The Loving Couple Page 26

  "Well, reely!" one of the young women snapped.

  "I'd like to know what business it is of hers!" the head under discussion said.

  "Exactly," the third said. "C'mon, Marge, we've gotta get back to the boys. The show's about ta start." The three of them marched out indignantly with audible sniffs and a haughty swishing of rayon.

  "Fran," Mary said intensely, shaking Fran slightly by the shoulder. "You've got to listen to me. I'm telling you, he's here. Right here. Tonight."

  "Who's here?" Fran roared, resting her head now on both hands.

  "My husband" she hissed. "Fran, my husband is here!"

  "Damn attractive. Helluva fine piece of manflesh," Fran muttered. "Ask'm over have a drink with us. Helluva nice-lookin'

  "But, Fran, he's here with some other woman! I saw him!"

  "You're out with another man, aren't you?" Fran said with a philosophical shrug.

  "But Fran, she's someone—well, I don't know who she is. I think I've seen her before, but she's dark and—well—ra-ther attractive, but in an obvious sort of . . ."

  She glanced nervously into the mirror and saw reflected behind her the very woman she had been discussing.

  Vaguely she heard Fran saying something about tit for tat and life being a two-way street, but for the moment she was incapable of hearing or speaking. Instead, she gazed spellbound at the reflection of the tall dark girl whom she melodramatically labelled as The Other Woman. She had the disturbing feeling of having seen her somewhere before.

  The Other Woman wasn't paying attention to her or to anyone else in the Powder Room. The Other Woman ran a comb nervously through her long, dark hair, gave it a pat and seemed satisfied with the results.

  How vain, Mary thought. Long bobs went out years ago, she continued in her condemnation, forgetful that she had just recently found Fran's dirty red mane the quintessence of glamor.

  Then The Other Woman bent closer to the mirror for a closer scrutiny.

  Nearsighted? Now Mary could see the face clearly in the dressing-table lights and was almost wounded to observe the purity of the skin, the depth of the large dark eyes. If The Other Woman had to exist at all, couldn't she have been considerate enough to be pockmarked or badly made up?

  Now The Other Woman fumbled in her bag for a lipstick. She applied it with a hand that trembled slightly and her mouth seemed to twitch once or twice. Nor was The Other Woman's breathing absolutely regular. Drink? Dope? Lust? For all her poise, The Other Woman was obviously an extreme neurotic and in a state about something. She knew quite a lot of neurotic people, besides her sister Alice, and she had never been able to surmount the sneaking envy of the well-adjusted for the disturbed. It was so dull to be normal, so interesting to be neurotic—unless you happened to be Alice.

  So this was how John had been spending his time in New York. He had dismissed her as a dreary little housewife, exiled her to the remote acres of Riveredge and had taken up with this torrid temptress undoubtedly versed in all the bedtime tricks that nicely brought-up American girls just wouldn't know. How pathetic and boring he must have found her prosaic lovemaking as compared—and of course he must have been comparing the suburban style unfavorably with the metropolitan technique every moment of the time—to the Continental fillips of The Other Woman's.

  Now The Other Woman stood back and observed herself full length.

  How inordinately vain! For the moment Mary forgot that she herself had a triple mirror arrangement in her dressing room at Riveredge and that there wasn't a pore, a curve or a bulge on her own body which she didn't know by first name.

  The Other Woman bent to adjust her stockings. Her legs were distressingly good, long and slender. Then she drew herself up to full height and turned to get a quick sideways glimpse.

  It's an awfully good figure, Mary thought miserably. And it was. Tall, slim and pleasingly full. "But it's probably not all hers," she said aloud.

  "What are you talking about?" Fran muttered from the depths of her hair.

  "Nothing, Fran," she sighed. No doubt about it, the figure was every bit of it genuinely The Other Woman's. She'd always wanted to be that tall, queenly type instead of what used to be called a Cute Trick.

  Next The Other Woman plucked a hair from the shoulder of her suit.

  Going bald? No, just one hair, Mary observed bitterly. She also saw that The Other Woman's suit was superb, beautifully made, perfectly fitted. It was as good as anything she had ever owned—better. Had he bought and paid for it, smiling his tender, half-cocked smile as The Other Woman preened herself before the groveling fitters at some silken couturier's? No, she decided. He hadn't. She could account for practically every hour of his life until the day they moved to Riveredge. He'd simply found this rich and distressingly ladylike-looking goddess all ready and waiting with her trap baited.

  "Now, Mother, do try to get up," the daughter said to the fat woman on the sofa.

  "Old lush!" Fran mumbled.

  The Other Woman tossed a scornful glance at the mother and daughter, gave a nervous look into the mirror and strode stylishly out, perfect in every detail. Why did she look so familiar?

  "Oh," Mary said. "Oh!"

  "Whatsamatter now?" Fran said.

  Oh, if only The Other Woman could have seemed common or out of place, badly dressed or too wide in the hips or frigid or sluttish. But why did The Other Woman have to be so supremely flawless? Then, beyond her initial shock, she began to get good and boiling mad. The nerve of him!

  "The nerve of him," she said aloud to her own pretty reflection, "to bring That Woman right out in the open to a place like this!" How beastly men could be.

  "What are you talking about?" Fran said, looking up with blurred eyes.

  "I'm talking about her, Fran—The Other Woman. The one he was dancing with tonight. She was right here."

  "Who?" Fran said, swaying dangerously on the dressing-table stool. "That old frump who's out cold on the sofa? Your husband? Don't make me laugh!"

  "No, Fran," she whispered. "Not that one. The tall brunette who was just in here a second ago. She's the one who . . ."

  "Sweeeeeetie!"

  "Oh, Christ!" Fran moaned.

  Bearing down on them was Riveredge's own Adele Hennessey, locked arm in arm with her house guest.

  "Doll," Adele said, "I want you to meet one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, Peggy Slattery. Jack and I met Dan and she on the hah Flon-derr coming back from France last last summer. Peg, this is my friend Mrs. Fran Hollister an’ this is . . ."

  " 'Scuse me," Fran said, rising to her full height, "I may be sick." With a resonant hiccough, she tottered off in the direction of the toilet.

  "Hahaha!" Adele laughed almost convincingly. "That Fran! What a doll! Such a sense of hu-merr! Gee, sweetie, we tried ta ring you two-three times this afternoon. I wanted to show Peg an' Dan your lovely home. Peg, that's the place I told you about—it's all old Regent antiques. Cute as a doll's house!"

  "Oh, it's de-vine," Peg Slattery said vivaciously. "Mr. Slattery—that's my husband—and I even went over an' peeked inta the windahs when Adele told us you weren't home . . ."

  "Maybe tomorrah, sweetie," Adele began,

  "Oh, we jus' loved it," Mrs. Slattery continued. "I said to Mr. Slattery, 'Dan,' I said, wunt you just love to buy it exactly like it is?' Dan's being transferred here from Dee-troit. And Dan—that's Mr. Slattery—said, Gee . . . if it was only for sale.'"

  "H-how nice," Mary said weakly.

  "Gosh, cutie," Adele Hennessey interrupted, "it looks like all of Riveredge is here tonight. The whole place has danced past our table—you an' yer cute husband . . ."

  Mary shuddered.

  ". . . and darling Fran,"—Adele had obviously implied to the Slatterys, that she and Fran not only moved in but formed the same circle—"and Beth and Whit (that's the Whit-teny Martins, Peg) and the Marshalls. I guess you must all be celebrating Alice's anna-versary. Onnussly, Peg, you should meet her sister, Alice Marshall! Alice i
s . . ."

  Adele Hennessey never had the opportunity to make clear just exactly what Alice Marshall was. The Powder Room door banged open with a force that set Adele's skirts to rippling and Alice herself burst into the room, as ever, the vengeful dea ex machina.

  Mary had just time to catch her breath before Alice grabbed her by the arm and swept her off in the direction of the toilet.

  "I want a word with you!” Alice boomed. "Good evening, Missus Hennessey!"

  Before Mary knew quite what had happened, Alice had herded her into the pink-tiled room that housed the toilets and the wash basins. Four toilets and four wash basins, Mary noticed inanely. Toilets to the left, wash basins to the right.

  By means of her surprise attack, superior size and main force, Alice had got her sister to the far end of the room, talking every second of the time. Now Mary found herself uncomfortably trapped between Alice and a small ineffectual radiator which mercifully was not turned on. Above the radiator an opaque glass window was wide open. She wondered if she should jump and then decided that it wasn't high enough to be fatal—only most painful.

  ". . . very idea, out cavorting with another . . ." Alice was saying.

  She saw Alice's large pink gums, her long pink tongue and then the pink-tiled walls, the four pink wash basins, the four pink toilet doors, the pink uniform of the toilet attendant—partly relieved by a raveled gray cardigan with a hole in the elbow—the pink jars and lotions and cleansing tissues above the wash basins; the very rosiness of it all made her feel quite, quite faint.

  In aimless misery she observed Alice's feathered hat and wondered fleetingly how even Alice could have bought such a thing.

  ". . . worried sick about you . . . tried to reach you all afternoon . . . Fred and I . . ."

  Through the open window Mary could see the neon sign that proclaimed Chandelier. She watched the letters go on, one at a time, then all together, then flash three times, then singly again.

  ". . . immature conduct . . ."

  C-H-A-N

  ". . . here I am with the children and another on the way . . ."

  DEL

  ". . . that you, of all people, would act in this . . ."

  I-E-R (darkness) CHANDELIER (darkness)

  ". . . degrading, juvenile manner . . ."

  CHANDELIER (darkness) CHANDELIER (darkness) CHANDELIER

  The sick woman named Lucy threw up again from behind one of the pink toilet doors.

  "Lucy," her invisible friend said, "it isn't that you drank too much. It's simply the combination of so many Manhattans and then all those frogs legs . . ."

  "Ohhhhhhhhhh."

  C-H-A-N

  ". . . position in the community where I happen to be a . . "

  D-E-L

  She now noticed that the hot-water faucets in the second and fourth pink wash basins dripped, but out of unison. The second seemed to say "plip" and the fourth "plop."

  I-E-R plip-plop-plip-plop (darkness) CHANDELIER

  ". . . years I've spent trying to make you a mature, well adjusted . . ."

  CHANDELIER (darkness) plip-plop CHANDELIER (darkness) plip-plop CHANDELIER (darkness) plip-plop-plip-plop C-H-

  ". . . sneak off the minute my back is turned . . ."

  plip-plop-plip A-N-D

  ". . . our fifteenth anniversary and Fred and I invite . . ."

  plip-plop I-E-R (darkness) plip-plop-plip-plop CHANDELIER

  There was the roar of a toilet flushing. The third pink door banged open and Fran clomped out, her skirt hiked up behind her.

  "Fran . . ." Mary began, desperate for any kind of aid, no matter how inefficient, "help me!"

  CHANDELIER (darkness) plip-plop

  "So!" Alice thundered. "This is the sort of alcoholic, neurotic milieu you prefer to cultivate! I ask you out for a pleasant evening with the Martins—mature, intelligent, well-bred people—and you go prowling out with Mrs. Holl-iss-ter! Of all the notorious, wanton . . ."

  "Aw, go blow it out your barracks bag!" Fran snapped and lurched out of the room.

  Except for a plip and plop there was a moment of exquisite silence. Mary sensed the neon sign outside flashing CHANDELIER CHANDELIER CHANDELIER. Alice made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a whinny. "What did that woman say?” Alice breathed.

  Mary had never heard the term—or a good many of Fran's other terms—before in her life, but its very succinct crispness gave her a simple faith.

  She began very quietly. "Fran said, Alice, that you are a bossy, nosey, interfering old nag and that you are to leave me alone to bungle my own life just as you have bungled yours. Now get out of my way, please. I'm going."

  Jaw hanging slack, Alice staggered back against the wall, colliding noisily with a sanitary-napkin dispenser.

  "Thank you, Alice," Mary said. "Good night." Sheer shock carried her through the Powder Room and down the stairway.

  Randolph Carter Lee came back up from the Men's Room and tried to regain his composure. It was next to hopeless. This evening that had started out so smoothly had taken a turn for the worst. Coming face to face with Besame Bessamer after all these years had been a terrible shock. He was both embarrassed and infuriated recalling the days of his youth, Besame's outraged father and those tough Wall Street lawyers—he'd learned later that he really had had them all in the palm of his hand, if he'd only realized it; such are the penalties of youth.

  But downstairs in the Men's Room a man had damned near propositioned him. Not that he had ever minded that. In fact, this man had looked like a perfect gent—as tall as Randy was, about the same age and attractive. Randy was the veteran of numberless encounters in toilets ranging from the subway to the most expensive restaurants in town and "No" was a word which Randy found almost impossible to pronounce. But tonight Randy had just too many encumbrances even to bother with giving his name and address when the good-looking man had asked for it.

  He wondered now if he shouldn't have. After all, another man—one who could afford to wear English suits and who looked wholesome and normal and sort of innocent—might be a far surer bet than the pretty little Riveredge wren who was tagging along with Fran Hollister. But this evening, with Besame Bessamer within shooting distance, all Randy longed for was escape from Chandelier.

  Randy looked into the main room and could see Fletcher McKenzie slumped over the table alone. The rumba band was still rattling and scratching away at a gay medley of Argentinian back-breakers. Should he go back to the table and run the risk of facing Besame Bessamer again or should he wait here and simply spirit this pretty young thing away? No, he decided, better to wait here. Then there couldn't possibly be any difficulty about dividing the check.

  Randy took a deep breath, forced his facial muscles to relax and gazed upwards toward the staircase that led to the Powder Room. He saw a splendid pair of legs coming down. They looked familiar. Ah, at last she was on her way down. He smiled.

  Besame did not smile. Instead, she came straight toward Randy, her eyes cold.

  "Uh . . ." Randy began.

  "Listen," Besame hissed. "If you're following me around looking for money, let me tell you that I don't have any—at least none for you. But if you want trouble, I can give you plenty. Now get out of here and leave me alone!"

  "I only . . ." Randy sputtered.

  It was too late. Besame was gone.

  However, Randy saw that Miss Bessamer did have a point. Randy felt a little hurt to think that Besame Bessamer could have accused him so unjustly and more than a little hurt to think that she could think that he might think of putting the squeeze on her when he had never managed to think of it at all. As a matter of fact, he hadn't even known that Besame was around. Even so, Randy still had such a hearty respect for money that it bordered on fear and he was now twice as eager to get out of this place. Again he waited.

  Would she never come down? All Randy asked for tonight was escape. He promised Mammon, the only God he had ever known, that if only he could get out of Chandelier alive this evening,
he would never come back again. He even began to think of taking a business course, if Grace would just give him the tuition, and going straight. Maybe he could find a rich old woman who wanted a social secretary or . . .

  An enormous pair of black suede pumps clumped unsteadily down the Powder Room stairs. Randy knew this was Fran. Again the boyish smile. It was wasted. Mrs. Hollister, unable to focus her eyes, was operating on radar. Mechanically she reached the bottom of the stairs, blinked owlishly to the left and the right, and then headed for the dining room.

  "Uh, Fran," Randy said, advancing toward her, "I—um . . ."

  "Not tonight, kid," Fran bellowed, "but give me a call next week. The number is RI-veredge 7-4324. Christ, but I feel rocky!"

  With that aristocratic farewell, Fran swayed through the dusty portieres and made her way to the table. She was just able to check on the presence of her mink coat, then she sat down on it and kept on going. The resultant picture was as touching as it was dismembered—Fletch's face on the table from the top looking down; his forehead resting on the dirty damask cloth: Fran's face looming up from down under; her chin propped on the table's edge, surrounded by bottles and pitchers and the dregs of a caviar sandwich. Two miserable, misanthropic, middle-aged babes in the woods of their own planting.

  Randy was now in a stew of impatience. Good God, what was Mary doing up there, having a baby? He cracked his knuckles twice and then stopped. He'd heard somewhere that cracking the knuckles makes them larger and he was inordinately proud of his long gentleman's hands. Would she never come downstairs?

  A door opened somewhere above him and he heard the sound of someone being sick. That certainly couldn't be she? No. At last! He saw, with the fullest appreciation, two feet approaching. Could they be called tiny, small or little? Randy decided that they were about 5B. Then Randy saw superb ankles and calves and then the wool dress of a color that was not of this world, but from a dream. At last the face. Her face looked tense, but then so did Randy's. But anything to get out of here . . .

  Randy turned on his boyish Southern smile.

  "I thought you were never coming back," Randy said. "I thought you were only a beautiful dream."