by Ann Bannon
At breakfast, after a few false starts, Marcie blurted, “I’ll be late tonight.” She put her paper down and faced Laura.
Laura looked up slowly. “Date with Burr?” she said.
“No. Mr. Marquardt is having some out-of-town guests for dinner downtown. He asked some of us to go. I told him I would.”
“Have fun,” Laura said, and looked back at the front page.
“Ha! Some drunken idiot of a reporter’ll probably pester me to death.”
“A reporter?” Laura looked up again suddenly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Marcie saw Laura’s interest and it sparked her own. “A journalist, or something. It’s a convention—professional fraternity, I guess.”
“What fraternity? What’s it called?”
“Ummm.” Marcie bit her lip and concentrated. “It’s Greek. Let’s see. Something the matter?”
“No. Is it Chi Delta—”
“—Sigma. That’s it, I remember. How did you know? Now something is the matter, Laura!”
Laura had gone very pale. She swallowed convulsively.
“I just remembered, I was supposed to run an errand for Dr. Hollingsworth. I’d better get going.” She got up suddenly and went into the bedroom for her jacket.
Marcie stood up and followed her. “You didn’t finish your breakfast, Laur,” she said, concerned, a line of worry in her forehead.
“I’m not hungry. I’ll see you tonight,” she said, and turned quickly to almost run out.
Marcie came after her, bewildered. “Laura, you don’t make sense,” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”
But Laura was running down the stairs to the elevator. Marcie turned and went back into the kitchen and drank her coffee standing, gazing perplexed at Laura’s plate.
Chapter Ten
Merrill Landon. Merrill Landon. My father. My father is coming to New York. He never misses these damn things, he goes every year. Oh, God, help me. Laura rode down to work on the subway, her fists clenched in her lap, her face set like a mask to cover the torment inside.
He doesn’t know I’m here, that’s one good thing. He’ll never find me, either. How long will he be here? It must be in the papers. I missed it at breakfast.
She picked up the Times on the corner where she left the subway. She took it up to the office with her, impatient to look at it. Sarah was already there.
“Hi, gorgeous,” she said.
Laura looked up, startled. “Hi,” she said. “Who’s gorgeous?”
“You are. You must be, you’ve got a man.”
Laura stared at her blankly, her mind full of the threat of her father’s presence in the city. Finally it came to her. “Oh, you mean Jack,” she said.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Oh, yes. Yes.” Now what the hell does she mean? Why would I—Oh! I promised her a date. Laura felt suddenly sunk. All those reports to do that should have been done before. Lies to tell, at nine in the morning. Merrill Landon somewhere in New York. It was too much. The day stretched away in front of her like an endless obstacle course.
“What’d he say?” Sarah said eagerly.
“He’s working on it. Maybe this weekend.”
“Gee, that sounds great.”
Laura had to look at the paper; she had to. It gnawed at her, as she sat at her desk, sneaking through it between reports and unable to find anything. Her father’s name ran through her mind like a robot tune from a TV commercial.
It was a rushed day. Sarah didn’t take a break on days when they were behind, but nothing could have stopped Laura. She got up and almost ran to the washroom at eleven, the paper in hand. She felt herself trembling, going over the pages again and again, until she suddenly found it at the bottom of page 12. “Chi Delta Sigma, national journalism fraternity, opens its convention today at the McAlton Hotel. The convention will last until next Saturday, at which time…” etc. There was an agenda listed, a few names—the national officers. There it was—Merrill Landon, corresponding secretary. Laura shut her eyes and groaned a little.
The day dragged. She typed until the small round keys seemed to weigh a pound apiece under her fingers, and still the reports piled up.
Laura sat hunched over her machine for a long time after the others had left for the day. She meant to work, but she never did any. She wanted to cry and she couldn’t. She wanted to move, to talk to someone, to explode, and she just sat there until the cramps in her back made her groan. She got up stiffly and put her jacket on and stood for a moment, aimless and lost. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. Marcie wouldn’t be home yet.
She rummaged idly in her pockets, pulling out some change and a shopping list. The list was from the week before and she started to drop it in the wastebasket, when she noticed something on the other side. A phone number—Watkins 9-1313. And the initials B. B. Laura crumpled it in her hand, seized with an uncontrollably pleasant shudder. Then she threw it indignantly into the wastebasket, wondering when Beebo had scribbled it out. And then she leaned over slowly and took it out of the wastebasket and shoved it furtively back into her pocket, without looking at it. She sat down abruptly in her chair and put her head down on her arms and wept.
“Father…” she whispered. “Why did we have to hate each other? We’re all we have…Father…”
She got up fifteen minutes later, turned out the light, and stole out, quiet as a thief.
She walked over to the McAlton Hotel. She had no idea what she expected to find or to do. But she went into the big softly carpeted lobby and walked, almost as if she were sleepwalking, toward the desk. It was crowded and noisy, with that ineffable air of excitement that big hotels seem to generate.
Laura felt gooseflesh start up all over her. Many of these people must be conventioneers. If Merrill Landon didn’t see her one of his Chicago friends might, and the secret would be out. He would run her down if it took the whole New York City police force.
She leaned apprehensively on the marble-topped counter of the desk, waiting until a clerk could serve her. He came up after a couple of minutes, looking enormously efficient and busy. “May I help you, Miss?” he demanded.
“Is a Mr. Merrill Landon staying here?” she asked.
“Just a minute, please.” He disappeared briefly and Laura looked around the lobby, her hand partially covering her face.
He might see me. I must be out of my mind to come here. But she waited nonetheless.
“He’s in 1402,” the clerk said loudly in her ear.
Laura jumped.
“Shall I call him?” asked the clerk.
“Yes, please.” She had no idea why she was doing this. She felt as if she were two people, one acting, the other watching; one compelled to act, the other shocked by the action.
“Who wants to see him, please?”
“His daughter.” She almost whispered it, and he made her repeat it. Then he buzzed off. She watched him, perhaps ten feet from her but impossible to hear, as he lifted the receiver, gave the number, waited. Then his face lighted into a business-type smile, and she saw his lips form the words, “Mr. Landon?” He went on, and she watched him, feeling almost sick with anticipation.
The clerk came back after a brief conversation. “Well, Miss—” he began, eyeing her closely.
“What did he say?” Laura looked at him with her stark blue eyes. Her chin trembled.
“He says he has no daughter, Miss,” the clerk drawled. He grinned. “Tough luck. Want to try someone else?”
Laura’s mouth dropped open. Her face twitched. She couldn’t answer him. She turned and ran, bumping into people, stumbling, until she found a phone booth empty in a row of booths along a far wall and she took refuge there. She buried her face in her hands and wept. “Merrill Landon, go to hell, go to hell,” she said fiercely, under her breath. “I hate you. Oh, God, how I hate you!” And she sobbed until somebody rapped on the door of the booth. She wiped her eyes hastily, knowing they were red and swollen, and turned to glare at t
he impatient rapper. He glared back.
Defiantly she put a dime in the phone and lifted the receiver. She called Jack.
A voice answered almost at once. A strange masculine voice.
“Hello?” it said.
“Jack?” Her voice trembled.
“Just a minute.” He called, “Jack, it’s for you.”
A few seconds later Jack answered.
“Jack, it’s Laura.”
“Are you all right?”
“I have absolutely nothing to say,” she said. “I’m only calling because—because I’m in a phone booth and some fool wants to use the phone. He’s rapping on the door.”
“Mother,” he said slowly, “you have a screw loose. Now listen carefully and do what I tell you. Just go along quietly and don’t tell them anything. I’ll send my analyst over right away.”
“My father’s in town.” Her breath caught while she spoke.
“Oh! No wonder. Did you tell him to go to hell?”
“The desk clerk called his room and said his daughter wanted to see him.” She stopped to swallow the fury in her throat.
“And he told you to go to hell?”
“He said he had no daughter.” Her voice trembled with the immensity of it
Jack, for once, was momentarily speechless. Finally he said, “He is a bastard, Laura. By God, he is. Don’t mess with him. Come on over, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Thanks, Jack.” She broke into tears again.
“Don’t cry, Laura. Just think what satisfaction that would give the old s.o.b.”
“You’re right!” she said sharply, pulling herself up. “I won’t. I’ll be right over.”
Jack was waiting for her on the front stoop, sitting on one of the cement railings and looking up at what few stars were available between the roofs. Without a word he got up, slipped an arm around her, and turned her away from his apartment. They walked over to a small bar she hadn’t seen before called Mac’s Alley, without speaking to each other.
The bar was in a basement and you walked down a flight of twisting stairs to reach it. There were booths around the walls, tables and a jukebox in the middle, and a long bar ran across the back. Laura walked halfway toward the bar with Jack before she realized that there were no other women in the place. She turned to Jack with anxiety.
“Do they want me in here?” she asked.
He smiled. “They’re not going to give you a rush, Mother. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“I didn’t think they liked women in a place like this.”
Jack guided her to a barstool. “Oh, they’re friendly enough. They know you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t gay. They figure, you leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone.”
Laura looked around her uncomfortably. “I can’t help thinking I embarrass them.”
“Maybe they embarrass you. Would you rather go over to The Cellar?”
“No…I don’t know.”
“You don’t want to run into Beebo. She’s usually out making the rounds about now. That’s why I brought you here.”
Laura smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks,” she said. “I should have seen it myself.” But she found herself so shaken by the sudden idea of Beebo loose among scores of desirable girls that she couldn’t concentrate for a minute.
Jack ordered them a drink. Then he turned to her, pushing his glasses back into place on his nose. They tended to slide down to the halfway mark. “Well?” he said, and paused. “Let’s tear Papa Landon apart.”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Laura said.
“Then why am I buying you a drink?”
She turned to snap at him and then saw he was kidding her. “Sorry, Jack,” she said. Looking at him brought back her faith in him, and she smiled a little. “I always knew he was a hard man,” she said softly, “but I never dreamed he’d go as far as this. I always thought, in spite of everything, in spite of all the bitterness and misery we’ve had together, that he must love me a little. After all, I’m all he has left…of my mother, my brother…his family. I was five when it happened, and I wish to God I could remember what he was like before. But I can’t. I like to pretend he was generous and gentle and kind. And I can remember sitting on his shoulders when we went to a Fourth of July parade. It was that same summer, before our vacation. I remember he hoisted me up and bought me a balloon and held me while the parade went by so I could see. Afterwards he walked around and talked to his friends, and he didn’t make me get down. I felt like a queen on a throne. It’s been my one good memory of him, to this day. But Mother was with us. Maybe he did it for her sake.
“I remember her better than him from those years. Sometimes I miss her terribly. She was very loving.”
“Maybe,” said Jack, “your father wouldn’t hate you so now if he hadn’t loved you so much before.”
“You give him too much credit,” she said. “After what he did to me tonight, I’ll never speak to him again. I’d kill him if I could. But I wouldn’t go near him, even for that. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my face. He has no daughter, has he? All right, God damn him, I have no father! Two can play at that game.”
“Don’t hate me for saying it,” Jack said, “but I think you still love him. I think you’ll see him again.”
She turned on him. “You’re crazy!” she said. “You don’t know anything! What makes you think such a thing?”
He shrugged. “Only that it matters so terribly to you.”
Laura finished her drink and placed the glass carefully on the bar, trying to sort out her thoughts. “If I do see him again,” she said, “it’ll be when I can tell him I’m a success. Financially. Socially. Every way. I want to tell him, ‘I have a good job, nice friends. I can get along fine in this world without you, and I’ll never need you again.’ And you know what else I’d like to say to him, Jack?”
“Yeah.” He lit a cigarette. “‘Father, I’m queer. And it’s all your fault. Shove that up your rear and live with it!’ Yeah, I know. Shock the hell out of him. I tried that on—on a close relative once.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t really know. When his face went blue I took off. I haven’t been home since. I can’t go home to find out, as a matter of fact. I’m—shall we say—not welcome.” He said this with slow sarcasm.
“Jack, I’m sorry,” she said gently, and looked at him sympathetically. It occurred to her now, when she found his own troubles paralleled her own, that he was very human and not a slick witty party boy without real feelings. He was lonely. Everybody’s lonely, she thought. Marcie for a perfect mate. Beebo for a perfect girl. Jack for an affectionate boy. Me…Poor Sarah…
That recalled Sarah to her mind. “Jack, I have a friend,” she said.
“Congratulations.”
“—named Sarah.”
“Does Beebo know?”
“And she wants a date.”
“With a girl?”
“—With a boy. She’s straight.”
“What a shame.”
“Can you help me out?”
“I can help you, Mother, but can I help Sarah?”
“You must know somebody. How about that boy who answered your phone tonight? Could he take her out?”
“If he does I’ll break his head for him,” he said and laughed softly, knocking his cigarette ashes into a scorched aluminum tray in front of him.
“Who is he, Jack?’ she asked.
“A friend. No, a lover. For the moment, anyway.”
Laura put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be so cynical,” she said.
“These things never last.” He shook his head. “Better to face it at the beginning.”
“He must see something worthy in you or he never would have come to you in the first place.” She spoke awkwardly, but with sympathy.
“He sees dollar bills.” Jack smiled.
“Jack! Don’t be so hard on yourself. It hurts me.” She didn’t like to see him stick the pins in himse
lf. It was all right when he did it to her, because it was fun. She didn’t mind, she understood his need. But when he hurt himself he hurt in dead earnest.
“Besides, you aren’t rich,” Laura said. “If that’s all he wanted, he’d find somebody else.”
“I have a little put away,” he said. “I save it up in between affairs. When somebody irresistible comes along, I spend it like a fool. Makes a wonderful impression the first couple of weeks. Then I’m flat broke and all alone again. My chronic condition.”
It was a pathetic revelation. Laura was taken aback by it. “You shouldn’t do it, Jack,” she said.
“I can’t help it. I’ll hang on to him with anything. Anything I’ve got. Even dollar bills.”
“If all he wants is your money he’s not worth your money! Or your time, or your friendship.”
“Laura, this isn’t friendship. This is another subject entirely. Honest to God.” Laura blushed. “A man can’t buy a friend. But there’s always a little love for sale.”
“Not real love.”
He shrugged. “I don’t ask for the moon.”
Laura finished her drink. “What’s his name?” she said.
“Terry.”
“Terry what?”
“Just Terry.”
“You don’t trust me.” She said it quietly, but she was hurt.
“Terry Fleming.” He spoke the name gently and Laura saw a look on his face that changed him entirely. She studied him, surprised.
“Jack, I think you’re in love.” Once said, it sounded gauche and unfair.
But he only said, “I think so, too.”
Laura was lost. What do you do on the spot like this? “I don’t know whether to give you my congratulations or my sympathy,” she said seriously.
Jack laughed. “Both, Mother. That’s a beautiful sentiment, whatever it is. Thanks.”
He seemed unable to talk about it and Laura finally returned to Sarah. “Is there somebody in the office you could get for Sarah?” she asked. She described her to him. “She’s not pretty, but she’s just a swell girl.”