Ten North Frederick (63 page)

“No, but I won't say there never will be.”

“The best way is for us to be completely honest about it. And if you bring somebody home and I'm still up, you come in first and I'll go to my room. We ought to avoid seeing the other's gentleman friend as much as possible. My activities are pretty much restricted to the afternoon, but you go out in the evening and you may want to finish the evening with breakfast, here. We'll make up some house rules.”

“Well, I was wondering about that, because I have somebody that I've liked well enough to spend several nights at his apartment. But we can't always go there because he lets a suburban friend sleep on the davenport.”

Kate smiled.

“What's the big smile for?” said Ann.

“When you really come down to it, isn't this what we left Gibbsville and Buffalo for?”

“Well, partly,” said Ann.

In her first year in New York, Ann had slept with four, and possibly five—she was not sure—men. She had not slept twice with the same man, or even gone out with a man after she had slept with him. In every case, she had deliberately taken more to drink than mere party spirit required, and one morning she awoke in a man's apartment, nude, and in the single large bed, with no idea of the man's name or what he looked like. She found enough letters and bills in his desk, addressed to the same person, to convince her that that was the name of her departed lover. She searched for a picture that might recall what he looked like, and on a sudden inspiration she looked up the name in a college yearbook in his bookshelf. His name was there, and a distinct photograph, but she remembered nothing about him. Her dress, her hat, her underclothes, her stockings, and her shoes were scattered in various parts of the apartment. She looked up the man's name in the telephone book and from it learned where she was. She found her handbag with more than forty dollars in it, and she remembered having cashed a check for fifty dollars before going to a cocktail party the day before. She now knew the man's name and age and college and home town and parents' names and fraternity and college record and nickname and apartment address. But she did not know his height. Then on another inspiration, she tried on his dinner jacket and made a guess that he was fairly tall. But she could not be sure she would know him if she saw him again, and when she began to realize that at least he was not a thief, that he had gone to a good school and college—she also began to realize that she had been lucky not to have spent the night with a gangster or some such. There was evidence that they had had an affair, but the details of her behavior, and of his, were known to him alone. But how much or how long they would be his alone depended entirely on his personal code and discretion, and she had no reason to have confidence in their existence. And she would have to wait out the possibility of a pregnancy.

She did not become pregnant, and in thanksgiving, she discontinued the practice of casual promiscuity. To make it worse, although making it better, he telephoned her at the Barbizon.

“Ann, I'm sorry I was such a bastard that night. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I'm all right.”

“In other words, not pregnant? You told me you got pregnant easily.”

“No, I'm okay, thanks.”

“Would you like to have dinner Friday night?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“Would you
ever
like to have dinner, or go out with me?”

“Don't you think it'd be better if we didn't? You're nice to call, but I think we'd better not.”

“I meant to write you from Toronto, but I didn't have your address.”

“Well, thank you for calling.”

“I like you, Ann. It isn't just—you know. I've thought about you all the time I was in Canada. But I understand.”

She kept seeing young men who looked like the fast receding likeness of the college yearbook, and then one night, she did see him and knew it was he. He was dining with a girl. He saw her; he bowed; she bowed; and he was forever out of her life.

After that, there were dates for dinner and the theatre with young lawyers and friends of young lawyers; and one young lawyer whom she liked well enough to spend several nights at his apartment. The young lawyer's suburban friend was an actual person. But Ann sometimes suspected that he did not stay in town every time the young lawyer said he was staying in town. It was a give-and-take relationship between Ann and the lawyer, who was a Harvard College, Harvard Law man named Howard Rundel. He was a conventional-looking young man, unsmilingly handsome and recently taking to wearing spectacles. He dressed well; in the manner, but tailor-made, and always wore a starched collar. He was self-centered and impatiently snobbish, but he had a surprising streak of sensuality that was the last thing Ann suspected in her office contacts with him. She knew he was using her, but to the same degree she was using him. And she also knew that part of his long-term plan was to go back to Chicago after three years with Stackhouse, Robbins, and marry into the family of a girl he was engaged to, and to whom he represented the ultimate in Atlantic Seaboard suavity. Sometimes Ann would look at him and imagine his small face half hidden behind the wedding Ascot, but he could excite her in many ways, and he had been successful with an astonishing number of women of all ages. He was not a gentleman, but she admitted to herself that she would have a hard time telling anyone just why she thought so. No single thing was wrong, but the total effect was of incompleteness. Her father would know; but she was not likely ever to ask him.

 • • • 

“Do you mind if Yale spends the night next Saturday?” said Ann.

“Isn't Yale a little young for you?” said Kate.

“It's my brother.”

“Oh, Joby. I want to meet Joby,” said Kate.

“I hope I haven't given him too much of a build-up,” said Ann. “Are you sure you won't mind? It won't become a habit, because I have a feeling he won't be there much longer. He's a sophomore, but barely. He says he's taking a private course in Afro-American music at a place called the Famous Door. And extra work at the Onyx Club. It's all he cares about.”

“Jazz.”

“Jazz. And I don't know one orchestra from another, except Guy Lombardo. But I hope you like Joby, so don't mention Guy Lombardo or he'll bare his fangs, show his unsocial side.”

Joby turned up in a Chesterfield and a tan hat with a stitched brim and a gabardine jacket and flannel slacks. To that extent he was indistinguishable from the great mass of Yale-Harvard-Princeton undergraduates of the period. He was introduced to Kate Drummond, and he continued to conform to the undergraduate pattern by uttering the polite greetings, and then seating himself, still in his Chesterfield and fingering his hat, in the most comfortable chair in the room.

“Where's your bag?” said Ann.

“No bag,” he said. “All I'll need is a razor and a toothbrush. You must have a razor you shave your legs with.”

“You're so sophisticated, and so vulgar,” said Ann.

“And so wrong,” added Kate.

“All right, I'll
buy
a razor. Kate'll let me borrow her toothbrush, I'm sure.”

“Sure, you can borrow it. That's not saying
I'll
use it again.”

He laughed for the first time. “Kate, if you weren't such an ugly old hag I could go for you.”

“Joby!” said Ann.

“I might. I really might. Why don't you ditch the guy you're going out with and go out with me instead? You must have thirty or forty dollars I can spend on you. By the way, Anna Banana?”

“I'm prepared. Ten dollars,” said Ann.

“Always ten dollars. Couldn't you make it twenty, just once?”

“No, and if it's getting monotonous I'll make it five.”

“Well, I have to go,” said Kate.

“Isn't he picking you up? I'd like to have a look at the guy that's getting the benefit of all this,” said Joby. “Is he old, is he young? Blind? Paresis? Fag? Why won't he show himself?”

“I'm not sure who he is,” said Kate. “I'm going to a dinner party.”

“But you're going alone,” said Joby. “Still, that doesn't say you'll be coming home alone, and I guess that's what counts. I'll look in on you when I get home.”

“No you won't,” said Ann.

“What are the sleeping arrangements, by the way?” said Joby.

“You can have my room, and I'm going in with Kate.”

“Oh, let's do something original,” said Joby. “
I'll
go in with Kate.”

“Do you think that would be so original?” said Kate.

“Well now if I answered that truthfully—are you sure you don't have an old razor lying around somewhere, Kate?”

“All my men grow beards,” said Kate. “Good night, my prince.”

“
Sweet
prince,” said Joby.

“On your feet,” said Ann.

He got up and bowed to Kate, who left smiling and regal.

“How old is she?” said Joby.

“Twenty-four.”

“She seems older. At least she seems older than you.”

“Oh, but I'm a very young twenty-four,” said Ann.

“Are you going out, too?” said Joby.

“I'm going out to dinner and the polo matches.”

“The polo matches? What's that a new name for?” said Joby. “I've heard of riding academies.”

“A polo match is where three men on horses play against three other men on horses.”

“Are you serious?” said Joby.

“Haven't you ever heard of Squadron A?”

“Oh, yes. And who are you going out with?”

“A lawyer named Howard Rundel. He'll be here in a few minutes.”

“That means I don't get any dinner here, eh?” said Joby.

“That's what it means.”

“Is it all right if I fix myself something?” said Joby.

“There's a steak, but I'm saving that for tomorrow. Help yourself to anything else,” said Ann. “How are things at Yale?”

“Oh, I guess I'm flunking out,” said Joby.

“That'll be a nice Christmas present for Father,” said Ann.

“It's a damned sight better than hanging around for another year and not making Wolf's Head.”

“How do you
know
you're not going to make Wolf's Head?”

“Oh, come on,” said Joby.

“Father's had an awfully tough time the last few years, and we haven't been much help. Me. And that political thing. And his leg.”

“Go ahead, say it. And me and St. Paul's School. And getting ready to flunk out of dear old Yale.”

“Well, I didn't have to say it. You did.”

“But it was on the tip of your tongue. All right, I haven't been what every father wants his son to be. But don't forget, Ann. I haven't been what I want to be.”

“A piano-player in a jazz band.”

“I never wanted to be that, and what's so had about that? You married one.”

“I knew the minute I said it,” said Ann. “What are you planning to do after you've so carefully flunked out?”

“I'm going abroad. I'm going to live in Paris for a couple of years. I play good enough piano to get by. I can get a job on a boat for my passage, and jump ship at one of the French ports, and then play for my room and board.”

“Something you overlook. The French have some kind of labor laws against foreigners. You won't be able to get a job because they won't give you a work permit.”

“Well, there goes that brilliant idea. Christ, I don't know what I'll do. Go home and marry Miss Laubach.”

“You make it sound
so
easy.”

“It could be arranged,” said Joby.

“Have you got a girl?”

“Several,” said Joby.

“Tonight, for instance.”

“Well, tonight it depends. There's a staff musician at NBC, a trombone player, and if he decides to put on a package, I have a girl. If he stays sober, no girl. I won't know till half past eleven.”

“Is this one married?”

“Not
quite
,” said Joby. “There's one guy she can't find to serve papers on to get a divorce, and the trombone player is going to be next, but meanwhile she isn't quite
sure
of the trombone player, so there am I.”

“At half past eleven,” said Ann.

“How's Madam?” said Joby.

“Don't you know. Don't you write to her? I'm sure she writes you.”

“Oh, she's got a letter that she writes every couple of weeks. ‘Joby dear—love, Mother.' You could fill in what she writes in between. She'd love to give me hell, but she knows I'm wise to her.”

“
Wise
to her? What ever are you talking about?”

“Wouldn't she love to give me hell?” said Joby.

“Yes, but doesn't she?”

“No, she doesn't. She's very careful not to. She'd give me hell if she thought she could get away with it. But as I just told you, she knows I'm wise to her.”

“Well, explain that to poor simple-minded me. Wise to her.”

“All of a sudden cat's got my tongue.”

“All of a sudden you're not wise to anyone.”

“Have it your way. But you notice Father gives me hell, wherever and whenever and for whatever. He bawls me out and cuts off my allowance and so forth. He has nothing to fear.”

“Mother most likely feels that one of them giving you hell is enough. She wants things to be peaceful.”

“Now there you're cooking. If there's one thing she wants it's peace.”

“My lawyer gentleman,” said Ann, at the sound of the doorbell. She pushed the clicker button and in a minute Rundel was at her door.

“This is my brother, Joby Chapin. Joby, Howard Rundel.”

“Nice to see you,” said Howard.

“I'm all ready,” said Ann. “See you at breakfast, any time after ten. Good night, wee one.”