Nora hadn’t come down to the airport to see me off because she didn’t like goodbyes. Nor was she at the airport when I returned. But her mother was.
The old lady was standing on the field when I came down the ramp. No waiting in the terminal for her. She held out her hand. “Luke, welcome home. It’s good to have you back.”
I kissed her cheek. “It’s good to be back,” I said. “Where’s Nora?”
“I’m sorry, Luke. Your cable didn’t arrive until yesterday. She’s in New York.”
“New York?”
“Tonight is the opening of her first postwar show. We didn’t have any idea that you were returning.” She read the disappointment in my face. “Nora was very upset when I told her about your wire on the phone. She wants you to call her as soon as we get to the house.”
I grinned wryly. It figured. Just like everything else the last year. Each time I thought I was getting out something came up and I had to stay on. I’d have been better off if they’d never made me a chicken colonel and transferred me to general staff. All the other men that I’d flown with had been out for six months.
“Is she all right?” I asked. Nora hadn’t been exactly the most faithful correspondent in the world. I was lucky if I averaged one letter a month from her. If it hadn’t been for her mother I’d have been completely out of touch. The old lady wrote me regularly, at least once a week.
“She’s fine. She’s been working very hard to get ready for this show. But you know Nora.” She looked at me quizzically. “She wouldn’t have it any other way. She always has to keep busy.”
“Yeah.”
She took my arm. “Let’s go to the car. Charles will fetch your luggage.”
We made a lot of small talk on the way home. I had the impression that the old lady was more nervous than she showed on the surface. In a way that was normal. This was really the first chance we’d had to test our new relationship. I felt kind of strained myself.
“Scaasi’s number is on the desk in the library, next to the telephone,” she said as we came into the house.
She followed the butler up the stairs with my bags and I went into the library. The slip of paper was exactly where she’d said it would be. I picked up the telephone and gave the number to the operator. The call didn’t take long to get through.
“Scaasi’s Gallery,” a voice said. In the background I could hear a great deal of noise, people talking.
“Miss Hayden, please.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is her husband calling from San Francisco,” I said.
“Just a moment, please. I’ll try to locate her.”
I waited for what seemed an interminable time. After a while the voice came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hayden. I can’t seem to find her.”
Mr. Hayden. That was the first time I’d heard that. It wouldn’t be the last though. After a while I would get sick of it, but at the moment it was amusing.
“Carey’s the name,” I said. “Is Sam Corwin around?”
“I’ll see. Just a moment.”
A moment later Sam was on the phone. “Luke, old boy. Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Sam. Where’s Nora?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She was around her a minute ago. She was waiting for your call. You know how an opening is. Maybe she went out to eat. She hasn’t all day. Things have been really hectic here.”
“I can imagine. How’s it going?’
“Great. Scaasi had already sold most of the important pieces before the show opened. He’s working on some very important commissions for Nora.”
There wasn’t much else to say. “Have her call me as soon as she can.” I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock here, which would make it nine in New York. “I’ll be here all evening.”
“Sure thing, Luke. You’re at Nora’s mother’s house?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll have her call as soon as I locate her.”
“Thanks, Sam.” I said. “Goodbye.”
I put down the telephone and walked out of the library. Mrs. Hayden was waiting in the foyer. “Did you talk to Nora?”
“No. She’d gone out to dinner.”
My mother-in-law didn’t seem surprised. “I told her you’d call about six.”
I found myself defending Nora. “She’s had a rough day, Sam says. You know how those New York openings are.”
She looked as if she were about to say something then seemed to change her mind. “You must be exhausted after your flight. Why don’t you go upstairs and freshen up? Dinner will be served shortly.”
I went up to my room while she went into the library and closed the door behind her. What I didn’t know then was that she called Sam right back.
He picked up the telephone wearily, knowing who it would be. “Yes, Mrs. Hayden.”
The old lady’s voice was sharp and angry. “Where’s my daughter?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Hayden.”
“I thought I told you to make sure she’d be there to take his call.”
“I gave Nora your message, Mrs. Hayden. She said she would. Then I looked for her and she was gone.”
“Where is she?” the old lady repeated.
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“Then find her. Right away. And tell her that I want her to call home immediately!”
“Yes, Mrs. Hayden.”
“And I want her on the next plane out here! You make sure she’s on it. Do you understand that, Mr. Corwin?” Her voice had a cold, steely quality.
“Yes, Mrs. Hayden.” The phone clicked off in his hand. Slowly he put it down. He massaged his temples wearily. He had all the makings of a good headache. Nora could be at any one of a hundred different places.
He pushed through the crowd into the night. Fifty-seventh Street was almost empty. He looked up and down the street, mentally tossing a coin. After a moment he made up his mind. He crossed the street and began to walk downtown on Park Avenue. If he had to start someplace he might as well begin at the top and work his way down. El Morocco was as good a place as any.
Then the bright lights of a drugstore beckoned him as he crossed Lexington on Fifty-fourth Street. Acting on impulse he went in and called a private detective he knew.
It was after two in the morning when they finally caught up with her. In a third-floor walkup down on Eighth Street in the Village.
“This must be it,” the detective said. He sniffed the air. “You can get high just standing out here!”
Sam knocked at the door. She had to be here. She’d met the boy at a bar on Eighth Avenue where unemployed actors hung out. Sam was surprised to learn that she’d been seeing him almost constantly since they’d arrived in New York. And he’d thought he had every moment of her time accounted for.
After a moment, there was a voice on the other side of the door. “Go away. I’m busy.”
Sam knocked again.
This time the voice was angry. “I said beat it! I’m busy.”
The detective measured the door with his eye, then placed his foot squarely against the lock. He didn’t seem to push very hard, but the door flew open with a vicious splintering crash.
A young man came charging at them from out of the darkness. Again the detective didn’t seem to move very quickly, but suddenly he was between Sam and the young man and the young man was on the floor. He glared up at them, his hand nursing his chin.
“Is Nora Hayden here?” Sam asked.
“There’s nobody here by that name,” the young man said quickly.
Sam looked at him for a moment without speaking, then stepped over him and started for the other door. Before he reached it it opened.
Nora stood in the doorway, completely nude, a cigarette between her lips. “Sam, baby.” She laughed. “Come down to join the party? Things must be getting a little dull uptown along about now.” She turned her back and started back into the room. “Come on in,” she called over her shoul
der. “There’s enough tea in here for the whole Mexican Army.”
Sam moved after her quickly and spun her around. He pulled the cigarette from her mouth and threw it on the floor. The acrid smell of the marijuana was strong in his nostrils. “Get your clothes on.”
“What for?” she asked truculently.
“You’re going home.”
She began to laugh. “Home, sweet home. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
Sam’s hand flashed against her face. The resounding slap sent her reeling back. “Get dressed, I said!”
“Wait a minute!” The young man was on his feet now. He hitched at his tight black trousers as he walked toward Sam. “You can’t do that! You her husband or something?”
Nora began to laugh again. “That’s a good one. My husband? He’s just a watchdog my mother hired. My husband’s five thousand miles away!”
“Your husband is home. He just got in tonight. He’s been trying to reach you.”
“He’s been away two years. A few days more or less shouldn’t make any difference.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear what I said,” Sam said quietly. “Luke is home.”
Nora stared at him. “Great. When do we hold the parade?”
Suddenly her face began to turn white and she rushed to the bathroom. Sam could hear her heaving and retching, then the toilet flushed and the water began to run in the basin.
After a few minutes she came out, still holding a wet towel to her face. “I’m sick, Sam, I’m sick.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Nobody does. Do you know what it’s like to go to bed alone night after night, wanting it and not being able to have it?”
“It’s not that important.”
“Maybe not to you!” she said angrily. “But after I’m through working I’m all keyed up. I can’t sleep. I have to do something to unwind!”
“Did you ever try a cold shower?”
“Very funny!” she said. “Do you think all those things I do come out of here?” She touched her forehead. “Well, they don’t! They come out of here!” She touched her naked body. “That’s where they come from, and every time I feel a little bit emptier. And I have to get something back to fill me up again! Do you understand that, Mr. Art Critic?”
Sam gestured to her clothing lying on the rumpled bed. “Get dressed. Your mother wants you to call Luke right away.”
She looked at him strangely. “Does Mother know?”
He looked at her steadily. “Your mother’s always known. She told me the day I agreed to take you on.”
She sank to the bed. “She never said anything to me.”
“Would it have done any good if she had?”
The tears began to well up in Nora’s eyes. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t go back!”
“Yes, you can. Your mother told me to put you on a plane after you called Luke.”
She looked up at him. “She said that?”
“Yes.”
“What about Luke? Does he know too?”
“As far as I know, he doesn’t. I gather your mother wants to keep it that way.”
Nora sat silently for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Do you think I can make it? Now that Luke’s home I won’t be alone nights anymore.”
She reached for her clothing and began to dress. “Do you think you can get me on a plane tonight?” She sounded like a breathless, excited child.
“I’ll get you on the first plane out.”
She was happy now, smiling. “I’ll be a good wife to him, you’ll see!” She shrugged into her brassiere and turned her back to him. “Hook me up, Sam.”
He went over and fastened her brassiere. She slipped into her dress and went back into the bathroom. When she came out a few minutes later, she looked as fresh and clean as if she had just stepped from her morning shower.
She came over to him and suddenly reached up and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Sam, for finding me. I was afraid to go back. Afraid to face him. But I know it will be all right now. I wanted you to find me and you did.”
He looked down at her face for a moment, then shrugged.
“If you wanted me to find you, why didn’t you leave a message?”
“It had to be like this,” she said. “Or it wouldn’t have mattered. Somebody besides myself had to know.”
He opened the door. “Let’s go.”
She went into the other room and through the outer door without a look at the young man who sat in the chair.
10
__________________________________________
Charles put the orange juice on the table in front of me. It was a couple of months later. I picked the glass up and began to drink as my mother-in-law came into the room.
She smiled at me. “Good morning, Luke.” She sat down and unfolded her napkin. “How is she this morning?”
“She seemed all right,” I said. “She had a good night. I guess the morning sickness is about over.”
She nodded. “Nora is a strong, healthy girl. She shouldn’t have any trouble.”
I nodded in agreement. I hadn’t been home more than six weeks when Nora discovered that she was pregnant. I’d come home from the office one evening and found her in raging hysterics. She was sprawled across the bed in our room, sobbing angrily.
“What’s wrong?” I was already used to some of her temperamental outbursts, like when the forms she thought should come alive to easily refused to take shape.
“I won’t have it! I don’t believe it!” She sat up and screamed.
I stared at her. “Take it easy. Won’t have what?”
“That damn doctor! He says I’m pregnant!”
I began to grin in spite of myself. “Such things have been known to happen.”
“What’s so funny? You men are all alike. It makes you feel big and proud and virile, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t exactly make me feel bad,” I admitted.
The tears were gone now and all her anger was directed at me. “Having a baby won’t interfere with your work. Having a baby won’t twist you all out of shape, make you big and fat and ugly so that nobody will look at you anymore.”
She glared at me. “I won’t have it!” She screamed again. “I’ll get rid of it! I know a doctor—”
I went over to her. “You won’t do any such thing.”
“You can’t stop me!” she shouted, getting off the bed and starting for the door.
I caught her shoulders and turned her toward me. “I can and I will,” I said quietly.
Her eyes clouded with anger. “You don’t care anything about me! You don’t care if I die having it. All you care about is the baby!”
“That’s not true. I do care about you. That’s why I want you to have the baby. Abortions are dangerous.”
Slowly the anger in her eyes faded. “You do care about me, don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
“And when the baby comes, you’ll still care more about me than—than it?”
“You’re the only thing I’ve got, Nora. The baby is something else completely.”
She was silent for a moment. “We’ll have a son.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “Babies aren’t made in a studio like statues.”
She looked up into my face. “I know. Every man wants a son and you’re going to have one. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Don’t worry about it. A little girl would be okay with me.”
She slipped out of my arms and walked over to the mirror. She dropped her negligee on the floor and, turning sideways, looked at her naked reflection in the glass. “I think I’m getting a little tummy.”
I grinned. She was as flat as a washboard. “It’s a little early for that.”
“Oh, no, it’s not! The doctor says it shows earlier on some women. Besides I feel heavier.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I don’t?” she asked. Then she turned and saw my g
rin. “I’ll show you!”
She laughed and threw herself across the bed at me. We tumbled together, she on top of me. She kissed me, letting all her weight rest on me. “There. How does that feel?”
“It feels fine.”
“It does, does it?” I knew that suddenly hungry undertone in her voice. She kissed me again, her body beginning to move.
“Wait a minute,” I said cautiously. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Don’t be silly! The doctor told me everything should go on as usual. Just not to place too much weight on me. He recommended the position of female superior.”
“Female superior?” I questioned, feigning ignorance. “I thought males were superior.”
“You know. It means the woman on top.”
I acted as if I were learning something new. Then I couldn’t help myself. I threw my arms and legs ecstatically into the air. “Take me, I’m yours!”
We collapsed in a gale of laughter.
But the next few mornings had been rough. She had been sick almost every day since.
“How’s the work in the office going?” my mother-in-law asked.
“Okay, I guess. They’re still getting used to me and I’m trying to find out what’s going on. Actually, I have very little to do as yet.”
“These things take time.”
“I know.” I looked at her. “I’ve been thinking maybe I ought to go back to school and brush up. So many new concepts have developed while I was away. There’s a whole new field in the use of aluminum as a structural component. I don’t know anything about it.”
“There’s no point in rushing.”
I knew what it meant when she spoke like that. It meant that she knew something that I didn’t. But there was no use asking her. She would tell me when she was ready. Or she wouldn’t tell me at all. I’d have to learn it for myself.
She was quite a woman, this mother-in-law of mine. She had her own way of doing things. Like that first morning I had gone to the office.
She’d called me into the library and taken an envelope out of the desk and given it to me silently.
I’d opened it curiously. Several elaborately printed stock certificates fell out. I picked them up from the floor and looked at them. They represented twenty percent of the stock of Hayden and Carruthers. On the back of each she had endorsed the shares over to me.
Where Love Has Gone (1962) Page 10