Authors: Irving Wallace
Before Lisa could turn back to the door, one limber, light-footed adolescent approached her. This one wore a badge which identified her as “Mavis.” Her hair was platinum, her face narrow and perfect, and her body lithe. Confronting Lisa, her condescending charitable look was that of one who must deal with some old baggage of a woman, in a shawl, seeking haven from the snow.
“May I help you, madam?”
“Yes. Those violet capris in the window. I’d like to see a pair.”
“Your size?”
“You have all my statistics on file, sideways and up and down. Just look up Mrs. Cyrus Hackfeld.”
She announced her name, rather than spoke it, but Mavis was a blank. No recognition registered. She drifted toward the cashier’s counter, while Lisa wandered toward the rack of slacks, boiling.
Leisurely, after a long interval, Mavis returned carrying a card.
“Your last measurements were taken three years ago,” she said meaningfully.
Lisa’s anger surfaced. “Then that’s my size.”
“Very well.”
Mavis searched the rack, and finally jerked free a pair of violet capris.
“Do you want to try them on, Mrs. Hackworth?”
“Yes. And the name is Hackfeld.”
“Hackfeld. I’ll remember. Right this way.”
Trembling, and alone at last behind the curtain, Lisa hastily divested herself of the leopard coat, her dress, and her half-slip, and then pulled on the tight capris. She tried to zip them and they would not zip. She tried to button the waist but two inches separated button from hole. She wheeled and observed herself in the mirror and saw that the pants were too tight, impossibly tight, with ugly bulges at her hips and thighs. Filled with self-pity, Lisa rolled the capris down and struggled out of them.
She stood in her brassiere and girdle, and called the young girl.
After a few seconds, Mavis strolled in, smoking. “How were they, Mrs. Hack Hackfeld?”
“You gave me a size too small.”
“I gave you your size,” Mavis, the picador, said relentlessly. “It’s the size on your card.”
Lisa was consumed by fury at the baiting. “Well, dammit, they don’t fit, so get me the next larger size.”
Mavis smiled sympathetically at the old girl. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Hackfeld. That is the largest size we carry in the store. Miss Jill won’t carry a larger one. It’s her policy. I’m afraid you’ll have to go elsewhere to find something that fits.”
Lisa’s fury had melted down into humiliation and grief. She knew her cheeks were hot and she hated their surrender. “All right,” she said, “thank you.”
The girl had gone and again Lisa was alone. Dressing, she was perplexed. It was the first time that she could find nothing to fit at Jill’s. But then, she thought, finally adjusting her coat, it was also the first time she was going to be forty.
She left the shop swiftly, eyes pointed ahead, but warmly aware that the group of silly slat-asses were watching her with amusement. Going through the door, she knew one thing wealth could not fortify you against—and that was age. Those silly slat-asses were richer than she. Good-by, Jill, good-by forever. And damn you, you’ll know one day.
Blindly, she made for her white Continental, and drove to Magnin’s, where she belonged. Sweeping through the store, she shopped compulsively, but with constant disinterest, for toiletries and evening accessories. When she had what she did not need, she went out the rear exit, waited for her car, overtipped the attendant, and steered the vehicle to Wilshire Boulevard.
As she halted at a signal, her watch reminded her that there still remained an empty stretch between four-fifteen and six o’clock, and she wondered how she could best fill it. Briefly, she considered driving east on Wilshire to the Hackfeld Building and surprising Cyrus. Quickly, she vetoed the idea. She did not have the spirit to face his employees, his receptionist, his secretaries, more bubbling slat-asses, the children who had inherited her good years. They would nudge and whisper, after her entrance, there goes the Mrs. Hackfeld, the old man’s old lady—how did she ever hook him?
Instead of turning east, she wheeled the car west. She would look in at the Coast Tennis Club—it was on the way home—she and Cyrus were charter members—and maybe she would have a drink and join in a casino or bridge game for a short spell. Ten minutes later, oppressed by the slate sky, she was relieved to arrive at the Tennis Club, relinquish her car, and enter into the fireplace-and-mountain-lodge atmosphere of the exclusive refuge. Carried upward in the gleaming self-service elevator, she half-listened to the strains of Cocktails for Two being piped in and played by a predominantly string orchestra, and she dreaded to think how long it had been since she had danced to that number.
Upstairs, the enclosed terrace was only partially filled, two tables of older men engrossed in gin rummy, one table with a pair of attractive young advertising-company types talking seriously and drinking, and a table of women, all familiar faces, playing bridge.
Lisa waved the uniformed waiter aside, and stood next to the window peering down at the reddish clay courts. All were empty in the cold save one, and on this court two hearties, a young man and his young girl, both in white shorts, hit and ran and scrambled vigorously, laughing and clowning. With a sigh, Lisa turned away and headed for the bridge game. The familiar faces greeted her effusively, as one of their own, and one of them suddenly volunteered her place to Lisa. As suddenly, Lisa had no heart for the foolish numbered pasteboards. She declined politely, explaining that she had stopped by to see if Cyrus was here, and she could just stay a minute. The waiter had drawn up a spectator’s chair for her, and she accepted it and ordered a lemonade.
During the next fifteen minutes, chewing at the colored straws in the lemonade, she tried to concentrate on the bridge game, tried to match the pleasure and disgust of the players over an unexpected small slam, but was conscious only of someone’s eyes upon her. Casting a sidelong glance toward the wall, she thought she could see the more attractive of the two advertising men staring at her. She enjoyed a chill of excitement, and, without being too obvious about it, she lifted her head higher to improve her neckline, and straightened in the chair to define her bust, and crossed her legs (her best points) to show off a slim calf. She felt like the girl in Omaha, and the feeling was very good, indeed. She became gayer, making comments, small jokes, to the other women about their play. She still felt his eyes upon her, and risked another sidelong glance. Yes, he was staring at her with his deep-set dark eyes and amused mouth and square jaw. She felt a flush of daring, and decided, recklessly, to stare back and see what would happen. She looked at him, and frankly stared, but there was no reaction from him. In that instant, she perceived their stares were not meeting. With sinking heart, she pivoted, trying to follow the line of his gaze, knowing that it missed her by an inch or two, and then she saw the bar. On a stool at the bar, where she had not been before, sat the young girl, twenty-five., no more, who had been on the tennis court. She appeared ruddy and Swedish, and the thin material of her white blouse strained against her breasts, and the tight white shorts set off her muscular limbs. She drank from her highball, then met the stare of the man across the room with a teasing smile, and bent again to her drink.
Lisa felt shame along with the squeeze of hurt in her chest: she was a fool, a young-old fool, barred from participation, henceforth spectator as well as intruder. Her stupid misunderstanding made her blush, and, in this day of flight, she once more desired only escape. Moments later, she left the Tennis Club, as whipped as any one of Napoleon’s grenadiers in retreat from Moscow.
At the discreet cough, she sat up, and realized with bewilderment that she was on the yellow sofa of her own living room, emerging from recent past into present, and that the impeccable Averil was before her with a second double Martini dry.
The cocktail glass in her hand was empty. Morosely, she exchanged it for the filled one. “Thank you, Averil. That’ll be all for now.”
After Averil had gone, she drank, but without result. There was no floating euphoria. Instead, the Martini made her feel pulpy, soggy, sodden, like a soaked, crumpled newspaper.
She was distracted by the sound of a key working into the frontdoor keyhole. The door opened, and seconds later, yanking off his overcoat, Cyrus materialized in the living room. He was still business-brisk and alive with the day he had beaten, and he propelled his huge bulk toward her with vigor, stooped and kissed her forehead.
“How are you, dear?” he was asking. “Surprised to find you still down here. Expected you’d be dressing by now.”
Dressing, she thought, sure, dressing in my pleated shroud. “Dressing? What for?”
“What for?” Cyrus looked stern. “For Santa Barbara. We’re driving up to have dinner with Maud Hayden.”
“We are?” she said stupidly. “I don’t remember—”
“What the devil, Lisa, you’ve known for two weeks. I’ve mentioned it several times the last couple of days.”
“I guess I forgot. My mind’s been on other things.”
“Well, let’s hustle. Rex Garrity insisted on coming along, and I saw no harm in it. He’ll keep us entertained in the few hours on the road. He’ll be here in thirty or forty minutes. And we’re expected for dinner at eight.”
“Cyrus, must we? I don’t feel much like it. I’m beginning to have a headache.”
“It’ll go away, your headache. Take something for it. What you need is to get out a little more. Being antisocial isn’t going to make you feel better. This is a very special evening.”
“What’s so damn special about it?”
“Look, honey, I can’t stand up Maud Hayden. She’s one of the top anthropologists in the world. She’s made a big fuss about having us to her home. It’s sort of a celebration. She’s discovered some tropical islands—remember, I told you a few weeks ago? The Three Sirens, they’re called—down in the South Pacific. She’s taking an all-star team there, and our foundation is backing her with a grant. It’ll be a feather in my cap when she gives the paper before the American Anthropological League. Make those Ford and Carnegie people sit up and take notice of Hackfeld. And the book she does is a cinch bestseller and that, too—”
“Cyrus, please, I’m still not up to—”
Averil had come in with a bourbon and soda, and Cyrus was gulping it like water, swallowing, choking, coughing, and trying to speak between coughs. “Besides, I’ve been looking forward to this evening more than anything in recent weeks. Maud’s a great wordsmith. Makes Scheherazade look like a shy, stuttering bore. I thought you’d be as interested as I am in The Three Sirens tribe, with all that crazy sex stuff—like the Social Aid Hut, that’s supposed to have some trick way of solving all sex problems for married people—and the wide-open annual festival week in late June when—”
Lisa found herself sitting up. “What?” she said. “What are you talking about? Did you make all this up?”
“Lisa, for Chrissakes, I gave you Maud’s prospectus, her outline of that culture down there and their customs, I gave it to you to read, those typed pages. Didn’t you even look at them?”
“I—I don’t know. I guess I didn’t. I didn’t think it was anything, only one of those dull sociological tracts.”
“Dull? Wow. What those half-white, half-Polynesian natives are probably doing down there makes the House of All Nations look as staid as Buckingham Palace.”
“Is it true—what you are saying—about that Social Aid ?”
“Maud thinks it is true. Her source is a good one. Now she’s taking a team down there for six weeks in June and July to see for herself. We’re going to talk about the whole thing tonight. That’s the idea of the dinner.” He rubbed his small florid face. “I’d better shave and get ready.” He started to maneuver his dirigible of a body around, to leave, when suddenly, he swung back to his wife. “Honey, if you’ve really got a lousy headache, then, hell, I’m not going to insist—”
But Lisa was standing, quite as energetic as her husband. “No—don’t worry—I’m beginning to feel better. It would be a crime to miss an evening with Maud Hayden. You’re so right. I’ll go up and bathe, and be dressed in a jiffy.”
Cyrus Hackfeld grinned. “Swell. Good girl.”
Lisa crooked her arm in his, to thank him for the “good girl,” and then she wondered how old forty was on The Three Sirens, and with her husband she went upstairs to prepare for her last young evening… .
* * *
Dinner at the Haydens had been served at nine-fifteen, and now Claire noted, as Suzu doled out individual cherry tart desserts, it was almost twenty to eleven.
The meal had gone wonderfully well, Claire felt. The Chinese egg drop soup had been consumed to the last spoonful. The Chicken Teriyaki surrounded by rice, Chinese peas with water chestnuts, and melon balls, and supplemented by warm sake in miniature white cups, had been well received, and everyone but the Loomises had accepted second helpings. Even Rex Garrity, who regarded himself as an international gourmet, had complimented Maud on the dishes, admitting he had not enjoyed a blending of Chinese and Japanese food so much since he had visited Shanghai in 1940, when nationals of both nations occupied the city.
The conversation, too, had been admirable in every way, friendly and amazingly stimulating, and Claire had enjoyed all of it as if it were new. Early in the evening, during the predinner drinking and hors d’oeuvres—Suzu had made Rumaki, cheese puffs, and laid out a hot crabmeat dip—there had been a brief, sharp skirmish, a verbal jousting, between Garrity and Maud. The two were the most widely traveled in the group, both full of experience and facts, both used to being listened to, and they had vied for dominance of the evening, sparring, hitting out, defending, countering. It had been a fascinating bout. Garrity had seemed eager to impress both Hackfeld and Maud with his worldliness and importance. Maud had been determined to make this a Hayden evening and make Hackfeld proud that he was supporting the expedition to The Three Sirens. By the time Suzu had announced dinner, Garrity, filled with liquor, muddled by Maud’s anthropological terminology, sensing that the guests were more interested in her than in himself, had dropped his lance and pulled back from combat.