by Joan Ellis
She opened the door to her own office, and leaned against it with a sigh of relief. Her eyes moved involuntarily to the spot where Paul's body had sprawled. There was no sign in the office now of last night's struggle. She sought a glance in the make-up mirror she kept in her desk drawer. The nasty bruises were thoroughly masked—nobody could see. Her clothes concealed the other bruises. She sat down at the desk, determined to behave as though this were merely any other morning.
"Yes?" she said calmly at the light knock on her door about five minutes later.
"Hi," Mr. Comstock's attractive young secretary poised in the door with a smile. "Mr. Comstock would like to see you as soon as you're free."
"Be right there," Elaine smiled back, fighting panic. Something had happened here! She could read it in the discreet curiosity Comstock's smartly-groomed secretary was taking such pains to conceal.
Elaine gave the girl a two minutes' head start, utilizing the time to compose herself. Then, a fixed smile on her face, she moved from behind her desk, out the door, and down the short corridor to Comstock's office, ostensibly the poised young career woman she'd always been.
"Hello, my dear," Comstock glanced up with that professionally charming smile he always wore.
"Good-morning, Cliff," Elaine said leisurely, going to the chair beside his desk with the polite smile of inquiry that betrayed nothing. "Something new on Truly Yours?" She hoped that none of her anxiety showed through, that the faint, nervous twitching below her eye would go unnoticed.
"Elaine, I don't want you to be needlessly upset," Comstock shuffled the papers on his desk. "We had some unpleasantness here this morning. Quite early.”
"Oh?" Then Paul had been nasty!
"We all know how keen the competition was for the Truly Yours assignment. I mean between you and Paul." He hesitated briefly, then plunged ahead. "A cleaning woman found him out cold in your office. Now don't be disturbed, my dear," he said hastily as her eyes widened in fear, "He'd been drinking, probably invaded your office on the chance of destroying whatever work you'd set up on the account. He fell and knocked his head on a corner of the desk. The cleaning woman was alarmed and called for the night elevator operator."
"Was he badly hurt?" The words came out in a harsh whisper.
"Just paralyzed drunk." Cliff Comstock's face tightened. "I always figured him for being emotionally unstable. Seeing you land the assignment sent him off half-cocked. Naturally, the night operator reported the incident. When I questioned him, he was surly and insulting. I fired him on the spot."
"I'm sorry it turned out this way," Elaine stammered. "I know Paul's terribly ambitious—"
"Good riddance," he interrupted brusquely. "I called you in to tell you so that you'd have the full picture. I'd like you to check through your files to make sure nothing's been disturbed. I don't want Hennessy chasing off to another agency with a similar campaign."
"I'm sure there's nothing disturbed," Elaine reassured him. All her sketches and notes on Truly Yours were in her apartment. At the beginning of a new campaign she liked to work out the roughspots in privacy. "But I gather Rick Stacy gave Paul a fairly clear idea of our approach."
"Paul was bluffing," he said comfortably, "Probably hoping to start you talking. I checked with Rick."
"Fine," Elaine smiled faintly, knowing this little conference was at an end. But what about Paul? Was he writing "finis" to their little episode?
Elaine and Terry followed their familiar afternoon routine. Terry left the office, went into the drugstore for coffee, waiting for Elaine to join her. Then, together, they took a cab to Terry's apartment.
"You're not very talkative," Terry ventured cautiously, as she opened the door and moved inside-"Worried about Paul Hennessy ruining your plans for Truly Yours?"
"Is it all over the agency?" Elaine asked, her eyes dark with pain.
"All kinds of rumors," Terry admitted, "all ending up with Paul being kicked out on his rear end for getting loaded and messing up your office." Terry tossed off her jacket, headed for the kitchenette to start dinner. "Did he chase you around the desk first?"
"Yes," Elaine conceded wearily, too tired to lie about it. And what was the use?
"He stood me up last night. You knew that, didn't you?" Terry swerved about to face her, the sulky eyes accusing. "But you let me go on talking last night anyhow".
"I was tired, Terry," she said patiently.
"You didn't care that I was stood up!" Anger hardened the sweetly silky voice now. "You didn't care because you had a chance to go over to your precious brother's and sit there and fawn over his darling wife!"
"Terry, shut up!"
"I won't! Nothing's been the same since they came into town!" Terry's voice rose hysterically. "You took one look at that phoney little slut and that was it!"
"Terry, stop that!" Elaine ordered, fury seizing hold of her now.
"Why?" Terry thrust her small face beneath Elaine's tauntingly. "You can't stand anybody saying anything against your little darling? What does your brother think about it? That's what I'd like to know."
"You don't know what you're talking about." Elaine walked away to the window, fighting for control.
"I know you're crazy about that girl!" Terry stormed. "You're trying to get rid of me, for her. You think I'll just let you walk out on me—but I won't." Defiance shone from her. "You try to leave me, Elaine, I’ll fix it so everybody knows why. Those pictures Stephie took of us—how would you like to have them passed around the agency? How would you like Eric to see them, and that darling wife of his?"
"You wouldn't dare!" Elaine froze.
"Oh, wouldn't I? Try me! Just try me!"
"It wouldn't look so good for you, either," Elaine struggled to be rational. "You can't hurt me without hurting yourself."
"I don't care about me!" Suddenly, the fury broke and tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks, with dirty smudges of mascara marring the perfect make-up. "But I won't have her taking you away from me. I won't let her."
"Terry, please," Elaine began, a shamed compassion taking hold of her now.
"Don't touch me," Terry complained petulantly, and one hand rose to strike Elaine across the face.
"Stop that!" Elaine ordered, grappling for Terry's hands that were raining blows in her direction.
"I won't," Terry screamed, and her nails left a bloody scratch down Elaine's forearm.
The two girls tangled frenziedly, falling back against the divan, the room noisy with their labored breathing. And then, it was over. Terry was clinging to Elaine, sobbing out her apology, begging to be forgiven.
"It's all right, honey, it's all right," Elaine reiterated, her mind in upheaval, her body taut with the shock of Terry's attack.
"You hate me." Terry sat up on the divan, leaning on one hand. "You don't like it when people act like this. You like everything quiet and respectable."
"I don't hate you," Elaine said with a manufactured smile. "Why do you dream up such things?"
"You don't love me." Terry touched her softly on one thigh. "You're just trying to figure out a way to get rid of me without making a scene."
"That's absurd," Elaine protested, every nerve in her body screaming for release. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the clean memory of Kathy. Wanting Kathy. Knowing she couldn't have her.
"Prove it," Terry insisted huskily, sliding one leg towards hers. "Darling, show me you're not angry with me." Her arms crept about Elaine now, and she pressed her supple young body close to hers, daring her to refuse.
Kathy was inaccessible, an inner voice taunted Elaine maliciously. Kathy would turn sick if she knew how Elaine longed for her, how Elaine wanted to possess that elfin body of hers! But she had to have something, someone. "Sweet little Terry," she murmured softly, shutting the other girl out of her mind, praying to forget with Terry. "Darling, I love you!"
Terry came to her with tiny moans of satisfaction, her hands and her legs and her mouth working with expert determination to build
Elaine to a fever pitch, to a surging clamorous climax that enveloped them as one, making everything else another world, this the real one.
"Don't ever leave me," Terry muttered, sinking her small teeth into Elaine's shoulder with satisfaction. "Don't ever leave me!"
CHAPTER 9
Elaine had optimistically expected the gossip over Paul Hennessy to dwindle into past history in a day or two. It didn't. She was increasingly disturbed by the buzzing that echoed through the agency, the favorite story evidently being that Rick Stacy and Paul had had a knock-out brawl over her, with Paul being thrown out on his ear. She kept telling herself it didn't matter, why should she care what people said? She was grateful, at least, that Rick was so deeply involved with one of his accounts that he never managed more than a brief, secretive murmur about their spending an evening together.
She'd put off calling Kathy, as she'd promised to, about their having lunch together. Rush of business would serve as an excuse, she thought guiltily, if Kathy should make an overture herself. She couldn't bring herself to face Kathy again just yet. Though even now, sitting at her desk determined to follow through on the roughs she'd promised Rick for this afternoon, Kathy's face kept merging with the sketches spread on the desk before her.
"Damn!" Rising to her feet with a sigh of futility, she reached for her purse and headed for the washroom.
Some sixth sense warned her to enter quietly, and then the voices of the two girls around the bend came to her with shocking clarity.
"Don't believe that stuff about Rick Stacy fighting it out with Paul," the voice of the receptionist scoffed arrogantly. "The great Stacy wouldn't soil his hands over any gal, so long as there was one more alive on earth."
"What's the scoop?" the other, a girl in the steno pool, prodded avidly.
"The way I got it—and it came from somebody who seemed awfully sure—Paul was burnt to a cinder over her landing Truly Yours. He got loaded, accused her of beating him out via the familiar bed routine. Then he knocked the hell out of her."
Thoroughly shaken up, Elaine moved with slow, halting steps out of that haunted washroom into the corridor, turning off into a tiny alcove to try to regain her equilibrium. Her eyes stared into space as she tried to assimilate what she'd heard. Had Terry been talking? How else could a nightmarish rumor like this be in circulation? Terry with a few cocktails in her was unpredictable, and she gloated over feeling important. Spreading around an "inside story" like tins would make her feel definitely important.
Elaine lifted her head in a stern attempt at poise and walked swiftly back into the sanctuary of her own office.
Terry was fast developing into a frightening menace to her peace of mind. No matter how she tried to brush away the memory, she couldn't forget Terry's threats the other night about the photographs Stephie had taken of them. She'd always been so careful, how had she slipped up then? Why did there always have to be one misstep to throw a whole lifetime out of focus, she thought wearily. Somehow, she had to get those negatives, to eliminate this hold Terry would dangle over her head for an eternity.
Elaine dallied briefly with the idea of asking Terry for them, then discarded it. This would be walking right into a trap. Talking to Stephie would be stupid—he'd run, popping with excitement to Terry, find out if they were splitting up. Only one solution she concluded—if somehow, she could talk to Fred. He'd understand her position, the real and shattering threat those negatives were to her very existence. If somehow she could persuade Fred to get them for her! On impulse she walked outside to the stack of phone directories, a hazy idea in her mind of Fred's firm name. With a sigh of relief, she recognized the name and the community Stephie mentioned. She dialed, asked for Fred, and was told he was in conference. At least, she knew what she must do now. She'd keep calling Fred Reynolds until she reached him.
Fred was still in conference when she tried to reach him again right after lunch, but he was due back shortly. She'd call again in five minutes, she told herself urgently, not caring that his secretary was distinctly annoyed at the frequency of her calls. But before she could get on to him, Kathy phoned.
"I hope you aren't angry at Eric for being a little potted the other night," Kathy murmured in sweet apology, after they'd exchanged the routine small talk.
"Of course not," Elaine hastened to reassure her, while her breath quickened with the excitement of talking with Kathy again. "As a matter of fact, I was going to call you today—you must be psychic."
"You were?" Pleasure bubbled over in Kathy. "Have you been doing anything about looking for a studio?"
"I figured I might take time off this afternoon, just an hour or two, to run down to an agency. It's not too far from you, if you'd like to meet me." She hadn't meant to say that at all, Elaine realized in dismay. What was the matter with her?
"I'd love it," Kathy agreed promptly. "I adore people, but I'm always so slow in making friends. I haven't actually talked to a soul for days, except for Eric and the doorman and people in the supermarket."
"I'll pick you up in a cab at your place about two-thirty," Elaine decided with a surge of good humor. "I'll give you a buzz before I leave so you can be waiting downstairs. I do have to put in an appearance at the agency afterwards, you know."
"I won't keep you waiting," Kathy promised eagerly. "I'll be standing by for your call."
When Elaine hung up, she was beset with a cataclysmic torrent of misgivings. She'd made one frightening misstep already—now she was charging ahead into even more dangerous waters. Where would she finally stop?
Before she could forge her thoughts into some concrete action, Comstock called her in for conference. By the time the conference was over, she knew she'd have to find some way of channeling her personal problems into after-office hours—she'd barely stumbled through the meeting with coherence. Comstock probably felt she was still off the beam from the mess with Paul Hennessy, she assumed gratefully—he'd been bristling with sympathy. But that would suffice for a day or two longer, at most. Now it was a question of her job!
It was too late to try Fred Reynolds again, she decided; she'd just have time to phone Kathy and hurry downstairs for a cab to the Village. She'd have to be back in the office in an hour and a half at the most. But the question of those negatives—and Terry's obviously growing instability—plagued at her even during the drive to Kathy's apartment.
Kathy was full of exuberance over the project of locating a studio for Elaine.
"Now hold it, baby," Elaine chuckled. "It isn't so easy to find space today. Haven't you heard of the shortage?"
"I have a hunch," Kathy sparkled. "You're going to find a studio this same afternoon—and you're going to start painting again. My family used to laugh at me, but my hunches usually work out. Wait and see," she smiled mysteriously.
Elaine was sharply aware of Kathy sitting there in the cozy intimacy of the cab, enjoying her presence even while admitting this was meager solace. She ached to take Kathy by the hand and run with her into another existence, where love like hers wouldn't be looked down upon as something sick and unclean. But Kathy would never understand, she reminded herself ruthlessly. Kathy would only be disgusted.
To Elaine's amazement, the real-estate broker promptly referred them to a vacant studio a few blocks south. Climbing the four flights to the skylight studio, Elaine felt as though time was rolling back and she was in Paris again. It was a suffocating, frightening memory because Alex had been her first, her one big love—and here she was with Kathy, whom she longed to possess with more intensity than anyone ever, even Alex.
"It's wonderful!" Kathy whirled about enthusiastically. "Elaine, are you taking it?"
"Yes." She was powerless to say no, because she knew she had to paint again, to have something to hang on to that was real in her world of subterfuge.
It was almost like before, she told herself with unbridled exuberance! A place to work, someone to love! Though the love was one-sided, and must be secret and denied. At least, she'd see Kathy
, be with her, touch her, oh so innocently. That would have to be enough.
"I'm so glad." Kathy threw her arms about Elaine with her young delight, and pain charged through Elaine that Kathy couldn't ever know.
"We'd better go now," she said abruptly, and gathered her things together. "We can stop off at the agency and I'll arrange for the lease."
Coming out of the building and hailing a cab again, Elaine had an odd feeling that somebody was watching them. A figure popping back into the shadows. Then she brushed this aside with a stab of impatience. She was seeing ghosts already. Who would be trailing them? Terry was at the office— who else would care?
* * *
Elaine sat at her desk, hunched in thought. She was no doubt all wrong about their being followed this afternoon, but the suspicion only heightened her need to recover those negatives, destroy them before they could destroy her. She dialed again, asked for Fred Reynolds.
“How are you, my dear?" This was his polite business voice talking to her, the one that wouldn't even know Stephie existed.
“Fred, I'm afraid I have a problem," she started off hesitantly, wondering how she could put it on the phone so he could understand the urgency.
"Wait a moment," he said, and she held on till he returned. "It's okay—we can talk now."
"Freely?" She had to be absolutely sure, not only for herself but Fred.
"Nobody'll cut in on this line. What's bothering you, Elaine? Something about Terry?"
"Yes." Then she remembered she was calling from the agency. "I'm calling from the office," she put him on guard, "But you remember my cousin Terry out on the West Coast?"
"Yes, of course," he caught on promptly. "Is she planning on coming into town—or isn't she here?" he corrected, leading the way for Elaine.
"She's here," Elaine accepted gratefully, "but I'm a bit concerned about her. You know how impulsive she is. She may be better off back there."
"Could be messy," Fred warned, and alarm caught at Elaine, lest he say more.
"What I really called about," she fenced, in case the switchboard operator was listening in, "she thinks she left her camera at your place, with a roll of film. Is there—is there any way I could get it?"