Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (152 page)

Dinah didn’t say anything either. She tightened her hold on his hand and led him away from the cabins. They got in his car after a while and headed back to town.

“Come on up,” she said. “We’ll have coffee.”

“I have every intention of coming up,” Mike said. “Hopefully, the old folks will be in bed.”

“At twelve o’clock on a Friday night?”

“Just wish-thinking.”

Of course they weren’t in bed. They were watching television in the living room, Doug with his beer and Jean with a bowl of popcorn. “Have a nice time, kids?”

“Lovely. Did you two go out at all?”

“No,” Doug said. “We’re saving pennies these days.”

Jean cut in quickly. “Laying aside for our old age,” she said and gave Doug a look Dinah couldn’t interpret. “Mike, there’s a leg of lamb in the refrigerator. Get Dinah to make you a sandwich.”

“Di, make me a sandwich.”

“White or rye?”

“Surprise me.”

When the movie ended, at one-thirty, the four of them played a few hands of gin. The boys opened a few cans of beer, and then at around two o’clock Mike went home.

One vacation day gone … two more to go. Dinah knew she’d be back on the job by Monday or Tuesday. She might live in or she might live out. She might like the job or she might not. You never knew. That was one of the things that made it exciting.

I can always go back to hospital nursing
, she thought. Few young nurses went in for private duty. They considered it too confining, and they missed the constant buzz of activity around a hospital. They missed the gossip and the laughter, and they missed the young doctors.

But Dinah thought that what she was doing had more variety, and that, of course, was the spice of life. It was a lot to give up for one man, she thought … unless you were crazy in love with him.

She sometimes wondered: was Jean crazy in love with Doug? You couldn’t ask a thing like that, not even of your own sister. So she supposed she would never know whether Jean was blissfully happy or whether she was simply comfortable and contented.

Mrs. Paley woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, got out of bed quickly, closed the window and turned on the air conditioning unit, ran a bath and then unlocked the front door.

The
Times
was lying outside as it was every morning. She brought it in and scanned the front page before dropping it onto a table in the foyer, then she got out of her nightgown and took her bath.

It was a bright, sunny day. The tree just outside her living room windows was a glory of green, its leaves trembling a little bit with the gentle summer breezes. It was a beautiful maple and it gave her pleasure to stand and look at it for a few minutes, while she was waiting for the coffee to perk.

She turned away only when she heard the
blup-blup
of the percolator. Breakfast was simply orange juice (the bottled kind), black coffee, and a slice of unbuttered toast. When she had finished it she made up her face, with great attention to the eye business (the eyes took the longest), brushed her hair, which had been done at the beauty parlor yesterday, slipped out of her robe and got into a pink linen suit.

She looked at herself just before she left the bathroom.
Don’t I look well
, she thought objectively.
I’ve even gained a little weight. I don’t think I look fifty-one.

The fact that she didn’t look her age didn’t impress her. It had no meaning one way or the other.

She left the apartment and walked up to the avenue. She had a list of errands to do. First she did her food shopping for the weekend, asking for it to be sent over in an hour, and then she made some purchases at the hardware store. Then she went to the drug store.

She bought two lipsticks, one for tawny colors and another for rosier tones. She also bought a new toothbrush, a two-row natural bristle Lactona, and a quarter ounce of Interdit perfume.

Then she returned home.

She had a boiled egg at noon after reading her
Times
, freshened up her face and got into her suit jacket again, and once more left the house.

She caught a two o’clock movie at a theater on Third Avenue in the Sixties. When the movie was over she strolled along the avenue looking into shop windows. She saw an imported scarf she liked and bought it. In another shop she spotted a turtle handbag that was priced fairly reasonably. Turtle was one of the new high-fashion leathers, so she went in to look at it and ended up buying it.

She had to pay for the handbag with a check.
This is sick
, she told herself as she scribbled the amount of the purchase.
I’ve spent over sixty dollars in one day.

But it didn’t worry her. It didn’t make her feel anything. Weeks went by when she scrimped and saved, denying herself the simplest pleasures. Then she would go on a binge, without even planning to … and without more than a fleeting thought for the consequences.

She went to Longchamps, the one with the sidewalk area, and had a whiskey sour which she sipped leisurely as she watched the passing parade along Third Avenue, then she ordered a shrimp salad. With her coffee she had some Brie cheese and crackers.

Then she took a cab back downtown to her apartment. Once inside she tried on the scarf, wiped off her lipstick and sampled each of the new lipsticks in turn, and then she switched on the television.

She was tired enough to be able to sleep, she decided. She examined the new handbag and took out the paper stuffing. It was a smart bag. She was satisfied with her day’s haul.

She watched TV until ten o’clock, then she made her nightly preparations and was in bed fifteen minutes later.

She had a slight headache and therefore took two aspirins before retiring. They would relax her as well as take care of the headache.

She fell asleep almost immediately.

Half an hour later a fire siren screamed through the night and she woke up with her heart racing.

She lay trying to quiet it.
Just relax
, she told herself.

Her eyes were wide open in the dark. It was so dark.

She sat up quickly.
Why?
she asked herself.
After all, why?

She got out of bed briskly, switched on the bedside lamp, went into the bathroom, opened the medicine chest, and got out the bottle of sleeping pills.

She shook out a handful. Then another handful. She counted out twenty-three — the number was merely a random choice — and put the bottle back into the cabinet. Then she left the bathroom.

In the kitchen she took down a cup from the overhead closet, dropped the pills into the cup and took them inside where she put them on the bedside table.

She went back to the kitchen, ran the water and filled two tumblers, carried them into the bedroom and put them beside the cup of sleeping pills, went back and turned off the kitchen light and in the bedroom once more crawled into bed.

There was only one shocked, unbelieving moment. A moment of wonder, with a sudden, horrible fear in back of it. It was, after all, a difficult thing to do.

She drew a deep breath.

Then she exhaled slowly, scooped out a few of the pills and put them in her mouth, washing them down with a quick swallow of water. Another handful, more water.

Her heart was pumping like a piston. That was all she was thinking about now, that it seemed as if her heart would burst through her chest. Her trembling hand was awkward with the last two or three pills. They slid through her fingers and scattered over the floor.

It didn’t matter. She had taken more than enough. She swallowed some more water, looked at the empty cup, reached over and turned out the lamp and lay down again in the dark.

Her heart stopped pumping in that awful way after a few minutes. There was no last thing she knew. She simply was conscious one second and the next was out of the picture.

The fire siren screamed again on its way back.

Doug took the nine o’clock call for Dinah, who was still in bed. He knocked at her door and then opened it. “Call for you,” he told her. “Someone asking for Miss Mason.”

“Thanks, Doug.” She pushed tumbled hair out of her eyes and reached for her extension phone. “This is Miss Mason.”

“This is Dr. Gregory, Dinah.”

“Well, hello.”

“I’m sorry to bother you on your weekend.”

“Perfectly all right.”

“Are you on a case?”

“No, just got off one.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Dinah, you remember Mr. Paley? You had him … I guess it was about eighteen months ago. The bronchogenic.”

“Yes, of course I remember him.”

“His wife’s in a bad way. She took an overdose last night.”

“
My God …
”

“She’s okay physically except for being knocked out. She was found in time. Someone she knew was visiting friends in her building and decided to stop in to see Mrs. Paley before leaving. Apparently she was worried when there was no response to her ring, because Mrs. Paley had declined an invitation to the same party, saying she didn’t feel up to it. At any rate, the friend decided to investigate. The superintendent used his keys and she was rushed to the hospital.”

“I’m so terribly sorry. You want me over there right away?”

“She’s not very well fixed as far as money is concerned,” Dr. Gregory said. “But I don’t want her to come out of this alone. There are friends, of course, but that brings guilt. The last thing she needs at the moment is to feel a responsibility to people. I really think she should have someone hold her hand for the next few days. A week if possible. You’re just the person. You have compassion and insight.”

“Well, thank you, Doctor. I’ll be very happy if I can help her.”

He told her the hospital and the room number. “I’ll be there by eleven,” she promised. “Have you told her you’d try to get me?”

“No, but I’ll go right in and tell her now. And, Dinah, thanks.”

“Thanks for thinking of me,” she said, and hung up.

Mrs. Paley’s bed was only slightly raised at the headboard. There was a kidney-shaped basin next to the two plump hospital pillows, but it was free of matter.
Good
, Dinah thought.
She must be over the vomiting.
The woman’s face had almost regained its normal color, though the skin of it was dry, stretched tight across the cheekbones.

Her face was devoid of makeup. Some would-be suicides carefully made up their faces before their desperate act, clothed themselves in their finest. Mrs. Paley had on a beautiful nightgown, but Dinah was sure her patient habitually wore lovely bed-things, for she dressed in the best of taste, with a scrupulous attention to grooming.

She looks awfully young, Dinah thought. Young and vulnerable and not middle-aged at all. But so empty, so haunted. She bent down and lightly kissed the woman’s cheek. “I hope you’re glad to see me,” she said.

“Oh, Dinah …”

The empty eyes suffused with tears. Dinah reached for the box of tissues and pulled a few out. Mrs. Paley covered her eyes with a tissue and Dinah turned away. She had brought some flowers, pale yellow daffodils. She laid the cone-shaped parcel on top of the utility chest and went back to the bed again. “If you can cry, then cry,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few seconds. I want to put these flowers in water.”

Mrs. Paley took the tissue away and shook her head urgently. “No, don’t go,” she pleaded. “One of the nurses will do it. Oh, thank you, Dinah, for the flowers. Thank you, thank you. But please don’t go. Just sit down in the chair and stay with me, because I think I can go to sleep again now that you’re here. I told the doctor not to let anyone up. I don’t want to see any of my friends. But I’m glad you’re here. Will you just stay with me until I drift off?”

“Of course. Close your eyes and stop thinking. Just let yourself relax. You’ll go to sleep now I’m here.”

In only minutes Mrs. Paley’s regular breathing assured Dinah that her patient was asleep. She didn’t move, though. One of the floor nurses walked soundlessly through the door a little later, and Dinah signaled her to put the flowers in a vase. “I’ll talk to you later,” she whispered, with a colleague-to-colleague smile.

It was over an hour before Mrs. Paley woke up again.

Her eyes flew to Dinah. “Oh, there you are,” she said.

“Of course here I am. You had a refreshing nap. It’s lunchtime. Hear the trays outside?”

“Oh, but I can’t eat anything!” Mrs. Paley’s face turned more pallid.

“Just a little broth and some toast?”

“I don’t see
how
…” Her hand fumbled for the basin beside the pillows. Dinah held it to her and she retched, breathed deeply, and then retched again. But nothing came up. Finally she relinquished the basin to Dinah.

“I’ll try to drink the broth,” she said bravely.

“Good. I’ll see to it. Be right back.”

She went out and spoke to the nurse in charge and in a short while a tray was brought in with the soup and toast. Mrs. Paley managed, and when the tray was taken away again Dinah told her she’d feel a little better for having taken the nourishment.

“You’re dehydrated, you see, and we must make an effort to slowly get something back into your stomach.”

Her patient lay back, exhausted. “I feel rotten,” she said. “Not just this kind of rotten, but bitter. I don’t know why my life was given back to me. I don’t want it. It horrifies me to find myself alive.” Her hands clenched tightly on the sheet. “I’m even worse off now than I was before. I’ve pushed myself so far down I’ll never be able to go on … or to forget this.”

“Yes, you will,” Dinah said. “You won’t believe it, I know, but you will. You’re a young woman and you’ve lived only part of your life.”

“I don’t want the damned rest of it,” Mrs. Paley said thinly. “I have no shame about what I did, Dinah. Only despair that it was abortive. A person has a right to do with her own life what she wants to. Nobody can make me believe differently.”

“I wouldn’t try to make you believe differently. I don’t question your right to do what you did. Nobody kind and sympathetic and sensitive questions your right. You don’t think you’re being judged, do you?”

“It’s of the utmost indifference to me what others think,” Mrs. Paley said. Then she looked pleadingly at Dinah. “I do care,” she said. “I mean, I want
you
to reassure me about what
you
think. You don’t feel disgust with me?”