A small sigh of relief escaped my lips. She had played it straight right down to the wire. My voice was stronger now. “It’s a terrible shock, Paul.”
“To all of us, Brad,” he said. “Just when everything seemed to be working out for her, too. Just a few weeks ago Edith was saying how happy Elaine seemed, now that you were helping on that infantile paralysis drive. She said Elaine had found herself again, doing something for others.”
“I know,” I said wearily. “I know.”
“That’s why I called, Brad,” he said. “Elaine was so fond of you. She thought you were the greatest. She was always telling Edith how wonderful you were to her.”
There was pain coming from his words. I had to stop him from talking like that, or he’d kill me. “I thought she was pretty wonderful too,” I said huskily.
“We all did, Brad,” he assured me. “We all wondered where she got so much courage from, the strength to face all the things she had to. Now I guess we’ll never know.”
I closed my eyes. They’ll never know, but I knew. I knew a lot of things. Too many things. “When are the services?” I heard myself asking automatically.
“The day after tomorrow,” he answered. He named the chapel. “At eleven o’clock,” he added. “She’s going to rest beside her husband and the children.”
“I’ll be down,” I said. “I’ll see you there. Meanwhile, if there’s anything I can do—”
“No, Brad; everything’s been attended to,” he answered. “There’s nothing more anyone can do for her now.”
I put down the phone, his words ringing in my ears, and sat there staring at the papers strewn across the desk and floor. Automatically I bent to pick them up, and then suddenly the tears spilled over.
I heard the door open but I didn’t look up. Mickey was standing in front of me. I felt her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Brad,” she said.
I straightened up and looked at her. “You know?”
She nodded. “He told me before I put him on,” she said gently. “It’s a terrible thing.” She held out her hand. There was a drink in it.
I took the drink and held it to my lips while she picked the remaining papers from the floor. I had drained the glass by the time she had them all gathered. She looked at me questioningly.
I managed a grimace that passed for a smile. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “Leave them here. I’ll look at them later.”
She placed them in a neat stack on the desk and had started for the door when I called after her. “No calls, Mickey, and no people. I won’t be available for a while.”
She nodded, and the door shut gently behind her. I walked over to the window and looked out.
The sky was a cold winter blue and the gray white buildings of the city fought their way grimly into it. Twenty thousand square feet of earth meant half a million square feet of rental on Madison Avenue, and the new buildings were like teeming anthills all around. This was part of the big time and the big time was a part of me.
This was what I had wanted ever since I was old enough to know anything. Now I knew what it was worth. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. One tiny little person on the street was worth more than all the city put together.
She was dead but I couldn’t believe it. It seemed that just a little while ago her warm lips were under mine, her hot breath in my mouth, her words of love in my ear.
Elaine. I spoke her name aloud. Before it had been a soft and loving sound but now it was a dagger in my heart. Why did you do it, Elaine?
The buzzer hawked and I went back to the desk and angrily picked up the phone. “I thought I said no calls,” I snapped.
“Your father’s here, Brad,” Mickey said softly.
“Okay,” I said and turned to face the door.
He came into the room awkwardly. Dad always looked awkward when he walked. The only time he ever looked graceful was when he sat behind the wheel of an automobile. His dark eyes squinted searchingly up at my face. “You heard?” he asked.
I nodded. “Paul called me.”
“I heard it on the car radio. I came right over,” he said.
“Thanks.” I walked over to the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle. “I’ll be all right.” I poured out two drinks and held one out to him.
I swallowed mine, but he held his in his hand. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. When I spoke to Paul I thought I’d go down there, but now I don’t know whether I can. I don’t know whether I can face her.”
His eyes were still searching mine. “Why?”
I stared at him for a moment and then I exploded. “Why? You know as well as I, why. Because I killed her! If I had pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger I couldn’t have done a better job!” I sank into the chair beside the cabinet and put my hands over my face.
He sat down opposite me. “How do you know?” he asked.
My eyes burned as I looked at him. “Because I made love to her and lied to her and made promises to her that I knew I’d never keep; because she believed me and loved me and trusted me and never thought I’d leave her. When I did there was nothing left in this world for her because I had become her world.”
He sipped his drink slowly and looked at me. At last he spoke. “You really believe that?”
I nodded.
He thought for a moment. “Then you must go down and make your peace with her, or you’ll never know another day’s rest.”
“But how can I, Dad?” I cried.
He got to his feet. “Yes, you can,” he said confidently. “Because you’re my son, Bernard. You have many of my weaknesses and all my faults, but you’re not a coward. A difficult thing it may be, but you’ll make your peace with her.”
The door closed behind him and I was alone again.
I looked toward the window. The dark of winter had already begun to taint the day. It was not so long ago on a day like this that I first met her.
Somewhere in the time between then and now I would find the answer.
1
I watched her in the corner of the mirror while I was shaving. The bathroom door was open and I could see her sitting up in bed. Her long reddish-brown hair cascaded over the slim white shoulders peeping from her night dress. She wore well, I thought proudly. No one looking at her would imagine that in another three weeks we’d be married twenty years.
Twenty years. Two children—a boy nineteen, and a girl sixteen—yet she still looked like a kid herself. She was slim, small-boned and wore the same size nine that she did when we were first married. Her gray eyes were just as wide and bright and fresh as then and her mouth was soft and full. Even without lipstick her mouth was good. It was innocent, warm and wholesome, and her chin was round, yet slightly square and honest.
I saw her get out of bed and slip into a robe. Her figure was the same as it had always been, pertly young and exciting. I watched her move out of range of the mirror and then turned back to serious shaving. I rubbed my fingers over my beard.
Still rough. It was always like that. I had to go over my beard twice before my skin would feel smooth. I picked up the shaving brush and began to re-lather my face. Suddenly I realized I was humming.
I stared in the mirror at myself in surprise. I don’t ordinarily hum while shaving. I’m not usually happy at all while shaving because I hate it. If I had my way I would grow a thick black beard.
Marge always laughed at me when I complained about shaving. “Why don’t you get a job digging ditches?” she would say. “You got the build for it.”
I had the face for it too. One thing convinced me that you couldn’t tell what a person did for a living from his appearance. Mine was one of those big rough faces that you usually associate with an outdoor, hardworking guy, but I couldn’t remember the last time I did any work outside. I wouldn’t even lift a finger to help out in the garden around the house.
I began to shave again, still humming half under my breath. I was happy—why fight it? Those things were
even more wonderful if they could happen to a man after twenty years of marriage.
I splashed some bay rum on my face, rinsed off the razor and began to comb my hair. That was one point in my favor. I still had a good head of hair, even though it had gone half gray in the last five years.
The bedroom was empty when I walked back into it, but there was a clean shirt, tie, socks, underwear and a suit spread out on my bed. I grinned to myself. Marge didn’t take any chances on my taste. I ran to loud combinations, but she said that didn’t go with the kind of business I was in. I had to look dignified.
It hadn’t been always like that. Only the last eight or nine years. Before that I could have worn a horse blanket and got away with it. But I wasn’t just a press agent any more. Now I was a public relations counselor.
A sweet drag for an old cart, but it was still flackery to me. Only now I got more dough for it. Thirty grand a year instead of three, an office in one of the new buildings on Madison Avenue instead of desk space in a phone booth.
Still, when I looked in the mirror after I was dressed I had to admit to myself that Marge was right. The old boy looked solid. The clothes did something for me. They softened the harshness of my face and added a good dependable look.
When I came down to the breakfast nook, Marge was already seated at the table, reading a letter. I went over to her and kissed her cheek. “Morning, babe,” I said.
We had twenty years of comfort… I kissed her cheek every morning, like clockwork. We met each other in junior high school. We started going steady when we were fourteen years old. When I got my first jalopy, we used to park next to the lake and “make-out” until my cock was so hard I thought I would die. I showed her how to jerk me off, and she always made a face. She was a virgin when we married, and as far as I know to this day, I’m the only man she has ever made love to. In these years together we learned to care very deeply for each other. But passion was not a part of it for Marge and I. Our first night together was awkward, probably like most newlyweds. I had a little experience but she had none. She had a lot of pain and ran to the bathroom when we finished to wash herself. As time progressed she worked slowly into oral sex, but she never liked it. The first time I came in her mouth, she ran and spit it out and gargled with Listerine. She never refused sex, she did her duty, a part of marriage, not much time for passion with kids, bills to pay, life takes time. Maybe passion was only for the “idle” rich.
“Morning, Brad,” she said, without taking her eyes from the letter.
I looked down over her shoulder at it. It was in a familiar hand. “Brad?” I asked. That meant Brad Rowan, Jr. He was in his first year at college and was gone just long enough for his letters to come once a week instead of every day.
She nodded.
I walked around the table to my place and sat down. “What’s he say?” I asked, lifting my glass of orange juice.
Her gray eyes looked up at me clearly from the letter. “He got through his exams with an eighty average. Math was the only thing that gave him any trouble.”
I grinned at her. “That’s nothing to worry about. That would have bothered me too, if I had gone to college.” I finished the orange juice just as Sally, our maid, brought in my bacon and eggs.
Two things I especially liked. Eggs for breakfast and showers in the morning. Both were luxuries I hadn’t had when I was a kid. My old man pushed hack in New York City for a living; he still did, despite his sixty-four years. We’d never had very much. The only thing he had let me do for him was buy him his own cab. He was a peculiar old guy in many ways. Wouldn’t come to live with us after Mamma passed away. “Wouldn’t feel right away from the Third Avenue El,” he said.
It was more than that, though. He didn’t want to move away from Mamma. There would always be something of her around in that long railroad flat on Third Avenue. I knew how he felt, so we let it go at that.
“What else did the kid have to say?” I asked. Somehow I thought college boys were always supposed to be writing home for dough and I was secretly disappointed that Brad had never asked for any extra.
Now her eyes were troubled when she looked at me. She tapped the letter with a finger as she spoke. “At the bottom he said he was trying to shake a cold that he had for over a week since the exams but that he couldn’t seem to get rid of the cough.” Her voice was worried.
I smiled at her. “He’ll be okay,” I reassured her. “Write and tell him to go to a doctor out there.”
“He won’t do it, Brad,” she protested. “You know how he is.”
“Sure,” I answered between mouthfuls. “All kids are like that. But a cold is nothing. He’ll shake it anyway. He’s a husky kid.”
Just then Jeanie came into the breakfast nook. As usual she was in a hurry. “You finished breakfast yet, Dad?” she asked.
I looked at her, smiling. Jeanie was my girl. She was the youngest. She was just like her mother, only spoiled. “Where’s the fire?” I asked. “I gotta have my coffee.”
“But, Dad, I’ll be late for school!” she protested.
I looked at her fondly. She was spoiled as hell, and I’d done it all myself. “The buses were running all morning,” I told her. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”
She put her hand on my arm and kissed my cheek. There’s something about the kiss a sixteen-year-old gives her father. Sells like nothing else in the world. “But, gee, Dad,” she said, “you know how I like to go down to school with you.”
I grinned even though I knew she was conning me. I couldn’t help it. I liked it. “The only reason you wait for me is because I let you drive down,” I kidded her.
“Don’t forget that I like your new convertible too, Dad,” she sassed me, her brown eyes laughing.
I looked over at Marge. She was watching us with a quiet smile on her lips. She knew what was going on. “What am I gonna do with this girl?” I asked in pretended helplessness.
The quiet smile was still on her lips as she answered. “Too late to do what you should have done,” she laughed. “Now you might as well take her down.”
I emptied my coffee cup and got to my feet. “Okay,” I said.
Jean grinned up at me. “I’ll get your hat and coat, Dad.” I could hear her running out into the foyer.
“Coming home early tonight, Brad?”
I turned back to Marge. “I dunno yet,” I answered. “I may get stuck with Chris on that steel institute deal, but I’m sure as hell gonna try.”
She got up and walked around the table toward me. I bent and kissed her cheek. It was soft and smooth. She turned her lips toward me. I kissed them. They tasted good.
“Don’t work too hard, mister,” she smiled softly.
“I won’t, ma’am,” I said. I heard the horn blowing out in front of the house. Jean had pulled the car out already. I turned and started for the door. Suddenly I stopped and looked back at her.
She was smiling after me.
I looked at her for a moment, and then I smiled. “You know, ma’am,” I said quickly, “if I were twenty years younger, I might marry up with you.”
2
October was dying all around me as I went down the walk toward the car. I was almost sorry to see it going. It was my time of year. Some like it green, but I’d take the red and brown and gold of early fall any time. The colors did something to me. It made me feel rich, warm and alive.
I stopped beside the car and stared at Jeanie. She was smiling at me. “What are you doing with the top down?” I asked her, picking my topcoat up from the seat beside her and shrugging myself into it.
“Gee, Dad,” she protested quickly. “What’s a convertible if you don’t put the top down?”
“But, honey,” I said, clambering into the seat beside her. “It’s fall; the summer’s gone already.”
She put the car into gear and we were rolling down the driveway before she answered. Then her tone was matter-of-fact. It had all the patient tolerance of the very young for the very old. “Don’
t be an old fuddy-duddy, Dad,” she said plainly.
I almost smiled to myself at that. I looked over at her. She was driving with that curious concentration of hers. I saw the pink tip of her tongue peeping out from her mouth as she swung out of the driveway into the street. The curve of the driveway always made her do that.
I felt the car pick up speed as she pressed down on the accelerator. I glanced over at the speedometer. We were hitting forty in less than a block and the needle was still climbing. “Use a light foot, honey,” I cautioned.
Her eyes glanced away from the road at me for a moment. They told me more than anything she could say. I even began to feel old. I shut up guiltily and looked at the road ahead.
In a few seconds I began to feel better. She was right. What good was a convertible if the top wasn’t down? There’s something about riding down a country road in the early fall with the open sky above you and the flaming colors all around.
Her voice took me by surprise. “What are you getting Mother for your anniversary, Dad?”
I looked at her. Her eyes were still on the road. I stumbled a little over my answer. I hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t know,” I confessed.
Her eyes flashed over me quickly. “Don’t you think you’d better decide?” she said practically in that way women have when talking about gifts. “It’s less than four weeks away.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I better think of something.” I had an idea. “Maybe you know what she’d like?”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh, not me. That’s your headache. I was just wondering.”
“What made you wonder?” I asked, suddenly curious about what went on in that pretty little head.
She stopped the car for a traffic light and looked over at me. “No special reason,” she smiled slowly. “I was just wondering if you were going to come home with the usual last-minute bouquet.”
I could feel my face flush. I hadn’t realized those young eyes could see so much. “I never really know what to get her.”
Her eyes were on my face. “You have absolutely no imagination, have you, Dad?” she asked.
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