Wake Up With a Stranger (17 page)

In front of the house, she got out of the car and went inside and directly upstairs. She walked through the rooms slowly, staying in each one until she felt impelled to move on, trying in each, by making herself very quiet and receptive, to recover the quality it had possessed in the short-lived period of happiness when she was very young, wanting sincerely in the final moments of the final departure to remember these rooms as kindly as she possibly could. The sewing room she saved to the end. Mrs. Kullen was there when she arrived, and remained when she went. Caught in her corset, fixed in light, she survived all others and would never leave.

In the hall below, Wayne Buchanan was standing at the door and looking out through the small glass pane to the street. He turned when she came up behind him. His face was livid and loose on its bones, and he was at that moment, though she didn’t know it, more afraid and alone than he had ever been.

“Are you going?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m going.”

“Will you come back to see me when you can?”

“No. I hope that I never see you again.”

“But — but why?”

“You are not my father and have never been. You are only the man who helped to beget me.”

“How can you say such things?”

“Since they are true, they are not difficult to say. Perhaps it is difficult to hear and accept, but that’s your problem.”

“I have always tried to do my best for my family.”

“Do you actually confess that you could have done no better? Anyhow, it does not matter, because it’s a damn lie, and you know it very well. You have been mean and petty and cruel, and you have never tried honestly to do a truly generous thing. I was sick of you long ago, and I am sick of you now, but I am willing to do you the courtesy of forgetting you entirely if you will do the same for me.” He stepped aside abruptly and opened the door.

Because she wanted to restore at once the pattern of life which had been interrupted by her mother’s death, she went to the shop. She arrived just before closing time and went through the salon to her workroom. There, she threw herself into a chair and stretched her legs out long in front of her, arching her back, and feeling in calves and thighs the pleasant tension of muscles. She felt liberated, cut loose, in a way exonerated. She did not have any idea of precisely what she had been exonerated of, but she was conscious, nevertheless, of the lifting of an obscure indictment. Corollary with the liberation was a sense of being caught in a quickening current, a conviction that something of significance was going to happen to her, and that the thing to happen would be good. Reacting physically to the spur of her thoughts, she felt in her flesh a kind of tingling resiliency, and she was impelled to laugh aloud.

After a while, Gussie Ingram knocked and entered without waiting for a response. She slouched in a chair and lit one of her interminable cigarettes.

“Well,” she said, “how did it go?”

“Miserably. I’m immensely relieved that it’s over.”

“I hope you don’t mind because I wasn’t there. I simply cannot endure a funeral.”

“Of course not. It would have been completely unnecessary.”

“What will your father do now?”

“I don’t know. He’ll get along, I suppose.”

“I was wondering if perhaps you’d move in with him, now that he’s alone.”

“No. I wouldn’t even consider it. My father and I are not compatible.”

“Oh? Well, neither were me and mine, so far as that goes. What in God’s name is it that makes fathers so frequently impossible?”

“Maybe they aren’t. Maybe ours were exceptions. Anyhow, I am feeling too good at present to spoil it by talking of unpleasant things. Do you think it wrong of me to feel good under the circumstances?”

“I have long ago abandoned judging what is wrong or not wrong, darling.”

“Well, I was just sitting here feeling free and rather excited. Rather like I used to feel the last day of school when I was a child. As a matter of fact, I have a peculiar notion that something good is about to happen. Do you believe it is possible to have valid premonitions?”

“Oh, God, darling, don’t ask me.”

“Wasn’t it Huxley who defined metaphysics as the art of befuddling oneself methodically?”

“I wouldn’t know about that, either. Huxley and I are as incompatible as my old man and I were, but for different reasons.”

“Well, to hell with Huxley and metaphysics. Tell me how things went in the shop today.”

“Nicely, darling. I sold your red taffeta.”

“Really? To whom?”

“Mrs. Christopher Polk, no less.”

“Jesus, Gussie, it’s impossible for her!”

“I know. Her ass is far too big. Serena modeled it, however, and Serena’s ass is neither too big nor too small, but intolerably perfect. The moment Polk saw the taffeta on Serena, she assumed, of course, that it would look the same on her. The vanity of some of these bitches is perfectly incredible.”

“It will have to be altered all to hell.”

“I know. The seamstress has it upstairs now.”

“Oh, well, it’s another original sale, anyhow, and everyone will certainly recognize that the gown can’t be blamed for Polk’s tail. Some day, Gussie, nothing but originals will be sold in this shop. Nothing at all.”

“Say, you
are
feeling good, aren’t you? Are you withholding information by any chance? Did Tyler tell you something over the telephone to bring on this optimism?”

“Tyler? Telephone? What do you mean?”

“He called earlier this afternoon and left word for you to call him back. There’s a memo on the desk in the office. Didn’t you see it?”

“No. I’m sorry. I haven’t been in the office since I got here.”

“Then you’d better go and call him at once.”

“In a minute, Gussie. I don’t suppose there’s any hurry.”

Actually, now that the cure for action had been presented, she was oddly reluctant to commit herself. It was not that she dreaded hearing whatever Tyler had to say, but just the contrary, for she still felt the imminence of something significant and good, of which the call might very well be the beginning. She wanted to savor the expectation for a while, and she decided that she would smoke a cigarette slowly and call Tyler afterward. Lighting the cigarette, she blew out smoke and watched it rise and thin and disappear.

“Did he imply at all what he wants?” she asked.

“No. It wasn’t even him personally. It was a woman. His secretary, I suppose. Why don’t you call him?”

“I’m going to. Just as soon as I finish my cigarette.”

“Well, finish the goddamn thing, will you, darling? I would like to get away from here, if you don’t mind, and I’m damned if I’ll go before I learn what he wants.”

Donna laughed and stood up, bending down to grind the cigarette out in a tray.

“Jesus, Gussie, you’re simply a
slave
driver. All right, then. I’ll go and call, and afterward we can go out and have a drink together in celebration, or several in mourning.”

She went out of the room and across to the office that had been Aaron’s and was now, at least for the time being, hers. Gussie had written Tyler’s number on the memo pad, and she dialed, leaning with one hip against the desk for the duration of two long rings, after which the voice of Tyler himself came over the wire.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello, Mr. Tyler. This is Donna Buchanan.”

“Oh, yes. Miss Buchanan. Did you think I had forgotten you?”

“I was beginning to wonder.”

“I assure you that I hadn’t. I would like to talk with you again, but it is a little late in the day for it now, perhaps.”

“It’s not too late for me, if it isn’t for you.”

“Well, let’s see. I’m just preparing to leave here, but I plan to stop for a drink in a small bar I patronize. Would you care to meet me there? We could have a drink together and talk comfortably. Or I could pick you up at the shop, if you prefer.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be happy to meet you.”

“Good. Could you make it in, say, half an hour?”

“If it isn’t too far. What is the name and address of the place?”

He told her where to come, and she hung up, after saying goodby, and returned to her workroom where Gussie was waiting.

“Did you get him?” Gussie said.

“Yes, I got him. He was still in his office. I have a feeling he was there just waiting for me to call.”

“What do we have, a celebration or a wake?”

“Neither, I’m afraid. Do you mind very much if we take a raincheck on it?”

“Oh, God, stood up again! I guess, at my filthy age and in my condition, that it’s to be expected.”

“I’m sorry, Gussie, truly I am. He asked me to have a drink with him, and I had to agree, of course, under the circumstances. You can understand that.”

“Sure, I understand, darling. And never mind the apology. If I had to choose between me and a millionaire, I sure as hell wouldn’t consider it much of a problem, you can bet your sweet chastity on that. And speaking of chastity, I wonder why it just happened to come into my mind at this moment as an appropriate allusion. Do you suppose that my female intuition warns me that yours is under seige?”

“Don’t be a damn fool, Gussie. This is strictly business.”

“Business is what I’m talking about, darling. Your business.”

“I doubt that he’d consider it worth two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Maybe on a long-term lease he would. Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of business! My God, it would be a career in itself, and it absolutely decimates me to think of it. Oh, hell, darling, I’m just kidding, of course. I wish you luck and all that, and I’ll have a drink to it at the earliest opportunity, which should occur not later than ten minutes from now. Before the evening is over, as a matter of fact, I shall probably have as many as a dozen to it.”

She stood up and walked out of the room, looking somehow graceful and very smart in spite of her slouch and sharp protrusions, and Donna went into the lavatory and washed her hands and repaired her face. Five minutes later, in the street outside, she caught a taxi and gave the driver the address that Tyler had given her. Ten minutes later than that, in another street, she got out of the taxi in front of the bar.

It was a small bar, tucked in between a book dealer and a florist, which didn’t look like much on the outside, and didn’t look much more on the inside. And it certainly didn’t look like the kind of bar a millionaire would patronize or ask a young woman to meet him in. Standing for a moment just inside the door, while her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she wondered if she could have misunderstood the number or the name of the street, but this wasn’t at all likely. And then, she could see Tyler standing and smiling beside a small table in the rear. She went back to him and submitted a hand to his cool, dry touch, and they sat down together at the table, their knees touching for an instant underneath as they settled themselves.

“First,” he said, “I’d like to offer my sympathy. I didn’t know until I called the shop earlier today that you had lost your mother.”

“Thank you,” she said, feeling that she should say more but not knowing what it should be.

“Perhaps it was tactless of me to invite you here. I don’t wish to intrude.”

“Oh, no. It’s quite all right.”

“I’m glad. The truth is, I was most anxious to see you again. I’ve been sitting here like a schoolboy anticipating your coming.”

“You’re very gracious to say so, but I don’t believe it, of course.”

“Why not?”

“If you had been so anxious to see me, it could have been arranged much sooner. As I’ve told you, I was beginning to think that you had forgotten me entirely.”

“You couldn’t have been more wrong. However, here is the waiter for our order. What will you have?”

“I think I’ll have a sidecar.”

“Sidecar? I haven’t had one for ages. It’s brandy, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Brandy.”

“I’ll have one with you. Ordinarily I drink only bourbon and water, but I’m not feeling ordinary this evening.” He turned to the waiter. “Two sidecars,” he said.

The waiter moved over to the bar, which was not many steps away. She thought, looking at Tyler, that he was certainly a man who never felt ordinary at any time, this evening or any other. His face, she decided at first, was the face of an ascetic, which he surely was not, his nose aquiline and his mouth finely fashioned, suggesting sensuality in conflict with the asceticism. Ascetic, as a matter of fact, was not quite the adjective with which to describe his appearance. She sought the proper adjective in her mind and decided that it was sentient. He was a man aware, possibly in some respects, vulnerable. The waiter brought their sidecars, and she sipped hers hungrily, controlling an urge to drink it right down. It was cold and good, the tart liquid accented pleasantly by the sugared rim of the glass.

“Do you know why I waited so long to contact you again?” he said.

“I heard that you were out of town. Mr. Joslin told me.”

“So I was. For about ten days. That is not why I waited, however. Or rather, it is, like the waiting itself, part of the effect of the cause.”

“I don’t follow that, I’m afraid. Anyhow, I assume that it takes quite a long while to decide about making such a loan.”

“Frankly, I haven’t yet definitely decided about the loan. I’m considering it.”

“Is that why you wanted to see me? Just to tell me that you haven’t decided?”

“If that had been all I wanted, I could have told you over the telephone. Shall I be perfectly honest with you? I am not incapable of subtlety and indirection when it is necessary, but I have an idea that you would prefer to have me say bluntly what is on my mind.”

“Yes, I would prefer that.”

“All right. I wanted to see you simply for the pleasure of seeing you, and I waited so long to do it because I wanted it too much.”

“Is that being blunt? It sounds rather devious to me.”

“I don’t think so, and I don’t think you think so, either. However, I can be even blunter. I have not met anyone in many years who has interested me as you have. Do you remember the day I came to your shop with Harriet? Afterward, I kept thinking about you and wishing that I might meet you again under different circumstances. Then you came to my office about the loan, and I thought that the second meeting might cure the first, but it didn’t. It only accelerated my regression to adolescence. Am I now being too blunt?”