Where Love Has Gone (30 page)

“Of course not,” Marian Spicer said quickly. “But she did kill a man. That may indicate paranoia.” She watched Nora closely.

“That’s ridiculous! Dani’s no more insane than I am!”

That might be the truth, Marian thought to herself. Almost immediately she felt a sense of self- reproach. She had no right to pass that kind of judgment.

“I’ll send in some doctors of my own selection,” Nora said suddenly.

“That’s your right, Miss Hayden. And it might be helpful. Perhaps a doctor of your own selection might more easily gain Dani’s confidence.”

Nora put down her teacup. Marian knew the interview was over. “Is there any other information I can give you, Miss Spicer?”

Marian shook her head. “I don’t think so, Miss Hayden.” She started to rise. “There is one more thing.”

“Yes.”

“Could I see Dani’s room?”

Nora nodded. “I’ll have Charles show it to you.”

Marian followed the butler up the circular marble stairway. “How is Miss Dani, ma’am?” Charles asked over his shoulder.

“She’s all right.”

They reached the top of the stairs and started down the hall. Charles stopped in front of a door. “This is Miss Dani’s room.”

He opened the door and Marian went in. As Charles followed her into the room, Nora’s voice came from the house interphone on the wall. “Charles.”

“Yes, mum.”

“Would you ask Violet to show Dani’s room to Miss Spicer? I have an errand for you.”

“At once, mum.” The butler turned toward the doorway just as the colored maid appeared. “You heard the madam?”

Violet nodded. “Yes, suh.”

Charles bowed and left the room. The maid came in and closed the door behind her. Marian stood in the center of the room and looked around.

It was a beautiful room. There was a canopied four-posted on a small platform against the far wall. Television and radio and record player were all in one unit against the opposite wall. Marian didn’t have to look to know that they could be operated by remote control from the headboard of the bed.

The curtains were a bright yellow chintz, the bedspread the same matching material. Near the window was a desk, on top of which were a portable typewriter and some books. There were also a dresser, a chest of drawers and several chairs.

Marian turned to the maid. “Didn’t Dani have any pictures or pinups on the wall?” The maid shook her head. “No’m. Miss Dani didn’ go for things like that.” “What’s in there?” Marian asked, pointing to a double door in the opposite wall. “That’s the closet. Her own bathroom is through that other door.”

Marian opened the closet and looked in. A light went on as soon as the door opened. There were rows of dresses hanging neatly, and shoes on a circular revolving rack. She closed the doors and heard the click as the interior light went out.

“Where does Miss Dani keep her personal things?” “Over there in the dressuh.”

Marian opened the top drawer and looked in. It too was neatly arranged—handkerchiefs and stockings in separate compartments. The same held true for the other drawers. Brassieres, panties, slips. All were neatly folded.

Marian went over to the desk and opened a drawer. Pencils, pens, paper, everything neat and orderly. She wondered about the usual teenage mess. This didn’t seem much like a child’s room. She looked at the maid. “Does she keep her room like this all the time?”

The maid nodded. “Yes’m. She’s very neat. She don’ like havin’ her things messed up.” “What does she keep in there?” Marian asked, indicating the chest of drawers.

“She call that her treasure chest. She keep it locked all the time.” “Do you have a key?”

The girl shook her head. “Would her mother?”

“No’m. Miss Dani always kep’ the key herself.” “Would you know where it is?”

The maid looked at Marian for a moment, then nodded. “Could I have it, please?”

The maid hesitated. “Miss Dani won’t like it.”

Marian smiled. “It’s all right. You can ask her mother.”

The maid looked doubtful for a moment, then walked over to the headboard of the bed and stuck her hand behind it. She came up with a key which she handed to Marian.

Marian unlocked the chest of drawers. All the pictures and photographs were here. Maybe they weren’t on the walls but Dani had kept them. Quickly she leafed through them. There were pictures of her father taken years ago, when he was still in uniform. And of her mother, one of them the cover picture from
Life
magazine, dated 1944. There were several of herself alone and with her parents, pictures of a boat. Marian could just read the name of the white bow.
The Dani Girl
.

The second drawer was filled with newspaper clippings about her mother. Dani had arranged them neatly so that they formed a chronological history of her mother’s career.

The third drawer contained exactly the same thing as the second. Only here her father was the subject. Marian glanced through the items briefly, thinking that the child must have spent a great deal of time gathering all this material. Much of it dated to even before she was born.

The bottom drawer at first seemed to be filled with junk. There were several broken toys. Child’s toys. A worn and faded wool Teddy bear with one glass eye missing. And a green leather box. Marian took it out and opened it.

It contained a single eight-by-fourteen glossy photograph of a smiling, very handsome young man. The writing across the corner was in black India ink.

To My Baby With Love
. It was signed
Rick
.

When Marian picked up the photograph to study it, she noticed a small metal container underneath. The bold dark lettering jumped up at here: AMERICA’S FINEST.

She didn’t have to open it to know what was inside. She had seen enough of them. It seemed to be the teenager’s favorite brand. They could buy them in almost any public restroom in the country by inserting a fifty-cent coin in a vending machine.

9

__________________________________________

Sally Jennings looked up from her desk as Dani came into the small office. “Sit down, Dani.” She pushed a package of cigarettes toward her. “I’ll only be a few minutes. I have to finish this report.”

Dani took a cigarette and lit it. She sat watching the psychologist’s pen flying over the lined yellow notepaper. After a few moments she tired of that and looked out the window. It was late in the afternoon and the bright yellow sun had begun to pick up faint tinges of orange. Suddenly she wished she were outside.

Idly she wondered what day it was. She seemed to have lost all track of time. She glanced at the calendar on the wall. Wednesday. She had come in Saturday, so today was her fifth day. She stirred restlessly in her seat. It seemed like a very long time.

She looked up at the sky. It would be nice to be outside. She wondered what it was like on the street. Whether there were many people out walking; whether the traffic was heavy; even how the sidewalks would feel against the soles of her shoes. She wished that she could see the street. But she couldn’t. Not from any; of these rooms. The windows were too small and high up.

She glanced at Miss Jennings again but she was still writing, a furrow of concentration knotting her brow. Dani wondered how long she would have to sit before the psychologist was through. She looked up at the sky again. There were small orange-tinted clouds scudding by, high up. She remembered clouds like that once in Acapulco. High in the sky over the cliffs, where the boys leaped with flaming torches at night into the sea.

There had been a boy there. He had smiled at her, his white teeth flashing in his dark face. And she had smiled back at him. Rick had been angry.

“Don’t give any of those greasers the come-on like that,” he’d said.

She’d looked at him with the look of wide-eyed innocence that always made him even more angry. She knew that he thought it made her look more like her mother than ever. “Why not?” she’d asked. “He seems like a nice boy.”

“You don’t know these boys. They’re not like other boys. They’ll bother you. They don’t know you’re still a kid.”

She smiled sweetly. “Why not, Rick?”

She’d seen his eyes dart over her white bathing suit. He flushed. She knew why he flushed.

She’d caught him looking at her like that many times. “Why not, Rick?”

“Because you don’t look like a kid, that’s why,” he’d said angrily. “You don’t look like thirteen.”

“How old do I look, Rick?”

She saw him look again. It was almost involuntary on his part. “You’re a big girl. Seventeen, maybe eighteen.”

She’d smiled at him, then turned to look at the boy because she knew that would make Rick even angrier.

Just then her mother had come up. “Damn it, Rick. Scaasi wants me to fly up to San Francisco tonight to sign those contracts.”

“Do you have to?” “I have to.”

“I’ll go pack our bags,” Rick said, scrambling to his feet.

“No, there’s no need for all of us to go. You and Dani stay here. I’ll be back by lunchtime tomorrow.”

“I’ll go to the airport with you.”

Dani got to her feet. “I’ll go too, Mother.”

When they came out of the airport, after the plane had taken off, they passed a souvenir shop, one of those tourist traps that sold everything from cheap jewelry to peasant skirts and blouses. Dani had looked in the window at the skirts.

“Would you like on?” Rich asked.

They’d gone inside and he’d bought her a blouse and skirt. She wore them that evening for dinner, her hair hanging to her shoulders in a sort of Mexican page-boy style.

She saw his eyes widen. “How do you like it?” she asked. “I like it real fine. But—”

“But what?”

“Your mother. I wonder what she’ll think.”

Dani had laughed. “Mother won’t like it at all. Mother would like to keep me a baby forever but she can’t.”

They went out for dinner and the waiter asked if she’d like a cocktail, jut as if she were grown- up. And later, when the orchestra began to play, she asked Rick to dance with her.

It had been real dreamy. Not like dancing with the boys from school. She liked the smell of him, the faint cologne, the light aroma of whiskey on his breath. She pressed very close to him. She liked the feeling of strength in his arms as he held her. She sighed and moved her hips sensuously with the beat of the Latin music.

Suddenly he missed a step and cursed, then abruptly drew away from her. “I think we’d better sit down.”

Obediently she let him lead her back to the table. He ordered another drink and sipped it quickly. He didn’t speak.

After a moment, she said, “Don’t be embarrassed. I’ve seen it happen to you when you danced with Mother.”

He gave her a peculiar look. “Sometimes I think you see too damn much.” “I’m glad it happened. Now I’m sure I’m grown-up.”

He flushed and looked at his watch. “It’s after eleven o’clock. Time you were in bed.”

She lay stretched out on the bed, listening to the night sounds coming in from the open windows. The lush tropical sounds of birds and crickets and creaking trees and rustling palms. Then she heard the telephone ring in his room. In a little while there was silence again.

Abruptly she got out of bed and walked across the living room to the suite to his door. She stood listening for a moment. There was no sound from the other side. She turned the knob gently and went in. In the dark she could see that the door to her mother’s room, just beyond, was open. She turned and looked at his bed. “Was that Mother?”

He’d turned on his side, the sheet pulled halfway up. “Yes.” “What did she want?”

“Nothing. She said she’d be back tomorrow.”

She moved closer to the side of his bed and looked down at him. “She was checking up on you.

Mother doesn’t like to take any chances. It’s a good thing you were in.” “I do what I please,” he said angrily.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

“Don’t you think you’d better go back to bed now?” “I’m not sleepy.”

“You can’t stay in here. I haven’t anything on under this sheet.” “I know,” she said. “Even in the dark I can see that.”

He sat up in bed. She could see the muscles in his arms and chest ripple as he moved. His voice was hoarse. “Don’t be a fool. You’re still a kid.”

She moved closer and sat down on the edge of the bed. “You didn’t think so this afternoon when that boy smiled at me. You were jealous.”

“I was not.”

“And you didn’t think I was a kid when we were dancing.” She opened her pajama top. She saw his eyes turn toward her breasts as if drawn by a magnet. She smiled. “Do I look like a kid?”

He stared into her face without speaking.

She put her hand on the sheet. He caught it in a tight grip. “What are you doing?” he asked in an almost shocked voice.

“What are you afraid of?” A challenging look came into her eyes. “Mother will never know.” He stared into her eyes as she raised his hand to her breasts. “I’ll hurt you,” he whispered.

“I know about that. But it’s only the first time.”

He seemed incapable of movement. “You’re worse than your mother!”

She laughed and suddenly slipped her hand under the sheet. “Don’t be a fool, Rick. I’m not a kid anymore, I know that you love me. I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me.

“I look at lots of girls,” he said.

She let her fingers caress him gently.

“Dani.” Miss Jennings’ voice reached into her reverie. “Dani.” She turned toward the psychologist. “Yes, Miss Jennings?”

The gray-haired woman smiled. “You were far away. What were you thinking about?”

Dani could feel the flush creep up into her face. “I—I was thinking how nice it was outside.”

The psychologist looked at her. Dani had the feeling that somehow Miss Jennings knew what she had been thinking about and the flush grew hotter in her cheeks. “You’d think about it too if you had to stay in this place all the time!”

Sally Jennings nodded. “I suppose so,” she said thoughtfully. “But I don’t have to. And you do.” “I won’t have to for long! Only until next week. Then I’ll be home again!”

“Do you really believe that, Dani?”

Dani stared at her. For the first time she began to feel doubts rise in her. “That’s what everybody told me.”