Allison finished washing and was standing before the bathroom sink, putting layers of greasy makeup over the dark circles around her eyes and on the pink and blue blemishes around her mouth, the ones I had put there. She was looking at her reflection in the mirror as if she saw there some sort of hag. I should look half as ugly as she.
I got into the shower while she was making with the paint and took a quick one. Allison was combing her hair when I came out. She must have seen my reflection in the mirror because all of a sudden she whirled around toward me.
"Sloane, baby, did I do that? You look like you've been through the wars. You're covered with bruises. How did you get a black-and-blue mark there?"
"Don't tell me you've forgotten last night?" I was on the verge of tears. It would've been too much if Allison had been like those drunks Banner, Perry Matthews and Herb Talman... if her passion had come from a bottle and was a thing that meant no more to her than a hangover the next day.
"I remember what I felt last night. My emotions, most of the action and that it was divine. The exact continuity of events is a little mixed up in my mind. I do know that we were both pretty frenzied and that things were done by both of us last night that we'd never gone in for before. As I recall, it seems to me that we made love all over this apartment. However, I don't remember the exact sequence of events. No, I couldn't give a detailed plot outline of last night. Is that important?"
"No, of course not. I don't think I could either. There is one thing that will bother me if I don't ask about it now, though. Last night, when we started making love, you know, when you danced to the phonograph music... well, what happened after that worries me. You were sort of, well, hard like. I'm not referring just to your actions. There was a lack of your usual loving warmth and tenderness. I'm talking about an emotional quality that wasn't there. It was somewhat like the difference between love and lust."
Allison breathed a deep sigh and bit down on her lower lip. "I know. I'm always that way. When I'm hurt, I withdraw. Because of the way I feel about you I couldn't just keep away from you. Instead, something inside me shut off. I suppose you've got those bruises because, and I assure you I wasn't conscious of it, I wanted to hit back at you for hurting me so much."
I had been standing like some kind of idiot with the sopping wet towel held before me, dripping puddles onto the floor. I started to speak but a gurgling croak came out... I hadn't remembered to close my mouth before speaking, it had been agape all through Allison's reply.
"Baby," I finally managed, "I don't know what I did but if I hurt you, I'm sorry, genuinely so. But I can't imagine what I did wrong."
"You didn't give me your decision about coming to California with me. It was our last night together and I expected you to say something. Even if you had said no, it would have been kinder than not saying anything. You acted as if whether you came with me or not was an unimportant matter. I wasn't going to force you to put anything into words. I've got a little pride left. Not much, I admit, but enough to keep me from humiliating myself any more than I had already. I suppose your silence meant that you've decided not to go to the Coast. Is that right?"
"Just a little old minute. I mean no such thing. What's the rush? The Singer Show isn't leaving for two more weeks. I could get plane reservations by calling in a week in advance. It's a big decision. I wanted as much time as possible to think it over. I didn't think you'd mind if I didn't let you know until next week. What's this bit about last night being our last night together. Why, for God's sake?"
"Because of yesterday's new development. I got in touch with you just as soon as I knew about it myself." Allison must have seen the complete bewilderment on my face because she looked at me incredulously and asked, "You got my message, didn't you?"
"What message?"
"The one I asked Judy to give you. I called while you were out to lunch. I was going to be busy the rest of the afternoon and couldn't call back so I dictated a message for you to Judy. She said she'd give it to you as soon as you came back to the office. I made everything clear in that message. That's why your actings if everything was just the same hurt me so much."
"Allison, I swear to you, Judy didn't give me any message yesterday. She didn't even tell me you had called." Damn that freak Judy! That wasn't the first time she had "forgotten" to tell me about personal calls that had come in for me when I was away from my desk. Don't tell me her memory had been bad. If anyone called Happy, Judy would remember it all right. She could be dying and she'd gasp it out with her last breath. She didn't have the gumption to tell me she didn't like my getting personal calls at the office so she let me miss about half the calls she answered for me. I guess I was supposed to interpret this to mean that I shouldn't use the phone except for business. I knew what she was getting at but I hadn't let it stop me. The messages I hadn't gotten probably weren't all that important. If someone urgently needed to talk to me, they'd call back. But this time Judy had gone too far. This was being malicious, not just petty. "It's the truth, Allison. This is the first I've heard of your calling the office yesterday."
She collapsed against the sink, weak with laughter. "It's too incredible," she gasped. "I thought things like this only happened in Restoration comedies. The crucial message that goes astray and the ensuing farce scene where the boy and girl meet and insult each other because they don't know what's happened and each of them is talking about something different. Oh-oh, this is too rich. Somebody ought to have said that they'd never darken the other's door again. That's all we would have needed to make this period piece complete." She broke up in helpless laughter again.
I waited until she had subsided to giggles before asking, "Just what was it you asked Judy to tell me?"
"I called you right away because the Crystal soap people want me to start filming those spot commercials Monday of next week. That means that I've got to fly out to the Coast in four days. No, three days. It was four yesterday. Anyway, they're going to keep me busy for the two weeks until the Singer Show arrives and I have to start rehearsing for that. I won't have a chance to come back to New York.
When I leave a few days from now it'll be for good. At least, for the next three years. So, you understand now why last night was the last one I could spend with you? I have only three days and nights to do a mountain of packing, close out my bank account, say goodbye to all my friends, buy a load of new clothes, return the books and records I've borrowed from friends, take care of ten thousand business matters. I'm going to be too busy to blow my nose for the next three days. Coming here last night was allowing myself a luxury which I really couldn't afford. Now, do you understand why I was hurt? Remember, I had no idea that you didn't know it was our final chance to be alone."
"Allison, now that I know, I wouldn't have blamed you if you had told me to go to hell in a wheelbarrow."
"Thank the Lord I didn't do something like that. Then we would never have straightened this out."
"Yeah. Well, frankly I'm so taken off guard by this that I don't know what to say. Would you hate me very much if I didn't let you know until tonight? I could call or maybe come over and help you with your packing."
"It's all right, darling," Allison said. "I'll wait for your call tonight. In the meantime, I'll be praying to every god, saint, angel, prophet and holy man I can think of from every religion known to me that you will be on the plane to California with me. Look out the office windows during the day. If you see a girl doing what looks like a demoniac mazurka around one of the trees in Central Park, it'll be me. I think I'll try invoking the Druid deities too, I'm afraid to leave anything out."
CHAPTER 12
I finally got to the office a few minutes before eleven. Happy was giving dictation to Judy in his office. They both looked up as I got off the elevator. I stared down anything they were about to say. There was blood in my eye that morning, I tell you. To rub things in a little more, I disappeared into the john for ten more minutes. By the time I finally sat down at my desk Judy was re
ady to have apoplexy.
She brought some work out for me to do and lingered in my office, waiting for me to give some excuse for my tardiness. I didn't say a word. Instead, I pointedly got out an ebony and silver cigarette holder that I had never before used. It was a real classy thing that a client had given me, six inches long and mucho impressive. I stuck a cigarette into it, lighted it and waved the thing around affectedly. Hip Judy was not but she got my message that time. She went back to her own office like a whipped puppy.
Happy was having a ball with one of his chicks on his private phone. I don't know what the girl was saying to him but I could get a good idea from the way he kept squirming around as he talked to her. Every once in a while he'd get a real sappy grin on his face as if she had just said something especially toothsome.
Meanwhile, the phones were ringing like crazy and I was trying desperately to get him to answer a few calls. Some of them were real important business calls but Happy didn't seem to care. He just went on talking and twitching.
I had my hands full with the phones until about one o'clock when things quieted down. That was the first chance I had had to look at the work Judy had given me to do. It was time for me to go out to lunch but I decided to have a sandwich sent up. I wanted to be fair, coming into work two hours late was enough, I'd make up the time by working through my lunch-hour.
There were tons of bills from the Ferguson pilot that had to be taken care of. That meant mailing out checks for about a third of them. The remainder received letters of acknowledgment. Harold Broadman informs you that he knows he owes you money and requests that you get the hell off his neck as he will pay up when he damn well gets around to it.
I came across one bill that was a whopper. A couple of thousand dollars for a blonde mink jacket. Originally contracted for rental, the jacket had been lost. Broadson, Inc. would have to pay the full price.
A blonde mink jacket. The one that Amy had worn for the pilot. The one that looked so much like the jacket Happy had bought for Pat Donnelly. Looked like? Oh, no!
That was going too far. It couldn't be true. I stared at the bill in my hand as if it were an hallucination. It wasn't. It was real and Happy Broadman was cheating the daylights out of Amy Ferguson so he could give his mistress a big deal birthday present. Amy Ferguson who was his most loyal, nicest, most financially valuable client. And he was robbing her at the one time in her career when she had suffered a setback, when she needed all the support she could get.
I had had it. It took a lot but I had finally reached the point of no return with Mr. Broadman. I was leaving. Immediately, that afternoon. No two week's notice, decency wouldn't be appreciated in that office. I was going to play the game their way. When in Sodom, do as the Sodomites... no, that wasn't right. Anyway, as soon as Happy came back from lunch I told him I was quitting, and I told him why.
Happy tried to deny that he was a crook but I wasn't having any of it so he gave up that approach. He began giving me his usual garbage, tried to outshout me, bully me into staying. Guess he was afraid I'd leave that office and start telling tales out of school.
"Scream at me quietly, Happy," I told him. "I don't go for the megaphone bit."
He tried, he honestly did but it was like he was allergic to peace and quiet, he couldn't keep his voice down. Judy joined in. I just ignored them and cleaned out my desk as if they weren't there.
I was waiting for the elevator when Happy switched his pitch and began pleading with me to stay because I was such an irreplaceable employee. The office would just fall apart without me. He sounded like a beseeching lover.
The elevator came. "Why, Mr. Broadman, how you do go on," I said. "You're enough to turn a girl's head." With that I stepped into the elevator. The door closed behind me. End of an era.
* * *
I called Sylvan and told him what had happened. He was working on a rush project and could only spare an hour but he insisted that I come down and have a drink with him.
I wasn't very good company for him. I had been angry, I had expressed the anger and then I got depressed. I knew I had done the right thing. Big consolation, I still felt lousy.
"Trouble with you is you're free. Freedom is an awful burden," Sylvan said.
"Yeah, it's a drag. I always thought I'd love being this way. No ties, no attachments. I can decide on doing anything, going anywhere. Trouble is, I don't want to do anything. I just want to sit still for the next twenty or thirty years."
"Impossible. You can't. You're one of those people with built in ants in the pants."
"Thanks," I said ruefully. "That's the sweetest thing anybody ever said to me. Sylvan, what am I going to do? I want to get out of this town. I want to get away from all the dirt and mess of New York. But I don't know where to go."
"Sloane, Allison called me this morning," he said quietly. "She told me about leaving for the Coast Saturday. Why don't you go with her?"
"Because I waited too long to tell her I'd go. Because she might think that I was going with her because I want to sponge off her. I have no job, no money. I'd have to borrow from her until I got back on my feet. If only I had told her I'd go before all this happened. Then it would have looked as if I was going just because I wanted to be with her. This way, it looks fishy."
"Bull. Thank God you're telling me this instead of saying it to Allison. Maybe you don't realize it, but you're insulting her horribly. Sloane, Allison loves you. Remember that. She won't mind laying out a few bucks if it means having you near her. Go with her. Please, for her sake as well as your own."
"I don't know. I just don't know. Sylvan, something tells me you're right but I just can't make up my mind. Let me think about it a while longer."
"There isn't very much time left to think."
"I'm aware of that. Oh hell, let's drop it. I'll be able to think more clearly when I'm alone."
"You sound real low."
"I am."
"Maybe you shouldn't be alone. Look, I'll call the office and say that I took sick or something. Then I could stay with you for the rest of the day."
"Thanks but don't bother. I need to be alone."
I walked Sylvan back to the building where he worked. Just before we parted he said, "Be sure to write."
"Write? Oh, you mean from California. What makes you so sure I'm going?"
"You're going."
"Glad to hear it. Especially since I haven't made up my own mind yet. You seem to think you can make it up for me. Haven't you ever heard of free will?"
He smiled patronizingly. "Yes, I've heard of it. And that's why I know you'll be flying to the Coast on Saturday. Well, cheerio my deario and I'll be expecting a letter from you next week." And with that he disappeared into the building.
I went down to the Harbor. A few girls always came in around that time for cocktails on their way home from work. There were about ten women there when I arrived.
I recognized Dinah sitting in a booth with a vacuous looking redhead. Both women looked like they had been run over by tanks. They had bruises and bandages on their faces.
I approached them. Dinah remembered me and invited me to join them. She saw me staring at the wounds and explained them to me.
"We had a fight last night. Mary just had to find out who was boss. She found out all right. That's right, isn't it baby?"
Mary nodded dumbly.
"I ain't mad," Dinah went on. "These things happen. Mary won't pull anything like that again. She knows who's the daddy now."
Dinah went on telling me about their fight. She bragged about the way she had beaten Mary to insensibility. The point seemed to be that this proved she was worthy or something.
I'm telling you, Dinah's bilge got me down. It was like I was seeing what I would be letting myself in for if I went back to cruising the gay bars. Sure, I knew there were other types of girls. But when gay girls act out the forms of love without the content existing, things like what happened between Dinah and Mary are all too common.
Maybe
somebody up there arranged the whole thing so that Dinah and Mary would have a fight one night and the next afternoon be in the Harbor when I got there and that Dinah would turn my stomach by telling me about it. I don't know. All I do know is that it turned the trick. I finished my drink out of politeness and lit out of there.
I didn't bother calling. I just grabbed a cab and hightailed it up to Allison's. I was there in fifteen minutes and up the stairs and knocking on her door.
Allison answered the door. She looked surprised and pleased. I didn't say anything. I just walked past her into the apartment, checked the place to make sure Ruth wasn't there, then came close to breaking Allison's ribs in an embrace of relief, and love and peace and decision.
We kissed for a long time. Not one of those kisses where we teased each other. Just a matter of contact that took the place of words that would say I need you, I love you, you give me strength, I want you near me always.
I took my lips from hers and looked down at her lovely face. She was leaning back in my arms, her eyes half closed, the corners of her mouth turned up in a slight smile. I love you, I thought, I love you because of what you are and not just because I need to love. I love you and nothing in this world is more important to me than being with you.
I thought those things but the only thing I said was, "Call the airline. See if you can get a reservation for me on the flight you're taking."
Allison nodded wordlessly and went to the telephone. While she was dialing the number I sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette. If she could get a reservation for me, I'd have to leave in a few minutes and go home to pack. That cigarette would be the last one I'd ever have in that apartment.
I listened while Allison talked to the airline ticket agent. She didn't make a reservation for me. She confirmed the one she had made the day before for both of us.
~ ~ ~
AFTERWORD
A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America—a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and how people would purchase and read them.
These Curious Pleasures Page 14