The Celebrity (4 page)

Even without Gwendolyn and some dozen or so ineligible grandchildren who were there only in snapshot and anecdote, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Johns could look about them, talk to, and lovingly touch quite a group of their progeny. This they did, at frequent intervals, through the preliminaries of arrivals and greetings and gift-giving and kissing, through the next stage of rum cocktails for the adults and ginger ale with a maraschino cherry for the youngsters, and then on through the precarious eating of an expensive, excellently prepared, and tepid buffet supper off the knees.

To the fond old eyes of Gerald and Geraldine, each son and daughter, each grandchild, whether in the flesh or on Kodachrome, was Beauty and Goodness personified. To their delighted ears, each voice spoke only the admirable accents of wit and intelligence and modesty. To their happy hearts there was no human frailty, no selfishness, no baseness, and certainly no knavery, hiding in the bosom of one single creature before them.

Their proud happiness sent forth emanations of joy so irresistible that the entire room responded to it. Laughter was constant, appetites were expansive, well-being was universal. The hulking maid, Hulda, was nearly successful at concealing her resentment as she collected abandoned plates and glasses and cutlery from laps and end-tables and carpets, and Cindy only smiled indulgently when one of her smaller nephews slopped a dishful of gravy all over her favorite sofa.

When at last everybody had been supplied with ice cream and chocolate sauce and cookies, Thornton went off to the kitchen and brought back an icy magnum of champagne, domestic. The cork popped splendidly and Thorn grinned. His spirits had lifted, as they invariably did, once he gave up rebellion and surrendered to these family evenings. He filled the glasses, not forgetting a token splash in the teen-agers’, and then stood with his back to the fireplace, raising his own aloft. A hush fell over the company and white-haired, plump little Geraldine rooted about in the large pocket of her black taffeta dress for a handkerchief.

“To Dad and Mother,” Thornton said, “to Gran’pa and Gran’ma! To many, many more of these wonderful anniversaries, with many, many more of our little ones big enough to come and in due time—who knows?—with the little ones of
their
little ones as well!”

Cindy sighed.

Hulda stacked dessert plates with that vicious clash which only angry china can produce.

Hat whispered, “Maybe sometime, Aunt Gwen can make it from Wyoming, with Uncle Howie, and their five kids.”

Old Gerald, normally a fairly hard-headed citizen, swallowed hard over Thorn’s words and touched his wife’s shoulder uncertainly. As the applause following the toast died away, he began to pick his way aimlessly through the children seated on the carpet, his legs rising and descending stiffly in a roosterish strut.

Cindy’s and Thorn’s sons, Thorn Junior and Fred, being twenty and twenty-one and therefore envied by all the small fry for being
old,
now beckoned to Hat and put a long-playing dance record on the phonograph. Their younger cousins promptly hurled themselves at the television set at the other end of the room, their elders settled down to typical adult lamentations about prices and politics, and the success of the party was assured. For a full hour no untoward incident occurred, no unscheduled event took place.

Then the telephone bell rang.

Even above the voices and laughter and music, the sound from the entrance hall just off the living room was clear and commanding. Everybody looked toward it and as the omnipresent Hulda reached the instrument, Hat turned the volume knob on the phonograph a little to the left.

“For you, Mr. Gregory,” Hulda announced, shouting needlessly since, like the phonograph, the entire room had diminished its output of sound.

“Me?” Gregory looked up. “Are you sure? Nobody knows I’m here.”

Hulda consulted the phone once more.

“Says Mr. or Mrs.
Gregory
Johns,” she yelled. She shrugged and departed massively for the kitchen, leaving the phone open and imperious.

“It’s for you, Gregory,” Thorn said.

Gregory rose. An almost full silence, broken only by younger and more innocent voices, now fell upon the room. Hat turned the volume knob, further until it clicked. Three adults put down their drinks, two others raised theirs, somebody lighted a cigarette, and somebody else rubbed one out. Old Mr. Johns consulted his gold pocket watch and, as if the lateness of the hour made the telephone call more threatening, moved hack across the room to stand close to his wife.

“Hello,” said Gregory to the telephone. “Yes, who is—oh,
hello.
” A moment later he said, “Telegram?” and then did nothing but listen. In this he was not alone.

Visible to everybody, Gregory Johns kept a tight clutch on the instrument but everything else about him seemed to sag. His mouth was open, his head hung forward, and behind his glasses, his eyes looked stunned,

“He looks sick,” young Thorn said.

Abby thought so too and went out to him. “Gregory,” she said. He gave no sign that he had heard; she touched his arm.

He started, turned, and the sight of her brought a look of immeasurable relief to his face. “Wait a minute,” he told the phone, and to Abby he said, “It’s Jake Zatke. There was a telegram and I told him to open it.”

Abby took the telephone from him. “Hello, Jake,” she said.

“Here’s a pencil,” said Thorn, who had followed her out.

“And some paper,” added Cindy just behind him. She reached around Abby’s hips, sliding a pad marked
Telephone Messages
into her line of vision, and then straightened up, breathing on Abby’s neck. By now several other members of the family were breathing on Cindy’s.

Abby made no move to write. She was more composed in manner than Gregory had been, but she was concentrating intensely on the metallic squawkings at her ear. Gregory was leaning against the wall now, stricken still, but with his color returning.

At the Martin Heights end of the conversation, Jake Zatke, who taught Science at Jamaica High and could never slur over preliminary data, was going through all the introductory steps once more: how he and Mary had heard the repeated ringing of the Johns’ bell, how they had finally opened their door to see a Western Union messenger preparing to hang a notification card on the Johns’ doorknob, how they had offered to sign for the message, assuring personal delivery no matter how late the return of their friends and neighbors, how the messenger had at last agreed, though being new at his job and uncertain of protocol, he had resisted for a long time, how more than two hours of staring at the unblinking yellow envelope had made Mary so apprehensive that she had finally insisted on looking up Thornton’s number in the directory, and transferring all jurisdiction and responsibility.

Abby said; “Would you read it now, Jake?”

As she listened, her whole manner changed. Her lips parted over a gleeful gasp, a squeal of joy sounded in her throat and she sent her husband a glance of such melting adoration that he straightened immediately and overcame his need for a wall against which to lean.

“Read it again slowly, will you, Jake? I’m going to write it down this time. It’s just too wonderful to believe.”

Around her; grimness fled from faces, fear from eyes, tension from muscles. Thorn Junior said, “They’ve guessed the Mystery Tune or something,” and went back to reassure those beyond the listening area. Everybody followed him except Gregory and Hat, who watched Abby begin to write.

It was a long telegram; she used a second page and part of a third. At last Abby said, “Oh, Jake,
thanks.
Slide it under our door, would you, so we can see it with our own eyes when we get there?”

She hung up, gathered up her scribbled pages, rushed to Gregory and Hat and hugged them both at one time.

“Mom,
what?
” Hat cried.

“Best Selling Books took Dad’s novel!”

She propelled Gregory back into the living room. “Read it aloud, Gregory. It’s your news.” By now thirty-four eyes were on Gregory as he cleared his throat, consulted the sheets in his hand, and adjusted the fit of his glasses.

“It’s a telegram,” he said. “About my book.”

“What about your book?” This was Thornton and if a faint disappointment, as of decreasing interest, tinged his tone, no one noticed it. “Which book?”

“My new one, that is, the new one before this new one I’m starting now.”

“The one about the world?” his mother asked, her eyes glowing.

“Yes, that one,” Gregory answered. “The one that’s coming out in the spring. It seems—” He tugged his tie. “Well, you see, this telegram is from my publisher. He—” Again he stopped. He looked at Abby, and in a voice that was suddenly beseeching, said, “You read it.”

Abby laughed and took the pages back. “B.S.B.—that stands for Best Selling Books, and it’s the biggest and most famous of all the big famous book clubs, with nearly a million members—B.S.B. has just chosen Gregory’s new novel.”

“My God,” said Thorn.

“I don’t believe it,” said Cindy.

“What?” said everybody else together.

“Here, I’ll read Mr. Digby’s wire,” Abby said, “word for word,
‘
UPON MY INSISTENCE THE GOOD WORLD WAS OUR SOLE ENTRY AT B.S.B. THIS MONTH AND NOW ALL CONGRATULATIONS STOP IT IS APRIL SELECTION WITH JUDGES UNANIMOUSLY IGNORING ALL OTHER CONTENDERS STOP INITIAL PAYMENT WHICH WE SHARE EQUALLY IS ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS STOP PLEASE TELEPHONE IMMED
—’
”

The rest of the telegram was lost in the uproar.

O
UT IN
C
HICAGO,
M
R.
Digby was very drunk. Five hours had elapsed since he had dictated the telegram and Gregory Johns had not yet telephoned. That defection, however, was only a secondary cause for his condition.

The primary cause was that nobody else had telephoned either and that he had had to do
something
to keep from going crazy. To be sole repository, hour after hour, of good news which one generously longed to share, and to be unable to do so, was bad enough. But on top of that to be tormented by a question, a vital question, and find it impossible to reach anybody who could supply the answer—

Luther Digby hastily took another drink.

Hours ago urgent messages to call back Chicago Operator Number 25 had been left at a flat in Greenwich Village, an apartment on Morningside Heights, a cottage in East Orange, New Jersey, and a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. But so far his telephone had remained silent except for his own voice begging the operator to try once more and her responding voice announcing that each of the four people he wanted was still not at home. By New York time it was well past eleven; they couldn’t
all
be disreputable enough to stay out all night!

Luther Digby looked wanly at the telephone. It was a great invention, a noble instrument. Through it one could speak to London, Paris, Buenos Aires, New Delhi, and never move from one’s chair. But if everybody at the other end were unavailable, then Marconi and Bell and the rest of them might as well never have been born.

Visions of Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square rose before him, of the Place Vendôme, of Sugar Loaf Mountain and the mosques of India. These, however, soon receded and his mind once more, reached out: imploringly to Greenwich. Village, Morningside Heights, East Orange, and Greenwich. In one of them a door must soon be opening, a message be given. Hungrily his hand moved to the noble instrument, but in mid-air it halted. Chicago Operator Number 25 must hate him, he thought unhappily, and a terrible, loneliness welled up in him.

He raised the tall glass beside him, and morosely took another swallow. If not hate, then at least despise. At first she had been friendly and eager, but about an hour ago, a frostiness had entered her manner and now he was afraid to call her. He could, only sit in this awful silence in a hotel room a thousand miles from people who still liked, even admired, him. Despair seized him and he spoke aloud. “My God,” he confided to the ceiling, “I’m plastered.”

Somewhere a voice seemed to answer firmly, “Luther Digby doesn’t get plastered,” and he choked up in gratitude. He doesn’t, he thought, he really doesn’t, but this time he does. Did.

It had all begun innocently enough. After thanking Janet for her loyal performance at the switchboard, he had promptly put in a call for Alan Brown. The crucial question had not yet occurred to him; he had been motivated, only by the purest altruism. While he had waited in this lofty mood, savoring the delight his partner was soon to experience, he had bethought himself of a drink, to celebrate. He had ordered up a gin and tonic, which he had always associated with the British and therefore with everything admirable, despite such passing misfortunes as Labor Governments, free dentures, an universal eyeglasses.

Normally he was a light drinker; an abstemious man if ever there was one; had things only proceeded normally, that single drink would have served. But things hadn’t proceeded normally, though more than an hour had passed before he had begun to realize it. During that hour, he had relaxed comfortably on his bed in a congratulatory glow about what had so unexpectedly befallen the firm of Digby and Brown.

Already he could hear the quiet modest way in which he would soon say, “Well,
The Good World
is one of our books,” when some ill-informed lout asked, “And what sort of thing do you publish, Mr. Digby?” To have that inanity thrust upon him, as it always was, by nonpublishing people he met on trains and in hotels, had grown increasingly awkward, for it was not very impressive to reach back to 1940 for the name of a best seller everybody would recognize, and even less so to admit that since then he had devoted himself largely to the school and college textbook division of his own firm. Now, in a few months, he would have a magic reply, the simple utterance of which would increase his stature in the eye of the beholder. No longer would there be the vague “Oh, yes?” but instead, the admiring “Oh,
yes!
” and that quick respect always displayed to a representative of big business.