Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (151 page)

The nursemaids gradually left, marshaling their tots and wheeling baby carriages up the ramp. The afternoon waned and the man took his book of poetry and joined the exodus. He didn’t have far to go, just up the short dead end street to one of the houses that stood on Sutton Place. His house had a finer view of the river from the back than was available down in the square. There was a lush garden with a velvety green lawn and an array of comfortable lounge chairs. Yet he went down to the park because there were voices and the bustle of activity and the sounds of laughter.

“Oh, let me try it on,” Jean said when she saw the hat. “Did it cost an arm and a leg?”

“Just an arm,” Dinah said, taking it off. “Did Mike call?”

“How do I look?”

Dinah told her it was very becoming and when she got tired of it Jean could have it. She went to the kitchen and rummaged in the fridge. There was some chicken and cherry tomatoes. She made herself a salad.

Jean came back, still with the hat on. The ironing board was up and she went back to the job she had apparently been doing before. “Did Mike call?” Dinah asked again.

“Yes, he’ll be here to pick you up at six-thirty.”

Dinah took her late lunch into the living room and ate it at a table beside the window. It was a lovely apartment and they were all very happy here. With her contribution of a hundred a month, Doug’s share came to two-fifty, though it was really less than that. They had moved in when the building was new and were among the first tenants, and so had gotten a six months’ concession. Meanwhile, Jean took care of the housework, so there wasn’t that to think of, and altogether it was a cozy arrangement.

Dinah sometimes wondered if it weren’t a little
too
comfortable. She was spoiled, she supposed, and had no reason to want to move out. Maybe if she weren’t so well taken care of she might make more of an effort to start a married life of her own.

With someone like Mike, for example. Mike Corby had stuck around for a hell of a long time, off and on for over a year. Sometimes, discouraged, he dropped out of her life for a few weeks at a time and then, she supposed, he played the field. Men either wanted sex or marriage, and when their aims, be they nefarious or honorable, didn’t bear fruit, they generally made tracks.

Mike, though, kept coming back.

Dinah supposed it would have to be Mike in the end. The field did begin to narrow down, and Jean was always reminding her that once you passed twenty-five the next thing you knew you were forty … and all the other clichés people were always spouting.

Yet it was true and Dinah knew it. She liked Mike more than any other man she had dated. She kept his lovemaking within bounds, but it wasn’t because she flinched from his touch. It was just that the hoped-for spark was missing; she didn’t tingle, not the way she should. Jean and Doug were rooting for him and they made no secret about it, and it was nice when in-laws got along together.

And I always enjoy myself with him
, she thought, reminding herself of some of the dates she had suffered through. Really, the men now were a motley crew, and they all had a determined gleam in their eyes. They wanted bed just as quickly as possible and they didn’t even bother to use strategy.

I wouldn’t dare live alone
, she thought.

It was always a good way to work up a good head of steam, pondering the role of the single girl in society. If she heard a man say just once more,
What’s the matter with you … you frigid or something?
she would scream. Didn’t they ever wonder if there was something wrong with their own appeal?

The male ego, she told herself, was stupendous.

“Why don’t you and Doug come with us tonight?” she asked her sister when she went back to the kitchen. “It would be a fun evening with the four of us.”

“For heaven’s sake, give the guy a break. You’ve scarcely seen him for the past couple of months, on that long assignment. You can’t expect him to hang around on promises forever, Di.”

“I haven’t promised him anything. He knows the score. I’m trying. What more can I do?”

“You can be a little more considerate,” Jean said sharply. “At least let him have the trimmings. He doesn’t want a foursome; you should know that.”

She sat the iron up on its side. “Has it ever occurred to you, Di, that things don’t go on the same way ad infinitum? Don’t you ever stop to think of that?”

She fished a cigarette out of a pack from the pocket of her blouse and lit it. “That what?” Dinah asked. “You mean Mike is going to give me the final ultimatum one of these days and if I don’t say ‘yes’ he’ll cut out and I won’t ever be able to snag anyone else?” She took a towel and began drying her lunch dishes. “Jean, I’m only twenty-five.”

“Twenty-six next month,” Jean said shortly.

“For three more weeks I’m still twenty-five. I don’t feel I’ve had my last chance. Maybe it’s fatuous of me, but I think I still have a few more marriageable years.”

“It wasn’t what I meant anyway,” Jean said, stubbing out her barely-smoked cigarette. “But never mind. Forget it. I don’t want to spoil your weekend. You’ve worked hard and you need a few nice days.”

“Sure, let’s forget it by all means. Don’t forget I like my work and I make a very good living. It isn’t easy to give that up for …”

“What is it you want?” Jean asked, looking up from her ironing. “Just tell me what it is you want.”

“Fire and flame,” Dinah said promptly. “Okay, I won’t find it. It’s only in old movies on
The Late Show.
”

Doug’s key turned in the lock just then, and the discussion was over. He breezed in, a good-looking, neat-suited type who had
advertising
written all over him and who would always look younger than he was. Very much like Mike Corby, who was also
advertising.
Clean-cut and ambitious. The kind that could take care of you and who you could be relatively sure would never have an affair with your best friend. And that, these days, was something.

“Ironing with your hat on?” Doug asked mildly, as he pecked Jean’s cheek. “How stylish.”

“It’s my hat,” Dinah said, plucking it from her sister’s head. “Evidently I’m going to have to lock it up.”

Doug started putting together some martinis. It wasn’t unusual for him to arrive home at four in the afternoon on a Friday evening in the summer. Doug put in many a midnight hour, and he could afford to make up for the overtime.

“Make extra,” Jean told him. “Mike’s calling for Di later on. They can have their first drink here.”

“Swell,” Doug said, and poured out some more gin. “You’d better start prettying yourself up, Di.”

“It doesn’t take me that long,” she retorted, but she left the kitchen to husband and wife. The comfortable and intimate murmuring of their voices followed her down the long hall to her room.

There was only really one time when she was acutely conscious of the difference between her and her sister. It wasn’t when they went to their bedrooms at night. It was when Doug came home, after his day’s work, to his wife, to his private one-woman world. The key in the lock, heralding his return from a man’s world, was far more symbolic.

I’d give a lot to look forward to hearing that sound myself
Dinah thought, as she stretched out on the bed.
If you loved someone with all your heart, it must be the most welcome, the most exciting sound in the world.

Dick Claiborne was sitting in the Palm Garden of the Hotel Plaza with Miss Victoria Blanding, who was his great-aunt but whom he irreverently addressed as Vicky. She pretended to abhor the nickname but in reality she liked it and Dick knew it.

He hadn’t called her Auntie since he was knee-high and Victoria sounded as stuffy as the monarch she had been named for. Vicky had simply evolved as he had gotten older.

“Did Camilla get off all right?” she was asking him.

“All in one piece, though I had to pour her into the plane. We had a rather liquid lunch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t get past the flight gate. Besides, Camilla never got sozzled in her life. She isn’t the type to do anything by extremes.”

“How come you know so much about her?” he asked, amused. He knew perfectly well that she detested his fiancée. He wasn’t too sure that his father cottoned to her either.

“I met her. I’m an excellent judge of character.”

“Are you impugning Cam’s character?” he asked, vastly entertained. “You feel she’s of poor moral fiber?”

“Not at all. I think she’s negative. But then I’m not going to marry her, so it’s none of my affair.”

“She’ll grow on you,” he suggested.

“Don’t be idiotic. Once the wedding is over I’ll never lay eyes on her again. She won’t know I exist. And just as well.”

“Don’t you think it’s time I got married? I’m thirty-one.”

“Is there a season for it? People get married when they’re fifty sometimes.
I
didn’t get married at all and so was spared the heartache of seeing my children drift away and forget about me.”

“Hell, I’m not going to drift away from Dad.”

“That’s what you think now. I can’t see that girl of yours caring a fig about your poor father. In a short time you’ll have nothing to do with him.”

“That would be difficult to imagine,” he said, smiling. “Considering that we work together downtown. I’ll only be moving out of the house, that’s all.” He sobered. “I hope he won’t be too lonely.”

“He’s lonely now.”

“
Now?
With me still around?”

“Even with you around. He should have married again.”

“He was too fond of Mother. It was one of those rare things.”

“In any event, it will be a wrench for him when he loses you. It was taken for granted, I’m sure, that you weren’t ever going to leave the stag line, Dick. You’ve dodged the altar so many times that it seemed certain you’d stay a bachelor until you were old enough to stay home nights with slippers and a pipe. That’s the time when your kind of hell-raker begins to think about having a woman in the house to provide his comforts for him.”

“Hell-raker! I like the sound of that. The elusive playboy of Sutton Place. Hell, all girls are alike. How can you decide which one of them to marry?”

“You appear to have decided,” she said grimly.

“Yes, so I have. Well, I happen to like the name Camilla. It’s sexy, don’t you think? Besides, she has lots of money and they’re not exactly pushing me along at great speed downtown. Dad doesn’t spoil me with an exorbitant salary. I won’t have a penny of my own, except for what Mother left for me, until Dad dies. And the Claibornes are a long-lived family. Besides, I don’t want him to die.”

“I’m sure you make a handsome salary,” his aunt said.

“Could be better,” he grumbled.

The silver urn was empty and the plate of tea sandwiches had only one triangle left on it. Miss Blanding forebore taking it from the plate. She was wryly aware that the reason for her spurning it was because the one who took the last thing off the platter was the one who would be an old maid.

What would one do without a sense of humor? she thought.

At any rate Dick reached over, after a questioning glance at her, and took it himself. She knew she must end the afternoon. After all, Dick had better things to do than entertain an old aunt on a bright summer’s day. She suggested that they leave. He must have masses of things he wanted to get on with. Young people always had so many things to get on with.

DARKNESS DESCENDED on the world along about Tarry town. Mike had suggested Motel on the Mountain for dinner. It was a place they liked, but with Dinah’s work schedule this would be their first visit there this summer. “How can it be so pitch-black so suddenly?” she asked, leaving the cool country smells and the strange, lonely world that was illumined only by the headlights of their car.

“Move closer,” Mike said.

“I’m not going to be responsible for a smash-up.”

“I’m not going to attack you. Just let me feel you’re there.”

She slid over in the seat, so that their thighs were touching. In a way it was comforting. He was a good guy, and ahead was a festive evening. “We’re almost there now,” he said, when they passed the second toll booth. “Di?”

“What?”

“You have the whole weekend off,” he said. “We could spend it here.”

“No,” she said gently.

“We’ve never given it a chance. Couldn’t we just give it a chance?”

“I’m afraid just dinner, Mike.” She was a little tense.
My own sister could put the fear of God into
me.
Dinah didn’t want Mike to go out of her life. But she didn’t want to compromise. She’d hate giving in just to keep him. If she wanted it the way he seemed to want it, it would be different. It had nothing to do with puritanism.

“Is that your final word on the subject? Or should I worry it a little bit?”

“Don’t,” she said. “I hope we’re not going to have a glum evening, Mike. I just don’t want to … not this time, Mike. Maybe it will be different soon. I hope so and I mean that.”

There was a long pause. Then he sighed. “I’m not going to twist your arm,” he said. “No, it won’t be a glum evening. I’d like a fun evening too, so let’s have fun. How about filet mignon? Champagne cocktails first.”

“That has a nice sound to it,” she said.

Waiting for their table in the bar, over their first champagne cocktail, they sat Oriental style, for the restaurant had a Japanese decor, with shoji screens and parchment lamps. A pianist was playing a medley of Viennese songs, an olio of Lehar, Strauss, and Kalmann. When that was finished Mike asked Dinah what she wanted the man to play and she didn’t know why but her request simply popped into her head without her even thinking about it.

“Love is a Many-Splendored Thing,” she said.

Mike got up and put in the request and then the pianist performed the lovely piece of music with great artistry. Before it was over their table was ready and they went into the big dining room that overlooked a light-filled valley, with the last strains of the haunting melody following them.

There were flickering candles on the tables, the steak was as tender as butter and the salad rich in Roquefort and sour cream. Afterward, they walked the grounds, holding hands. Mike looked up at the suspended cabins, built atop the craggy rocks, and then he looked back at Dinah. He didn’t say anything; it was a silent plea.