Three-Martini Lunch

by Suzanne Rindell

  “It suits you.”

  “Thanks.

  “So,” Cliff said, “what were you doing at old Bonwright, anyhow?”

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly realizing. “I guess I’d better explain about that.”

  CLIFF

  29

  When Eden told me she’d been working for My Old Man, it kind of blew me over sideways. It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense because when you thought about it, she worked in publishing and so did he, and the publishing world is a small place after all, so it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. The truth of it was I had put Eden in one part of my mind and My Old Man in the other and when they came together in my head it was all very disorienting.

  “In a way, I have you to thank,” Eden said, sitting there in her slip on my mattress. This statement surprised me some more, because I couldn’t think of why or how I’d played any part in My Old Man hiring her. As far as I knew I’d never had any influence on the stubborn bastard.

  “That day at the Minetta Tavern,” she explained, “you told me not to give up on finding another job, and you mentioned his secretary had quit.”

  “Hmm, so I did,” I said, remembering.

  “I didn’t plan for it to work out this way, but I’m awful glad it has,” she said. I tried to figure out if I was glad, too. Eden working for my father . . . There were reasons to feel jealous, maybe, but it was hard to determine which way around the jealousy went. Anyway, I knew I ought to be happy for Eden, because she was a smart girl and deserved to have the job she wanted. I told her she was welcome, and as I said it I decided it was true and a self-contented feeling came over me, having done something nice for someone else.

  “There’s another thing I ought to tell you . . . something I rather hope we can keep between us,” Eden said. I didn’t have a clue in hell what she was talking about but it sounded like she was about to confide in me and I was intrigued. She went on and told me there’d been a woman at Torchon & Lyle who’d had it out for her—I remembered some of this from the day at the Minetta when she told me about her firing—and her confession now was that she’d wound up getting hired at Bonwright under a different last name. “I hope you don’t think awful things of me,” she said. “At Bonwright . . . I’m ‘Eden Collins.’”

  “I don’t think that’s anything so terrible,” I reassured her. “You got a bum rap with that Miss Everett, and you were clever enough to do something about it. The world doesn’t cater to wallflowers or patsies.”

  She smiled at me and I could see she was tremendously relieved.

  • • •

  She had been awful sick but now she was feeling better. After she got dressed and fixed herself up, I helped her get back to the Barbizon, and as we said good-bye in the lobby an old prude painted up with enough make-up to give Carmen Miranda a run for her money glared at me and reminded Eden that male visitors were not allowed upstairs. They’d done away with the curfews at the Barbizon but to see this woman you wouldn’t think so. It was plain she was keeping track and had noticed Eden hadn’t come home the night before and she was mad as hell that she wasn’t allowed to give Eden a lecture or fine her or throw her out or whatever it was the Barbizon used to do to women of wanton ways. Not that Eden was a woman of wanton ways, but it was clear this hypocritical hawk of an old lady thought so. When I said good-bye to Eden I kissed her hand like a gentleman and threw in an exaggerated old-timey bow just to thumb my nose at the lady at the front desk.

  “See you in the Village later this week?” I asked. “How ’bout we bump into each other again on purpose, say at the White Horse on Friday?”

  “Oh,” she said, biting her lip. “I’m supposed to meet a girlfriend of mine. Is it all right if I bring her along?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll be there.” She blushed again and I knew I had her on the hook.

  • • •

  Later, I wondered if she didn’t have me on the hook, too, because I thought about her an awful lot all the rest of that week. I recalled the picture of her sitting there in her slip, perched on the edge of my mattress. On Friday I was intent on the White Horse and not even Bobby with his plans to round up a couple of gals for us dissuaded me. He knew right away something was fishy when I turned him down, because no one ever turned Bobby down when he invited a guy to go catting with him.

  “Pal could use a girl,” I pointed out.

  “Sure. Problem is Pal never knows what to do once he gets one,” Bobby said. “I’ve done everything but gift wrap ’em for him.”

  It took some convincing to get Bobby to give up on me but when I finally got him to leave my pad, I put on a clean shirt and combed my hair and went solo over to the White Horse. It was funny to feel so nervous over a girl. I left my tenement on the east side of the Village and hurried westward towards Hudson Street. It was a warm night and groups of fellas were milling about out in front of the bar with beers in their hands, their faces looking ghoulish whenever someone struck a match to light a cigarette. Sometimes the White Horse could be a rowdy place. It was always full to the brim with hipsters hopped up on bennies and beer.

  “Cliff!” I heard a voice shout as soon as I walked in the door. I looked to my left and sitting in a booth in the next room was Swish. I hadn’t expected to bump into him although I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this, because Swish frequently went to the White Horse and he always sat in the booth where it was rumored Dylan Thomas had drunk his final drink. Now there was nothing to do but make my way across the creaky wooden floor and join him.

  Swish and I made small talk as I glanced periodically back into the main bar, checking for Eden.

  “So, it looks like old Eisenhower is on board with the bill to sign Alaska into statehood,” Swish was saying. He had developed a recent fascination with Alaska after reading somewhere that there was a place in Alaska where you could stand and look out across the Bering Strait and see the USSR in the distance on the other side. Neither of us knew if there was any truth to this, but Swish insisted we ought to take a road-trip as soon as possible to see for ourselves. “As soon as you finish that novel of yours,” he was saying now. “We’ll go up there, Cliff old boy, and it’ll be grand because you’ll have a pile of money from publishing your genius book and we’ll learn to hunt and live like kings and take a couple of Eskimo wives to cook up all the game we’ll catch.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said, looking again towards the bar’s entrance. Swish was always coming up with epic adventures, but so far we had yet to go on any of them.

  “Say, who do you keep looking for, anyway?”

  As if on cue, in walked Eden. The sweater sets she’d worn the first time we’d met were long gone—or at least she knew enough not to wear them down to the Village and instead she looked like a real bohemian chick now with her short, slick haircut and Capri pants. With her was that gal, Judy-something-or-other. I recognized her from the night we’d all gone to hear Bobby do a cold reading of his buddy’s play. Eden glanced around the room with that intelligent, curious way she had and spotted me and Swish sitting in the next room.

  “Hullo, hullo,” Swish said, waving them over. He was energized and happy to see Eden. But after we’d all said our hellos and settled back into the booth, Swish looked at me and cocked his head as a new thought occurred to him. His eyes slid from me over to Eden and back again and I believe in that second he’d caught the truth of it.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked Eden. “Have you made a full recovery?”

  “Good as new.” She smiled. She and Judy exchanged knowing glances and it was plain that Eden had told Judy the story prior to their arrival. I hoped this meant Eden had put in a good word about how I’d been so thoughtful, taking care of her and bringing her those goddamned canned fruits. The way Eden blushed whenever she looked at me and chattered away nervously with her hands made me think she probably had talked me up, jus
t as I’d hoped.

  But either way, it didn’t matter much to Judy, who was in an ornery mood that evening. She had on a little silver bracelet of a watch and she kept touching it and looking at it and twice she even showed it to Eden while wearing a little grimace on her face and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Judy had set a time limit on how long she wanted to spend with us bohemians down at the ol’ White Horse. She thought the lot of us were beatniks and up to no good and Judy was the kind of girl who was out to snare a husband—or, at the very least, some martinis at a nice restaurant and plenty of change for the powder room.

  The last straw came when Bobby turned up. At first, Judy perked right up at the sight of Bobby. I thought we were in luck, because it looked like Bobby hadn’t successfully picked up any girls yet that evening. He came barreling into the White Horse with another fella who looked a little like Marlon Brando and the pair of them together made for a sight that was rather easy on the eyes, and between the two of them I thought they ought to keep Judy occupied. They sat down to join us and for a short time Judy stopped looking at her watch. But then . . . it was clear Bobby and Brando were more interested in talking to each other than anyone else. Judy looked both disgusted and a little let down as the comprehension set in and even I sighed and felt bad for her.

  Meanwhile, I was having a grand time talking to Eden. She’d matriculated from a small private women’s college out in good old Indiana and even though I’d never heard of her alma mater, Eden had read a lot of good books and knew an awful lot about politics and current events, so I guess it must’ve been a pretty okay school in the end. But even with the mutual enthusiasm of our book banter I could sense I was running into a sort of wall. The wall was Judy and it was becoming evident that in order to get to Eden I needed to earn the approval of her friend. Now Judy was gathering up her pocketbook and getting ready to go, and if she did, she would likely bring Eden away with her. I had to think of something fast.

  “Say,” I said, “I wonder if you gals would help me out with something.”

  “What’s that?” Eden asked. Judy just looked at me dryly.

  “Well, it’s for my mother, really. She’s throwing a charity luncheon tomorrow afternoon at the Cedarbrook Club and some people have dropped out at the last minute. She needs to fill up tables. If you two are free, you’d be doing me a real favor if you’d come occupy a table with me.”

  “The Cedarbrook Club?” Judy’s eyes went wide, as I knew they would. “Isn’t that the famous country club out in Connecticut?”

  “Lunch would be on me, of course,” I said. This was only partly true, because strictly speaking lunch would be on my mother—or at least on her membership—but I figured the less I said about that, the better. “All you’d have to do is show up and eat a crab Louie salad and say hello to some people.”

  “But would that mean saying hello to your mother?” Eden asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Won’t she think it’s funny? After all, I work for your father.”

  “Nah, c’mon . . . she’s pretty oblivious to all that. She won’t know if we don’t tell her. She’ll probably just think I finally found myself a nice date I can bring around. She’ll be friendly, I promise.”

  I could tell this flattered Eden. She bit her lip and exchanged a look with Judy, politely checking with her friend for permission.

  “Well, yes,” Judy said finally. “I suppose we could go. I’ve never been to the Cedarbrook, but I’ve heard plenty about it.”

  “Swell,” I said. “I’ll borrow a car, and pick you gals up at the Barbizon at noon.”

  Judy was still all packed up and ready to split, but at least now I had an assurance I would see Eden the next day. They asked me a few questions about whether it was formal and what to wear, which is natural, I guess, because girls are always worrying about things like that. I answered their questions but the truth is I didn’t know for sure. My mother had invited me but I hadn’t been planning on going and now I would have to telephone her first thing tomorrow morning and tell her I’d changed my mind.

  EDEN

  30

  Here I am!” Judy sang out as she hurried into the lobby of the Barbizon. She was dressed very smartly in a little blue rayon-crepe number with a full skirt and a wide cherry-colored belt cinched around her waist. We kissed each other hello and when she wasn’t looking I rubbed a bit of red lipstick from my cheek.

  “Hadn’t we better wait outside by the curb?” she asked.

  “Let’s.”

  She was excited, I knew, because she was eager to be able to say she had been to the Cedarbrook. Cliff’s generous invitation had warmed her to him a bit. “If he belongs to the Cedarbrook, he can’t be all bad,” she said after we’d left the White Horse. “I still don’t see why he runs around with those hooligans in the Village. But perhaps we’ll meet some nice people today.” By nice people, Judy meant nice men.

  “How are things at work?” I asked Judy now as we stood on the sidewalk, squinting into the sunshine.

  “Oh, fine, I guess,” she replied in a bored voice.

  “How is . . . Miss Everett?” I asked. I was burning with curiosity for the gossip, but in attempting to bring up Miss Everett’s name, I suddenly felt very shy.

  “Oh, you know.” Judy shrugged. “Still a bitch, striking terror into the hearts of young girls.”

  I laughed, oddly gratified to hear it.

  “Actually, though,” Judy continued, cocking her head, “she complained so much, they finally let her have a reader officially assigned to help her exclusively. Bitsy-something. And would you believe, Miss Everett seems to like her! Says she’s the best reader the company’s ever had.”

  A strange pang went through me.

  “She’s so odd,” I said, shaking my head, attempting to keep my voice normal. “I don’t understand her. She really had it out for me, and I didn’t do anything at all to her. Remember how hard I worked, staying late all those nights? Why, I wasn’t even her secretary, technically speaking!”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Judy said in a faraway, distracted voice, producing a compact from her pocketbook and powdering her nose. I could tell she was far less interested in affirming the injustice of my dismissal than she was in her reflection.

  “Why do you think she did something that outrageous?” I insisted.

  Judy snapped the compact shut. “Well, I’ve told you my theories. Look, Eden, it’s best to just forget about her. Who knows why she does anything at all, the bitter old maid.”

  I couldn’t help but recall all the terrible things Miss Everett had done, exploiting Mr. Frederick’s misconduct and ultimately Mr. Turner’s bigotry to get me fired. Suddenly a thought occurred to me, and I felt a small shiver of panic.

  “Judy . . .” I said. “Do you think this is the kind of country club that doesn’t . . . that doesn’t . . .” I tried to think of how to phrase it, but was rapidly failing. “. . . allow certain kinds of people to join?”

  Judy blinked at me, a blank expression on her face. “Oh,” she said, comprehending my meaning. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. You’re ‘Eden Collins’ now, aren’t you? Besides, you’re very clever. No one will even know.”

  She’d said it to reassure me, but it had the effect of making me even more uncomfortable, like she’d missed the point entirely.

  Just then a flashy sports car pulled to the curb, and in it we spotted Cliff. He honked and jumped out to open the door for us. “Hullo, ladies!” he called. I had to admit, he looked rather dashing in a jacket and tie. “Hop in.” We did, and he hustled around to the driver’s seat with an athletic spring in his step.

  “Where did you get the car?” Judy inquired, admiring the look of it.

  “Buddy of mine from Columbia,” Cliff answered. “Guy named Rex.” He turned over his shoulder to look at Judy in the backseat. “Say, I oughta introduce you two so
metime; you’d like him.” He winked, and we zoomed away from the curb.

  • • •

  The drive out to the Cedarbrook Club was pleasant. It had been some months since I had been out of the city, and I had forgotten how nice it could be to ride along in a car, watching houses and little wooded areas fly by. Judy kept the conversation going by asking Cliff a few more questions about the mystery owner of the car, but I contented myself by staring, trancelike, out the window. When we arrived at Cedarbrook, we were stopped by a guard at a little gatehouse, and Cliff produced a membership card. Then he steered the car along a little ribbon of road as it wound through what felt like miles and miles of golf greens.

  “Ah, yes, here we are. The Old Lady’s stomping grounds,” he announced, pulling up to an imposing Georgian building that, I assumed, served as the main clubhouse. “I tell ya,” he said to me, “she’ll be delighted I’ve come, and that I’ve brought along such classy company.”

  A young, pimply boy drove the car away, leaving us to make our way inside. Most of the clubhouse was rather old-fashioned. Marble and heavy wood, and that purposely drab variety of library furniture seemingly preferred by wealthy people everywhere. But the dining room where Cliff’s mother was hosting her luncheon was newly renovated, very modern, and quite smart, paneled in blond wood and covered in wall-to-wall pink carpeting.

  Cliff was quick to get a couple of cocktails in our hands. “What’s the use of being at a country club if we can’t toss back a few free martinis?” he joked. Shortly thereafter, we went looking for our place cards and found our table.

  “There you are!” a tall, elegant, frosty-blond woman said, floating over to us. She planted a kiss of air on Cliff’s cheek. “Honestly, Clifford, I’m still in a state of shock. You’ve never come to one of my luncheons.”

  Cliff smiled, clearly embarrassed. “I wouldn’t say never,” he replied.

  “No . . .” she said, an amused smile playing on her lips as she inspected first Judy, then me. “Well, I shan’t say it ever again.” Reading the subtle cues of her son’s body language, she turned to me and held out a hand. “Doris Nelson, how do you do?”