The Slipper (24 page)

Fired with inspiration, Nora bought two new reams of paper and started
This Heaven, This Hell
, writing, rewriting, giving it everything she had, neglecting her studies, totally immersed in the intense, overheated world she was creating on paper. Her book wasn't set in a small New England town, it was set in an affluent suburb, and while her characters were more sophisticated than Mrs. Metalious's, they were even more active in the bedroom, under the rosebushes, in the broom closet and, on one memorable occasion, in the shallow end of the municipal swimming pool. Lack of experience was no hindrance this time round, but with Julie's help she smuggled a copy of Krafft-Ebing out of the library to research a few of the more esoteric variations. She frequently worked all night long, with no roommate to complain about the typing, and when she finally finished it early in January, she was sure she had a huge best-seller on her hands.

Stephen Bradley thought it had possibilities, too. He read it promptly and admitted he hadn't been able to put the damned thing down. It was shit, yes, he couldn't deny that, but the characters were vibrantly alive, you genuinely cared about them, the story was fast-moving and the writing wasn't half bad.
This Heaven, This Hell
was several cuts above
Because You Care
, the book she had written during her freshman year, and, well, it just might have a chance.
His
publisher wouldn't be interested, but he said it wouldn't hurt to send it around, see what happened. Nora sent it to Messner first, because they had published the Metalious novel. They weren't interested, nor were Random House or Doubleday. In the library one afternoon Nora read an article about Ross Sheridan, wonder-boy agent who claimed he could sell anything. She wrote to him, telling him about herself and the novel she had written, and a week later she received a reply from one of his aides, requesting she send the manuscript to their offices. She did. There was a postcard acknowledging receipt and then zilch. Six weeks without a word. Ross Sheridan was probably too busy giving cocktail parties for Jason Pollen and hustling deals for all those mystery writers to remember she'd even sent him the bloody book.

Depressed, Nora showered and started getting ready for her date with Brian. Black ballet slippers, black leotard, black turtleneck sweater and a black wraparound skirt. Dead-white makeup base and powder, pink-white lipstick and smoke-gray eye shadow. Halloween time, but that's the way you dressed to go to the Cellar. There wasn't anything she could do about her hair, no way she could have a pony tail or long, limp locks hanging down to her shoulders. The beatnik chicks were cool, real cool, smoked pot, read Allen Ginsberg, were obedient little slavies to macho men like Kerouac and Cassady who, privately, preferred each other. What a crock, Nora thought, but playing being Beat was the fad and probably wasn't any more harmful than swallowing goldfish or stuffing yourself into a phone booth with twenty other guys.

“Hey, Nora!” a girl called, pounding on her door. “Your dreamboat's waiting in the lounge.”

Brian stood up when she entered the room. Seeing him for the first time always took her breath away. It was as though she had forgotten just how gorgeous he was, how stunning, how perfect. That thick blond hair, always neatly brushed and gleaming, no crew cut for this guy, those blue blue eyes, those virile, chiseled features, that dazzling smile. Nora felt the rush, the glow, the music inside, and she still couldn't believe
she
was responsible for that smile and that wry, loving look in his eyes. So what is he? Out of his mind? Dozens of beautiful girls all over the place, hundreds, and he chooses a loser like me. Gotta be something wrong with him, she told herself, trying to look cool as Brian came over to her and took her hands in his.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi yourself.”

“What's that gook on your face? What's that garb you're wearing?”

“I'm Beat, man. Dig? Thought I told you to dress down.”

“I
did
,” he protested.

“White buck shoes, white cord jeans, short-sleeved powder-blue sport shirt, buttoned-down collar, no tie, no jacket, yeah, I guess you dressed down. Guess you'll have to do.”

“You want me to take it all off?”

“Not yet, sweetie,” she said.

Brian grinned and pulled her into his arms and gave her a light kiss. Nora pulled away, indicating the other girls waiting for their dates.

“We've got an audience,” she told him. “Let's not give 'em a show. They'll think you're after my body.”

“They'll think right.”

He curled one arm around her waist and led her out of the room. “Eat your hearts out, girls,” she called over her shoulder.

Brian drove a battered blue Ford convertible. Nothing pretentious or self-consciously patrician about him, he was a regular fellow, one of the guys, fancy background and big bucks notwithstanding. His mother had flipped when he decided to come to Claymore for his engineering degree—Claymore?
Indiana
? How declassé, particularly after four years at Princeton—but Claymore's school of engineering was perhaps the best in the country and Brian couldn't care less about its social status. God knows his blood was blue, but he hadn't an ounce of snobbery in his makeup. Brian laughed at his mother's affectations and shrugged at his father's obsession with wealth. He was completely at ease with himself, and he was at ease with the world as well. If I could just find one teeny-tiny flaw I'd feel a helluva lot better, Nora thought.

“Do you squeeze your toothpaste from the bottom up?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Ever eat crackers in bed?”

“Never.”

“I'll bet you crack your knuckles in private.”

“Well—” he drew the word out, then hesitated.

“
Do
you?”

“I could,” he said, “if it would make you happy.”

“You're an excellent driver, too.
I
would have run that yellow light, if I drove, that is.”

“You don't drive?”

“Are you kidding? I grew up in Brooklyn.”

“I'll have to give you lessons,” he said. “Why all the questions?”

“I'm trying to convince myself you're for real.”

“I've got lots of faults,” he assured her.

“Yeah, sure. I've never heard you say ‘shit.' When you were a little boy, I'll bet you helped old ladies cross the street. You're sexy and virile and fun to be with and intelligent and levelheaded and hardworking and wealthy, not to mention gorgeous. Did I mention gorgeous? You're too good to be true, Gregory. I'm gonna wake up and find this was all some kind of crazy wish-fulfillment fantasy and you never existed at all.”

“If I have my way, you're gonna wake up in my arms.”

“I suppose you think you're gonna take me back to your apartment tonight.”

“Had it in the back of my mind,” he admitted.

“Think you're gonna jump my bones, don't you?”

Brian nodded.

“Hold that thought,” she said.

Like dozens of other “coffee houses” that had sprung up all across the country since the media explosion over Kerouac and
On The Road
, the Cellar was dingy and dimly lighted and pretentiously bohemian, fishnets hanging on the bare gray walls, sawdust scattered over the bare floor, candles leaving waxy trails on the wine bottles setting on every table. The place was packed with world-weary somnambulists in uniform attire who smoked filter-tipped Kools and drank wretched espresso and gazed at each other as though staring into an open grave, all of them having the time of their lives. Someone was invariably beating the bongos, and, suddenly inspired, some bearded youth in a dingy gray sweater, usually a sophomore, would leap up and recite his newest poem, “i am the eye of the universe and i've gone blind, baby,” something along those lines, and the chicks would nod wearily, the hipsters would say, “Cool, man, cool,” and everyone would feel wonderfully unconventional. Real Beats might prowl North Beach in San Francisco and huddle in filthy pads in Greenwich Village, but here it was strictly improvisation and God forbid Dad should be late with next month's allowance.

“Some scene,” Brian said.

“Look bored,” Nora warned him, “and for Christ sake don't smile. They'll think we're tourists.”

“Gotcha,” he said.

A black-attired waitress with limp, stringy hair and dead-white makeup led them to a table and took their espresso orders and Brian looked terribly out of place in his neat white cords and freshly ironed powder-blue shirt, his gleaming blond hair carefully combed. “Hey, man, get a load-a th' square,” someone said, and Brian seemed pleased. Nora kicked him under the table, and he dutifully assumed the bored, burned-out look. Someone put a jazz record on and some cats decided to groove on the dance floor. There was much lethargic shuffling and finger snapping and cries of “Dig it, man.” Their espresso came and Brian grimaced as soon as he sipped it and said he'd a helluva lot rather have a Coke. Nora informed him that he simply wasn't with it. All the chicks and quite a few of the hipsters eyed him appreciatively, and Nora felt inordinately proud.

“Like the music?” she inquired.

“Actually, I prefer the McGuire sisters.”

“Bite your tongue!”

“What's wrong with the McGuire sisters?”

Nora sketched a cube in the air. He looked at her in mock exasperation and behaved himself admirably for the next hour or so, not even smiling when the inevitable bearded youth got up and recited the inevitable poem, “i howl alone and the wind eats my words.” All around them people discussed William Burroughs and Djuna Barnes and existentialism and Happenings and nobody mentioned the Phi Delta party or tomorrow's trigonometry exam. Nora was vastly amused. She had read Kerouac and crowd and found them almost as tedious as England's Angry Young Men. Aimless, drifting, asocial, apolitical and amoral, they seemed to her a group of self-obsessed, self-indulgent drop-outs who needed a good hot bath and steady employment. With his craggy, movie-star good looks, Kerouac was undeniably a glamorous figure, extravagantly exploited by all the media, but the philosophy he espoused was strictly for mental retards. He and Cassady were a no-show that evening—what the hell would they be doing in Indiana, for God's sake—but around eleven another interesting couple did appear.

“Hey cats,” a hipster at the next table said, “dig the straights.”

Nora turned to stare. The girl was tall and slender, with sleek auburn hair worn in a chic French twist. She had haughty green eyes, high, patrician cheekbones and a sullen mouth, and she was wearing a simple emerald-green sheath that had cost somebody a bundle. The man with her wore brown slacks, a brown-and-tan checked sport coat and a tobacco-brown tie. He had dark, unruly hair, slate-blue eyes and handsome, moody features. He wore black horn-rims. His arm was wrapped around the girl's waist, his manner quite proprietary as he led her to the table the waitress chose for them. Nora watched as they ordered espresso, as Doug Hammond took the girl's hand and gazed deeply into her eyes and talked to her in a low, sincere voice.

Nora recognized the girl immediately. She was Cynthia Lawrence, a nineteen-year-old junior, very big in the sorority set. Her father was Matthew Lawrence, the celebrated corporate lawyer. He had his own law firm, had his own skyscraper, for that matter. He was one of the wealthiest men in Chicago, had inherited millions from his first wife, the South American Doris Duke, coffee plantations, opal mines, you name it. Cynthia was the issue of his second marriage, to Cissy Vandercamp. The Vandercamps were Chicago's first family. Cynthia was a living, breathing heiress, minor league, to be sure, but due to come into a sizable fortune one of these years. So that's the way the wind blows, Nora thought bitterly. She wondered how long it had been going on. Quite some time from the looks of them. The son of a bitch!

“Something wrong?” Brian inquired.

“Let's get out of here, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Look, sweetie,” she said as they left, “I'm in a rotten mood. I'd rather you took me straight back to the dorm tonight.”

“Something I've done?”

“No, Brian, it isn't you. You're super. God knows I don't deserve you. I just don't feel like going to your apartment. Is that all right? No hurt feelings? No wounded ego?”

“No hurt feelings. No wounded ego.”

“You're a peach. I'll make it up to you.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“You've gotta deal,” he said.

Nora had lunch with Julie at the Silver Bell the next day, and Julie looked rather pale, merely picked at her food, seemed unusually subdued. Nora wondered if she knew the bastard was cheating on her. She chattered vivaciously, telling Julie about the Cellar, telling her about ordering her cap and gown that morning and how Bradley was grousing because she had selected him to robe her at the robing ceremony, which meant
he
had to rent one, too. Cheapskate hated to fork out the twenty bucks. Julie pretended to listen, even smiled now and then, but Nora could tell her mind was on something else. Life was downright shitty sometimes. Julie was one of the good guys of this earth, genuinely good through and through. She deserved nothing but the best, and she got an arrogant, deceitful, opportunistic asshole like Doug Hammond. Me, I'm the town pump for almost two years and I get someone like Brian. Tell me it's fair.

“I can't believe graduation's so close,” she said. “Can't believe this is all coming to an end.”

“Have you decided what you're going to do?” Julie asked.

“Not yet. I'd be an idiot to turn him down.”

“I suppose you would be.”

“I should have my head examined for even hesitating. Men like Brian Gregory are few and far between. It's just that—well, I have this crazy idea there should be more to life than settling down with a good man, raising kids, trading recipes with the girls. It's a good life, sure, but I'm not sure it's the life for me, even though I love him.”