exchange presents, and what do I find in the mail today? I find a package from you. I open it. Inside, a sumptuously wrapped box. I open
that
, too, and I find that gorgeous leather portfolio I admired a couple of weeks ago and I happen to
know
what it cost.”

“Merry Christmas, Nora.”

“What the hell do you think it makes
me
feel like? Like a schmuck, that's what. I got a package from Julie, too—
Lelia: The Life of George Sand
, by André Maurois. I've been meaning to read it all year long. She paid retail, the idiot. Did you deliver our presents to her? Did she like them?”

“She loved them. Everything fit perfectly.”

“I wish I could have been there. I wish I could be anywhere but Brooklyn! We're Jewish, you know, we're not supposed to celebrate Christmas, but you think that stops Sadie? Any excuse for a gathering of the tribe. I've been up to my asshole in relatives ever since I arrived, and the food! I don't care if I never
see
another gefilte fish ball, not to mention the matzo. Turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce, too, Sadie is nothing if not open-minded.”

“Are you having a good time?”

“Are you kidding? Cousin Myron was over this afternoon. He's still horny as ever, still has those unfortunate teeth. Eugene Cohen married Renee Kuppenheimer, by the way. I found that out yesterday. May they live happily ever after. Listen, sweetie, the reason I called—I think I left my physics notebook in the bottom drawer of my bureau and I need you to send it to me.”

“Your
physics
notebook?”

“Call me crazy, I want to finish some problems while I'm here. What else is there to do? Run look and see if it's there, will you? I think it's under my sweaters. I'll hold on.”

“This is long
distance
, Nora.”

“And I'm the last of the big-time spenders. Go on, Carol. See if I left it in the drawer, then come back to the phone.”

“It's your nickel.”

“My nickel! My twenty bucks, you mean. Get a move on!”

Carol shook her head at her roommate's eccentricity and rushed back down the hall to their room. Nora's physics notebook was not in the bureau drawer under her sweaters, but a present was. It was relatively small and elegantly wrapped in silver paper and red velvet ribbon with a sprig of lovely artificial holly. Surprised, shaken, she frowned and carried it back down the hall to the telephone.

“Nora?” Her voice was trembling.

“You find my notebook, kid?”

“You know I didn't. I found—I think I'm going to cry.”

“Don't you dare, you slut. Go ahead. Open it. I wanna hear that paper crackling. Are you opening it?”

Carol cradled the phone between shoulder and ear and hunched and carefully removed the lovely ribbon and began to loosen the tape, just as Julie had done earlier.

“Have you opened it yet? What's taking you so long?”

“The paper's so pretty. I don't want to tear—”

“Forget the fucking paper! Time is ticking away. Jesus! I'll probably have to whip off another story just to pay for this phone call! Have you got it open?”

“Al—almost.”

Carol tore the paper aside to discover a flat black velvet box, and when she opened the lid she found a string of cultured pearls nestling on a bed of gray satin. They were perfectly shaped, perfectly matched, and the clasp was studded with tiny diamonds. Her hands shook. Tears filled her eyes, spilled down her cheeks.

“Well?”

Carol stared at the pearls, her lower lip trembling. “Nora—they're—I can't let you—they must have cost—”

“They cost three hundred and fifty bucks, plus tax. So what? So it's only money. It took me four and a half hours to write ‘They Called Me Jailbait,' and that little epic paid for your pearls. I couldn't resist them, kid. They're elegant and lovely, just like you. I'm not gonna get all sloppy and sentimental, but you don't know what it means to have a friend like you rooting for me. I wanted to get you something special.”

“I—I'll treasure them always.”

“At those prices, you'd damned well better!”

“I—I miss you so much.”

“I miss that ugly mug of yours, too. Merry Christmas, kiddo. I'd better hang up now or Sadie'll come in here with a butcher knife. I
told
her I'd pay for the call but she thinks I'm gonna stiff her with the bill. One more thing, I'm coming back a little early. I'll be there for New Year's Eve. We're gonna drink real booze and tear the place up, kid.”

“Oh, Nora, that will be so—so—”

“Are you
sob
bing? You'd think at your age a person'd show some self-control. I broke the news to the folks yesterday, told 'em I had to get back early to study for an exam. Sadie went into her number but I just let her shriek. I wouldn't dream of spending New Year's Eve with anyone else, kid. Nineteen fifty-six is gonna be our year!”

5

Nora felt like jumping for joy when, at the beginning of spring semester, Dick Sanders transferred into her history class. Because of his athletic activity, it had been necessary for him to change his schedule around, and on the first day of class in he walked, wearing jeans and sweater, carrying his books, looking absolutely devastating. He took a seat near the back of the room, slouching sexily with his legs spread out. She and Carol were sitting up front, dammit, and it would be much too obvious to get up and move back. Nora dawdled a bit after class and Dick sauntered right past her and grinned and said, “Oh, hi there,” and then he slung his arm around the shoulders of Alice Hart and asked her what she was doing that night and Alice said, “What've you got in mind, big fellow?” Actually used those words, the hussy. She was blonde and flashy and had big boobs and wore tight sweaters and lots of lipstick. No chance for me with tail like that swishing around, Nora thought bitterly, but she didn't intend to give up, not even in the face of such formidable competition. She had been waiting much too long for a chance like this.

“I'm going to get him,” she told Carol.

“Why on earth would you want him?”

“Those sexy green eyes flecked with brown, that wicked grin, those shoulders! All those bubbling male hormones! If I'm going to get experience, it's important the man knows what he's doing, and I happen to know Dick Sanders has already qualified for a Ph.D. in screwing.”

“I hate to be blunt, dear, but Dick Sanders doesn't know you're alive. He goes for the obvious type like Alice Hart, pseudo-Marilyns who keep their eyelids at half-mast and lick their lips a lot.”

“Go ahead, bitch, rub it in!”

“You don't really want him, Nora.”

“Of course I don't!” Nora snapped. “I've spent the past six months fantasizing about Boris Karloff! I may not have Alice Hart's equipment, but I've got other weapons. Brains, for one. Dick Sanders doesn't have a chance.”

“We'll see,” Carol said.

“Hide and watch, sweetie.”

February went by and March arrived and spring came early. The tulips and hyacinths and daffodils began to bloom on campus. So did Nora. Some new outfits would undoubtedly help, she decided, so she knocked off “I Was Everyone's Girl” and “My Brother, My Lover” and hurried over to the Sandra Dee Shoppe and bought a new spring wardrobe, very fetching and feminine. It had no discernable effect on Dick Sanders. He continued to grin and say, “Hi there,” when he happened to notice her, but his arm was invariably curled tightly around Alice Hart's shoulders. They might have been Siamese twins. His ardor for Alice apparently cooled and he took up with Helen Morrison, another blonde who went to a lot of Monroe movies and probably wore no panties. Although she hated to admit defeat, Nora saw that Dick Sanders wasn't about to pay attention to a zero like her, not when there were abundantly endowed babes like Alice and Helen on tap.

What is it with me? she wondered. The boys she met in her various classes were friendly enough, sure, a couple of them even teased her a little, but none of them ever asked her to hop over to the malt shop with them for a double chocolate shake. None of them asked her to go bowling or go to the movies or drive up to Inspiration Point for a quickie in the backseat of their Studebaker. It was frustrating as hell. Other girls had dates all the time. Half the girls at the dorm were going steady. More than a few of them had already been fitted for diaphragms. There was a whole lot of shakin' goin' on, yeah, but little Nora Levin sure wasn't getting in on it. She was doomed to be cute, doomed to be “nice,” the kind of girl you patted on the head but wouldn't dream of laying. In truth, she was quite shy and demure with the boys, saving the wisecracks for Carol and Julie and a few of her teachers.

At least things were going well with her classes. She was making straight A's without half trying and had already determined to take more semester hours, go to summer school and take a few night courses. No sense spending four years in college when any dolt with half a brain cell could do it in three. She was learning a lot in Stephen Bradley's class, too. He was positively brilliant, a marvelous teacher, witty, acerbic, gruff, totally irreverent when it came to the lierary establishment. He smoked in class, dripping ashes on his tweed jacket, drank coffee by the gallon and had a way of getting right to the core of things. He taught his students to cut, to economize, to use clear, simple sentences without an excess of adjectives and adverbs. Style was all very good, he added, but without feeling the most beautiful sentence had no punch. Write it from the gut or don't write it at all, Make the reader
feel
it. Nora could see the improvement in her own prose. Bradley was merciless with his red pencil, slashing her compositions to ribbons, but he was always right and she appreciated the criticism.

He was quite fond of her, thought her a hoot. Nora made no effort to curb the mouth when she was with Bradley. They had coffee together at the SUB several times and discussed writers and writing and good prose and bad. Both had a fondness for F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly
Tender Is the Night
, Nora's favorite, and Bradley agreed with her that Hemingway carried economy to excess, although he did have emotional impact. Bradley told her that if she wanted real writing she should go back to Mark Twain, Twain was terrific, and he introduced her to newer writers like Nelson Algren and William Styron and she thought
Lie Down in Darkness
was a masterpiece. She told him she was going to start writing her novel soon and he said, “Practice, kid, practice,” and told her she had a great knack for dialogue, her dialogue was snappy, rang true. She said she had learned a lot about dialogue from John O'Hara and Bradley admitted that no one did it better than O'Hara. Wreathed in cigarette smoke, gulping down coffee, speaking in that gruff, often surly voice, Bradley was a fascinating man, a great inspiration. Nora cherished those hours she spent with him. His was the only male companionship she had, and he
would
be forty-nine and overweight with four kids and a wife he adored.