“Oh, Christ!” Dee muttered through her clenched smile in the general direction of Jerry’s gaze.
“All right, darling,” he said, pushing his plate away from him and twisting the lemon peel into his coffee. “Now, what is all this soul-searching you re talking about?”
“Oh. I was just remembering the old days. Sort of lost myself this morning at the office, remembering how poor we were . . .”
“And what an ass Pete was!”
“. . . and how no one would ever have guessed where I’d end up.
Lunching at the Plaza with one of Broadway’s most famous lyri-cists.”
“The most famous. Actually, notorious would be more apropos.”
He snickered cheerfully.
“Why did you ever hang around in those days, Jerry? We weren’t a part of your crowd.”
Jerry stirred his coffee for a moment, and his expression became serious. Dee realized for the first time that he was beginning to show his age. His crew-cut steel gray hair helped to minimize the wrinkles around his steel gray eyes, but there was a sagging in his face—an almost visible deterioration of the skin tissues. But more than that, his expression these past few months had become genuinely weary. Oh, he still sparkled, all right. But it was a synthetic sparkle. The old spontaneity was gone. This was more a gleam of desperation.
“Are you going to answer me?” she asked gently.
“I was thinking.” He turned and looked at her, a strange smile on his lips. “You promise you won’t laugh at me?”
She couldn’t help but smile yet promised not to laugh.
“It’s been so long, I don’t suppose it would matter anymore.
Frankly, my dear, I was in love with you. No! Don’t look so shocked. . . . I never intended to give up my precious young men.
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But you were the only woman I’d ever known whom I genuinely respected and whose company and companionship I would prefer to any other person I knew. It had nothing to do with sex. It was love.”
“Jerry! I . . .” Dee was stunned.
“Stop blubbering. I got exactly what I wanted from you. A home.
A place to feel normal and at ease. Someone to talk to who took me as seriously as I did. A feeling of life and marriage. If you’d only had a child! My life would have been yours. Actually, darling, you’ve been a wonderful road sign in my life. I never wanted to marry you—I still don’t. Good God! Copulate with a woman? It would be easier for me to become a lesbian!”
“It’s crazy,” Dee said with a choke in her voice. “But I think I’m going to cry.”
“Don’t you dare! Not in the Plaza!”
“Jerry? What’s wrong with us? Why can’t we be like other people? Happy in our married misery. Why couldn’t you and I have been normal and married? Our interests are in common; we truly respect each other. You would have made a charming and attentive husband, and I could have given you the emotional security you want so much, and a family. Why? Why us? Why not that couple over there?”
Jerry looked at her a long moment, then smiled a little wistfully.
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “My name is Wilson—
not Freud. Remember that. Besides,” he added wryly, “at the rate we’re multiplying, they probably are queer.”
Dee laughed and caught a sob at the same time, but her control was back again.
“Now. Tell me all about that creature you’re living with. I want to know every dreadful thing she’s been up to. And when are you going to leave her so we can resume our wild, wicked ways?”
“You’ve got a nerve to talk about Rita!” Dee retorted, still a little breathless with emotion. “Look at the roster you’ve got!”
Jerry clucked irritably. “But I wouldn’t dream of living with them.”
Dee laughed again. “Well, let’s just say I feel a moral responsibility to live with the person I’m loving.”
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look. Rita is a lovely young thing, and I m sure she’s quite cooperative in bed—but what else has she? Does she fill any of your needs?
Does she understand what you’re talking about half the time?
Frankly, darling, she looks to me like a damned mannequin—or one of those electronic creatures, except that she is power-driven.
Is this all you want from life? And, rumor has it she’s being cooperative all over the town.”
He was hitting low, but they were honest stabs from a friend who really had her best interests at heart.
“She fills a certain kind of a need,” Dee said slowly, unable to look at him, almost ashamed. “How can I explain it to you? I simply must have her.”
“Oh, my sainted aunt!” Jerry snorted. “And I suppose you think you would never find anyone else who could not only fill your deep, dark needs but also your routine ones? Of course you would think that! You’re so corseted round with that damn Puritan conscience of yours, you’re scared to death to loosen the stays. I can see it would be awful for you to be a human being, Dee. I mean, it leaves one so subject to sin and frailty.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Jerry. I can’t turn myself inside out.”
“Why not? Give you a much needed airing!”
Dee looked up at him suddenly. “Do I really seem so terribly unhappy to you?”
He nodded and met her troubled look with almost paternal compassion. She toyed nervously with her spoon. “I’ll never understand why you’ve taken such a dislike to Rita. What did she ever do to you?”
“There’s nothing she could do, m’love.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle and soft. “Did you know that she came to see me about two months ago?”
Dee’s head felt very heavy, and she anticipated what he was going to say. She had had a faint hope that Jerry had been the one person Rita had not tried to use as a “contact.” “Yes. Of course I knew.
Afterwards,” she lied. “I didn’t send her.”
His eyebrows went up, and he scrutinized Dee slowly. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she’s using you, Dee. And she’ll continue to use you until something better comes along and you’re 203
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going to get dumped. Think about it, Dee. I don’t mind you throwing away your life so much as I mind that you’re doing it stupidly.”
“According to you.”
“According to me.”
She sat for a long moment, wondering what to say. In her mind she knew that what Jerry said was true—she was living on borrowed time with Rita. But her body . . . well, it was a different matter altogether. Even though Rita could drive her near to insanity with her moodiness and frightening lack of simple logic, Dee loved her—
compulsively or not. Yet, whenever Dee tried to see into the future, tried to see herself in twenty years, Rita was never a part of the picture.
“Shall we change the subject?” Jerry asked kindly. “I didn’t mean to ruin your day.”
She smiled. “You didn’t. You couldn’t. I enjoy your company too much.” Dee reached over and patted his hand. “Tell me,” she asked,
“will this new show run long?”
“Looks good. I certainly hope so . . . all those gorgeous male dancers—smorgasbord! They’re simply beautiful. When are you coming to see it?”
“Never, I hope. The reviews were awful.”
“Do you pay attention to that? Ridiculous! No one does anymore.”
“The backers?”
“Dunderheads! Professional people do not back down because of a few sarcastic words from jealous, self-centered critics.”
Dee laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Jerry. Your charity, your openmindedness, your respect for others.”
“The trouble with you, dear heart, is you can’t stand genuine emotion. It embarrasses you. Right or wrong, you must admit I’m emphatic and sincere.”
“It’s funny,” Dee said softly, “that you should say that about me.”
“I don’t think it funny at all. Just true.”
“You may be right. Frightening, isn’t it?”
“Good Lord, Dee. What has gotten into you? You sound like a teenager just learning about sex.”
“Maybe I am,” she answered slowly. “Maybe I am.”
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All the way back in the cab, Dee kept trying to shake Jerry’s words about Rita’s being “cooperative.” With whom? Agents?
She’d already suspected that, but who else?
Even though she had been aware of it somewhere deep inside her, safely hidden to keep out the hurt, when Jerry had voiced it something inside her had gone numb—a coldness seeped through her even now, just thinking about it.
She would never understand what drove Rita to shack up with anyone. Especially those crude, gravel-voiced hoodlums who ran the music business. It wasn’t nymphomania . . . at least, not the kind Dee had read about. It was some kind of compulsion, of course. Perhaps a means of offsetting her guilt about being a lesbian. But then, why bother to be gay? It would be easy to understand if Rita had fallen in love with any of them. At least she could understand that, even if she didn’t like it. But this going from pillar to post, lying about looking for a job to cover up her affairs—it was almost too much.
What will be too much? she asked herself, staring out the cab window but not really seeing. What am I waiting for? For her to leave me so I won’t have to make the decision? Am I really that gutless? Probably. Why can’t I make up my mind?
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“This is it, lady,” the cabby’s voice jolted her from her introspec-tion with an unpleasant start. “Which side of the street?”
That’s a hell of a question to ask, she thought wryly. “Right here’ll be fine. Thanks.”
She climbed out and stood for a moment on the sidewalk, looking up at her building. Her building. That more than a thousand people worked in it didn’t matter in the least. It was hers.
Somewhere church bells rang faintly, and she was reminded of how much work she had to do and how little time she had to do it.
She’d be leaving for Europe in a matter of days now. And just a short time ago it had seemed too remote even to get excited about.
She hoped she wouldn’t have any trouble getting film past customs, then decided it might be best to take it in bulk so that it wouldn’t be so noticeable.
Christ! she swore to herself. I don’t have enough things to worry about and a minor thing like that pops up. What devious mechanisms our minds set up.
She walked to the corner and dutifully waited for the light to change before crossing Forty-ninth Street. She wondered if all those people parading, rushing, loitering on Sixth Avenue had problems like hers. Worse, probably. Well, whatever they were, she’d keep her own. She was used to hers at least.
The nonstop elevator to the Photo World offices rose swiftly.
She stood silently on the corner, her preoccupied glance refusing to meet the elevator boy’s friendly look of curiosity. Usually, she liked to talk to Joe. But now his very presence seemed intrusive. Nice guy, Joe.
Everybody’s nice. Wonder if there’s someone somewhere saying,
“Nice girl, Dee.” More than likely. She could easily be considered a
“nice girl.”
She nodded to Joe on the way out and walked past the receptionist with a scowl on her face.
“Nice lunch, Mrs. Sanders?” the girl asked politely.
“No!” Dee answered curtly and then immediately felt guilty for being so rude.
“Hi, Mrs. Sanders. You’re just in time,” Karen said as Dee stormed past her desk into her own small office.
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“Whatever it is, I don’t want to know about it,” Dee snapped, and as quickly said, “I’m sorry, Karen. What is it?”
“Whew! What kind of firecrackers did you have for lunch?” Karen laughed good-naturedly. “First, I need your okay on these layouts before I send out for stats.”
Dee scrawled her initials on the layouts. Karen took them from her and smiled at her.
Dee stood a moment looking at her, saw her smooth white skin molded gently to her bones, and aesthetically enjoyed the contrast between Karen’s green eyes and her long, black hair. She couldn’t say that Karen was actually a pretty girl, but she had a wonderful face. Full of contour and shadows highlighting her bone structure, with just a little trace of the fullness of youth, and the healthy color of her flesh.
“How old are you, Karen?” she found herself asking suddenly.
Karen laughed. “I’m twenty-three. . . .” She patted under her chin rather proudly.
Dee grinned. “Well, just have a little respect for your elders today. I’ve had a hectic lunch and I’m in a foul mood.”
“You?” Karen asked in genuine surprise.
“Me. Ogre Sanders.” Dee laughed despite herself. “Now. What was this other pressing item I was just in time for?”
“Oh. Oh! A rush job. It seems everybody thought somebody else had gone through the contact prints for the August issue and it turns out there haven’t even been any contacts made.”
“And I’m elected?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
Dee took the negatives from Karen and leafed through them quickly. It meant working late again. She’d never get through them all. But in a way, she was relieved. She didn’t really feel up to facing Rita tonight. She was afraid of what might come out of her mouth.
“If you want,” Karen said quietly, “I can stay late tonight and help you.”
Why was it people always managed to be nice to her whenever she felt like being unreasonable? “I hate to ask you,” she said.
Karen waved aside any further comment. It’s better than going back to that women’s prison I live in. I hate that place more every day.”
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“Why don’t you move?”
She looked at Dee a long moment before answering.
“I’m afraid if once I get on my own completely, I won’t marry Phil.”
That’s a strange remark,” Dee said. “Is that what’s bothering you? Don’t you want to marry him?” She fought a tremendous desire to hear Karen say no.
“. . . I don’t really know. I know I should. But there’s something missing. Something I couldn’t explain.”
“Just premarriage jitters, Karen. Don’t worry about it. Phil’s a good boy and he loves you. He’ll make a good provider and a good father for your children.”
“I guess you’re right,” she answered, but without much enthusiasm. There was an awkward pause. “Shall I plan on staying?”
“If you don’t mind. I’ll pay for the sandwiches if you’ll order them.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Mrs. Evans called. Wanted to know what time you were planning to leave. I told her I thought about five.”
“Fine . . . thanks.” She wished Rita would stop calling her at the office like a nagging wife. “Anything else?”
Karen shook her head. “That’s all.” She turned away and left Dee to settle down to the routine for the afternoon. The Paris representative had submitted some fine duplicates of entries for the international exhibit she was to help judge. There was so damn much to do.
For a moment she toyed with the idea of asking to take Karen along. The thought was strangely pleasant. But no. It would never work. The brass would never agree to the added expense. . . . perhaps it was just as well.
Dee busied herself in her work and shortly before five o’clock called home. Rita answered sleepily and Dee tried hard to keep the irritation out of her voice.
“Hi, Rita,” she pitched her tone to just the right note of casual friendliness. “Thought I’d better let you know . . . I’m afraid I’ll have to stay late tonigh
t. No. Not too late. Well, I can’t tell you for sure. No. I’ll have a sandwich sent up. Oh? I guess I just won’t be able to make it. Why don’t you go alone? If I finish soon enough, 208
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I’ll meet you there. How was I supposed to know about it? You didn’t tell me.”
She heard steps outside the office and lowered her voice. Karen stood in the doorway with some papers in her hand. Dee looked up at her. “I’ll be with you in a second, Karen.”
The girl left as Dee grabbed a pencil. “What’s the address? The Rendezvous Club. How late will you be there? All right, all right.
I’m not promising but I’ll try. Rita? Rita!” Dee stared at the dead phone in her hand.
Oh, Christ! Here we go again. She sighed and tossed the receiver into its holder.
“Ham or pastrami?” Karen yelled, sticking her head in the door.
Thank God for Karen, Dee thought, and smiled. My little stabi-lizer. “How about a drink first?” Dee asked her with a mischievous smile.
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not. C’mon. We’ll run across the street, dip into a dry martini, grab a sandwich, and come back and go to work.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Karen said half seriously.
“Yes. But it’s fashionable these days. Analysts are coining money.
Also, I do not like being challenged. If I instruct you to cut out paper dolls you will cut them out, and if I say let’s have a drink, then you will have a drink!”
“Only on company time.”
“Insolent! That’s what you are,” Dee scolded as she took Karen by the elbow and lightly pushed her out the door. As she turned to shut the office door, her face brushed past Karen’s dark hair, and she noticed at once the wonderful clean smell of her. No deceitful perfume or synthetic essence of something or another, but honest soap and water.
Karen made no effort to pull her arm away. Dee suddenly became self-conscious with the awareness of her and let go abruptly.
She smiled carefully when Karen twisted to give her a startled look that defied accurate interpretation.
It was almost nine o’clock before they finished. Dee offered to give Karen a lift, but once outside, Karen decided to walk.
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