Curt invariably bantered with Honora, spending nearly as much time with her as with Imogene, whom he escorted to the Opera Ball, and to dinner dances given by their friends.
(“Do you honestly think he’s sleeping with her, Crys?”
“He’s rich, Honora, she’s rich.”
“But is he sleeping with her?”
“If he enjoyed it madly, she’d have hooked him by now.”)
Honora always left Clay Street with a deep feeling of inferiority. What good did it do to remind herself that she was a Sylvander when maybe Curt could smell the fry cook’s Crisco on her just-shampooed hair?
Curt wore gorgeous clothes, he drove a large yellow convertible, he smelled of a tangy aftershave. He belonged with Imogene. They knew all the same people, they spoke the same slang with the same accent, they had been graced since birth by the same good fortune. Honora would imagine him in dinner clothes—how handsome he must be in the gleaming black and white—waltzing with Imogene, the skirt of her honest Dior swirling around them as they circled and dipped, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. She would imagine his mouth kissing Imogene’s, she would imagine him undressing the enviably angular body.
Each week she swore never to return. He doesn’t really know I exist so why torture myself? But of course she could no more stay away than stop breathing.
* * *
On June 29, at the height of the breakfast rush, Honora left the service area holding three orders while expertly nudging open the Out door with her left hip.
Easing into the crowded cafe, she saw Curt at the table near the cash register.
Instinctively she tottered backward. Vi was a step behind her. They collided.
Honora’s orders seemed to move in slow motion. Eggs and bacon lifted upward from the plate, waffle with hash slid downward and two poached eggs slithered in a tango-like dance. Then, abruptly, blue willow pattern crashed. Honora was left gripping two toast plates in precise horizontal position.
“Oh crap!” Vi yelled as her arm contorted to maintain balance of her plates. She was so experienced that only the oatmeal fell, splattering on her ankle. “You dumb English cunt. Ain’t I taught you nothing?”
The soprano fury soared above the breakfast clatter and boom of male voices. Heads swiveled.
For a heartbeat Curt’s gaze met Honora’s. So intense was her focus across the distance that she could see his pupils contract with shocked surprise. Revulsion, too?
She barged through the In door. Panting and quivering, she stood on the raised-up, slatted floor of the service area. She could hear Vi on the other side shouting for a busboy, then heard her bark, “You can’t go in back, sir, it’s employees only.”
But the door swung open and Curt stood there, a handsomely dressed anomaly. Honora’s heart was thudding so hard that she thought she would faint.
“So it was you,” Curt said.
“Coming through!” shouted Salvador, the new busboy, wielding a broom and handled scuttle.
Curt asked, “What was that about a brokerage firm’s receptionist?”
She had studiously avoided compounding her lie, so the information must have been passed on to him by her father or Crystal—or was it Joscelyn? “Obviously misinformation,” she said, attempting a light yet haughty tone. “A false rumor. This is how I earn my daily bread.”
“Rye, toasted,” he said, referring to the triangularly cut slices on the two plates she still gripped, keeping his tone as light as hers. But his eyes weren’t fanning into the smile creases as he peered at her tight, short uniform, the cap with its idiotic little points, the awful rubber-soled, laced-up white oxfords.
Vi darted into the service area, a whirl of blue checks. She glared at Honora. “Listen, ain’t it bad enough you dropped your order and mosta mine, do you have to stand here jawing at rush hour?”
“What time are you off?” Curt asked quietly.
“Three thirty,” Vi replied. “Now beat it, mister. Even if you’re above obeying the rules, Honora works here.”
He turned and left without speaking. As the door swung in decreasing arcs, Honora’s little smile crumpled.
“Come on, don’t look like that,” Vi said, her voice less cantankerous. “Whatever the handsome bozo said to you, it ain’t the end of the world.”
Not the demise of the planet Earth, maybe, but Honora’s pride and her dreams lay dead in the service area. Her body convulsed, her mouth opened, releasing a gasping whimper that cascaded into a torrent of harsh, wracking sobs. She pressed her forehead against the shelf with the blue and white sugar and creamers, unable to halt the disgrace of public tears.
“What the hell’s going on around here?” Al’s furious voice.
“The flu, she shouldn’t of come,” Vi muttered.
“Honora, you get on home.” Al, quieter.
“I’ll . . . be . . . all . . . right . . .” she gasped, escaping to the waitresses’ washroom.
She stood with her arms pressed across her breasts, her fingernails digging into her upper arms as she tried to get hold of herself. Each time she quieted down a bit, she would conjure up Curt’s pale, horror-struck face. The hoarse, unwilled sobs would start afresh. When finally she had no more tears and she could neither think nor feel, she sat torpidly in the toilet cubicle.
“Everything all right, Honora?” Vi called on the other side of the stall.
“Yes,” Honora said weakly, and came out.
“Go home and get some rest, kid. It’s okay with Al.”
From the depth of her blankness, Honora fished up the information that this was Friday and Joscelyn had a four o’clock dental appointment. The two-dollar fee was payable at Dr. Brady’s office, so she had arranged to meet her little sister with the money—money which must come from today’s tips. “I’ll be all right,” she said with more strength.
“You sure look like hell.”
“A bit of lipstick’ll do wonders.”
“In case you’re interested, your friend left right away.” Vi was surveying her with worry. “Listen, you ain’t in trouble, are you?”
Trouble? Honora looked blankly at the powdered, sympathetic face.
“Sitting on the nest,” Vi added.
“You mean having a baby?”
“Don’t let it throw you, kid.” Vi glanced around, then whispered, “I know a doctor.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Honora protested.
Vi’s sympathetic disbelief showed. “Kid, I’m on your side.”
“Honestly, Vi, he’s not even exactly a friend.”
“Whatever he is, he ain’t worth an hour and a half’s crying. No man is.”
* * *
Honora plodded through the day, blocking out the scene with an effort that brought on a monster of a headache. She finished Vi’s aspirin while she changed to go home.
As she went out the door she glimpsed Curt lounging against one of the Tuscan pillars of the Stock Exchange. Seeing her, he waved. She hurried around the corner, each step jolting inside her head. He must have run across the busy intersection of Pine and Sansome. She heard a horn blare behind her.
Catching up, he said, “How about a lift home.”
“I’m not going home”, she said stiffly.
“Why not? You look beat.”
“Joss has a four o’clock appointment at the dentist’s and I’m meeting her.”
“I’ll drop you off there.”
“No thank you.” She headed in the direction of Telegraph Hill.
He kept up with her. “My car’s up the block.”
“What do you want?” she asked in a low, fierce voice.
“I’m offering you transportation, Honora.”
“Why aren’t you at Talbott’s? Why should you take me anywhere? You never have before. Now you know I’m a waitress d’you think I’m easy?”
Their hurrying steps faltered and they turned to each other, wary as fencing duelists. A muscle moved in his eyelid, an intimation of hurt. Curt Ivory hurt?
“I get them, too,” he said.
His yellow Buick convertible was parked just ahead of them. He opened the door.
“It’s really not—”
“Honora, will you just shut up and get in.”
Unable to look at him, she obeyed. When he was behind the wheel, she murmured the address on Washington Square so quietly that he had to ask her to repeat it.
Maneuvering through the traffic, he didn’t attempt conversation. She held two fingers to her left temple. Her lack of experience with men and her fastidiousness about sex had protected her, but now she wondered if she had blurted out the truth. It hardly seemed Curt’s style to hang around like a stage-door Johnny, but on the other hand, why had he waited for her? She glanced at his profile. Mouth folded tight, high cheekbones raised so that his eye was narrowed, aloof. Not the look of a man intent on seduction. Beyond that she could not read his expression. He might have been angry, resentful, bored or simply concentrating on driving.
Dr. Brady practiced above the drugstore in Washington Square. Curt drew up and glanced at his watch. “On the dot,” he said.
“This was most kind of you,” she said, then blurted, “Listen, Curt, Daddy and Joscelyn don’t know where I work, they do think it’s at a brokerage . . .” Her voice trailed away and she knew her face was crimson.
“I understand,” he said quietly.
In the waiting room, Joscelyn was frowning over an illustrated history book: American History was her one weak subject. “You look like the wrath of God,” she said.
“Headache. Joss, I’m sorry, I can’t stay with you.”
After paying the nurse, Honora trudged home, swallowed three more aspirin and filled the yellow-stained tub, washing her hair under the long-necked faucet, sitting until the soap-scummed water was cold. Crawling into bed, she tried to read but the library novel couldn’t raise her from the slough of despond. She shivered under the eiderdown. Life stretched ahead of her, a bleak cement track of hateful work.
She used her headache to beg off making supper and coming to the table.
It was after eight when the telephone rang. Honora didn’t open her eyes. The calls were mostly for Crystal.
The door opened, and Crystal popped her head in. “For you, Honora. Want me to say you’re under the weather?”
“Who is it?”
“The masculine gender.”
“Gerry?” One of the San Francisco City College blind dates had become enamored of Honora. His loud, droning voice irritated her—and besides he wasn’t Curt. She invented previous engagements when he called.
Crystal shook her head. “Deeper, more witty voice. This is wild, and of course it couldn’t be him, he’d have said something to me—but it sounded like Curt Ivory.”
Honora leaped out of bed, pulling on her plaid dressing gown, which was so old it only reached to her knees.
The telephone was in the kitchen, where Langley, Joscelyn and Crystal were playing Monopoly.
Honora picked up the receiver. “H-hello.”
“Headache better?” Curt asked.
At the sound of his voice, she sank into a rush-bottomed kitchen chair. “Much, thank you.”
“Good. Then you can come out.”
She drew a sharp breath. She wanted nothing more than the reassurance of being with him, but a resistant wall—pride, maybe—made his invitation unthinkable.
“It’s late,” she hedged.
“Not exactly the witching hour yet.”
“I get up very early.”
“Stroud’s is closed on the weekend.”
“I mean, I got up early this morning.”
“I know a place where the weary gather to rest. Pick you up at nine.” The phone went dead.
She stood holding the buzzing instrument, wondering how she had lost the argument. Then she realized Curt Ivory had invited her on a date!
Crystal, as banker, counted out hundred-pound notes. “Well, you look more human,” she said. “Who cheered you up?”
“It was Curt. He’s picking me up at nine.”
“You can’t mean you’re going out?” Langley threw down the dice cup and a die rattled to the floor. “I forbid it. Not with that nasty headache.”
“The rest cured me, Daddy. Honestly, I’m well now.”
Langley hesitated. He trod warily when it came to discussions of health with his older daughters, fearing such conversations might intrude on the tabu of menses. Then he peered at her. “Curt? You can’t mean Curt Ivory?”
She nodded with that blatantly joyous smile.
“You’re not going anywhere with him!” Langley cried. “You’re just a baby. He should be thoroughly ashamed!”
“Daddy, it’s only for a soda water . . . .” Honora was pleading.
The other two girls casually ignored their father’s regulations, but Honora treated his commands with balmful respect. Poor child, her face was quite white. He relented. “Since you’ve already accepted, you may go. But I don’t want him hanging around you.” At the thought of Curt, so coolly debonair, hanging around any girl, Crystal and Joscelyn tittered. Langley barked sternly. “I’ll not stand for any nonsense from him.”
“Good grief, Daddy, let her get dressed,” Crystal said. “It’s twenty-five to nine. Come on, Honora, I’ll help you.”
7
Descending the worn wooden steps, Honora bit back a nervous giggle. If it hadn’t been for the cold dampness penetrating her thin coat and the odor of rotting oranges rising from the big trash barrels below, she would have imagined herself asleep, suspended between a euphoric dream of being on a date with Curt Ivory and the humiliating nightmare of their earlier encounters today.
“Vilma’s Place isn’t far,” Curt said. “On Columbus. Feel up to walking?”
“Absolutely. But you do realize they won’t serve me? I’m nineteen.” Last week the family had celebrated her birthday with a rose-decorated cake that Langley had brought home in a cellophane-topped box, and paper chains that Joscelyn and Crystal had festooned around the kitchen. Stating her age still surprised and pleased her—nineteen had a ring of maturity.
“We don’t need to advertise you’re under legal age.”
Vilma’s Place was dimly lit by the dripping candles at each table. In the rear, a crowded bar surrounded the dais where a woman in flowing white swayed over a piano, rippling out a wondrously convoluted version of “September Song.”
A colored waiter wove through the crush of small tables to stand attentively at theirs. “Evening, Mr. Ivory. Good to see you.”
“Hey, Martin, how’s it going? Honora, what’ll you have?”
She had already decided on a ginger ale, but since she was with Curt Ivory, a regular patron, no IDs would be demanded of her. “I’d adore a sloe gin fizz,” she said, picking a name that had always intrigued her.
Curt repeated her order. “The usual for me, Martin.”
After the waiter left, Curt sat back. “Now you know where I come when I have in mind to debauch underage waitresses.”
The remark, rather than embarrassing her, put them back on their old jocular footing.
“Is the mood often upon you?” she asked.
“Each time the new moon rises.”
She was luxuriously aware of his legs near hers under the tiny round of table. Her drink was frothy and extraordinarily delicious, and she sipped it rapidly through the short pink straw. The badinage that passed between them was as light as a breeze-tossed shuttlecock. Honora had not eaten since her breakfast at five thirty, and her father had never spoken of the swift depredations of alcohol on an empty stomach, so she decided that her wit was entirely due to the sophisticated ambience at Vilma’s Place and the wry amusement that tugged one side of Curt’s mouth.
“Something I’ve always wanted to know,” she said, “is what, exactly, an engineer does.”
“Good Lord! Is this Gideon
Talbott’s niece?”
“I’ve never truly understood.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Honora. It’s not a complicated line of work at all. The client tells an engineer the impossibility that he wants done or built and the engineer makes the necessary designs and watches over the construction of everything from dams and highways to pyramids and rockets and land reclamation. He calculates the strength of material necessary. It’s up to the engineer to insure every structure will remain standing for a good long time under the most extreme conditions that it will be used.”
“One time Daddy took us to see Hadrian’s wall.”
“Ahh, those Romans, they built to last. I’m a civil engineer. As far as civil engineering goes, the Romans were the greatest. Their roads are still in use, and some of their aqueducts and bridges.” His voice went lower. “That’s my definition of immortality, having one of my projects still in use two thousand years from now.”
“I’m sure that it will be,” she said.
“Honora, I hate to break the news to you,” he said dryly, “but I’m Mr. Talbott’s assistant. Thus far I haven’t headed up a single project.”
“You will. Curt, explain about Talbott’s. I’m confused. You don’t only do engineering, do you?”
“We’re also in construction. Talbott’s will either bid on the plans and supervision for a client or take over the entire project.” Curt caught Martin’s eye and pointed at their table, a signal to bring another round. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me about your career.”
“What can I say about it?”
“For openers, what attracted you?”
“MGM begged me to come to Hollywood, but I said no, I need much more of a challenge. And it’s crass, but a lot of the brokers who eat at Stroud’s make less than I do.” Was she quoting Vi’s wisdom? No matter.
“So it’s the money?”
“The bare truth is, wonderfully qualified as I am, for some reason nobody else saw fit to hire me.”
“Waitresses there do pull down good tips, don’t they?”
Was Curt obliquely pointing out that her father was derelict in his fiscal responsibilities? Her high-voltage glow dimmed a trifle. “There’s a lot of expenses when you’re getting on your feet in a new country, you know.”
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