Where Love Has Gone (5 page)

“No. But he’ll be here.”

“You’re so sure,” Nora said. “How do you know? Have you heard from him?” “No.”

“Maybe he didn’t come.”

“He’ll be here,” her mother said definitely. “He said he would.”

“You always believed him rather than me, didn’t you?” Her voice filled with resentment. “That doesn’t matter. You’re my daughter.”

“And that’s all that matters,” Nora added bitterly.

“That’s right,” her mother said with crisp finality. “And if you haven’t learned that by now, you’ll never learn.”

There was a subdued knock, then the door opened and Charles came in. He was carrying a small silver service tray.

“Mr. Gordon wants you to wear a simple suit and a cloth coat, Nora. And no makeup, only pale lipstick.”

“Mr. Gordon thinks of everything.”

Charles put the tray down on a small table next to the bed. He filled a cup with coffee and handed it to her, along with three aspirins on a small plate.

“You can thank God we’ve got him,” her mother said.

“Do I have to come? I feel terrible this morning. I’ve got a frightful headache …” “Nora!” Her mother’s voice was shocked.

“What good can I do? I couldn’t stand those questions again this morning. And the reporters will be there—”

Her mother’s voice went cold and hard. “You’ll go to Juvenile Hall with your daughter this morning. This is one thing I can’t do for you. Her father will be there and you’ll be there, like it or not.”

She felt the vise of the headache tighten on her temples. “All right, I’ll be there.”

She put down the telephone and picked up the aspirin. She placed all three on her tongue and washed them down with a swallow of coffee.

“And how is Miss Danielle?” Charles asked softly, an inquiring look on his shining round face.

She looked up at the butler with a kind of surprise. She hadn’t asked. But then there’d been no real reason to. If anything had been wrong with Danielle her mother would have told her. “Fine,” she answered automatically.

Charles waited for her to go on.

“My mother said she was still asleep,” she added, lying. Then she was angry with herself. She owed no explanations. Charles was nothing but a servant. No matter how long he had been with her.

“Tell Violet to draw my bath,” she said sharply. “I’ll send her right up, mum.”

The door closed behind him and she finished her cup of coffee. She got out of bed and poured herself another. As she turned, she caught her reflection in the large mirror over the dresser. Still holding the cup in her hand, she walked toward it.

She studied herself carefully. She didn’t look her thirty-eight years. She was still slim, still straight. There was no fat on her lips, and her breasts, though never large, were still round and firm.

She sipped at the coffee, still looking at herself. She liked the way her flesh shone through the sheer white silk and lace of her gown. She leaned closer to the mirror, peering at her face. There were faint blue hollows under her eyes but other than that there were no signs of what she had been through. Her eyes were clear, not bloodshot, and the flesh across her cheekbones was taut and held no trace of puffiness.

She began to feel better. There would be no one who would see her today who would not find it difficult to believe that Danielle was really her daughter.

The sound of water running into the tub began in the bathroom next door. Quickly she finished her coffee and, leaving the cup on the dresser, went into the bathroom.

The colored maid looked up from the large sunken marble tub. “Good mornin’, Miss Hayden.”

Nora smiled. “Good morning, Violet.” “Y’all rest well, Miss Hayden?”

“I don’t remember a thing after Dr. Bonner gave me the sedative.”

“I didn’ sleep too good myself. Them policemen kep’ me up half the night with their questions.” Nora looked at her curiously. “What did you tell them?”

“What could I tell them?” Violet answered, getting to her feet. “The same whut I seen when I came into the studio.” She reached for a bottle of bath salts on the shelf over the tub and began to sprinkle the scent into the water. “When I come into the room there you was on the flo’, bendin’ over Mr. Riccio. An’ Miss Dani, she was huddlin’ against the wall.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Nora said coldly.

“Yes’m. Neither does I. I don’ ever want to think about it no more.” She capped the bottle and placed it back on the shelf. The fragrant musky odor of the perfume began to rise with the steam from the tub. “Be a few minutes befo’ the tub is full. Would yuh like me to give you a rub? It’ll relax you.”

Nora nodded silently and removed her nightgown over her head. Violet moved quickly, taking the gown and folding it neatly across a chair as Nora stretched out on the narrow massage table.

She rested her chin on her crossed arms. It was so good to stretch. Really stretch out until you felt every muscle in your body pulling. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes.

After her bath she pressed down the button on the interphone. “Charles?” “Yes, mum.”

“Would you please get the car from the garage? And would you mind driving for me today? I don’t feel quite up to it.”

“Of course, mum.”

She released the button and got to her feet. She studied herself in the long mirror before she left the room. Harris Gordon knew what he was doing. The right impression was so important in situations like this.

The black suit she was wearing was perfect. It made her look slim and young. And the simple cloth coat she carried over her arm added the final touch, what her friends in the advertising business would call the sincere look. She looked young, attractive and dependable. Picking up her gloves and bag, she left the room.

Her thin spike heels echoed hollowly on the circular steps on the marble staircase as she came down into the entrance hall. She glanced out one of the windows framing the door.

Charles had not yet brought the car.

Following an instinct she did not quite understand, she turned down the narrow corridor that led to the studio. She stopped in surprise at the door. A young policeman was seated in front of it.

He got to his feet, touching his cap awkwardly. “Good morning, ma’am.” “Good morning. I’m Miss Hayden.”

“I know, ma’am. I was here last night.”

She raised an eyebrow in affected surprise. “All night?” she asked. “Without any rest?” “Yes, ma’am.”

“Have you had breakfast? You must be hungry.”

“I’m okay, ma’am.” The policeman flushed in embarrassment. “They were nice enough to bring me some coffee.”

“May I go in?”

He stood there awkwardly, watching her. He didn’t answer.

“It’s perfectly all right, I assure you,” she said in that suddenly mistress-to-servant voice she summoned up whenever she became annoyed. “After all, it is my studio.”

“I know, ma’am. But the sergeant said he didn’t want anything disturbed.” “I won’t disturb anything,” she said coldly. “You may watch if you like.” He hesitated a moment. “I guess it’ll be okay in that case.”

She stood there waiting. He stared at her, then flushed as he understood. He opened the door for

her.

“Thank you,” she said as he stepped aside for her to pass.

She paused in the doorway and looked around. There were chalk marks on the floor where

Rick’s body had lain and some stains that looked like blood. She sensed the watching eyes of the policeman and she raised her head and walked carefully around the chalk marks to the window.

The arc welder was still on the bench where she had left it when Rick had come into the studio. The box of thin steel strips was on the floor next to the small pedestal on which her latest work was beginning to take shape.

It was still skeletal armature, but there were a few tentative strips of steel, stretched taut and welded into place, hinting at the eventual outline. She closed her eyes for a moment. Yes, it was still there; she could still see it fully completed. She felt a strange inner pleasure. Even last night hadn’t disturbed her vision or her talent.

The strength and knowledge of what she was, of what she had inside her, surged warmly through her blood. She wasn’t like others. She was different. No one could see what she could see.

She opened her eyes and looked at the policeman, a peculiar smile of satisfaction on her lips. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

Then, abruptly, she turned and walked out of the studio.

I was whispering nonsense to Dani, the kind of nonsense a father will sometimes engage in, and Dani was going along with it. She has having fun being a little girl again for a few moments, when some instinct turned our eyes toward the doorway.

Dani was out of her chair before any of us could move, and by the time she reached Nora she was no longer a little girl. The transition was swift and shockingly complete. She was a young woman.

I looked around the table to see if the others had noticed. I couldn’t tell. Harris Gordon had a faint smile on his face as if he were thinking how good this would have looked in court. My former mother-in-law was looking at me, a thoughtful expression in her bright blue eyes. Then she too turned toward the doorway.

Nora had her arms around Dani. “Baby,” she was saying softly, turning her cheek so that Dani could kiss her. “My poor baby!”

“Are you all right, Mother?” Dani asked anxiously . “I’m fine, darling. And you—?”

“I’m okay, Mother. I’m just—just frightened, I guess. I had such nightmares last night.”

Nora stroked her hair. “There, there, don’t be frightened. Mother wouldn’t let anything happen to you. It’ll be all over in a few days. You’ll be home again as if nothing had ever happened.”

“I know, Mother. Do you know why?” Nora shook her head.

Dani came over and took my hand. “Because Daddy’s come to help me,” she said with a proud smile. “He came all the way from Chicago!”

Nora stared at us. I could tell from the expression in her eyes that it was as if the six years Dani and I had been apart had never happened. I could tell from the trusting warmth of my daughter’s hand that it was as it had always been between us. We were so much alike that Nora always felt somehow on the outside when we were together.

“You’ve grown thin, Luke.” She came toward me, holding out her hand, and I sensed her resentment. “Thank you for coming.”

“Chains couldn’t have kept me away,” I said quietly. I took her hand, making it brief and impersonal. Not at all as it used to be.

She withdrew her hand quickly and touched her forehead in that gesture I remembered so well. The headache warning, I used to call it. And the peculiar shadow that came into her eyes confirmed it. “Suddenly I feel old,” she said. “You look so young standing there next to Dani.”

“You’ll never be old,” I said politely.

But she looked at me and knew better. And knew that I knew better too. The shadow deepened and furrowed her brow. Abruptly she turned to her mother. “Do you have any aspirin, Mother? I think I have what they refer to as a sedative hangover.”

Her mother gestured. “On the sideboard, Nora.”

I watched her cross to the sideboard and shake three tablets out of the small bottle. Then she put one back and I knew that she’d already taken three before she arrived. She glanced at me just before she swallowed the aspirin, and again there was that peculiar flash of recognition between us.

Suddenly I felt sorry for her. Don’t ask me why; it was just there. Sometimes it is terrible to know so much about another human being. I knew that she was filled with a new and inexplicable fear and that she felt very much alone. For this was tomorrow. The empty tomorrow of her secret nightmares. This was the tomorrow she had told herself would never come.

And I was the same in that tomorrow as I had always been. Before she ate out my eyes.

2

__________________________________________

In September 1943 the war in Italy was almost over. MacArthur had begun his long march back to the Philippines and I was in San Francisco winding up a tour of defense plants and factories. The wheels had decided that would be an ideal way for me to recover my strength before going back to duty.

Nora was giving her first showing of the work she had done in the twenty-one months since we had been at war. The little studio that had formerly been the greenhouse in back of her mother’s house was crowded with people. She looked around appraisingly. She was pleased with the turnout.

Even the newspapers had sent out their art critics and they seemed impressed. She couldn’t help feeling an inner glow of pride. It helped make up for all the long wearying nights she had spent in the studio after working at the aircraft factory all day.

The war. It was a fool thing she had done. But she had been trapped like everyone else. Caught up in the hysteria of patriotism. The newspapers made a big thing of it—Nora Hayden, prominent debutante, daughter of one of San Francisco’s leading families, and one of America’s most promising young artists, sets aside her career for the duration.

She had felt like a silly fool when she’d read that. But early in 1942 she had never thought the war would drag on so long. By now she had had it. She was bored with getting up at six thirty and driving fifteen miles to work six days a week, with doing the same stupid thing day after day.

Stop the conveyer belt. Solder wire number one to wire number two. Start the belt so that the girl at the next bench can solder number two to number three. Stop the belt so that she can start over again. Nora was tired of playing Rosie the Riveter.

The whole thing was entirely too mechanized, too planned, for her. Even lunch hours were organized. It wasn’t bad enough that she had to eat a lousy sandwich, but every noon hour, along with her sandwich and the sugarless muddy coffee, and had to swallow exhortations to increase her production.

That noon there had been a rally complete with war hero. She hadn’t even gone outside. Instead she had gone upstairs to the lounge and perched on a bench near the window. She lit a cigarette and stretched out. She closed her eyes. The temporary quiet of the factory was a blessed relief. She could use the rest. She hadn’t gone to bed until four that morning, making sure that everything would be ready for the show that afternoon.