Skyscraper

by Faith Baldwin

  Afterward, she was glad to escape. Dwight sent the car for her and it took her directly to the penthouse. She went upstairs, wondering a little; not at the unconventionality of her visit, things that didn’t matter any more, but at what he had in store for her. She had been like a child always, greedy for a surprise, for a secret, and she was wondering if she could recapture that. She thought not. Christmas Day. Tom had not even phoned. He might have phoned. But flowers had come, without a card. Could it be possible—?

  Where was he?

  He was in Child’s with Hank, gnawing a turkey bone.

  Later he would be back at the studio, working savagely to insure the success of a new, important, sponsored program.

  Dwight asked, “Did my flowers come?”

  She thanked him, sick with disappointment. She might have known.

  “Are you warmly dressed?”

  “You told me to be.”

  He looked her over from head to foot. “Go upstairs,” he said secretly, “and look in the bedroom. But not now; look at your stockings first.”

  It was of wool, it dangled from the fireplace. She took it down and opened it, under his amused and eager eyes. Perfume, lipstick—a gold one—soap, handkerchiefs—

  “How—dear!” she said sincerely. But her eyes were absent. If he had planned to send her flowers why hadn’t he included his card? She’d rather have known at once than hoped—and prayed.

  “We’re going riding,” he said, “somewhere where there’s snow. Down, in fact, on the Island.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Don’t talk,” he ordered sternly. “Go upstairs and see what Santa brought you.”

  She ran up the stairs under the friendly eyes of the man Wilkins. In the bedroom she found a suitcase, fitted, stamped with her initials; and in the suitcase a winter sports outfit, stockings, sweater, scard, beret, coat, amusing trousers, gloves.

  “Oh—” her voice floated down to him.

  Wilkins put his head around the door. “Carry it for you, miss?”

  She went downstairs laughing.

  “Commander Byrd,” she hailed him, and smiled, “shall I put them on now?”

  “It’s not Antarctic, but it’s something of an expedition,” he warned her. “No, wait till we get there.”

  Presently, the suitcase and one of his own were put in the car. They drove out of town swiftly, through the twilight. It was a white Christmas. The trees shone lighted from the windows of apartments and houses and from the yards of churches. “It’s beautiful,” said Lynn, listening to the chimes.

  They had left the town behind them. There was little traffic and Dwight drove fast and securely. Beyond Great Neck he turned off, and into a long snow-rutted lane.

  Trees laden with snow, frosty, gleaming, bordered it on either side. A turn, and there was a house waiting, a house from an old-fashioned Christmas card. Every window was lighted, they wore wreaths of holly, there was holly at the door, and two lighted trees outside. The house stood high, on a hill. And as Lynn got out of the car she heard voices, laughter.

  But where—? Who—?

  “Friends of mine, you’ll like them. Lulu and Mike Hayward.”

  She did like them. Their hostess, a fat woman, extraordinarily pretty, with the skin of a child, the wide blue eyes of a child—she’d once been the prettiest showgirl in town. The host, her husband, lean, bronzed, smoking a foul pipe. Other people, all in sports clothes. The Carters.

  Yule log, punch, a bedroom to change in, the toboggan on the hill, the first wild essay with skis, her feet helplessly slipping from under her, Dwight, laughing, picking her out of a snow bank. And at midnight, supper, dancing—

  At nearly three o’clock in the morning they turned out of Hayward’s drive and spun through the deadly quiet of the waning night. It was light when he left her at her own door.

  “Tired?”

  “No”

  “But you’ll have to work in the morning—this morning.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Happy Christmas?” he asked her.

  “Awfully—”

  She smiled up at him. He took the sprig of mistletoe from his buttonhole and held it over her heard; he kissed her, under the startled eyes of a lone and cold policeman. Not with the light kiss—that other kiss. She drew back, afraid. Not repulsed, but afraid. Not afraid of him but of her loneliness, of her youth, her warm blood, her awakened senses, her longing for creature comfort, for human warmth.

  “My Christmas present,” he said, and drove away.

  Trembling a little, she went into the house.

  Sleep was out of the question. She thought, standing under a shower cold enough to make her tingle all over, I ought not to see him again—Jennie was right—about its being dangerous—but why? she argued. I like him a lot, I—admire him—but I don’t care for him—really care—it’s Tom, always Tom—only—

  Only what? Only that she was unhappy, that she was lonely, that she had become accustomed to the speech and the caress of love.

  I won’t see him again, she decided.

  But she did.

  ONE MORNING IN January the telephone on her desk shrilled loudly. She answered, astonished to hear Jennie’s voice, broken, roughened with some unknown anxiety, “Lynn, can you come up here and see me—quick? It’s—awfully important.”

  Lynn looked at her watch. It was after eleven. “I’ll take my lunch hour early,” she said. “What’s wrong, Jennie, are you ill?”

  “No—oh, step on it!” cried Jennie, the self-reliant.

  Lynn went into Sarah’s office.

  “If I’m late getting back from lunch, will it be all right?” she asked. “It’s Jennie; she’s in trouble of some sort.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Sarah told her tartly; then, softening: “Of course, it’s all right, Lynn. You don’t often ask official favors.”

  She smiled with a little effort. She had not seen much of Lynn lately. Even without proof it was impossible not to conjecture with whom the girl had been spending much of her free time.

  She thought: I must speak to her, warn her.

  But could she?

  She was torn between her loyalty to Lynn and her illogical loyalty to David Dwight. She was frightened. She was miserable. And she was ageing under it.

  AN OVERSOPHISTICATED MAID admitted Lynn to Jennie’s apartment. Jennie was walking around the living-room half-dressed. Her face was gray-white, her eyes had dark circles beneath them, as black as bruises. For the first time Lynn saw Jennie’s face bare of make-up, the lips pale and dry. Somehow that startled her. Jennie, when they had shared a home together, had never permitted her face to “go naked.” Carefully removing her make-up at night she would apply it again, if more lightly. “Because,” she had explained, “there might be a fire, or something. Or a handsome burglar. Or I might get up in the night and see myself in a mirror and drop dead of fright if I weren’t dolled!”

  “What’s happened?” asked Lynn, as Jennie stared at her as if she did not know her.

  At the sound of her voice Jennie pulled herself together.

  “Plenty,” she replied briefly. Lynn cast a look at the vanishing back of the maid. “It doesn’t matter,” Jennie told her wanly. “She’ll listen at the door anyway. She knows enough as it is.”

  “Tell me—heavens, Jennie, you look awful!”

  “I feel worse. It’s Slim. Oh, I was a fool. It was easy, when—when I didn’t know as much as I do now But since—since Jake, it was different somehow. I was bored, too, fed up, couldn’t call my soul my own. Lonely. And Slim, he hung around. Last night he came here. Not the first time—the third. Don’t look at me like that, for God’s sake, Lynn! I can’t help it, I couldn’t help it! Anyway, Jake showed up. I don’t know if he just took it into his head to come on, or whether someone had tipped him off. Everyone knows everyone else’s business here, and that girl’s in his pay, I suppose. Or was. I pay her plenty more now. Well, the night elevator man tipped me off. Held him
down there, while I got Slim out by the freight elevator. It was—pretty bad. If it hadn’t been for that night man—he’s always liked me, sort of; I’ve paid him for doing errands for me and he had it in for Jake. Jake bawled hell out of him one night and for no good reason—”

  “But,” asked Lynn helplessly, “what do you want me to do?”

  “See Slim,” Jennie besought her, “tell him to keep away. I don’t care about myself. I can go back to living on my salary. Tell him I’m going to Evanston. Jake said last night he wouldn’t be getting to town very often; he wanted me to come and live—nearer. I said I would.”

  “Jennie, don’t! Let him go; live, as you say, on your salary; there’ll be Slim—you’ll be happy.”

  “Not me. Slim’s sick at himself already. I’m sick of myself too. He—he wouldn’t marry me now, you know. He’s funny that way—old-fashioned,” Jennie told her with a futile attempt at wisecracking, and laughed. Lynn shivered.

  “Lynn, see him, please see him.Tell him I’m going away, tell him I never want to see him again.”

  “Jennie, don’t you care for him at all?”

  Jennie turned, in her ceaseless pacing, stopped and looked at her friend. Her eyes were a little mad.

  “Lynn, get wise to yourself. Of course I care. If I didn’t, I’d stay on and two-time payroll. Or give him the air and become a working girl again—with a sweetie. But it can’t be, don’t you see that? I’d just—drag him down. I’ve done it already. God, what a fool I’ve been!” she said bitterly.

  After a moment during which Lynn said nothing, there being nothing to say, Jennie said, low, “You’ll see him, I count on you. I’m pulling out of here, as soon as I can get packed. Jake will stand for the broken lease. He’ll be good to me. He doesn’t really give a damn for me, you know. But men are funny.”

  Lynn said, feeling as if her mind had been beaten black and blue, “Then—I shan’t see you again?”

  “No, probably not. Don’t let that worry you.” She put her hands on Lynn’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You’re a good kid. Look here, whatever’s wrong between you and Tom, make it up. It doesn’t pay not to. You don’t know how lucky you are. I do.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I suppose not. Slim told me something, though. Said Tom was sunk. Said he couldn’t find out why, all Tom would say was that you’d let him down, believed something that wasn’t so. Don’t be that way, Lynn. I don’t know what you think he’s done or hasn’t done. I don’t care. Only, if he’s your man and you can make a go of sticking together the rest of your lives, what does anything he’s done matter? It wouldn’t to me, murder, arson, robbery—Lord, if a good guy loves you and is yours—I sound like a torch song. But I mean it. Don’t you suppose I’d lie or steal for Slim now that I know? I was always the dunce in my class, I always knew the answer too late. Well, I’m doing the next best thing for him.”

  She asked again: “You’ll see him, won’t you? Swear you won’t tell him what I’ve told you. Just say—’She’s leaving town—and you stay on your own side of the fence.’”

  Lynn promised. A moment later she was out in the corridor. The door had shut. Jennie was whistling—what is it? —the blues song they had heard at Dwight’ s, so very long ago. Lynn’s cheeks were wet, whether with her own tears or Jennie’s she did not know. She stopped and stood irresolute before that closed door. If she could persuade her—? But she could not. She went on, alone. That afternoon she telephoned the house on Perry Street. If Tom answered! But he wouldn’t answer. He’d be working. She prayed he’d be working. She prayed he would not be working. Waiting, listening to the operator ringing, she felt faintly ill with fear—and with hope.

  Slim answered.

  “Slim? This is Lynn. I want to see you; it’s important. I have to go to a class uptown. Could you ride up a ways with me? I wouldn’t ask you, but it means a lot.”

  He replied, thinking, she wants to talk about Tom, “Sure, I will, Lynn, glad to; I—had sort of a date, but it’s off now, I guess.”

  He’s been trying to phone Jennie, she thought.

  He came along presently; she was waiting outside the apartment. They boarded a bus, found an empty seat.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked her.

  “I’ve seen Jennie.”

  “Oh.” He flushed, looked away. He said, with an effort, “I suppose she—told you?”

  Sparing him as much as she could, she denied it. “No, nothing. Except to ask me to see you at once, and tell you she’s leaving town. She’s going—West, Slim. She wanted you to know it.”

  “Leaving town?” He was silent a moment. He said presently, “Running away, eh? I suppose she thought I’d follow her She’s wrong.”

  “She doesn’t want you to follow her, Slim,” Lynn told him.

  “No, I suppose not. I don’t blame her. She’s picked the sort of job which matters most to her; she doesn’t want her shabby friends hanging around, interfering.”

  He was cold with anger, hot with shame. He thought of the freight elevator. He moved away from Lynn. He said, “Nice of her to let me know.”

  “Slim, you don’t understand. Don’t be so hard on her. She—”

  Lynn stopped. She’d promised. Besides, it would do no good to tell him, to try and interpret Jennie for him. It might do harm. What was the use, anyway?

  Slim said, against his will, “I was crazy about her. I wanted to her to marry me—once. She wouldn’t.”

  He was silent. There was nothing he could say of the things crowding and wounding his mind. He had loathed the whole situation. It hadn’t been his fault, he told himself. Jennie knew he was crazy about her. She must have known how he felt when—when she moved uptown. Sick, disgusted, hating her, hating everything. But love, or love’s little sister, hadn’t died, couldn’t. She’d known that too, phoned him, asked him up, made things easy enough. Everything was wrong, everything was spoiled. He hated her now, more than ever; and himself. But—men are funny.

  Now she was leaving, sending this untender message. Well, good riddance; she’d played hob with him, all right! His throat swelled, closed. He asked thickly, “Is—is there anything more?”

  “No, Slim, that’s all,” Lynn said.

  But her eyes pleaded although her mouth was mute. Tom? How was he? What was he doing? Did he miss her? Slim, Slim, tell me about Tom!

  Despite his preoccupation, his harsh anger and harsher grief, her unspoken longing reached him. He said awkwardly, “Gee, Lynn, I’m sorry about you and Tom—He doesn’t say much but, gosh, he’s shot! He’s working hard, making good. They like him up there. Hank says he’ll do something big some day; he wants, you know, to get into the laboratory end of things. If—shall I tell him I saw you?”

  Now her mood had changed. She answered him briefly, “I don’t care what you tell him, Slim.”

  “I see.” He was silent a moment. Then he said, pressing the button near him, “Well, I’ll be getting off here. Thanks for calling me.”

  She said, as he rose, “Jennie—shall I tell her—?”

  “Never mind telling her anything,” he said.

  She watched him, tall, overlean, walking to the door, getting off, crossing to the curb, without a backward look. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Why had she been so obstinate? Couldn’t she have asked first, “How is Tom?” Couldn’t she have said, “Why doesn’t he call me up?” Damn pride anyway: hers, Tom’s, Slim’s, which wouldn’t give Jennie the comfort of a word!

  She called Jennie at the first opportunity. “I saw him,” she stated.

  There was silence on the other end of the wire.Then Jennie’s voice, subdued, hoarse with unrestrained crying. “Did he send me—any message?”

  “No, Jennie.”

  After a moment Jennie said, “That’s the payoff. Sure, that’s fine!”

  “Jennie, I’ll see you before you go?”

  “No, if you don’t mind,” Jennie said carefully. Then she cried out over
the wire, “Lynn, you’re such a darned swell kid. I’d like to think of you—happy. That would help, a lot.”

  “You’ll write me, Jennie?”

  “Oh, sure, I’ll write. Goodbye,” said Jennie faintly.

  But she wouldn’t write. Lynn, hanging up, knew that. Farewell to Jennie—farewell.

  Slim, reporting to Tom, was taciturn.

  “Jennie’s leaving, she’s going West—with—” he swallowed unpleasant words—calling names didn’t help—“with him.”

  Tom commented, tinkering with his newly built set, “Oh yeah—well, what did you expect?” He kept his eyes away from his friend. Men don’t go into hysterics of sympathy often. “Oh yeah?” asked Tom, very hardboiled. Damn all women! he thought.

  “It’s okay by me,” Slim said, magnificently indifferent.

  “Did you see her?”

  “Jennie? Hell, no. I saw Lynn.”

  Tom almost dropped the new tube he was testing out. He repeated almost inaudibly, “Lynn, eh?”

  “She called me up.”

  “Don’t suppose she mentioned me, did she?” Tom asked carelessly.

  “Nope.”

  Silence. Then Hank, in a corner, rising, knocking out his pipe, “They’re all alike. Look here, Tom, we’ve time for a glass of beer before we trek uptown. Let’s go to the Hole in the Wall.”

  Slim has seen Lynn. How did she look, is she well, is she happy, has she forgotten me, she can’t have forgotten me! But Tom, shrugging himself into an overcoat, spoke no word. He thought, funny, isn’t it? Comic, that’s what! I’d give my right hand to see her—and Slim, who doesn’t care if he never sees her again—

  Not long afterward Tom saw her, at the Cherry Blossom.

  19

  SARAH TAKES ACTION

  HE HAD GONE UP, WITH HIS TWO BLACK BAGS and the announcer, to supervise the broadcast. He was busy behind the screen, testing the lines, waiting for signals, waiting for the broadcast to go on. It was a gala occasion, an anniversary broadcast. The dance music had been very well received; there was a chance it might be continued as sponsored, rather than a sustaining, program. Tom was highly oblivious to everything but his work. Nemo programs interested him particularly. It was his job to regulate the levels, to see that everything was going as well as possible. The announcer did his routine part; the station breaks came at the fifteen-minute intervals. Forty-five minutes of Cherry Blossom music was broadcast tonight. Then it was over.