Ten North Frederick

by John O'Hara

  Edith was an inch or so taller than the run of women, tanned by the sun and in dress so uninspired that she could have been one of the owners of Philadelphia, up from Cape May for the day. She had a good figure that was neither remarkably feminine nor startingly slender. She wore a varnished blue straw hat with a wide black band, and her dress, which was open at the throat, was of navy-blue linen with a white leather belt, and she had on black silk stockings and white buckskin shoes with perforated black strapping across the vamp. Her only jewelry, besides her wedding and engagement rings, was a plain gold circle at the bottom of the V of her throat. She dressed like a Member, belonging exactly to her class, with a Yale husband in the background, tennis and swimming for exercise, Protestantism for her religion, extravagance nowhere in her character, and discontent never far from her contemplation.

  She walked slowly, pausing to look at gloves, at shoes, at pianos, at precious stones, at the displays for the August fur sales. Suddenly, inexplicably, she burst into tears. She quickly took out her handkerchief and acted the part of a woman with a cinder in her eye, but turning, she retraced her steps toward the hotel, and the crying somewhere stopped.

  It was a hateful experience, like a cowardly blow by an unseen adversary, and it was inadequate to say she was tired. She knew it to be more than that, and she knew it to be related to Joe, but to Joe only as partially a reason. She knew she would make Joe suffer for his part, which was not only his conduct this afternoon, but his docile refusal to let her guide his life, his effortless and natural ease with people and with the children, and his orgiastic fidelity to her, which sometimes was as though he had created her for his pleasure and his needs.

  For the immediate moment she wanted to bathe her eyes and remove herself from the presence of all other human beings. She walked briskly up the steps of the hotel and stood at the bank of elevators.

  “After you, Mrs. Chapin.”

  A man in a Palm Beach suit and a black four-in-hand tie moved aside, bowing, and making way for her. He was a Gibbsville man, but she was not capable of recognizing him now.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He entered the elevator after her. “Lloyd Williams, from Collieryville,” he said.

  “Yes, I know,” she said, and to the elevator man: “Twelfth floor, please.”

  “Twelve, please,” said Lloyd Williams. “Both on the same floor. Been to the seashore? I haven’t run into Joe lately.”

  “Yes, yes we have,” said Edith. “Have you?”

  “I went down to Atlantic City earlier in the summer, but I only stayed a week. I’m not much for the sun.”

  “It’s been quite warm,” said Edith.

  “You spend your summers in Chelsea,” said Williams.

  “Ventnor is where we always went until this year. Now we have a farm quite near Gibbsville. But we’ve been visiting the Arthur McHenrys.”

  “Oh, sure. Arthur. Cape Cod.”

  “Practically,” said Edith. “A place called Martha’s Vineyard, not far from Cape Cod. Well, our floor.”

  “After you, ma’am,” said Williams. The floor clerk nodded to them and they nodded in return. Williams walked with Edith to her door and held out his hand. After a second’s hesitation she handed him her key and as he was turning it in the lock he said: “Tell Joe I have a bottle of prewar rye if he’d care for a little something before dinner. I’m down in 12-20.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid he’s going to be very disappointed. He went back on the 4:35, but thank you. I’ll tell him. Good-bye, Mr. Williams. Nice to’ve seen you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Chapin. It’s been a great pleasure.” He could see inside her room, and he added: “You oughta turn on the electric fan and get the air circulating.”

  “Thank you, I will,” she said.

  She entered, closed the door, and quickly took off her hat and dress and washed her face. Then she removed her shoes and picked up the Bible, the only portable reading matter in the room. Then she remembered Williams’s advice and she put down the Bible and turned the switch for the electric fan. The blades began rotating and soon there was a hum and now she began waiting, waiting and wondering what excuse Lloyd Williams would invent for his call.

  In some minutes, fifteen or so, there was a knock on her door. “Who is it?”

  “The bellboy, ma’am.”

  “I didn’t ring for you.”

  “I know, ma’am, but the party in 12-20 sent you something.”

  “Just a moment.” She put on her kimono and opened the door. The bellboy placed on the desk a tray on which were a full glass, a half-empty bottle of ginger ale, and a small bowl of ice.

  “Compliments of the party in 12-20, it’s paid for and I’m to give you this.” He handed her an envelope and left the room.

  She took a sip of the ginger ale and discovered that it was strongly laced with whiskey. She opened the envelope.

  Don’t think me fresh but as one coal-cracker to another

  I trust you will enjoy this cooling libation.

  L.W.

  It was crude, but it was not so crude as any telephone call would have been, and what was more—and she well knew it and knew that he knew she knew it—the next move was up to her. She could send the drink back, but that would involve recalling the bellboy and informing him of the rebuking gesture. She could write Williams a note for delivery in the morning. But what she knew, as well as though there were open wires connecting their rooms, was that she was going to telephone him her thanks, and that they would see each other alone.

  She rang his room.

  He answered, and she did not identify herself. “Thank you for the ginger ale highball,” she said. “I’m afraid it was just what I needed.”

  “I oughtn’ta say this to a lady, but I thought you seemed tired.”

  “Exhausted.”

  “I was just gonna order some dinner. How about if you let me order you some dinner. They’ll serve it to you in your room, and you won’t have to go out or anything.”

  “Oh, I’m not that exhausted. We spent the night on a hot stuffy train, and I must say Philadelphia . . .”

  “They’re frying eggs right out there on Broad Street,” he said. “You don’t want me to order your dinner for you, then? But could you stand another drop of rye?”

  “I don’t really drink, you know. One is all I ever take, and never as strong as this one.”

  “Well, how about putting a little more stren’th in it?”

  “Did you mean come to my room? Don’t you think the management would frown on that?”

  “They don’t frown on regular customers, and you’re a regular customer and I’m a regular customer. And don’t forget, I’m a politician. I could frown on them, and they wouldn’t like that a bit.”

  “All right,” she said.

  She put on her dress and shoes again and in a couple of minutes he tapped on her door and entered bearing the whiskey bottle unhidden by his coat. She watched him as without a word he carefully placed the bottle on the tray and still without a word stood in the center of the room, a step or two away from where she was standing. Then he moved toward her and embraced her. He held her until she stopped struggling and kissed him, then he let her go.

  “You took a lot for granted,” she said.

  “I had to,” he said. “If we’d of sat here and made polite conversation maybe we’d of been too polite and never said anything to one another.”

  “I don’t think we’ve said anything,” said Edith.

  “We said more than some people it takes a lifetime to say. A man and a woman want to go to bed with one another.”

  “It isn’t that easy, it isn’t that simple.”

  “I say it is. I got a hard-on for you when we were in the elevator.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she said.

  “You don’t get tha
t kind of a hard-on if the other person doesn’t feel the same way.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking about you. I don’t even know what we talked about in the elevator. The seashore.”

  “That kind of a conversation is automatic. Feeling is what counted there. Weren’t you feeling?”

  “No.”

  “Yes you were, you were feeling something. I know you were, and you can deny it under oath, but you were feeling.”

  “Well, I was feeling something, but it had nothing to do with you.”

  “For another man?”

  “For myself,” she said.

  “You’re wasting your life and your youth because you think it’s proper to appear cold. Were you ever with another man besides your husband?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. The whole sum total of human experience you think you’ve had with one man. Only you don’t think so, do you?”

  “I suppose not,” she said.

  “A passionate woman, up to now with only the one man. Did you ever stop to think that with a different man you’re a different woman, not the same woman that’s always going to bed with Joe Chapin? I got nothing against Joe Chapin, but he’s not me. I’m me, and another man is still another man. I want you to have all the experience you want, with me now, but later with other men. You ought to have a lot of men.”

  “This is—let’s sit down, please.”

  “I talk as well on my feet, but you sit down.”

  “I’m going to,” she said, and did so.

  “I’ve been studying you for years, I don’t know how long. I used to wonder about you.”

  “You couldn’t have, you’ve hardly ever seen me,” she said.

  “You hardly ever see anybody, do you? I mean really see them. Am I right? Don’t you go through life with your eyes half closed?”

  She nodded. “Very likely,” she said.

  “Not me. I’m interested in everybody but in women especially.”

  She made a faint smile. “Then it isn’t just me,” she said.

  “No, not just you, but you for a long time, and especially you. My peculiar desires for you and awakening your curiosity, not that it lies dormant for long. You have curiosity, you have the qualities of a great mistress.”

  “Is this to tell me that I am going to become your mistress?”

  “Not quite. This may be our only time together. Now I’ll stop talking for a minute and you can get over your shock.”

  He straddled the desk chair, where he could study her. The silence began and they were both determined not to break it. In formally measured time it was not more than five minutes, but it was long enough for her excitement to turn in cycles, from curiosity at the top to curiosity again, with fear of consequences just before curiosity came around again.

  “Why not?” she said.

  “Yes, why not?” he said.

  She stood up. “I’m going in there and undress.”

  “I’d like to undress you.”

  “No,” she said.

  She took a long time undressing, and when she came out of the bathroom she was in her kimono. She lay on the bed and he parted the kimono, and a calm came over her that separated her mind from her body while he indulged his curiosity that was active, as her curiosity was all wondering what he would do. Then after many minutes she demanded him wholly and grasped him to herself with no thought of his readiness or convenience, and in the end it was she who took possession.

  “I thought so,” he said, when they were quiet.

  “You thought so,” she said in exquisite weariness. “What did you think so? Some more of your theories?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Many men. Many.” He laughed.

  “That strikes your sense of humor?”

  “Doesn’t it yours? Many men, but only two.”

  “And only two is right,” she said. “And only two there will be. You’re not married, are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I don’t think you were meant to be a husband. Do you talk? Will you be likely to discuss this with your cronies, whoever they are?”

  “I’d like to, but the men I know, there’s nobody that could appreciate this. My conquest was in the elevator. In the bed was secondary. My conquest was—let’s call it a superior intelligence than most men have. Most men from my world, they wouldn’t even permit themselves to entertain any carnal thoughts about you. I went way beyond that. I knew you’d be—receptive. No, dear lady, there’ll be no gossip or scandal.”

  “Thank you. I believe you. And I’m very grateful.”

  “For the no-scandal or for the love-making?”

  “For the love-making. I quarreled with my husband. Now I’ll go back to him without carrying over any resentment and he’ll think I’m a dear and gentle wife.”

  “And you will be, won’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose I will.”

  “Where if it hadn’t been for me, you and me, that is, you could have easily pestered him for days.”

  “Have you got a mistress?”

  “Yes, although I wouldn’t call her that. A woman I go to bed with.”

  “I’m not going to ask who she is. Is she intelligent?”

  “In her own way, but not the way you are, or I am.”

  “Will she know that you made love to me, or anyone?”

  “I never promised her anything, therefore she isn’t looking for trouble. Promise things, fidelity, for instance, and you’ve made a contract. But if you don’t make contracts people don’t get sore at you.”

  “Let’s you and I make a contract, though.”

  “What?”

  “This is the only time for us, we must never do this again,” said Edith.

  “Now you’re making a contract, and I just told you . . . If we made that contract and we did go to bed again, you’d be sore at me. Not at yourself so much, but at me. Let’s see what the future holds in store for us.”

  “Well, then, let’s not try to see each other again,” she said. “I’d like to know that there was one man, once, who proved to me that all men are not the same.”

  “That’s a very good—uh—point. All men are different, and every woman is different with every man. Now that you’ve found that out through me, I amend what I said earlier. You won’t have to go to bed with many men. You know that they’re all different.”

  “Are all women different?”

  “Oh, are they!”

  “You must go now,” she said.

  “Yes. What are you going to do?”

  “Take a bath and go to sleep.”

  “You’ll wake up,” he said. “Maybe one or two o’clock in the morning. You don’t want to telephone me. Operators listen in when they have nothing to do.”

  “I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

  “How long do you think you’ll sleep?” he said.

  “I have no idea,” she said.

  “I’ll come in after midnight. If you’re awake, I’ll stay. If you’re asleep, I won’t waken you.”

  He left her. At one o’clock he opened her door, but there was no mistaking the deep breathing for simulated sleep. He quickly and quietly closed the door and retired to his own room.

  They made no effort to see each other when she returned to the farm. There was only one person who detected any difference in her, and that was Joby. Edith became attentive, sympathetic, maternal with him. He did not understand it, he was suspicious of it, there was no explanation for it, and he did not like it. More than ever he turned to Ann, and so it was always, for the remainder of that summer and for the rest of their lives.

  It would not have been remarkable for Edith and Lloyd Williams to live a full year without ever actually seeing each other. Lloyd Williams lived in Collieryville, a mining town three
or four miles from 10 North Frederick, but separated from the Chapins’ home and their life by the accepted differences of money and social prestige; the miners’ poolroom, and the Gibbsville Club; sickening poverty, and four live-in servants for a family of four; The Second Thursdays, and the chicken-and-waffle suppers of the English Lutheran Church. Joe Chapin and Lloyd Williams were courthouse-corridor friends and fellow Republicans, but Joe was a Company man and Lloyd Williams was a Union man, who was a Republican because to be anything else in Lantenengo County was futile and foolish. Edith could not have told within two years the day of her first meeting with Lloyd Williams; nor within three the number of times she had spoken to him. She was acquainted with him in the sense that she was acquainted with members of the Gibbsville Police Department, the driver for the Adams Express Company, the tipstaff in the Number 3 Courtroom, a dentist who was not her dentist, and any of the dozens of men whom she knew principally for their respectable occupations and to whom social introduction was not required. But now, after the affair in Philadelphia, she seemed to be encountering Williams with greater frequency. She thought it might be that she was understandably more aware of his existence; but it was more than that. What she was unaware of was that Lloyd Williams was politicking and making himself ubiquitous.

  Their first encounter alarmed her. It occurred in Swedish Haven. She saw him, he saw her, and raised his hat and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Chapin. Is this your boy?”