by Ann Bannon
“How’s Marcie?”
“Brooding. I get on her nerves, I guess.”
“That’s only fair. She’s made a mess of yours. How’s Burr?”
“He called her. They talked for a few minutes. He asked her to see him.”
“Will she?”
“No.”
“Not yet, hm?”
“Never,” Laura said sharply. “She’s fed up with him.”
“Well, if not Burr, somebody else.” Laura covered her face with her hands suddenly and Jack looked at her sympathetically. “Just won’t believe me, will you, Mother? You love Marcie so sooner or later Marcie will have to give in and love you.”
“No!” she said, looking up. “I know it’s not that simple. It’s just that I’m convinced I have a chance. I live with her, I know her, and she was willing to have Burr believe we were lovers.”
“She was willing to get him the hell out of her hair after a bad quarrel,” he said. “That’s all. She just let him believe it to get rid of him.”
“Please Jack,” she said with forced patience. “How’s Terry?” If he’s going to torment me, I’ll give him the same treatment, she thought.
Jack lifted his eyebrows slightly and shrugged. “Healthy,” he said. “And hungry. Jesus, how that kid eats. And he likes smoked oysters.”
Laura had to smile, though she didn’t feel like it. “Get him a bale of smoked oysters,” she said, “and leave me alone for a while. Please.”
Jack gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Okay.” He started out and then turned to ask, “How did Sarah like Jensen?”
“She said she liked him. She has a crush on Dr. Hagstrom, but she liked Carl anyway.”
“He’s smitten. Says he’s going to call her again.”
“Good.” They smiled a little at each other. “Somebody’s doing it right,” Laura said wistfully.
Jack laughed. “Never mind,” he said. “Someday we’ll die and go to heaven. All the angels are queer, you know.” And he left.
Laura followed soon after. She knew just where she was going—the McAlton Hotel. She would walk right in and ask for Merrill Landon and the clerk would say he had left, the convention was over, and Laura could quit suffering over him. He would be hundreds of miles away and she could start to forget him.
She walked over to the hotel in a matter of minutes and went into the lobby with a confidence she had not felt during the week her father had been there. She was out to kill her ghost. She looked forward to great relief.
At the desk she waited for a moment or two until a clerk could take care of her. She recognized him from one of her previous visits but fortunately he didn’t seem to remember her. “Yes?” he said.
“Is the Chi Delta Sigma convention over?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am it is.”
“Oh. Then I guess Merrill Landon isn’t staying here anymore.”
“Oh, yes he is.”
Laura was startled. “He said a young lady might be asking for him,” the clerk said. “He left a message.” He looked at her dubiously, unnerved by the strange expression on her face. “Would you be his daughter, by any chance?”
Laura shook her head numbly. The clerk brought her an envelope and Laura opened it and read, in her father’s hand: “Laura, I will be here till the end of the month. Come up to my room any evening after eight.” It was not even signed. Nice and sentimental, she thought. Just like him.
“Thank you,” she told the clerk.
“Will there be any answer?” he asked.
“Yes,” Laura said. She took the pad of paper he pushed toward her and wrote on it, “Go to hell.” Then she folded it, put it in the envelope, sealed it, and wrote “Merrill Landon” on the front.
She shook all the way home. He was still there, still haunting her, waiting to pounce on her and punish her. When Marcie asked her what was the matter, Laura couldn’t tell her. It was Laura’s problem, it was intimate and awful, and she had no wish to share it. She hardly noticed how little she had looked at Marcie the past few days, how little she had responded to her. And yet in the back of her mind the question rankled: Why did Marcie let Burr believe that lie? Even for a short while? Why hadn’t she fought it harder?
But the fact of her father’s physical presence in New York obliterated other considerations. He was waiting for her around every corner, in every doorway. She was even afraid to answer the phone, and afraid to return to his hotel for fear he would have the police there waiting for her. She didn’t know on what grounds he could arrest her, but she believed her father could do anything violent and forceful. Her work suffered still more at the office. And she hadn’t the interest to stay late and make it up.
Sarah talked to her one afternoon at the end of the week. “Guess what?” she said, to start out in a friendly vein.
“What?”
“Carl Jensen called me again. We’re going out tomorrow night.”
“How nice, Sarah. I’m glad for you.” But she spoke without enthusiasm.
“Are you?” Sarah’s voice was pointed enough to catch Laura’s attention and warn her that something was wrong. She looked up. “Yes, of course I am, Sarah. I’m sorry, I’m not myself lately. I—”
“You’ve been in a fog all week. Another one of those headaches?”
“No. I mean yes. I don’t know. I just don’t feel alive.” She laughed listlessly.
Sarah sat down beside her. “Laura,” she said firmly, “you could do real well in this job. If you wanted to. Everybody here likes you. Everybody’s pulling for you. You’re a good typist and you’re a smart girl. Jeanie liked you a lot, and she’ll be back here in another week. There’ll be three of us, and things could go a lot better…but Laura…”
“But I haven’t worked out too well,” Laura said for her. “Is that it?”
“You haven’t worked at all sometimes. Other times you work your tail off. That’s the trouble, Laura, you’re so erratic,” Sarah said. “You stay late and knock yourself out one night, and then a week goes by and you can’t do a damn thing. You drag along all day, you just don’t seem to care.
“I hate to pull a philosophical on you, but gee, Laura, we’re dealing with sick people. Sometimes these X-ray reports spell life and death for somebody. We can’t dawdle over them. Doctors are waiting all over the city for these things. Dr. Hollingsworth is swamped. We can’t let him down.”
“I know.” Laura felt the way she had in third grade when she feigned sick to get out of playing a role in the annual spring pageant. The teacher had talked to her in much the same tone of voice, and used much the same arguments. “Everybody’s pulling for you, we all like you, don’t let us down, Laura, don’t let us down.” But the thought of going out on that stage had appalled her. The whole audience melted down to one man—Merrill Landon. She had done it, finally, to prove she could. But his amused criticisms afterward had nearly killed her.
“I haven’t been feeling well,” she murmured to Sarah.
“Well, you’d better start feeling better, honey. Because Dr. Hollingsworth and I had a little talk today. He asked me what was wrong with you. He thought maybe if you and I talked it over you might tell me what was the matter.” She spoke carefully, in a discreet voice.
But Laura stood up, offended and frightened. “Nothing’s the matter,” she snapped. “If he doesn’t like my work let him come to me and tell me about it himself.”
Sarah stood up, herself slightly offended at this display of ingratitude. “He came to me because he wanted to spare you any embarrassment, Laura. I should think that would be obvious.”
Laura relented a little. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I can’t explain it. I just can’t, it’s impossible. If he wants to let me go, I have no choice. I’ll leave.” But she was not as resigned to it, as stoical, as she sounded.
“Can’t you try to do a little better, Laura?” Sarah said kindly. “If I could tell him we had a little talk and you promised to try to do better. Or you’d been sick, or had a problem at
home, or something. Anything.”
Laura gave an unpleasant little laugh. Then her face dropped and she said, “I have no excuses, Sarah. I’m not a good enough liar to cook one up. I just—” And here she burst unexpectedly into tears and Sarah had to try to comfort her.
“Look, honey,” she said, after Laura had recovered a little. “Do you want the job? Do you?”
“Yes,” Laura said. “I want it.”
“Will you try to be more consistent, then? And I’ll tell Dr. Hollingsworth you’ve been having trouble at home you don’t want to talk about.”
“That’s such an obvious fib, Sarah.”
“No, it’s no fib. I heard you talk to Jack on the phone last week,” Sarah said. “I know there’s something going on.”
Laura went shaky and pale, and the blue shadows that had been growing in the past weeks under her eyes deepened. “What do you know?” she demanded.
Sarah became alarmed at her appearance. “Well, nothing really, only you sounded so upset, I thought maybe—”
“What did I say?”
“Oh, I don’t remember.” She tried to push it off casually, but she had thoroughly scared Laura, who recalled with biting clarity now Jack’s voice saying, For God’s sake, Mother, keep your voice down. “What did I say, Sarah?”
“Nothing so very bad, Laura.” Sarah stared at her. “I just got the impression you had a quarrel.”
“You had no right to listen!” Laura exclaimed harshly.
“You had no right to make personal calls during working hours, for that matter,” Sarah said defensively.
Laura picked up her purse and ran out of the office without another word. She went into a phone booth and called Jack. “Can I come over?” she said.
“No. I’m in a mess.”
“Please, Jack.”
“Mother, for Christ’s sake! Be empathic for once, will you?”
“All right, I’ll call Beebo.”
“No don’t. She’s p.o.’d at you. She may never speak to you again after what you said to her.”
Laura felt frantic. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” she said, half crying into the receiver. “I’ve practically lost my job.”
Go home to Marcie, Mother. Do something. I can’t help you out tonight. I’m sorry, honey.” And he was.
“Oh, Jack, say something to me. Say something kind. Anything.”
After a pause he said, “I love you, Mother. Only I’m not in love with you. I wish to hell I was, it couldn’t be worse than Terry. Now be a doll and let me go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She felt the urgency to get away in his voice and let him go. For a moment she sat in the booth and dried her tears. She felt sick about Beebo but she was afraid to call her.
It was another torturous weekend for Marcie, who was beginning to feel as if she had ruined Laura’s life. It was Sunday night before they actually made any sort of communication with each other.
Burr had been calling Marcie every night, trying to talk her into leaving the apartment. Their talks were short but the animosity had faded from them. Laura listened to them listlessly; she could not avoid hearing them in the small apartment. Marcie said things like, “Yes, she’s here.” “No, you know I don’t want to see you.” “No, we aren’t, and don’t bring that up again.” “I know I did. I know what I did, Burr, don’t throw it in my face.” She refused to see him.
Laura winced at all this, and finally she took to going out on the roof when he called. The windows were wide open, the weather being soft and pleasant now, and Marcie’s voice carried even out there. But it wasn’t so pervading, so persistent. On Sunday night, Laura went out and looked at the city while Marcie talked. The time passed almost without Laura’s being aware of it. She gazed across New York in the direction of the McAlton, wondering if her father was sitting in his room waiting for her. And then she looked down toward the Village and her heart gave a sick squeeze at the thought of Beebo. Beebo, who told her how terribly a love affair could hurt. Beebo, who told her to beware and then got caught in her own trap. Laura wondered if Beebo really loved her. If she could ever forgive her. Laura had attacked the very basis of her being: her body, her pride, her deepest needs. In that one quick wicked speech, Laura had ridiculed her. She felt the tears come. And she could hear Jack saying, “If Terry said that to me, I’d strangle him.” It was shameful.
She grew very depressed, thinking of the necessity of going back to work in the office the next morning, with Sarah trying to put on cheerfulness and Dr. Hollingsworth—so kindly, so tolerant—watching for signs of steadiness and application in her. And herself, so heavily aware of their good will toward her, their frustration, and her own overwhelming complexities that sapped her strength and effort.
She was startled when Marcie said at her elbow, “Burr wants to see me.” When Laura didn’t answer, Marcie said, “He feels Godawful about the whole thing. He wants to apologize to me.” Another silence. “I want to apologize to you, Laura. But you won’t let me.”
Laura shut her eyes in pain for a moment, as if to avoid the sight of Marcie’s face. And then she opened them and without looking at her, said, “We’ve been all through this before, Marcie. I don’t want your apologies. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I do.”
“You don’t!”
Marcie gave a long sigh of exasperation. “All right, then why won’t you speak to me?”
“I will, Marcie. When I can.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not now?”
“I guess I’m sick. Maybe Jack was right, I need to see his analyst.” She tried to smile a little.
“Because of your father? What he did to you?”
Laura looked down at her arms, folded on the cement railing. “I guess so,” she almost whispered.
“Laura, say something to me. This is unbearable.” Marcie was pleading with her, as Laura had pleaded herself with Jack on the phone. She turned and looked at Marcie, standing close beside her, two delicate lines between her eyes betraying the tension inside her. For a moment Laura just looked at her. It had been over a week since she looked at Marcie that way. In the soft spring night, in the golden light fading up from the streets below, with the myriad muffled noises that are the music of a great city around them, they gazed at each other. And Marcie was very beautiful with her hair lifted gently in the breeze and her eyes big with anxiety. She was wrapped in a blue silk negligee and the lines of her slim young body showed through it.
Finally, prompted by the necessity to speak, Laura said, “It’s so hard to talk, Marcie. Words are so inadequate sometimes.”
“Any words will do, Laura. Except ‘Excuse me.’ That’s all you’ve said to me for days on end.”
They smiled a little at each other, and Laura took her hands. She pulled just a little on them, and Marcie responded softly, coming toward her. “Laura, tell me I’m forgiven. Don’t say there’s nothing to forgive me for. I just want to hear you say it.”
“No.”
“Please.” Her voice broke.
“No, no, no,” Laura said, gazing curiously at Marcie. Did she really feel so guilty? She hadn’t done anything that bad. Laura had a strange feeling of finality, of the end of things, of everything ending at once so that nothing really mattered anymore. As if Marcie would turn and walk out of her life, and her job would end, and Beebo would never see her, and Jack and Terry would break up. It made her pensive and sad. She wondered at all the new feelings in her: the inability to care about her job, her meanness with Beebo, her unreasoning fear of Merrill Landon in the hotel lobby. Nothing seemed very real, up there on the roof. It didn’t seem to make much difference what she did. She gave another little pull and Marcie came still closer, touching her up and down the length of her body.
Laura touched her hair. “You look so much like a friend of mine,” she said. Marcie reminded her of Beth again at this moment; the Beth she had lost so long ago, a million
years ago, it seemed.
“I do? You never told me that.”
“I forgot.”
“What’s she like?”
“Oh, she was tall, short dark hair, purple eyes. Rather boyish.”
“You talk about her as if she were dead.”
“She is. As far as I’m concerned.”
Marcie frowned at her. “She doesn’t sound at all like me.”
“No, I guess she doesn’t,” Laura said. “There’s something about your face; I don’t know how to define it. I thought I saw a resemblance.” She had seen it in Beebo, too. And even in the curly-headed little blonde who had approached her in The Cellar the night she was looking for Beebo. They couldn’t all look like Beth. It was very strange.
“Were you good friends?” Marcie asked.
Laura smiled a little and put her arms around Marcie. In the still night she answered simply, “We were lovers.” It was very quiet, dreamlike, as if she spoke in a trance.
Marcie stared at her, motionless, as if to determine whether she were joking. She stood in Laura’s arms, unable to move one way or the other; uncertain and a little scared.
Laura saw her consternation, but it didn’t worry her. She spoke again, still feeling as if it weren’t real, any more than the glittering city below was real, or her father’s wrath, or Jack, or Beebo, or the doctors and Sarah… “That was the ‘great love’ I told you about, in college,” she said. “It was Beth.”
After a long pause, Marcie said in a whisper, “What happened?”
“She got married,” Laura said.
Marcie was dumbfounded. “I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly and then retreated into herself, embarrassed. She had no idea what to say, what to do.
Laura could see that, but at first she didn’t try to interpret it. It didn’t frighten her yet. “That’s why I was so shocked when Burr said you told him we were lovers,” Laura said. “I wish we were, Marcie. But I never touched you.” Marcie was studying her now, her eyes brimming. “When he accused me of it, and believed it and said you told him so, I was so hurt I didn’t know what to do or say. I thought of a million crazy explanations. The only one that seemed to make sense was that you felt the way I do.” She looked hard at Marcie. Their faces were very close together, and Laura was holding her tightly, her arms locked around Marcie’s small waist. “Do you, Marcie?” Laura whispered. “Do you?”