The small house had no hint of Wace messiness. Roy rose every morning at six, cleaning compulsively, her mind cranking out idiotic thoughts that this might be the day that Althea and Gerry broke up, this might be the day he came home, therefore this table must be dustless, this sink scoured.
Carrying her drink to the bedroom, she changed into a velour robe. Later, she shoved a Swanson’s TV dinner in the oven, continuing to drink while she ate in front of her maple “entertainment center” on whose screen small figures mimed to bursts of laughter.
When the telephone rang, she thought: Gerry! and dived across the room to answer.
“Hello, hon,” said NolaBee.
Roy sighed. Of course it wasn’t Gerry. He never phoned. This was 8:30, time for her mother’s routine call. She carried the long-corded instrument back to the couch. In a subdued voice she replied to her mother’s questions. Yes, she was fine, yes, she had eaten supper, a proper one—she stared down at the divided foil platter with its congealing, scarcely tasted food. Chicken, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy.
“You have to take care of yourself, hear,” cajoled NolaBee. “You can’t let yourself get all down in the mouth because that man’s gone off.”
“Why can’t you understand?” Defense of her husband burst from Roy. “Gerry’s not an accountant, he’s an artist! Artists must go where inspiration strikes them. He has to be free! Right now New York’s the place for him.”
“Hon, I only meant he ought to consider you.”
“He does. He wants me there, but I have a job, remember?”
“I worry about you, Roy, all the time.”
After a few thumping heartbeats, Roy said, “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to fly off the handle.”
A few minutes later the telephone rang again. It was Marylin. She, too, called every night, but instead of questions and intolerable maternal anxiety, she served up herself, the soft, husky little voice relating show-biz anecdotes of her latest film, which also starred Louis Jourdan.
Marylin was no longer contracted to Magnum—in this television age with the motion-picture grosses way down, no studio could afford to keep a stable of stars—so each of her film roles had to be negotiated for in the hurly-burly. Though Rain Fairburn currently had as much work as she could handle, she was fast zoning in on that certain age, too old to be the unlined, virginal love interest so obligatory to those increasingly peckish moneymen.
Sari got on the line.
Roy rested her head back on the couch, raising one foot and waggling it luxuriously. Being around Marylin’s children eased an actual physical twinge in the area which, from the prodding of the medical profession in search of reasons for her infertility, she understood was the location of her womb.
“What about Sunday?” Sari asked. “Auntie Roy, is it on for Disneyland?”
In so public a pleasure spot Marylin would be hounded after by autograph seekers, and Joshua’s recent heart attack had temporarily grounded him, so Roy had taken on the enjoyable task of shepherding the outings of her brash, breaking-voiced nephew and her dark-haired wisp of a niece. “It’s engraved in red ink on my calendar. A red-letter day. Sari, luv, heaven forbid I’d mish—miss it.”
When Roy hung up, she squinted at the glass-enclosed pendulum clock on the mantel. Her eyes refused to focus on the Roman numerals, and she rose, walking over to peer. Ten to nine, which was ten to twelve Eastern Standard Time. She poured another drink before calling long distance.
The number that she requested did not answer.
She stretched on the couch, dialing long distance every few minutes. The number did not answer until the eleven o’clock news came on. It was two o’clock in the morning in New York.
“Yes?” Gerry’s voice said roughly.
She held her breath.
“Who is it?”
She let the telephone rest on her breast.
“Roy?” came a ridiculous mouse squeak.
You’re only a faraway voice, Roy thought, gazing at the ten-inch screen, where a row of Austrian Fräuleins kicked up their dirndls at a newsworthy festival. You’ll come home to me.
“Dammit, you’re hitting the bottle again.”
Sometimes she could not control her maudlin tears, but she always made the call: the only bright spot in the hopeless clouds was that Gerry still slept in Walter Kanzuki’s loft and had not moved in with Althea.
“That shrink’s making you worse, not better. You’re going to cut this out, Roy, no more sloshing it down, no more breathing telephone calls.” His diminished voice rose half a decibel. “I can’t take much more!”
She hung up and went to bed.
Her sleep was dream-filled, unrestful, and she jerked wide-awake around two, her muscles taut, her mind fibrillating with self-loathing. No wonder he hates me. No wonder he prefers that icicle. How can I endure this living death without him?
* * *
“I can’t make it tomorrow,” Althea said.
“What gives?” Gerry replied.
“It’s April Fool’s Day, so I’m flying home.”
“How long will you be out there?”
Expressively she spread her slender manicured hands. Taking off her leopard coat, she crossed the loft. On her easel was a creditable watercolor of tulips that she had done the previous afternoon. She tilted her head critically at it. “The composition’s not bad, but the color’s washy, don’t you agree?”
“Come off it, Althea.”
“My father’s having an operation—it’s come up suddenly. He called this morning. So what else could a loving daughter do but rush to his side?” She lifted her chin arrogantly.
Gerry put his arm around her waist. “Bad operation?” His tone was gentle.
She pulled away. “Know what a colostomy is?”
“Oh, Christ.”
“The crab, the crab,” she said. “The crab doth make dinner of us all.”
“Listen, I’ve never figured the screwy relationship you have with your parents, but why pretend you’re not shook.”
“Because I am shook.” She closed her eyes. Delicate greenish veins lay on her translucent lids. “Poor Daddy. While we were talking, he came apart—I’ve only heard him like this one other time . . .” Her voice was muffled.
“I’ll go with you,” Gerry said.
She touched her fingers lightly to his cheek, a gesture of tenderness. “That’s very dear of you,” she said. “But appraising the situation logically, we won’t be together much.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t brighten up his hospital room, would I?” he said. “Still, I can be around when you need me.”
“Will you stay at your place?” Althea asked too easily.
“Jesus, who needs to start that crap all over again?”
“Again? Does that mean she’s stopped her nightly beddy-bye call?”
“Nope. I’m not going to tell her I’m in L.A.”
“Then how will you explain not being in New York?”
“Who knows? The usual. I need to go someplace for the scenery, the light.”
She touched his cheek again. “We’ll have to reserve you a hotel room.”
“You know me. I always manage to find a place to sack down.”
“My cousin’s lending me his jet.”
“Another miracle?” Gerry gave a brief smile. He always grinned at the limousines, the well-furnished airport suites in which they rested and showered, the occasional private planes, the ease and efficiency that surrounded her shortest or longest journey.
“It’s not me, love, it’s my Aladdin’s lamp.” She pulled the watercolor from its securing tacks on the board, tearing the paper in two.
“You rich have it easy.”
“True. All the goodies, including cancer of the colon.”
53
“His face was so terribly drained,” Mrs. Cunningham repeated with an anxious shudder. “Like putty.”
“Mother, after major surgery one cannot expect rosy cheeks.” As Althea spoke, she r
egretted her impatient flipness. But she was raw-nerved from waiting out the five-hour surgery and from the pain of her deeply troubled filial love. Besides, her mother’s breathy voice had always irritated the hell out of her.
It was not quite three in the afternoon and rain slashed down with tropical intensity as they returned from the hospital. Beyond the glass panel, Ossie, Belvedere’s new black chauffeur, held his graying head rigorously forward as he negotiated the water racing through the gutters that at every crossing balked the Silver Cloud.
Mrs. Cunningham’s jaw worked. “Your father always had such marvelous color.”
“Let us not use the past tense.”
“He looked so awful. . . . Do you think we ought to call Charles out?”
“No need for that, Mother.” Althea’s fingers itched to give a reassuring pat to the large, soft hand, but the eternal trauma marred even this time of shared anxiety. Muddy water spattered the windows, and she said, “And let’s not borrow trouble. I, for one, believe the learned surgeons when they told us they had gotten all of the malignancy.”
* * *
The next few days Mr. Cunningham lay morbidly listless, bleached of color and spirit, recuperating at an insidiously slow pace. He had always viewed himself as all of a piece, a gentleman in heart, mind, intellect, body. From now on he would evacuate through a bag taped to his abdomen, a scarred, maimed pensioner to the Coyne millions: that his wife remained at his bedside, solicitously performing every small task for him before either of the private nurses could move, inexplicably added to his horror of himself.
Even more telling was his daughter’s presence.
In normal health, he was able to consider their bond as purely that of father and beloved only child, but now, in his drugged weakness, her face and body blurred, forcing him to peer through a grim, dark veil beyond which wavered the shadowy outline of his anguish.
He would thrash to another position.
* * *
Five evenings after the surgery, as mother and daughter were being driven home to Belvedere, Mrs. Cunningham said, “Your father’s worse when you’re in the room.”
Althea went hot with mortification. “You don’t say.”
“Althea.” Mrs. Cunningham gripped the leather armrest. “We both want what’s best for him, dear. I’m only pointing out he will recover more quickly with less company.”
“Far be it from me to impede his progress. I’ll stay clear of the hospital premises. Or should I be banished from the city, too?”
“Your father enjoys seeing you.”
“You just said he didn’t.”
“Why must you take on like this?”
“Daddy wants me, is that it, but you’d rather not have me around?”
Mrs. Cunningham turned her large, homely face. She was a Coyne, with the Coyne tenacious strength, she worshiped her husband, she rejected the daughter who was her rival, and in this one instant it all showed. “It’s best if you’re not there quite so much.”
Althea drew a trembling breath. How, she asked herself, her mind prancing painfully, could this buck-toothed, unimpressive woman change her back into a helpless child, a victim?
“Quite so, then, Mother. As you say. One peek in the door, one bright, loving, daughterly smile, and then I’ll fold my tent and silently steal away.”
* * *
“I want to go to Blum’s,” she repeated.
“I heard you the first two times,” Gerry said. “But we agreed not to hit any of the Beverly Hills places.”
“When I made that agreement, I wasn’t dying for a coffee-crunch sundae.”
“Why are you being such a cunt?”
“I wasn’t aware that eating a coffee-crunch sundae indicated anatomy.”
“Blum’s is only a couple of blocks from Patricia’s—”
“I grew up in Beverly Hills, dear heart, I don’t need road maps.”
“A lot of the broads who work with Roy eat there,” he said wearily. “She thinks I’m in Bermuda. She couldn’t take knowing I’m here and not in touch.”
“Aren’t you the protective husband.”
They were parked in Althea’s Jaguar just north of Sunset Boulevard, where they could see the lights of rush-hour cars moving in rhythmic waves with the traffic signals.
“Althea, did he have a setback, your father? I thought he was getting better.”
“He is.”
“Then what’s bugging you?” he asked, gently passing his hand over the sleeked-back skeins of bright hair.
“Ahh, Gerry, Gerry.” The streetlight cast a desperate glint on her large hazel eyes as she turned to kiss him full on the mouth, pressing her tongue between his lips, insinuating her body against his. He groaned, pulling her closer, and she reached down, feeling his erection. She unzipped his fly, slipping down onto the floorboards to take his hot, straining flesh in her mouth.
It was the first time since Oaxaca that she had initiated a blow-job.
* * *
“The red of the stripe in the Galanos is the perfect match for this Originala coat,” Roy said, hanging the two garments on a rack. “There’s several large scarves with the red, black, and white, if the customer asks. And black patent pumps—I prefer the Ferragamos.”
“Matching shoes are what everyone wants for summer,” said Margot Lanskoy. “What about having them dyed?”
“There’s a red patent Delman sling pump that should be good,” contributed Mrs. Sanderson, a trim older woman.
“The dyed-to-matches are peau de soie, and that’s too dressy. The same goes for the Delman, with that diamante buckle.” Roy’s warm smile showed she was not rebuking either of the suggestions.
“Now, Roy,” said Mrs. Fineman from near the door. “Don’t be such a purist. Let’s at least take a look at the Delmans.”
It was 9:15 on a Thursday morning, and in Patricia’s cavernous, rack-filled dress stockroom, eighteen smartly dressed saleswomen were seated on folding chairs around Roy and her display of outrageously expensive summer clothing. On a rolling cart were a large aluminum coffee urn, a quart carton of half-and-half, used cups, and the richly scented remains of a big platter of Bailey’s schnecken.
These Thursday breakfast meetings had been inaugurated by Roy a couple of years ago. At first there had been much grumbling at having to come in an hour early. Roy’s formerly undeviating popularity had wavered briefly, but the sales staff received a one-percent commission: now the women entered enthusiastically into these seminars on assembling and accessorizing—a profitable and demanded aesthetic service that the rigidly departmentalized larger stores like Saks, Magnin’s, or Bullock’s Wilshire were unable to perform.
A stock clerk brought out a shoe box.
Roy placed the buckled, gleaming red pumps under the Galanos. “Far too dressy,” she said decisively.
Everyone, including Mrs. Fineman, nodded. Roy had developed an unusual fillip in her assemblages, and the Patricia’s staff respected her opinion. “Let me ask Mrs. Horak what she thinks” resounded commonly in the airy, elegant fitting rooms.
* * *
The meeting was over, and only Roy and Margot Lanskoy remained in the stockroom, Roy writing up the numbers for each completed outfit on three-by-five cards, Margot finishing a third cup of coffee.
“You never mentioned your husband was back,” said Margot, smoothing gray silk pleats over her narrow flanks.
“Gerry?” Puzzled, Roy turned to the older woman. “He’s in Bermuda, painting.”
“Then he must have a double,” said Margot. Everyone in the store had accepted that Roy’s husband had walked out on her and, liking her, had designated this “Don’t-Bug-Roy-Horak Month,” but Margot, a fiftyish recent divorcée pressed for the first time into the Beverly Hills labor force, had a limited capacity for sympathy. She added, “I saw a man but exactly the image of him at Blum’s.”
A hot, formless fear swept over Roy. “Was he in a booth near yours?”
“Not really close, no.”
“Then it could have been anyone.”
“You know me, farsighted as an eagle. This guy was an absolute dead ringer for your husband.” Margot’s darkly painted mouth formed a smile. “I must say I’m delighted he’s in Bermuda, absolutely delighted.”
“What are you trying to say, Margot?”
“If I don’t tell you, somebody else will. A tableful of us saw them.”
“Them?”
“A week ago, it was April 17, this man, whoever he is, was there with a good-looking blonde wearing custom Chanel. Fortia thinks she knows her from Vogue.”
Endless anticipation does not lessen the extremity of horror a condemned prisoner feels as the gallows trap is sprung underfoot. Jagged pain encompassed Roy’s mind.
He’s here with Althea.
I promised him I’d try to work it through, and he’s lied to me. He’s not in Bermuda. He’s here and never even phoned me.
Until now Roy had managed a clean split in her life. She had separated the weepy nighttime drunk from the self-assured daytime assistant manager of Patricia’s. But now her every nerve was screaming, and she thought: If I don’t have a drink I’ll die.
Leaving the stockroom and Margot Lanskoy, she found herself at her desk reaching inside the top drawer for her purse. She mumbled an excuse about the onset of the twenty-four-hour flu to Mr. Fineman. Normally she never left the parking lot before six, and the attendant had to juggle cars so she could back out the Thunderbird, her engagement present.
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