Too Much Too Soon (6 page)

This was her first meeting with their American uncle. He was ugly, but everyone spoke respectfully to him, so he must have more than money, he must have power. Joscelyn, a wretched outsider on two continents, had the deepest respect for power.

Crystal was tossing her head like a bright-crested tropical bird as she flittered between various groups, including Uncle Gideon’s.

Honora chatted animatedly with a younger man who grinned at her with exactly the right amount of amused sarcasm. Seeing this sister, almost a mother figure, so flirtatiously vivacious struck Joscelyn as a desecration.

Her father held his hands in his pockets, lounging with aristocratic nonchalance. The men present, obviously too common to realize his good breeding, did not include him in their conversations.

When they were ready to leave, Uncle Gideon insisted on having Juan drive them home. Escorting them through the huge front hall, he said with a stiffly warm smile, “We—I—have Open House every other Saturday afternoon. And I expect all of you.”

Joscelyn perched proudly on the limousine’s jumpseat.

Langley remained silent in the car. As they emerged, he said, “Your daddy has a matter of business to attend to, my pets. Eat your suppers without me.” He raised his derby, executing a little dance, his charade of a vaudeville actor exiting from the stage. “Adieu, adieu.”

“Daddy, you’re being an ass,” Joscelyn called in a thin, high voice, praying her father would not leave.

But he, typically, paid no attention to her prayer.

She moped around the flat, refusing to go to bed until her sisters did. Soon the sound of regular breathing came from their beds. Joscelyn was desperate to use the lavatory but she could not face the sinister hall, the evil shadows in
the living room, the dread song of the pipes in the bathroom.

She had always been a terrible coward, a cowardice that she disguised with truculent bravado and a sharp, mean tongue, and her fears had been freighted to this side of the Atlantic. Let the least thing go wrong, and she was like Pavlov’s dog, secreting terror. Where was her father? San Francisco was earthquake territory. Could one part of the city fall in ruins while another section remained stable and unscathed?

Why didn’t he come home? Just when she was positive she would wet the bed, she heard the loud creak of uneven footsteps on the exterior staircase, her father’s voice muttering oaths as his key jabbed against the lock. Stumbling into his room with a sob, he slammed the door.

Joscelyn darted into the lavatory. She was back in bed and asleep within five minutes.

That was Langley’s first and last Open House.

*   *   *

The next few weeks Honora learned her trade, or rather, Vi instructed her in it. She and the pepper-tempered older woman were bound in an unarticulated yet genuine friendship that excluded outside lives—Honora knew almost nothing about Vi except that she had two exes, had “been around” and had worked five years at the Hollywood Pig’n’Whistle.

Although Honora refused to submit to the lightfingered sexual reconnoitering that Vi insisted led to much silver being left on the
table, her youth, her prettiness, her soft-voiced accent earned her excellent tips. A good thing. Langley was depositing less and less in the housekeeping jam jar so the money was urgently needed for the household as well as Joscelyn’s dentistry and new clothing.

Dior’s New Look also proved an expenditure. Skirts had plummeted. She and Crystal could no longer wear their English clothes, which they both thoroughly detested anyway. After work Honora would meet Crystal at the nearby Mode o’Day: they consulted anxiously over each blouse, dress, skirt, but in the end Honora relied on Crystal’s keen eye to select the smartest from endless racks of inexpensive rayon clothing. They both would have preferred quality, but it was essential that they own several outfits for the Open Houses.

The three Sylvander sisters had become part of the Clay Street regulars. With Curt Ivory and Imogene Burdetts, they were the only guests under forty.

“You’ll fit in better if you drop the Uncle,” said their host, his gravel-voice awkward with warmth. “We aren’t blood kin anyway. Just call me Gideon.”

To all three it seemed a daring American departure to address a forty-five-year-old man by his Christian name, and Joscelyn especially felt a thrill of pride each time she obeyed him.

Curt invariably bantered with Honora, spending nearly as much time with her as with Imogene, whom he escorted to the Opera Ball, and to dinner dances given by their friends.

(“Do you honestly think he’s sleeping with her, Crys?”

“He’s rich, Honora, she’s rich.”

“But is he
sleeping
with her?”

“If he enjoyed it madly, she’d have hooked him by now.”)

Honora always left Clay Street with a deep feeling of inferiority. What good did it do to remind herself that she was a Sylvander when maybe Curt could smell the fry cook’s Crisco on her just-shampooed hair?

Curt wore gorgeous clothes, he drove a large yellow convertible, he smelled of a tangy aftershave. He belonged with Imogene. They knew all the same people, they spoke the same slang with the same accent, they had been graced since birth by the same good fortune. Honora would imagine him in dinner clothes—how handsome he must be in the gleaming black and white—waltzing with Imogene, the skirt of her honest Dior swirling around them as they circled and dipped, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. She would imagine his mouth kissing Imogene’s, she would imagine him undressing the enviably angular body.

Each week she swore never to return.
He doesn’t really know I exist so why torture myself?
But of course she could no more stay away than stop breathing.

*   *   *

On June 29, at the height of the breakfast rush, Honora left the service area holding three orders while expertly nudging open the Out door with her left hip.

Easing into the crowded cafe, she saw Curt at the table near the cash register.

Instinctively she tottered backward. Vi was a step behind her. They collided.

Honora’s orders seemed to move in slow motion. Eggs and bacon lifted upward from the plate, waffle with hash slid downward and two poached eggs slithered in a tango-like dance. Then, abruptly, blue willow pattern crashed. Honora was left gripping two toast plates in precise horizontal position.

“Oh crap!” Vi yelled as her arm contorted to maintain balance of her plates. She was so experienced that only the oatmeal fell, splattering on her ankle. “You dumb English cunt. Ain’t I taught you nothing?”

The soprano fury soared above the breakfast clatter and boom of male voices. Heads swiveled.

For a heartbeat Curt’s gaze met Honora’s. So intense was her focus across the distance that she could see his pupils contract with shocked surprise.
Revulsion, too?

She barged through the In door. Panting and quivering, she stood on the raised-up, slatted floor of the service area. She could hear Vi on the other side shouting for a busboy, then heard her bark, “You can’t go in back, sir, it’s employees only.”

But the door swung open and Curt stood there, a handsomely dressed anomaly. Honora’s heart was thudding so hard that she thought she would faint.

“So it
was
you,” Curt said.

“Coming through!” shouted Salvador, the
new busboy, wielding a broom and handled scuttle.

Curt asked, “What was that about a brokerage firm’s receptionist?”

She had studiously avoided compounding her lie, so the information must have been passed on to him by her father or Crystal—or was it Joscelyn? “Obviously misinformation,” she said, attempting a light yet haughty tone. “A false rumor. This is how I earn my daily bread.”

“Rye, toasted,” he said, referring to the triangularly cut slices on the two plates she still gripped, keeping his tone as light as hers. But his eyes weren’t fanning into the smile creases as he peered at her tight, short uniform, the cap with its idiotic little points, the awful rubber-soled, laced-up white oxfords.

Vi darted into the service area, a whirl of blue checks. She glared at Honora. “Listen, ain’t it bad enough you dropped your order and mosta mine, do you have to stand here jawing at rush hour?”

“What time are you off?” Curt asked quietly.

“Three thirty,” Vi replied. “Now beat it, mister. Even if you’re above obeying the rules, Honora works here.”

He turned and left without speaking. As the door swung in decreasing arcs, Honora’s little smile crumpled.

“Come on, don’t look like that,” Vi said, her voice less cantankerous. “Whatever the handsome bozo said to you, it ain’t the end of the world.”

Not the demise of the planet Earth, maybe, but Honora’s pride and her dreams lay dead in the service area. Her body convulsed, her mouth opened, releasing a gasping whimper that cascaded into a torrent of harsh, wracking sobs. She pressed her forehead against the shelf with the blue and white sugar and creamers, unable to halt the disgrace of public tears.

“What the hell’s going on around here?” Al’s furious voice.

“The flu, she shouldn’t of come,” Vi muttered.

“Honora, you get on home.” Al, quieter.

“I’ll . . . be . . . all . . . right . . .” she gasped, escaping to the waitresses’ washroom.

She stood with her arms pressed across her breasts, her fingernails digging into her upper arms as she tried to get hold of herself. Each time she quieted down a bit, she would conjure up Curt’s pale, horror-struck face. The hoarse, unwilled sobs would start afresh. When finally she had no more tears and she could neither think nor feel, she sat torpidly in the toilet cubicle.

“Everything all right, Honora?” Vi called on the other side of the stall.

“Yes,” Honora said weakly, and came out.

“Go home and get some rest, kid. It’s okay with Al.”

From the depth of her blankness, Honora fished up the information that this was Friday and Joscelyn had a four o’clock dental appointment. The two-dollar fee was payable at Dr. Brady’s office, so she had arranged to meet her
little sister with the money—money which must come from today’s tips. “I’ll be all right,” she said with more strength.

“You sure look like hell.”

“A bit of lipstick’ll do wonders.”

“In case you’re interested, your friend left right away.” Vi was surveying her with worry. “Listen, you ain’t in trouble, are you?”

Trouble?
Honora looked blankly at the powdered, sympathetic face.

“Sitting on the nest,” Vi added.

“You mean having a baby?”

“Don’t let it throw you, kid.” Vi glanced around, then whispered, “I know a doctor.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Honora protested.

Vi’s sympathetic disbelief showed. “Kid, I’m on your side.”

“Honestly, Vi, he’s not even exactly a friend.”

“Whatever he is, he ain’t worth an hour and a half’s crying. No man is.”

*   *   *

Honora plodded through the day, blocking out the scene with an effort that brought on a monster of a headache. She finished Vi’s aspirin while she changed to go home.

As she went out the door she glimpsed Curt lounging against one of the Tuscan pillars of the Stock Exchange. Seeing her, he waved. She hurried around the corner, each step jolting inside her head. He must have run across the busy intersection of Pine and Sansome. She heard a horn blare behind her.

Catching up, he said, “How about a lift home.”

“I’m not going home”, she said stiffly.

“Why not? You look beat.”

“Joss has a four o’clock appointment at the dentist’s and I’m meeting her.”

“I’ll drop you off there.”

“No thank you.” She headed in the direction of Telegraph Hill.

He kept up with her. “My car’s up the block.”

“What do you want?” she asked in a low, fierce voice.

“I’m offering you transportation, Honora.”

“Why aren’t you at Talbott’s? Why should you take me anywhere? You never have before. Now you know I’m a waitress d’you think I’m easy?”

Their hurrying steps faltered and they turned to each other, wary as fencing duelists. A muscle moved in his eyelid, an intimation of hurt. Curt Ivory hurt?

She made an inarticulate sound in her throat. “I’m sorry. I have a rotten headache.”

“I get them, too,” he said.

His yellow Buick convertible was parked just ahead of them. He opened the door.

“It’s really not—”

“Honora, will you just shut up and get in.”

Unable to look at him, she obeyed. When he was behind the wheel, she murmured the address on Washington Square so quietly that he had to ask her to repeat it.

Maneuvering through the traffic, he didn’t attempt conversation. She held two fingers to her left temple. Her lack of experience with
men and her fastidiousness about sex had protected her, but now she wondered if she had blurted out the truth. It hardly seemed Curt’s style to hang around like a stage-door Johnny, but on the other hand, why had he waited for her? She glanced at his profile. Mouth folded tight, high cheekbones raised so that his eye was narrowed, aloof. Not the look of a man intent on seduction. Beyond that she could not read his expression. He might have been angry, resentful, bored or simply concentrating on driving.

Dr. Brady practiced above the drugstore in Washington Square. Curt drew up and glanced at his watch. “On the dot,” he said.

“This was most kind of you,” she said, then blurted, “Listen, Curt, Daddy and Joscelyn don’t know where I work, they
do
think it’s at a brokerage . . .” Her voice trailed away and she knew her face was crimson.

“I understand,” he said quietly.

In the waiting room, Joscelyn was frowning over an illustrated history book: American History was her one weak subject. “You look like the wrath of God,” she said.

“Headache. Joss, I’m sorry, I can’t stay with you.”

After paying the nurse, Honora trudged home, swallowed three more aspirin and filled the yellow-stained tub, washing her hair under the long-necked faucet, sitting until the soap-scummed water was cold. Crawling into bed, she tried to read but the library novel couldn’t raise her from the slough of despond. She
shivered under the eiderdown. Life stretched ahead of her, a bleak cement track of hateful work.