In her purse was a single hundred-dollar bill. It was from the stacks of money she had removed from Lloyd’s study. There was nothing else in her purse. Not even personal identification.
If the money were worthless, Bernice had no further plans.
The Citizen’s Bank. Bernice hesitated before the narrow smoke-blackened facade of the building. She could feel the stirring of those voices in her mind. She longed to turn and run.
She pushed through the front door.
A guard nodded to her. He was wearing an olive-drab uniform. A small pistol was holstered at his hip.
“The tellers?” she said to him. She sounded like a crow, she thought miserably.
“Those wickets to your left, miss,” the guard said.
Her legs weighted and tired, Bernice started across the polished flooring. She unclasped the top of her purse, shoved her hand inside. Her fingers closed on the money.
She was at the barred window. She brought the money up in her fist. Her heart beat erratically, slowed, and seemed to stop. She forced her hand to move casually and she thrust the bill through the window.
“Change, please,” she said. She was surprised. Her voice was calm.
Her eyes met the green ones of the teller. He smiled, a deep, white-toothed grin in a blond, handsome face. Handsome. As a Greek god. As a movie star. Like the fulfillment of her fondest dream. She let her gaze fall to the plate where his name was neatly lettered: Mr. Carlos Brandon.
She could feel his eyes on her face. She looked up. He had turned the bill over in his lean, tanned hand.
“Just a moment,” he said.
My God, Bernice thought, suppose I faint.
Seven
Two minutes can seem like an hour. That’s what it seemed to Bernice, awaiting change for her hundred-dollar bill, She stood there, feeling the perspiration standing in separate chilled globules across her forehead, wondering if her knees were going to support her.
She watched the extraordinarily handsome teller, Carlos Brandon. He slid the green note into his drawer and riffled through some smaller bills.
She wanted to laugh aloud. She wanted to cry in the abrupt relief she felt. The money is good. It’s all right. I can spend it. I can go on living. I can begin to live.
The teller looked up. He was smiling at her. “How would you like your change, miss?” he said.
“Oh, I don’t mind. Any way at all.”
He counted it out in tens, fives, and ones. He pushed them through the opening.
She covered the money with her icy fingers. It didn’t seem possible that just a few minutes ago her very life had depended on whether or not that hundred-dollar bill was counterfeit. Now it wasn’t important any more at all. There were all those other lovely bills. She could spend them, buying the things she’d wanted for twenty-four years.
She could look at the teller and know that he was what she had dreamed of in those excited nights. That he was what she wanted now. He was what a beautiful girl would have—a handsome man. When she walked with him, people would turn to stare across their shoulders. But better than that, he would excite her and he would thrill her, and he would make her gentle, and he would drive her wild.
She smiled as the vagary flitted through her mind. He was a teller in a bank, probably married, probably had two kids and plenty of debts. And even if he wasn’t, how could she ever meet him? She pushed the money into her empty purse, aware that she was still smiling.
Aware that her hungry longing was probably naked in her eyes!
“Work around here?” he said.
There was no one waiting behind her. She looked at him, feeling that old fright, that old anxiety. She forced herself to conceal her panic behind her smile. “Yes,” she lied. “Just down the street.”
“Nice,” Carlos Brandon said. “Maybe I’ll see you again. Sometime. When you get another one of those things you want changed.”
She felt the warmth stirring inside her, seeping over the doubt that assailed her. How could a handsome man like Brandon be interested in her? But he was interested. He was looking her over guardedly.
“That may be sooner than you think,” she said.
“I’ll be looking for you. Remember, don’t trade anywhere else.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
She snapped her purse, turning a little. He leaned forward. She felt her heart thudding. She knew she should move on. But for the moment, she couldn’t.
“Swell day out, isn’t it?” he said. “Too bad I’m tied in here until four.”
You’re it, baby, his green eyes were whispering. You’re it for me, and you know it. Whether it’s in a bank or in a park or in a zoo, or at a party somewhere, this is it.
Panic made her voice shaky. “Four?” she said. Her voice rose a little. “Four o’clock? Isn’t that odd? That’s the time I’m off from work today.”
He looked at her. “Maybe I’ll see you,” he said. His voice was telling her that he would see her. He would tell her where to be. And she would be there. How wonderful, Bernice thought. Nothing like this could ever happen to me at Brennans. There was no one like Carlos Brandon in that whole establishment. But wouldn’t she love to have Rita Baehrs see her with Carlos?
She nodded, breathless. “If you want to.”
“Sure I want to.” There were three impatient people behind Bernice now. He was unaware of them. “It’s lonely in a big town. How about it, isn’t it lonely for you?”
“Oh, I have my friends. I’ve always lived here. But I couldn’t let a stranger in town be lonely. Could I? I’ll have coffee in the café at the corner. This afternoon. When—I get off work.”
“At four? That’ll be wonderful.”
She was at a small booth in the crowded little corner café at four o’clock. She saw Carlos come down the two steps and stand for a moment in the entrance. She waited, wondering if he would recognize her, coldly afraid that he wouldn’t.
His eyes trailed across her, moved back, smiling. Bernice’s heart flopped over. She would have sworn it did.
He came through the crowded aisle. He was tall, six feet tall, anyway. You couldn’t find a blemish in his perfection. Maybe, just maybe, he looked a little harried about the eyes.
He sat in the booth across from her. He ordered coffee for himself and smiled again. It was an intimate, personal smile that looked rehearsed as hell. Even Bernice felt that. But she couldn’t think of any reason why he should try a professional approach.
He dropped four lumps of sugar in his coffee and leaned across the table. “What’s your name? By the way, I’m—”
“Carlos Brandon,” she said.
“Oh. Been reading my name plate at the bank. You know, I wondered if people ever looked at that thing.”
“It’s a beautiful name,” Bernice said. “Isn’t Carlos kind of Spanish?”
“Spanish as Mulligan stew,” he told her with a grin. “My mother read a book once. She thought it was a romantic name. Still, it could have been worse. She could have named me Farmall, after one of my old man’s tractors.”
“Oh, did you come from a farm?”
“Right. Just as fast as I could. That four A.M. stuff is for the birds. That’s the time of day I like to go to bed.”
Bernice laughed appreciatively. As a matter of fact, she appreciated it. This restaurant on a shabby avenue was transformed for her; all the people looked young and happy. Carlos was watching her, his hazel eyes smiling over his coffee cup. He was not only the most handsome man she had ever seen, he was the first one who had ever seemed genuinely interested in her. There were twenty-four years of hunger behind this delicious moment of triumph for Bernice. She felt giddy. She wanted to laugh out loud. She wondered how she could delay the moment of their parting. She was already dreading the time when he would leave her.
“My name is Bernice,” she said. “Bernice Harper. I haven’t any interesting past. I’m not running away from anything like you are.”
&n
bsp; His eyes flickered. He set the cup down heavily, frowning. “Like I am?”
“I mean from the farm. I was born in the Bronx. I guess, though everybody runs away from the Bronx. Maybe that’s what I’m doing.”
“Maybe we can run away together,” he said lightly. But looking at him, Bernice saw his mouth go bitter, and she knew his thoughts were fixed on some hell inside himself. Now he laughed briefly. “I’m not where I want to be yet. Are you, Bernice?”
He was smiling. But his eyes were watching her face, strangely, intently. She met his gaze. “No,” she said. “No, I’m not.”
They came out into the sunlight of late afternoon and stood for a moment before the white front of the café. Bernice felt a thrust of panic. He was going to leave her. He’d said nothing about seeing her again. Why should he? She felt tongue-tied and awkward and unlovely beside him. And besides, she told herself she was a fool to try to cling to the first man she saw that she wanted. Maybe a girl had to learn how to interest a man. But, she thought angrily, no matter what I see from this moment, it will still be Carlos Brandon that I want, that I think about.
She looked up at him, hoping the bleakness she felt wasn’t showing in her face.
He smiled. “What shall we do, Bernice? Ride a bus? Go to Grant’s Tomb? I’m sorry. I can’t ask you anywhere decent, Bernice. I—well, damn it, I may as well be honest. I like you. And you see somebody you like, you ought to be honest with them, shouldn’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” Bernice breathed.
“See, it’s this way. I haven’t been at the bank very long. I’ve had to send money home. Well, right now, I’m just at a place where a guy hasn’t the right to ask a girl even to have coffee with him.”
“Why, that’s all right,” Bernice said. “Goodness. I understand. Besides, I have money. You saw me change it. I haven’t spent a penny of it.”
“That’s out,” he said. He even looked a little offended.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Bernice cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I was thinking about it as a loan. But anyway, you don’t have to take me any special place. Why, we can go up to my apartment. I’d cook supper for us. How would you like that?”
“Home cooking?” Carlos said. “It sounds swell.”
On the way to Bernice’s apartment, Carlos bought a small bottle of grocery-store wine.
He sat in the front room while she changed her dress. She rejoined him, wearing a simple house frock. Carlos had poured them a drink of wine.
She sat beside him on the couch. They toasted each other and drank. Bernice began to feel the effects of it at once. She hadn’t eaten all day. The relief and awe at finding she was wealthy, and the excitement of meeting Carlos and having him alone in the same room with her, set her mind to whirling. The wine did the rest.
She laughed. It had an odd ring. Carlos looked at her. He frowned.
“Now wait, Bernice,” he laughed. “You gonna get looped on one little glass of wine?”
“I’m not used to wine,” she said. “I’m not used to men. Like you. I’m just excited. Don’t mind me.”
Her face was damp and flushed. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. She leaned toward him. My God, Bernice, she thought, wait at least until he pushes you over!
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. “I could take off my glasses if you like.”
“I’m not afraid of your glasses.”
‘Are you afraid of me? Are you afraid I’ll eat you up? You better be. I might.”
That was animal, she thought. Pure animal. She saw that Carlos knew it too. And he was stirred. She wavered toward him.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was at boudoir pitch. “You’re liable to get yourself all tangled up if you go around talking like that. We better go start supper.”
Bernice stared at him. She sank against the couch. Her slugging heart made her breathing labored. Her chilled fingers were trembling.
“All right,” she said.
Carlos left right after dinner. He helped her do the dishes. He spent the whole time talking about her. Questions. Where she had worked, whom she’d known, where she’d lived. Even disappointed as she was, Bernice couldn’t tell herself that she was rejected. It was just that he began to watch the clock about seven. He became nervous and abstracted.
Bernice trailed into the front room, flopped on the couch. Probably he’s married, she told herself bitterly. Something has to be wrong, doesn’t it? Why would a handsome man like Carlos look twice at her? Probably he was hurrying home to wife, kids, and second mortgage. But she didn’t believe that. If he had been married, he wouldn’t have passed up that opportunity on the couch before dinner. That’s what he would have been looking for, wouldn’t it? And he had pointedly avoided it.
She lay there. She tried to imagine what might have happened if he had taken her in his arms.
She got up from the couch and wandered around the room. She stood at her window. Couples walked together on the sidewalks below, or stood close together in the dark places. They had so much to say to each other. She watched a man hunched close over a girl in a doorway. It was as though the girl were cold and they both knew it, and both of them knew the girl needed the man’s body close to warm her.
Bernice lay sleepless all night long. She couldn’t get the handsome face of Carlos Brandon out of her mind. She tried to tell herself Carlos didn’t want her. If he had, he would have taken her on the couch. He would have said something about seeing her again. He hadn’t touched her at all.
She twisted, feeling the covers knot under her hips.
But Carlos had seemed interested. What had he said? “Maybe we can run away together, Bernice. I’m not where I want to be yet. Are you?” He’d just been talking. A handsome man on a date. Making conversation. Only, her breath quickened. His eyes had looked worried, and as he spoke his mouth tightened bitterly. Maybe he would like to get away. She had money enough to make that possible. It would be like buying him. But Bernice couldn’t think of anything she’d rather spend her money for.
She could feel the perspiration oozing through the pores of her body. Obviously, Carlos Brandon was very poor. There was something nagging at his mind. He was worried. He had been honest when he said he wanted to get away. If she were willing to pay all expenses— She’d be subtle about it. Why wouldn’t Carlos be glad to go away with her?
She shook her head. She didn’t even know when she would see him again. He had told her nothing about himself. He hadn’t even asked for another date. But the way he had looked at her... He was interested. She had to try it. She hadn’t only herself to offer Carlos in some faraway place. She had twenty-four thousand dollars. That was an inconsiderable price to pay for Carlos. For she knew that no other man would ever excite her and thrill her and drive her wild as Carlos did...
At ten o’clock the next morning Bernice entered the Citizen’s Bank. She went directly across the shining floor to Carlos Brandon’s wicket. She shoved another hundred-dollar bill through to him.
He grinned at the money and met her eyes. Something happened to his handsome face. Bernice would have sworn he looked relieved. Absolutely pleased. She flushed. At least that look was not simulated. It was real. He had been looking for her!
It frightened her, making her want to run. Bernice had spent twenty-four years running from attention. But it made her weak with pleasure, too.
He counted out the change, leaning close to the wicket.
“Look,” he whispered. “I’m taking the rest of the day off, Bernice. Got a headache. Sure hate to be alone the way my head is splitting. It’s too bad you got to work.”
She flushed. “But I don’t. That’s why I came for change. I’m taking the day off, too. I was going shopping.”
She’d known she shouldn’t have come with another hundred-dollar bill. There was still a chance the serial numbers might be traced to some crooked business. But her need to see Carlos had won.
“I’ll meet you at the café,”
he said. “As soon as I can get relieved here. O.K.?”
She smiled at him. “I’m on my way there now.”
Bernice looked up when Carlos sat across the café booth from her.
“I’m sorry about your headache,” she said.
“What headache?” Carlos said. “I just had a nice time with you last night, Bernice. Believe me, my life has been no bed of nosegays these last weeks. It was swell to be around someone like you. I thought it would be fun to spend the day with you.”
It was a casual statement, and he said it casually. But Bernice felt the hot sting of pleasurable tears.
“Why do you like me?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I—I’m certainly not pretty.” She tried to laugh. “Why, I’m not even as pretty as you are.”
He was watching her. He wasn’t smiling. “You look all right to me,” he said. “You look swell.”
She shook her head. “I know how I look.”
“Gee. You shouldn’t run yourself down like that. It makes me sound pretty bad. It makes it sound like I have no taste. You shouldn’t ever tell a man who likes you that you aren’t pretty, Bernice. That’s like telling him he can’t pick ‘em.”
She laughed. That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.
He dropped four lumps of sugar into his coffee and drank it down hurriedly. He looked up. “If you don’t think you’re pretty enough to suit yourself,” he said, “why don’t you take one of those hundred-dollar bills you’re always haunting me with and go down to Gloria Soonin’s?”
“On Fifth Avenue?”
“Well, I said you sure don’t have to. You look swell to me. It’s just that Gloria Soonin makes human beings look like movie stars and movie stars look human. I knew a woman once who went to Soonin’s. Boy, they know everything there is to know about beauty there. But like I said, why waste the money? You look swell.”
Bernice’s heart was thudding. She pushed open the thick doors of Gloria Soonin’s Fifth Avenue salon and stepped into its air-conditioned sumptuousness. She felt lost and out of place, standing plain and self-conscious in the deep-rugged elegance. Even when they welcomed her, Bernice went on feeling nervous. Even when they admitted her into Gloria Soonin’s private office, she felt no better.
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