I put them back on the desk. “I didn’t earn them.”
She smiled. “You will.”
“Maybe I will,” I said. “But right now, I couldn’t take them. I’d feel like a damn fool. There are people in that office who have worked there for years. They’d resent it.”
“You haven’t seen the morning paper?”
“No.”
“Then maybe you’d better look at it,” she said, handing me the Chronicle.
It was already folded to the financial page. I read the small headline: HAYDEN AND CARRUTHERS APPOINT NEW VICE-PRESIDENT. Alongside the story was my picture. I read the item quickly.
“That’s really starting at the top,” I said, giving the paper back to her.
“There’s nowhere else a Hayden can start.”
There was no point in telling her that I wasn’t a Hayden. She was quite clear in her thinking. She hadn’t lost a daughter, she’d gained a son.
“I hope my demotion isn’t as rapid.”
“You’ve a strange sense of humor, Luke.”
“Easy come, easy go,” I said.
“Don’t talk like that!” Then she smiled. “You’ll do all right. I know you will.”
“I hope so.” I turned and started for the door.
Her voice stopped me. “Wait,” she said. “You forgot the stock.”
“You keep it. When I think I’ve earned them I might ask for it back.”
A kind of hurt crept into her eyes. That wasn’t what I’d intended at all. I came back to the desk. “Please understand,” I said. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do. It’s just that I’d feel a lot better if I could make it on my own.”
She stared at me a moment, then slipped the certificates back into the desk. “I understand. And I approve heartily. It’s the way I’d expect a Hayden to act.”
I had no reply to that one.
“Good luck.”
I returned her smile. “Thank you.”
I’d been uneasy about it ever since.
When Nora came down we were just finishing our coffee. She was already dressed to go out. I raised an eyebrow. Anytime Nora got down before noon it was a miracle.
Her face was excited. “Do you have to be at the office early?”
“I guess not,” I said. If I didn’t show up for a year I doubt that anyone would have missed me.
“Good! I have something to show you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Tell me,” I said. “I’ve had enough surprises in the short time I’ve been home. I’m not sure that I can take another.”
She laughed. “You’ll like this one.” She looked at her mother and they both smiled. “A friend of mine wants you to do her house over.”
“Well, now,” I said. That was more like it. Something to do at last. “Where is it?”
“Not far from here. We’ll go over and look at it and I’ll tell you want she’s got in mind.”
“Great. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
“I’m ready right now. I had my breakfast upstairs.”
It was a dream house. Three wings and seventeen rooms, at the top of Nob Hill looking out over the bay. There was a wonderful old marble staircase curving up off the large entrance foyer. The rooms were tremendous, like nothing they ever built today. Out in back there was a three-car garage, with servants’ quarters above. The house itself was greystone, beautifully patinaed with age, and there was a blue tile roof that seemed to soak up its color from the sky.
“It’s beautiful. I hope they don’t want to do much to it. They’d only spoil it.”
“I think it’s mostly modernizing the bathrooms and the heating plant, perhaps doing a few rooms over.”
“That makes sense,” I said, still studying the house.
“They’ll need a nursery. And a large studio for the wife in the north wing, to catch the light. Maybe a combination den and office for the husband, when he wants to work at home.”
I wasn’t altogether dumb. “Exactly who is this house for?”
“Haven’t you guessed?”
“I’m afraid to.”
“Mother bought it for us,” Nora said.
“That’s great!” I exploded. “Do you know what it would cost to run a house like this? More in a month than I make in a year!”
“What difference does that make? We don’t have to worry about money. The income from my trust fund alone is more than enough to take care of us.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I said. “But didn’t you ever once stop to think that I might like to support my own family? All you and your mother ever think of is money. I’m beginning to feel like a gigolo.”
“You’re acting like a damn fool! All I’m interested in is having a decent place to live, a proper home to bring up a baby.”
“A baby doesn’t need a seventeen-room house on Nob Hill to be brought up properly. If you want a place of your own, there are lots of houses we could buy. Houses that I can afford.”
“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “But I couldn’t afford to be found dead in any of them. I have my position to consider.”
“Your position? What about my position?”
“You made your position clear when you married me,” she said coldly. “And when you went to work for Hayden and Carruthers. As far as San Francisco is concerned, you belong to the Haydens. Whether you like it or not, you’re one of us.”
I stared at her. The realization spilled over me like the shock of ice-cold water. What she said was true. The war was over, and as far as anyone else was concerned, Colonel Luke Carey might as well be dead. The only identity I had left was associated with them.
“I want this house,” Nora said quietly. “And if you don’t want to remodel it, I’ll find an architect who will.”
I didn’t have to look at her to know that she meant what she said. I also realized what it would mean to me. I might as well look for a job as a truck driver if I let it happen. “All right,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll go it.”
“You won’t be sorry, darling.” She threw her arms around me. “You’ll be the biggest architect in San Francisco when everyone sees the wonderful things you’ll do with this house!”
But she wasn’t quick enough to hide the glimmer of triumph in her eyes. And that night, for the first time since I’d come home, she did not seek my embrace.
11
__________________________________________
In the end it wasn’t I who did the house. I got all the credit, but it was only a technicality. Actually, it was all Nora. All I did was translate her ideas into their proper architectural concepts.
But she was right about one thing. It was a showplace. We’d scarcely moved in before House Beautiful did a spread on it, and the month after the magazine came out I was the hottest architect in town.
Everyone who was anyone on the Coast wanted me to do their houses. I could have had more commissions than a five-percenter on a field day in Washington.
Instant success. I suppose I should have been content with it, but it bugged me. I guess that it showed, because the first time I turned down a client, George Hayden came into my office.
I looked up in surprise. George was a big man. Heavy-set, florid-faced, very solid and dependable. It was the first time he’d come down to see me instead of calling for me.
“How’s it going, Luke?”
“Okay, George,” I said. I turned off the light over my drafting board. “What can I do for you?”
“I thought we might have a little talk.”
“Fine.” I waved to a chair.
He sat down. “I’ve just been looking over the monthly report. I get the feeling that you’re being overloaded.”
“I don’t mind,” I said easily. “It’s a pleasant change from having nothing to do.”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking it’s about time we gave you a department. You know, a few boys to do all the
preliminary work so you can have a chance to keep an eye on the big ones.”
This language I understood. The Army spoke like that. I played it ignorant. “What big ones, George? All I’m doing is small stuff.”
“There’s a good margin in your field,” he said. “Much better than in the big stuff. That’s why I hate to miss out on anything just because you’re too busy. If somebody has his mind made up to build and one architect can’t do it, he’ll find one who can.”
“You mean like Mrs. Robinson who just left?”
“I don’t mean only Mrs. Robinson. There will be others. They are coming to you for your ideas. They won’t care who does the actual drawing.”
“Let’s stop kidding ourselves, George. They’re not coming to me because of my ideas. Most of those idiots wouldn’t know an architectural idea if it hit them in the face. They’re coming to be because all of a sudden I’m the fashion.”
“So what, Luke?” he said, looking at me shrewdly. “The main thing is to keep them coming.”
“And how long do you think that will last? Only until they find out that their houses won’t make the magazine like mine did. Then they’ll be after someone else.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. We can keep things alive. That’s why we have a P.R. man.”
“Oh, cut it, George,” I said disgustedly. “We both know it’s Nora’s house.”
He looked down at his hands for a moment without speaking. They were soft and white and well manicured. Then he looked up at me, his eyes unblinking. “You and I both know that I’m not half the architect Frank Carruthers was. But I’ve managed to keep this a going business and maintain our reputation.”
“But the Robinson house isn’t my kind of thing. I’ve been over the whole layout. The land. Everything. It’s nothing special. No matter what you do it’s just another house.”
“It’s not just another house. They’re willing to spend a couple of hundred thousand on it. That means at least ten thousand in fees and commissions for what amounts to a few weeks’ work.”
“It’s not the kind of house I want to build,” I said stubbornly.
“That’s why I want you to have a department. You’ll be able to concentrate on what you do want to do. But the client will be happy, too, just knowing that you’re around.”
I reached for a cigarette. His idea had merit. Maybe it would work. There was something I wanted to try. More in my line. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, call Mrs. R. and let her know that you’ve found time in your busy schedule to work on her house.” He got to his feet, he had what he come after. “Then check with my secretary and we’ll set a date for lunch to talk over your plans.”
I watched the door close behind him. I knew that if I waited to eat lunch with him I’d be lucky if I didn’t starve to death.
I walked over to my drawing board. I’d been working on a sketch for a giant-sized bathroom and dressing room, off the master bedroom. The house was for the president of a local bank. I’d sketched out a Finnish style bath with a sunken tub six feet wide and eight feet long.
It was big enough for the whole family at one sitting and I wondered if that was what the lady of the house had in mind. There were two of everything—his and her shower stalls, washbasins and toilets, all complete with gold hardware. All that was missing was a sterling silver bidet and the only reason for that was that no one had thought of it. Yet.
Yet. That was the key word. Suddenly my whole life rolled out in front of me. Years and years of bathrooms like this. My claim to fame. Carey builds the greatest bathrooms.
It was too much. I pulled the sheet from the drawing board and crumpled it up and went down the hall to George’s office. There was no point in waiting for a lunch that would never take place to find out what would never happen.
His secretary held up a warning hand as I came into the outer office. “Mr. Hayden’s on the telephone.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, walking past her into his inner office.
George was just putting down the phone. He looked up in surprise. “What is it, Luke?” he asked testily. He didn’t like anyone walking in unannounced.
“Did you mean what you said?”
“Of course, Luke.”
“Then why can’t we talk about it now?”
He smiled at me. “This isn’t the time.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “You don’t even know what I have in mind.”
He looked at me steadily. He had no answer for that. After a moment he waved me to a chair. “Exactly what do you have on your mind?”
I dropped into the chair opposite him and fished out a cigarette. “Low-cost homes. Mass production on a basic design that could be used three ways to vary the monotony of a large-scale development. The houses would sell in the ten-, eleven-thousand-dollar range.”
He nodded slowly. “You’d need a lot of acreage to make a thing like that pay off.”
I had thought of that. “There’s eighty acres off 101 near Daly City. It would be just right for it.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” he said. “Have you got a builder for it?”
I looked at him. “I thought it might be something we could do.”
He was silent for a moment, his fingers playing with a pencil on his desk in front of him. “You’re forgetting one thing, aren’t you?”
“What’s that?”
“We’re architects, not builders.”
“Maybe it’s time we branched out. Others are doing it.”
“I don’t care what the others do,” George said. “I don’t think we should. As architects we’re reasonably free of financial risk. We collect our fees and we’re out. The builder has all the other headaches.”
“The builder also makes the big money.”
“Let him,” George said. “I’m not greedy.”
“Than I take it you’re not interested?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said that under the present circumstances we shouldn’t do it. Of course, if you should come up with a builder who was willing to underwrite a project like that, we’d be more than happy to accommodate him.”
I got to my feet. I knew the score. He did too. There wasn’t an architect in the country who would turn down a job like that. It would be worth a hundred and fifty thousand in fees alone. “Thanks,” I said. “I kind of thought that would be your answer.”
He stared up at me. His voice was deceptively soft. “I just had a thought, Luke. I think you should make up your own mind exactly what you’d like to be—an architect or a builder.”
It was as if the lights suddenly came on in a dark room. George was absolutely right. I remembered the reason I had studied architecture in the first place. Because I wanted to build things. Then I became so involved with the practice that I forgot the purpose. To build. That was it. To build homes that people could afford to live in.
George didn’t understand my sudden happy smile. Maybe he even thought I was being sarcastic, but if he did he was completely wrong. I had never been more sincere in my life. “Thank you, George,” I said warmly. “Thank you for making everything so simple.”
The news made it home before I did. My mother-in-law and Nora were waiting for me. “I see George didn’t waste any time,” I said.
Nora’s face was frosty. “You might at least have discussed it with us before you quit.”
I walked over to the sideboard and poured myself a bourbon. “What was there to talk about? I’d had it. Up to here.”
“How do you think it will look?” Nora asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, taking a sip from my drink. “How do you think it will look?”
“They’ll think it’s an outright insult to Mother and me,” Nora said angrily. “Everyone knows what we’ve tried to do for you.”
“Maybe that’s why it didn’t work.” I looked at Nora’s mother. “I didn’t intend it as an insult. It was my fault. I let myself be rushed right into it when I got o
ut of the Army. I should have taken a little time, looked around, decided what I really wanted to do.”
She looked at me calmly. “Was that why you refused the stock?”
“Perhaps. Though I didn’t know it then.”
“What are you going to do now?” Nora asked.
“Look around. Get a job with a builder and learn something.”
“What kind of a job do you expect to get?” she asked sarcastically. “Seventy dollars a week driving a bulldozer?”
“I have to start someplace.” I smiled at her. “Besides, what different does it make? We don’t need the money.”
“So all you want to be is a common laborer? After all the trouble I went to to get this house just right, so you could make a reputation.”
“Let’s stop kidding ourselves, Nora. It wasn’t my reputation that you were considering. It was your own.”
She stared at me for a moment, then raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “I give up.” She turned awkwardly and stalked out of the room.
I watched her leave. Despite her pregnancy she hadn’t gotten very big. She had watched her diet carefully; she wasn’t going to allow pregnancy to ruin her figure. I turned back to the sideboard and freshened my drink. When I turned around, my mother-in-law was still standing there.
“You mustn’t pay too much attention to Nora. Pregnant women are apt to be more emotional than logical.”
I nodded. That was as good an excuse as any. But I knew my wife well enough by now. Pregnant or not, she wanted her own way.
“George mentioned that you had some idea about a building development,” she said. “Tell me about it.”
I dropped into a chair. “What difference does it make? He won’t do it. It’s against policy.”
She sat down opposite me. “That doesn’t mean you won’t do it.”
I stared at her. “I’m not kidding myself. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“How much do you have?”
That was easy enough to answer. After I paid out the seven thousand for the boat I’d bought in La Jolla, I had exactly nineteen thousand left. Fifteen thousand was from the insurance on my father, the rest I had saved from my Army pay.
Where Love Has Gone (1962) Page 11