Price Of Salt, The

by Claire Morgan

  "I was so near, I thought I'd come up," he said, and under its note of explanation, Therese heard the unconscious assertion of a right, just as she had seen behind his inquisitive stare a spontaneous mistrust of Carol. "I had to take a present to a friend of Mamma's. This is lebkuchen." He nodded at the box and smiled, disarmingly. "Anybody want some now?"

  Carol and Therese declined. Carol was watching Richard as he opened the box with his pocketknife. She liked his smile, Therese thought. She likes him, the gangling young man with unruly blond hair, the broad lean shoulders, and the big funny feet in moccasins.

  "Please sit down," Therese said to Carol.

  "No, I'm going," she answered.

  "I'll give you half, Terry, then I'll be going too," he said. Therese looked at Carol, and Carol smiled at her nervousness and sat down on a corner of the couch.

  "Anyway, don't let me rush you off," Richard said, lifting the paper with the cake in it to a kitchen shelf.

  "You're not. You're a painter, aren't you, Richard?"

  "Yes." He popped some loose icing into his mouth, and looked at Carol, poised because he was incapable of being un-poised, Therese thought, his eyes frank because he had nothing to hide. "Are you a painter, too?"

  "No," Carol said with another smile. "I'm nothing."

  "The hardest thing to be."

  "Is it? Are you a good painter?"

  "I will be. I can be," said Richard, unperturbed. "Have you got any beer, Terry? I've got an awful thirst."

  Therese went to the refrigerator and got out the two bottles that were there. Richard asked Carol if she would like some, but Carol refused. Then Richard strolled past the couch, looking at the suitcase and the wrappings, and Therese thought he was going to say something about it, but he didn't.

  "I thought we might go to a movie tonight, Terry. I'd like to see that thing at the Victoria. Do you want to?"

  "I can't tonight. I've got a date with Mrs. Aird."

  "Oh." Richard looked at Carol.

  Carol put out her cigarette and stood up. "I must be going." She smiled at Therese. "Call you back around six. If you change your mind, it's not important. Good-by, Richard."

  "Good-by," Richard said.

  Carol gave her a wink as she went down the stairs. "Be a good girl," Carol said.

  "Where'd the suitcase come from?" Richard asked when she came back in the room.

  "It's a present."

  "What's the matter, Terry?"

  "Nothing's the matter."

  "Did I interrupt anything important? Who is she?”

  Therese picked up Carol's empty glass. There was a little lipstick at the rim. "She's a woman I met at the store."

  "Did she give you that suitcase?"

  "Yes."

  "It's quite a present. Is she that rich?" Therese glanced at him. Richard's aversion to the wealthy, to the bourgeois, was automatic. "Rich? You mean the mink coat? I don't know. I did her a favor. I found something she lost in the store."

  "Oh?" he said.

  "What? You didn't say anything about it."

  She washed and dried Carol's glass and set it back on the shelf. "She left her billfold on the counter and I took it to her, that's all."

  "Oh. Damned nice reward." He frowned. "Terry, what is it? You're not still sore about that silly kite, are you?"

  "No, of course not," she said impatiently. She wished he would go. She put her hands in her robe pockets and walked across the room, stood where Carol had stood, looking at the box of plants. "Phil brought the play over this morning. I started reading it."

  "Is that what you're worried about?"

  "What makes you think I'm worried?" She turned around.

  "You're in another of those miles-away moods again."

  "I'm not worried and I'm not miles away." She took a deep breath. "It's funny—you're so conscious of some moods and so unconscious of others."

  Richard looked at her. "All right, Terry," he said with a shrug, as if he conceded it. He sat down in the straight chair and poured the rest of the beer into his glass. "What's this date you have with that woman tonight?"

  Therese's lips widened in a smile as she ran the end of her lipstick over them. For a moment, she stared at the eyebrow tweezers that lay on the little shelf fixed to the inside of the closet door. Then she put the lipstick down on the shelf. "It's sort of a cocktail party, I think. Sort of a Christmas benefit thing. In some restaurant, she said.”

  "Hmm. Do you want to go?”

  "I said I would."

  Richard drank his beer, frowning a little over his glass. "What about afterward? Maybe I could hang around here and read the play while you're gone, and then we could grab a bite and go to the movie."

  "Afterward, I thought I'd better finish the play. I'm supposed to start on Saturday, and I ought to have some ideas in my head."

  Richard stood up. "Yep," he said casually, with a sigh. Therese watched him idle over to the couch and stand there, looking down at the manuscript. Then he bent over, studying the title page, and the cast pages. He looked at his wrist watch, and then at her.

  "Why don't I read it now?" he asked.

  "Go ahead," she answered with a brusqueness that Richard either didn't hear or ignored, because he simply lay back on the couch with the manuscript in his hands and began to read. She picked up a book of matches from the shelf. No, he only recognized the "miles away" moods, she thought, when he felt himself deprived of her by distance. And she thought suddenly of the times she had gone to bed with him, of her distance then compared to the closeness that was supposed to be, that everyone talked about. It hadn't mattered to Richard then, she supposed, because of the physical fact they were in bed together. And it crossed her mind now, seeing Richard's complete absorption in his reading, seeing the plump, stiff fingers catch a front lock of his hair between them and pull it straight down toward his nose, as she had seen him do a thousand times before, it occurred to her Richard's attitude was that his place in her life was unassailable, her tie with him permanent and beyond question, because he was the first man she had ever slept with. Therese threw the match cover at the shelf, and a bottle of something fell over.

  Richard sat up, smiling a little, surprisedly. " 'S matter, Terry?"

  "Richard, I feel like being alone—the rest of the afternoon. Would you mind?"

  He got up. The surprise did not leave his face. "No. Of course not." He dropped the manuscript on the couch again. "All right, Terry. It's probably better. Maybe you ought to read this now—read it alone," he said argumentatively, as if he persuaded himself. He looked at his watch again. "Maybe I'll go down and try to see Sam and Joan for a while."

  She stood there not moving, not even thinking of anything except of the few seconds of time to pass until he would be gone, while he brushed his hand once, a little clingy with its moisture, over her hair, and bent to kiss her. Then quite suddenly she remembered the Degas book she had bought days ago, the book of reproductions that Richard wanted and hadn't been able to find anywhere. She got it from the bottom drawer of the bureau. "I found this. The Degas book."

  "Oh, swell. Thanks." He took it in both hands. It was still wrapped. "Where'd you find it?"

  "Frankenberg's. Of all places."

  "Frankenberg's." Richard smiled. "It's six bucks, isn't it?”

  "Oh, that's all right."

  Richard had his wallet out. "But I asked you to get it for me."

  "Never mind, really."

  Richard protested, but she didn't take the money. And a minute later, he was gone, with a promise to call her tomorrow at five. They might do something tomorrow night, he said.

  Carol called at ten past six. Did she feel like going to Chinatown, Carol asked. Therese said, of course.

  "I'm having cocktails with someone in the St. Regis," Carol said. "Why don't you pick me up here? It's the little room, not the big one. And listen, we're going on to some theater thing you've asked me to. Get it?"

  "Some sort of Christmas benefit cocktail par
ty?"

  Carol laughed. "Hurry up."

  Therese flew.

  Carol's friend was a man called Stanley McVeigh, a tall and very attractive man of about forty with a mustache and a boxer dog on a leash. Carol was ready to go when she arrived. Stanley walked out with them, put them into a taxi and gave the driver some money through the window.

  "Who's he?" Therese asked.

  "An old friend. Seeing more of me now that Harge and I are separating.'''

  Therese looked at her. Carol had a wonderful little smile in her eyes tonight. "Do you like him?"

  "Soso," Carol said. "Driver, will you make that Chinatown instead of the other?"

  It began to rain while they were having dinner. Carol said it always rained in Chinatown, every time she had been here. But it didn't matter much, because they ducked from one shop to another, looking at things and buying things. Therese saw some sandals with platform heels that she thought were beautiful, rather more Persian looking than Chinese, and she wanted to buy them for Carol, but Carol said Rindy wouldn't approve. Rindy was a conservative, and didn't like her even to go without stockings in summer, and Carol conformed to her. The same store had Chinese suits of a black shiny material, with plain trousers and a high-collared jacket, and Carol bought one for Rindy. Therese bought the sandals for Carol anyway, while Carol was arranging for Rindy's suit to be sent. She knew the right size just by looking at the sandals, and it pleased Carol after all that she bought them. Then they spent a weird hour in a Chinese theater where people in the audience were sleeping through all the clangor. And finally they went uptown for a late supper in a restaurant where a harp played. It was a glorious evening, a really magnificent evening.

  CHAPTER TEN

  On Tuesday, the fifth day of work, Therese sat in a little bare room with no ceiling at the back of the Black Cat Theatre, waiting for Mr. Donohue, the new director, to come and look at her cardboard model. Yesterday morning, Donohue had replaced Cortes as director, had thrown out her first model, and also thrown out Phil McElroy as the second brother in the play. Phil had walked out yesterday in a huff. It was lucky she hadn't been thrown out along with her model, Therese thought, so she had followed Mr. Donohue's instructions to the letter. The new model hadn't the movable section she had put into the first, which would have permitted the living-room scene to be converted into the terrace scene for the last act. Mr. Donohue seemed to be adamant against anything unusual or even simple. By setting the whole play in the living room, a lot of the dialogue had to be changed in the last act, and some of the cleverest lines had been lost. Her new model indicated a fireplace, broad French windows giving onto a terrace, two doors, a sofa, and a couple of armchairs and a bookcase. It would look, when finished, like a room in a model house at Sloan's, lifelike down to the last ash tray.

  Therese stood up, stretched herself, and reached for the corduroy jacket that was hanging on a nail in the door. The place was cold as a barn. Mr. Donohue probably wouldn't come in until afternoon, or not even today if she didn't remind him again. There was no hurry about the scenery. It might have been the least important matter in the whole production, but she had sat up until late last night, enthusiastically working on the model.

  She went out to stand in the wings again. The cast was all on stage with scripts in hand. Mr. Donohue kept running the cast through the whole play, to get the flow of it, he said, but today it seemed to be only putting them to sleep. All the cast looked lazy except Tom Harding, a tall blond young man who had the male lead, and he was a little too energetic. Georgia Halloran was suffering from sinus headaches, and had to stop every hour to put drops in her nose and lie down for a few minutes. Geoffrey Andrews, a middle-aged man who played the heroine's father, grumbled constantly between his lines because he didn't like Donohue.

  "No, no, no, no," said Mr. Donohue for the tenth time that morning, stopping everything and causing everybody to lower his script and turn to him with a puzzled, irritated docility. "Let's start again from page twenty-eight."

  Therese watched him waving his arms to indicate the speakers, putting up a hand to silence them, following the script with his head down as if he led an orchestra. Tom Harding winked at her, and pulled his hand down his nose. After a moment, Therese went back to the room behind the partition, where she worked, where she felt a little less useless. She knew the play almost by heart now. It had a rather Sheridanesque comedy of errors plot—two brothers who pretend to be valet and master in order to impress an heiress with whom one of the brothers is in love. The dialogue was gay and altogether not bad, but the dreary, matter-of-fact set that Donohue had ordered for it—Therese hoped something could be done with the color they would use.

  Mr. Donohue did come in just after twelve o'clock. He looked at her model, lifted it up and looked at it from below and from both sides, without any change in his nervous, harassed expression. "Yes, this is fine. I like this very much. You see how much better this is than those empty walls you had before, don't you?"

  Therese took a deep breath of relief. "Yes," she said.

  "A set grows out of the needs of the actors. This isn't a ballet set you're designing, Miss Belivet."

  She nodded, looking at the model, too, and trying to see how it possibly was better, possibly more functional.

  "The carpenter's coming in this afternoon about four. We'll get together and have a talk about this." Mr. Donohue went out.

  Therese stared at the cardboard model. At least she would see it used. At least she and the carpenters would make it something real. She went to the window and looked out at the gay but luminous winter sky, at the backs of some five-story houses garlanded with fire escapes. In the foreground was a small vacant lot with a runted leafless tree in it, all twisted up like a signpost gone wild. She wished she could call Carol and invite her for lunch. But Carol was an hour and a half away by car.

  "Is your name Beliver?"

  Therese turned to the girl in the doorway. "Belivet. Telephone?"

  "The phone by the lights."

  "Thanks." Therese hurried, hoping it was Carol, knowing more likely it was Richard. Carol hadn't yet called her here.

  "Hello, this is Abby."

  "Abby?" Therese smiled. "How'd you know I was here?"

  "You told me, remember? I'd like to see you. I'm not far away. Have you had lunch yet?"

  They agreed to meet at the Palermo, a restaurant a block or two from the Black Cat.

  Therese whistled a song as she walked there, happy as if she were meeting Carol. The restaurant had sawdust on the floor, and a couple of black kittens played around under the rail of the bar. Abby was sitting at a table in the back.

  "Hi," Abby said as she came up. "You're looking very chipper. I almost didn't recognize you. Would you like a drink?"

  Therese shook her head. "No, thanks."

  "You mean, you're so happy without it?" Abby asked, and she chuckled with that secret amusement that in Abby was somehow not offensive.

  Therese took the cigarette that Abby offered her. Abby knew, she thought. And perhaps she was in love with Carol, too. It put Therese on guard with her. It created a tacit rivalry that gave her a curious exhilaration, a sense of certain superiority over Abby—emotions that Therese had never known before, never dared to dream of, emotions consequently revolutionary in themselves. So their lunching together in the restaurant became nearly as important as the meeting with Carol.

  "How is Carol?" Therese asked. She had not seen Carol in three days.

  "She's very fine," Abby said, watching her. The waiter came, and Abby asked him if he could recommend the mussels and the scaloppine.

  "Excellent, madame!" He beamed at her as if she were a special customer.

  It was Abby's manner, the glow in her face as if today, or every day, were a special holiday for her. Therese liked that. She looked admiringly at Abby's suit of red and blue weave, her cuff links that were scrolly G's, like filigree buttons in silver. Abby asked her about her job at the Black Cat. It was tedi
ous to Therese, but Abby seemed impressed. Abby was impressed, Therese thought, because she did nothing herself.

  "I know some people in the producing end of the theater," Abby said. "I'll be glad to put in a word for you any time."

  "Thanks." Therese played with the lid of the grated cheese bowl in front of her. ""Do you know anyone called Andronich? I think he's from Philadelphia."

  "No," Abby said.

  Mr. Donohue had told her to go and see Andronich next week in New York. He was producing a show that would open this spring in Philadelphia, and then on Broadway.

  "Try the mussels." Abby was eating hers with gusto. "Carol likes these, too."

  "Have you known Carol a long time?"

  "Um-hm," Abby nodded, looking at her with the bright eyes that revealed nothing.

  "And you know her husband, too, of course."

  Abby nodded again, silently.

  Therese smiled a little. Abby was out to question her, she felt, but not to disclose anything about herself or about Carol,

  "How about some wine? Do you like Chianti?" Abby summoned a waiter with a snap of her fingers. "Bring us a bottle of Chianti. A good one. Builds up the blood," she added to Therese.

  Then the main course arrived, and two waiters fussed around the table, uncorking the Chianti, pouring more water and bringing fresh butter. The radio in the corner played a tango—a little cheesebox of a radio with a broken front, but the music might have come from a string orchestra behind them, at Abby's request. No wonder Carol likes her, Therese thought. She complemented Carol's solemnity, she could remind Carol to laugh.