"Oh Myra, I don't think so. Not tonight."
"Angel girl, I know Richard Burton
personally
. He's not going to give us the brush off. I've met him twice, Herb
personally
introduced me!"
"Honestly Myra, I'm too tired to get dressed up. And besides, I've got to learn that script if I'm going to get to go to London."
"You're really miserable and heartbroken aren't you? I don't have to see Dickie, Shelley and I will come over with Chinese food."
"Didn't you say Shelley's got the sniffles?"
"I'll bundle her up. We've got to put our heads together and figure out a plan, darling. According to your horoscope Ferris Cooper could be the man of your destiny."
"What about Royce, and Peter, and Gus..." Andrea said the names of some of the other men of destiny softly, more to herself than to Myra.
But even if she'd spoken loudly it wouldn't have mattered. Myra wasn't listening. Myra was planning.
"Andrea dear, Ferris promised he'd phone you if he had a job for you, right?"
"Yes."
"So that's the reason you have to phone him, Andrea!"
"I really don't want to phone him."
"Call him Andrea, be gay, professional but very, very sweet. Just explain that you forgot to give him the number of your answering service." When Andrea said nothing, Myra continued. "O.K., then I'll phone him for you."
"Myra, I told you, it's over!"
"No it isn't darling, not if we play your cards right, not if we keep reminding him. If he's not at his office, I'll try the home number."
++++++++++
Chapter 15
The telephone was ringing. By the time Marian had the front door open, the ringing had stopped. She laid the portfolio on the foyer table, put the keys on the pewter plate. The apartment seemed peacefully dark, very quiet.
...It must have been Ferris, letting me know when I can expect him home for dinner. He doesn't want me to worry...
Marian got a carrot from the refrigerator, washed it but didn't scrape it, remembering what Elena had said about Dennis and vitamins.
It was a perfect time to work on the annual report, still too early to have to think about preparing dinner. She wanted to be comfortable so she got out some jeans and looked for a shirt.
There were two on the valet chair, Ferris left them there when they needed attention, and when she checked them, sure enough — one had a frayed collar, the other had a missing button and a grease spot on the shirt front. She hugged it — she liked to wear his worn shirts — the empty sleeves were his arms, the faint smell of his perspiration a comforting presence.
Nibbling on the carrot, she rubbed the spot but nothing happened, it was brown but not greasy. "I better write a note for Felipe's wife to make sure she gets the spot out."
Marian put on her kimono.
...I might as well sew on the button...
She knew it would please him, it wouldn't take but a minute. Smoking the carrot, Marian was off to the maid's room office for paper and pencil.
...I must ask Ferris what that spot is. He probably wore it for some special occasion — a banquet he had to attend while I was away...
'While I was away' — the phrase repeated itself in her mind. "I'm not going to think about it," Marian resolved. "I'm not going to let myself start imagining bad things."
The desk clock chimed four o'clock, reminding her that she'd planned to phone Dr. Benedict at three. What with the festival of flowers and Elena's excitement, she'd simply forgotten. Smiling, Marian made a note to herself on the desk Schedule.
Sliding it back into position, she saw a scratch on the desk. She turned over the schedule holder. One of the small casters was missing.
Marian wrote down:
SMALL CASTERS
FURNITURE POLISH
She felt a little like the bright-eyed housewife in an advertisement, cheerfully concerned over polish, casters, doctor appointment.
...And a cracked saucer
...
It was sitting there. She hated the idea of phoning the Complaint Department at the store, being shunted to the floor manager, it brought back a sense of the thousands of hours she'd wasted, shunting herself from floor to floor. But taking the saucer back meant standing in line and mailing it would take even more time.
With a sigh, Marian put it down in extra big bold letters:
S A U C E R
She picked up the shirt with the spot, rubbed it again, wondering why Ferris had neglected to tell her about it. It had to be grease! Or was it some other kind of food stain?
Suddenly, irrationally, Marian was annoyed. If Elena had talked less about personal things, there would have been time to work together on the Annual Report. The office was a much better place to work than home. There were too many distractions at home, stupid things wasting her time!
The telephone looked like a fat bullfrog, challenging her. Marian had an impulse to telephone Ferris to ask what time he was planning to be home, to ask what he wanted for supper, to ask about the spot. She took a bite of the carrot. It had a dirt taste.
Dennis, lettuce, and jogging were amusing, as were all of Elena's dozens of stories — Nancy had her Eddie 'thing', Charles had all those one night stand affairs that were interrupting Ferris' office routine, and "Poor Charles' wife" — Mamma's words were back, nagging, repeating, hammering away extra loud and clear — "If a man's unfaithful, a wife always knows!"
"Dammit, leave us alone. Get out of my life!" Marian cried out to Andrea in the empty room.
She grabbed the telephone book, flipped it open, her fingers frantically searching for the M's, the Mc's to find Andrea's name, the West side address, the phone number.
There it was. A. McCreedy.
The phone number was BU 6-6265.
"BU 6-6265," Marian whispered. "BU 6-6265," she repeated. The number was easy to remember. It fell into a jingle pattern, a tra-la-la ditty, a nonsense rhyme.
She closed the telephone book.
Marian took the shirts, the half-eaten carrot and went back to her bedroom. The furious outcry to Andrea had been a stupid impulse. To be a jealous wife phoning a strange girl was ugly and degrading.
She turned on a light, settled into her rocker with the portfolio.
The Annual Report had pages of details — income, expenses, projections, for the twenty-three clients. It was mostly columns of figures, a few summary paragraphs. It was not easy to follow. Elena was right. It was boring. It certainly didn't present a flattering profile of
FRE
in terms of profits, but six of the clients were new and profits wouldn't develop for another year. Everyone on the Board understood that
FRE
was in an important growth and expansion phase, especially dear old Paul...
There was something about Elena's premonition which Marian couldn't completely disregard. Paul Sheldon was the Chairman of the Board. The Board had a controlling veto. They'd never exercised it, but Paul was always fussing about profits.
Marian forced herself to go over each page again, figure by figure, word by word.
At seven the telephone rang.
"Hello?"
There was no response.
"Hello?" Marian repeated, insistently.
The telephone receiver felt cold against her ear.
There was no sound. Her heart was beating wildly. Every cell, every particle of brain matter and intelligence was focused on listening.
Then came the click.
There was no reason to try keeping away the bad thoughts. They were black thoughts like the black bobby pins were black and the black half-slip and the long black hair.
Marian
knew
it was Andrea who had telephoned.
Marian did not consider who else it might be. That it was Andrea who was telephoning was a fact just as the spot on Ferris' shirt was a fact.
Marian knew the spot was lipstick, not food stain or grease from something he'd eaten at a banquet at one of those special occasions.
The special occasion was Andrea — lazy slut who'd left under things in Marian's bathroom, hair things in Marian's bathrobe, disordered Marian's life, reduced Marian to vulgar, stupid, jealous cries in an empty room.
Marian got up from the rocking chair. The papers fell every which way. She picked up the shirts, ignored the one with the frayed collar that fell to the floor along with the carrot. She got her sewing scissors and cut into the shirt with the spot again and again, until it wasn't a shirt, just a pile of rags on the rug.
She gulped down two ounces of scotch, although she didn't particularly like scotch.
She shoved the rags into Felipe's closet, put away, straightened, and tidied up everything else. Except for the half-eaten carrot stick. It lay in the shaft of light from the bathroom, an obscene finger pointing toward the bed. She left it where it was. It was a very small rebellion, but at least it was something, expressing her anger and outrage.
++++++++++
Chapter 16
"Shelleeee! Try Andrea's number again," Myra yelled.
The daily horoscope said "Be kind to loved ones. Attend to chores in the A.M." How the hell could a person be kind to loved ones in the A.M. when Andrea was sleeping every damn day till afternoon.
From the mess on the dresser, Myra selected an empty cold cream jar, torn stocking, broken eye brow pencil, topless lipstick, mateless glove, stretched garter belt, and dropped them into the wastebasket.
"For God sake, hasn't she answered yet, Shelley?"
Myra could hear Shelley talking to herself, playing with her paper doll cut outs, chatting in her imitation voices, pretending to talk to Barbra Streisand.
It was sweet. It was cosmic influence again — Barbra was a Taurus, in the Decon of Venus just like Myra.
Myra proceeded with the wastebasket to the kitchen, stopped along the way to straighten a picture in the hallway. Through the open bathroom door saw the soiled towels, soiled because the plaster had fallen on them because the ceiling needed fixing. The mess seemed to have taken over her apartment like a virulent infection.
"Oh Gawd, I can't stand it!" Myra started to weep because it had been going on and on, this terrible waiting for something to happen, the horrible mess taking over room by room. "I'll die!" Myra cried, imagining blood from her slashed wrists staining the basin, her blanched corpse found sprawled across the toilet. But nothing as going to weaken Myra's resolve to attend to chores in the A.M. and be kind to loved ones.
"Poor baby," Myra gave Shelley a pat. Shelley was lying on her stomach in the living room, drawing a picture with the oil pastels that her father had given her for her birthday.
...Gawd, you'd think that jerk would know a kid her age needs clothes not a $12.00 set of crayons... Myra moaned to herself, plunking herself down in the couch. Out loud she said, "What are you making dear?"
"It's going to be a beautiful street of houses, Mommy."
The crayons were neatly arranged. Shelley was drawing a row of boxes, each with three windows, one door, a scrawny tree and a row of stiff flowers.
"Why don't you try to make the houses different dear, instead of all the same?"
"But houses are all the same, Mommy."
"Well, put your glasses on," Myra was thinking how much her daughter was like Herb, always so logical, methodical, always with a practical reason for everything. "And put on the light, you'll go blind if you don't wear them!"
"Yes Mommy," Shelley crawled under the piano to plug in the disconnected lamp.
"Maybe we should start you on piano lessons. Talent for drawing never did run in my family or Herb's — bunch of jerks, they wouldn't know their asses — " Myra corrected herself as she was digging her lost scissors out from between the couch cushions. "Their fannies from a...hole in the ground!"
"I guess my picture is finished. It's not very good."
"It's sweet, honey. Sign it anyway, put the date on it for posterity." Myra applied the scissors to a toenail. "You've got a little fire in your chart, you might be a famous someday."
Shelley bit her lip, gripped the pencil and lowered it onto the paper.
"Don't press so hard on the point, dear." A toenail clipping flew up hitting her — it seemed the final insult. "Goddammit, that private school gets almost five thousand a year — you'd think they'd teach you how to hold the damn pencil. Use three fingers, Shelley!"
"Yes Mommy." Shelley's fingers grew bloodless white from pressing as she signed her name, the date for posterity.
"You really ought to have lunch."
"I'm not so very hungry." Shelley was carefully ripping the page from the art pad.
"What about tuna, it's high protein? You know a person dies if they don't eat. Open up the tuna or get the hot dogs. I'll make a salad."
"Yes Mommy," Shelley left the room.
Myra dialed Andrea's number. There was still no answer..."Gawd, what is Andrea doing? That rat Ferris — breaks her heart — deserts
her
for his crud wife!"
Myra started to dial Ferris' office. But it was lunch hour and she didn't want to leave another message, so she dialed Herb..."Plaster falling on his kid's head when she's crapping — I'll give that prick a piece of my mind!" In the middle of dialing, her fingernail broke.
"Shelleeee!" Myra bawled at the top of her lungs. "Get me the crazy glue, hurry!"
Shelley appeared with the glue, big-eyed, worried. She watched while her Mother was fixing the nail.
"Don't just stand there — on the kitchen table there's a slip of paper with a phone number and a name on it — bring it to me!" Myra carefully fitted the torn piece back onto the nail. She was blowing on it when Shelley came back in with the paper.
"Is this the paper Mommy? LE 4-3017? Who is Marian Cooper Mommy?"
Myra took the paper. "Just a lady. Run along honey. Mommy wants to phone Lady Marian and see how she's feeling!" Myra used the scissors to dial.
"Is she Ferris Cooper's Mother?"
"How do you know about Ferris Cooper?" Myra looked at Shelley sternly.
"Aunt Andrea told me his name, I guess."
"She's Ferris' mother all right!" Myra found the idea amusing. Suddenly she put up a hand to silence Shelley.
Myra listened intensely to the phone at her ear, then hung up.
She turned back to her daughter with a big loving smile. "What's for lunch?"
"Hot dogs."
"My, my, you certainly do love hot dogs. That's the third time this week. What kind of a Mother am I to let my little sweetie pie keep eating hot dogs? All right, you run a long now and get the water boiling, I'll be there in a couple of minutes, I think I got a wrong number, I just want to try Ferris' mother one more time!"
++++++++++
Chapter 17
"There's going to be a cocktail party the week after next. Saturday night, it's a screening of one of our commercials, a black tie affair," Ferris said.
"Black tie — for a screening? How unusual."
"Yes, but it should be fun. It's a very good commercial, I'm rather proud of it in fact."
"I'll make sure that your tux is O.K. and your shirt — the studs are in the cuff links box, your dress shoes are fine, I saw them when I was tidying your closet in fact."
"You're invited too, darling."
"Oh? Who is the client, do I know them?"
"It's that group from Florida, the Brinkerhoff family. You're definitely invited."
"I see." The casual way Ferris was talking did not obscure the fact that the group from Florida was the Florida client which belonged to the category of topics the Coopers had been studiously avoiding. "I imagine there will be quite a few women at the party with their husbands."
"Yes, I imagine there will be," Ferris replied.
"I suppose Charles will be there."
"Most certainly."
"And the cast and crew have been invited, too, I would imagine."
"Probably so," Ferris agreed, without any special emphasis.
"Where is this screening going to be held?"
Ferris pulled a white card and envelope out of the pocket of his jacket, put it down on the table. "Then, you'll RSVP for us?"
"Of course."
Ferris planted a light kiss on Marian's cheek. "I'll be in my study, dear."
"Work well, dear." Marian put a quick, light kiss on Ferris' cheek.
It was ping pong, the same hit-the-ball, hit-it-back kind of chit chat they'd had at breakfast that morning, yesterday morning, and at dinner the night before. She picked up the invitation.
There was nothing unusual about the card, no special message, no special kind of engraving, but a black thought began to form.
...Andrea...was the same invitation in her hands...?
Marian put the invitation quickly back down on the table.
In the bedroom, Marian turned on the television, sat down in her rocking chair to listen and watch the evening news. But she was seeing Andrea's hand holding the invitation, the red-painted fake fingernails Ferris had described. She could see the girl's mouth, lips parted in a smile to show off her pearly white perfect teeth — they were undoubtedly capped — a model's smile was as important as her shape.
After a while Marian got up, changed channels, turned down the sound. She sat back down and rocked. The television lovers in an old-time movie were flickering along, unnoticed. There was just the bluey glow from the television upon the blanket and the bed sheets.
She was worn out from trying to hold on, exhausted by her own good manners, Ferris' good manners, their vigilant avoidances of the truth.
...What's so terrible about the truth? What did Ferris do that's so special? Ferris did what lovers do, what men and women do. He's a man. Andrea's a woman...
The lovers had laid down there on the bed, together. "She has a figure like yours," Ferris had said. But Marian knew Andrea's body was better than hers, otherwise Ferris wouldn't have avoided the subject so assiduously. It was kind of him not to tell her that the girl was sensually exciting — she had curves, beautiful breasts most probably because Ferris loved a woman's breasts. He never said so in words, but Marian knew.
Marian saw them — her husband sitting on the edge of the bed, the girl with her long black hair sprawled out loosely on the pillow like a fan. She saw the girl reaching up to touch Ferris, the girl's hands patting his cheek, caressing first, his hair — combing back the one lock that always fell so boyishly onto his brow — then the girl's hands reaching for him, touching his naked shoulders, pulling him down to her there on the bed.