Wake Up With a Stranger

by Flora, Fletcher

  “I wouldn’t know about that, either. Huxley and I are as incompatible as my old man and I were, but for different reasons.”

  “Well, to hell with Huxley and metaphysics. Tell me how things went in the shop today.”

  “Nicely, darling. I sold your red taffeta.”

  “Really? To whom?”

  “Mrs. Christopher Polk, no less.”

  “Jesus, Gussie, it’s impossible for her!”

  “I know. Her ass is far too big. Serena modeled it, however, and Serena’s ass is neither too big nor too small, but intolerably perfect. The moment Polk saw the taffeta on Serena, she assumed, of course, that it would look the same on her. The vanity of some of these bitches is perfectly incredible.”

  “It will have to be altered all to hell.”

  “I know. The seamstress has it upstairs now.”

  “Oh, well, it’s another original sale, anyhow, and everyone will certainly recognize that the gown can’t be blamed for Polk’s tail. Some day, Gussie, nothing but originals will be sold in this shop. Nothing at all.”

  “Say, you are feeling good, aren’t you? Are you withholding information by any chance? Did Tyler tell you something over the telephone to bring on this optimism?”

  “Tyler? Telephone? What do you mean?”

  “He called earlier this afternoon and left word for you to call him back. There’s a memo on the desk in the office. Didn’t you see it?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I haven’t been in the office since I got here.”

  “Then you’d better go and call him at once.”

  “In a minute, Gussie. I don’t suppose there’s any hurry.”

  Actually, now that the cure for action had been presented, she was oddly reluctant to commit herself. It was not that she dreaded hearing whatever Tyler had to say, but just the contrary, for she still felt the imminence of something significant and good, of which the call might very well be the beginning. She wanted to savor the expectation for a while, and she decided that she would smoke a cigarette slowly and call Tyler afterward. Lighting the cigarette, she blew out smoke and watched it rise and thin and disappear.

  “Did he imply at all what he wants?” she asked.

  “No. It wasn’t even him personally. It was a woman. His secretary, I suppose. Why don’t you call him?”

  “I’m going to. Just as soon as I finish my cigarette.”

  “Well, finish the goddamn thing, will you, darling? I would like to get away from here, if you don’t mind, and I’m damned if I’ll go before I learn what he wants.”

  Donna laughed and stood up, bending down to grind the cigarette out in a tray.

  “Jesus, Gussie, you’re simply a slave driver. All right, then. I’ll go and call, and afterward we can go out and have a drink together in celebration, or several in mourning.”

  She went out of the room and across to the office that had been Aaron’s and was now, at least for the time being, hers. Gussie had written Tyler’s number on the memo pad, and she dialed, leaning with one hip against the desk for the duration of two long rings, after which the voice of Tyler himself came over the wire.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello, Mr. Tyler. This is Donna Buchanan.”

  “Oh, yes. Miss Buchanan. Did you think I had forgotten you?”

  “I was beginning to wonder.”

  “I assure you that I hadn’t. I would like to talk with you again, but it is a little late in the day for it now, perhaps.”

  “It’s not too late for me, if it isn’t for you.”

  “Well, let’s see. I’m just preparing to leave here, but I plan to stop for a drink in a small bar I patronize. Would you care to meet me there? We could have a drink together and talk comfortably. Or I could pick you up at the shop, if you prefer.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be happy to meet you.”

  “Good. Could you make it in, say, half an hour?”

  “If it isn’t too far. What is the name and address of the place?”

  He told her where to come, and she hung up, after saying goodby, and returned to her workroom where Gussie was waiting.

  “Did you get him?” Gussie said.

  “Yes, I got him. He was still in his office. I have a feeling he was there just waiting for me to call.”

  “What do we have, a celebration or a wake?”

  “Neither, I’m afraid. Do you mind very much if we take a raincheck on it?”

  “Oh, God, stood up again! I guess, at my filthy age and in my condition, that it’s to be expected.”

  “I’m sorry, Gussie, truly I am. He asked me to have a drink with him, and I had to agree, of course, under the circumstances. You can understand that.”

  “Sure, I understand, darling. And never mind the apology. If I had to choose between me and a millionaire, I sure as hell wouldn’t consider it much of a problem, you can bet your sweet chastity on that. And speaking of chastity, I wonder why it just happened to come into my mind at this moment as an appropriate allusion. Do you suppose that my female intuition warns me that yours is under seige?”

  “Don’t be a damn fool, Gussie. This is strictly business.”

  “Business is what I’m talking about, darling. Your business.”

  “I doubt that he’d consider it worth two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Maybe on a long-term lease he would. Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of business! My God, it would be a career in itself, and it absolutely decimates me to think of it. Oh, hell, darling, I’m just kidding, of course. I wish you luck and all that, and I’ll have a drink to it at the earliest opportunity, which should occur not later than ten minutes from now. Before the evening is over, as a matter of fact, I shall probably have as many as a dozen to it.”

  She stood up and walked out of the room, looking somehow graceful and very smart in spite of her slouch and sharp protrusions, and Donna went into the lavatory and washed her hands and repaired her face. Five minutes later, in the street outside, she caught a taxi and gave the driver the address that Tyler had given her. Ten minutes later than that, in another street, she got out of the taxi in front of the bar.

  It was a small bar, tucked in between a book dealer and a florist, which didn’t look like much on the outside, and didn’t look much more on the inside. And it certainly didn’t look like the kind of bar a millionaire would patronize or ask a young woman to meet him in. Standing for a moment just inside the door, while her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she wondered if she could have misunderstood the number or the name of the street, but this wasn’t at all likely. And then, she could see Tyler standing and smiling beside a small table in the rear. She went back to him and submitted a hand to his cool, dry touch, and they sat down together at the table, their knees touching for an instant underneath as they settled themselves.

  “First,” he said, “I’d like to offer my sympathy. I didn’t know until I called the shop earlier today that you had lost your mother.”

  “Thank you,” she said, feeling that she should say more but not knowing what it should be.

  “Perhaps it was tactless of me to invite you here. I don’t wish to intrude.”

  “Oh, no. It’s quite all right.”

  “I’m glad. The truth is, I was most anxious to see you again. I’ve been sitting here like a schoolboy anticipating your coming.”

  “You’re very gracious to say so, but I don’t believe it, of course.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you had been so anxious to see me, it could have been arranged much sooner. As I’ve told you, I was beginning to think that you had forgotten me entirely.”

  “You couldn’t have been more wrong. However, here is the waiter for our order. What will you have?”

  “I think I’ll have a sidecar.”

  “Sidecar? I haven’t had one for ages. It’s brandy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Brandy.”

  “I’ll have one with you. Ordinarily I drink only bourbon and water, but I’m not
feeling ordinary this evening.” He turned to the waiter. “Two sidecars,” he said.

  The waiter moved over to the bar, which was not many steps away. She thought, looking at Tyler, that he was certainly a man who never felt ordinary at any time, this evening or any other. His face, she decided at first, was the face of an ascetic, which he surely was not, his nose aquiline and his mouth finely fashioned, suggesting sensuality in conflict with the asceticism. Ascetic, as a matter of fact, was not quite the adjective with which to describe his appearance. She sought the proper adjective in her mind and decided that it was sentient. He was a man aware, possibly in some respects, vulnerable. The waiter brought their sidecars, and she sipped hers hungrily, controlling an urge to drink it right down. It was cold and good, the tart liquid accented pleasantly by the sugared rim of the glass.

  “Do you know why I waited so long to contact you again?” he said.

  “I heard that you were out of town. Mr. Joslin told me.”

  “So I was. For about ten days. That is not why I waited, however. Or rather, it is, like the waiting itself, part of the effect of the cause.”

  “I don’t follow that, I’m afraid. Anyhow, I assume that it takes quite a long while to decide about making such a loan.”

  “Frankly, I haven’t yet definitely decided about the loan. I’m considering it.”

  “Is that why you wanted to see me? Just to tell me that you haven’t decided?”

  “If that had been all I wanted, I could have told you over the telephone. Shall I be perfectly honest with you? I am not incapable of subtlety and indirection when it is necessary, but I have an idea that you would prefer to have me say bluntly what is on my mind.”

  “Yes, I would prefer that.”

  “All right. I wanted to see you simply for the pleasure of seeing you, and I waited so long to do it because I wanted it too much.”

  “Is that being blunt? It sounds rather devious to me.”

  “I don’t think so, and I don’t think you think so, either. However, I can be even blunter. I have not met anyone in many years who has interested me as you have. Do you remember the day I came to your shop with Harriet? Afterward, I kept thinking about you and wishing that I might meet you again under different circumstances. Then you came to my office about the loan, and I thought that the second meeting might cure the first, but it didn’t. It only accelerated my regression to adolescence. Am I now being too blunt?”

  “No, you are not being too blunt, but I can’t understand why you should consider it adolescent to be interested in a woman.”

  “The quality of my interest was adolescent, and still is. If it were not, I could try to seduce you and be done with it. It involves the most exquisite misery and a kind of masochistic passion for bondage. I am much too old to feel so young — so I have waited for the passing of an emotional condition I had thought and hoped I would never feel again, and thought, when it came, that I could never sustain. But it hasn’t passed. It hasn’t even diminished. Consequently, if I must feel like a schoolboy, I have decided that I can at least react to the feeling like an adult. So I called you, and so we are here drinking sidecars, and how do you feel about it?”

  “I feel relaxed and quite flattered, and the sidecars are excellent.”

  “That strikes me as being an evasion.”

  “If it is, it is only temporary, to give me time to understand what you are saying. Are you asking me to have an affair with you?”

  “Not yet.” He smiled and shook his head. “I am only asking you if you would consider giving us an opportunity to decide sensibly, after a while, whether an affair for us would be mutually acceptable.”

  “Merely to see you and go out with you? Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes. In the beginning, no more than a friendly relationship without commitments on either side, so that we can decide later what we want to do.”

  “It sounds rather bloodless.”

  “Believe me, I don’t feel bloodless. Quite the contrary. I only want, as a regressed adult feeling strangely uncertain in his regression, to be reasonably sure that neither of us makes a mess of things for himself or the other.”

  “What about your wife? I have a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate such an arrangement, even in the early stage before anything is decided.”

  He smiled thinly, looking down into the shallow bulb of his glass, which was now empty. She thought that his mouth, after the thin smile left, was distorted briefly by a twist of bitterness, but she couldn’t be sure because his face was obscured by the inclination of his head.

  “That needn’t concern either you or me,” he said. “Since I have proposed such an arrangement to you, however, I am rather obligated to assure you that Harriet and I made our own decision and established our own arrangement quite a long, long time ago. It has worked, in a way, and neither of us is likely to disturb it.”

  As it was with Aaron, she thought. Probably it develops from different conditions, but in the end it comes to the same default. Is it going to be my part indefinitely to serve as compensation for inadequate wives?

  “All right,” she said. “I don’t ask you to tell me anything that won’t concern me. There is something else, though, that concerns me a great deal, and I am wondering about it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The loan. Does it depend upon my response to your proposal?”

  “In other words, am I trying to bribe you? No. I’m not overly scrupulous, but I’m sure that I’m not doing that. Let’s put it this way. If we were later to decide to go ahead with this, I’d certainly establish you in the shop. That’s assured. If either one or both of us did not decide to go ahead, I might or might not make the loan, or invest in the shop myself. It would depend upon other factors entirely.”

  “Well, that is clear enough, and it is also fair.”

  “I’ve tried to be both, and I’m glad that you think I’ve succeeded. Do you want some time to consider your answer?”

  “No. I have already decided. I won’t pretend that I’m offended by your proposal, for the truth is that I feel flattered. I can’t see that I have anything to lose from an arrangement that demands no commitments, at least in the beginning, and from which I can withdraw if I choose.”

  “I see that you have an analytical mind. I’m beginning to be convinced that I would make no mistake, regardless of our personal relationship, in supporting you as a business woman.”

  “I’m a good designer and a good business woman, and if it comes to it, I’ll be a good mistress.”

  He laughed with genuine pleasure and lifted his empty glass.

  “You have ended our discussion perfectly, and anything else would be a detraction. I suggest that we have another sidecar, and go to dinner afterward.”

  “I agree to the sidecar, but I am not dressed for dinner.”

  “You are dressed well enough for the place I’ll take you. I warn you at the beginning that I patronize only plain places. I drink in this plain place, where the drinks are good, and I eat in a plain place, where the food is good, and I drive a plain Chevrolet car which gets me from one place to another as well as a Cadillac would. By others, these preferences are considered affectations, and I dare say they are.”

  “Not necessarily. Perhaps they are signs of humility.”

  “Oh, nonsense. I’m a monstrous egoist, and they are certainly affectations. If I were poor and couldn’t afford it, I’d eat and drink in expensive places and drive a Cadillac at least.”

  “Well, however that may be, I agree to eat with you in a plain place and go there with you in a plain Chevrolet.”

  He laughed again, again with pleasure, and signaled the waiter, who brought the sidecars. They enjoyed the drinks and the company of each other, and moved on in time to the plain place with good food, where they enjoyed broiled lobster and still the company of each other, and the evening slipped away.

  It was not until after eleven o’clock, when he was taking her home, that she rememb
ered Enos Simon, that she was to have seen him that evening. It was by then, of course, far too late to do anything about it.

  4.

  He waited and waited, but she did not come. He had no means of getting into her apartment, and because he could not loiter so long in the hall, he went back downstairs and across the street and waited there in the dark doorway of a tobacco shop. At first he was able to convince himself that she had only been delayed, that she would arrive soon to secure the equilibrium of his tiny personal world which now stood suddenly in precarious balance, but as time passed he was unable to sustain this conviction. Eventually he was as thoroughly convinced that she would not come as he had previously been that she would. It was then a matter of enormous importance to know why she would not come, whether it was the result of something unavoidable which she would regret as much as he, or whether it was deliberate and ominously significant, a brutal indication that she was sick and tired of him and wanted nothing more to do with him. He reasoned that this was surely not so, for there had been no warning of it, no sign or word or slightest withdrawal. It was not possible, surely it was not, for such a monstrous change to occur all at once with no warning whatever. Or had there, perhaps, been signs that he had missed? Thinking back, he began to fancy that such signs had actually been present in her behavior, a reluctance to which he had been blind simply because he chose to be, a general impression that she was making concessions she would have preferred not to make.

  She did not come, and after a while he was absolutely converted to the belief in his rejection. He wondered how he had ever been such a fool as to think that it could have ended otherwise, or continued without ending in a life in which everything that was good ended and nothing ever ended that was not. He felt degraded, debased, absurdly threatened, and he felt for her then, standing in the dark doorway watching her dark windows, a virulent and exorbitant hatred because she obviously intended to destroy him. Or, rather, because she was by some kind of mysterious selective process the agent of the dark forces that had been trying to destroy him all his life. He was aware all at once of a repeated harsh sound in the doorway with him, and immediately afterward he was aware that the sounds were in his own throat and were his own involuntary sobs. Lunging out of the doorway, he turned to his right and moved down the sidewalk at a kind of awkward lope, as if he were pursuing something or fleeing from something, both of which were true enough.