“Kiss me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting all day.” She pushed me away and held me by the shoulders.
“You’ve missed it again,” she said.
“Missed what?” I asked.
“The back of your head,” she said. “You brush your hair hard in front, but there’s always a place in back you never touch. Wait a minute. I’m going to put some soap on it.”
She went into the bedroom and came back with a washcloth and her hairbrush.
“Now, stand still,” she said, “and don’t wriggle. There’s such a lot I’ll have to do to you.”
I pretended to think that it was funny, but she must have known that I was pleased.
“Now your tie,” she said. “It slides around. I’ve always noticed that. But you’re so wonderful in a dinner coat! You look as though you belonged in it. You don’t look like a waiter. You look like a Sargent portrait or like Lou Tellegen.”
“It’s all right,” I said, “as long as I don’t look like Francis Bushman—or Rudolph Valentino.”
I was moving automatically from everything that I had known into a new and strange adventure. Marvin was a good deal more of a person than I was, more talented, more cultivated, but I realized very suddenly that I was facing something like the Army—a different sort of life—and that my training was entirely inadequate.
“I’ve certainly got to do a lot about you,” Marvin said. “You won’t know yourself when you get through.”
I stopped the taxi at a florist’s to buy Marvin some orchids, not the ordinary purple ones, but some with little brownish-yellow flowers.
It amused me a little to see her when we went downstairs in the Plaza, because she cared about so many things which I took for granted. For instance, I had always thought of the downstairs room as stuffy and complicated, but it meant something else to Marvin.
“Tell the headwaiter we don’t want to sit over there,” she said. “Tell him we want a good table.” And when the waiter asked if madame was satisfied she looked very pleased.
“Darling,” she said, “isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes,” I said, “it’s the first time I ever enjoyed it here.”
“Now tell me when you first liked me,” she said, and we went over the whole thing, I suppose the way everyone does, remembering this and that, all sorts of little things that she had said and I had said, and the way she had looked and I had looked.
“It all came over me,” I told her. “I didn’t know what you were like at first and then it all came over me. I wish I could say things nicely.”
“You do, when you say what you mean,” she said.
“I don’t see what you see in me,” I told her.
“You wouldn’t,” Marvin said. “It’s because I can do so much for you. That’s what a girl really wants. It’s going to be like a symphony. You’re going to like all the things I like and I’m going to like all the things you do.”
“I wish I could be more like Bill King,” I said. “I wish I could tell you how I feel.”
“Don’t be silly,” she answered. “That’s because no one’s ever loved you.” Then I began thinking of what I would say when I introduced her to the family.
“Marvin,” I said, “when are we going to get married?”
“Why, darling,” she said, “do you really want us to get married?”
“Why, yes,” I said, “of course.”
She looked at me across the table, smiling.
“I was wondering why you were worried,” she said. “Don’t look that way. Of course I want to, but we ought to see what it’s like.”
“What it’s like?” I repeated.
“What everything is like—you and me—everything. I want you—” She reached across the table and touched my hand—“I want you to want to marry me so much that you don’t care about anything else—anything. For once in your life, dear, try to have a good time. Try to think of it all as natural. I’m going to make you do that, if it kills me.”
“Marvin—” I began, and then I stopped.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“You don’t mean, Marvin—” I said, and I felt myself blushing. “You can’t mean what I think.”
“Of course,” Marvin said, “I mean what you think. I want us to be happy, dear. For once in your life I want you to be happy. Have you ever really been?”
“Happy?” I repeated.
“Tell the truth,” Marvin said. “Have you ever really been happy?”
“No, I guess I never have,” I said.
“Well, from now on,” Marvin said, “you’re going to be.”
Sometimes I can stand away at a distance and see myself as another person back there when I knew Marvin Myles. Everything moved swiftly and strangely. I can think of poems we read and things we saw together, and I can see how callow I must have been; and at other times I can hear myself saying to myself, how could I have done that? There is so much of which I have never spoken, which I have hidden inside myself, and I like it better that way. I like it better when I say to myself, that was that, although it is a poor way to put it. I remember one thing she said to me once, and when I repeat it perhaps I have said enough:
“Now, we can tell each other everything.”
Sometimes I begin thinking that I know more than a lot of people around me, because I must know more than anyone else alive knows about Marvin Myles. Somehow I am absolutely sure of that, and perhaps there is a fair exchange, for she knows more about me too, provided that amounts to anything. I suppose that such a thing as that can happen only once in your life, and perhaps it is just as well.
I know the whole secret of Marvin Myles—that she wanted things to belong to her, because what belonged to her gave her a sense of well-being, a sense that had something to do with power, although that is not the proper word. Once something belonged to her, she would give it everything she had. I know, because I belonged to her once.
We rode through the park in a Victoria that night, and afterwards we went in a taxi back to her apartment. It was almost midnight by then. She stood beside me looking at her little living room.
“It looks like the devil, doesn’t it?” she said.
“No,” I said, “it’s awfully nice.”
“It isn’t,” she said. “It’s cheap and silly. Some day, I’m going to have a room with nothing but Chippendale in it. You can take me over to England and I’ll buy it. Open the window, will you?”
I opened the window and looked out at the street lights and a trolley car went by.
“When do you want to go?” I asked.
“Some day,” she said, “some day when there’s time. We’ll sail on the Berengaria. I’ll want clothes in Paris too. What do you want?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ll watch you buy them.”
“That’s because you’ve always had everything,” she said. “I’m tired. Aren’t you tired?”
“Perhaps I’d better be going now.”
“Now, that’s a silly thing to say,” she said. “Why do you have to go because I’m tired? I can lie down here on the couch and you can sit beside me, and you can tell me about everything.”
“What sort of things?” I asked.
“You know,” she said, “the things you always tell me about. Tell me about North Harbor, and you might as well turn out the light.”
I sat beside her in the dark and the light from the street was something like moonlight. I have always liked the street lights ever since. It shone dimly on her face while she looked up at me. I must have talked for quite a while about North Harbor and I said a good many things which I had never said to anyone.
“Don’t,” she said all of a sudden, “don’t go on about it any more. I want to know all about them, but not now.”
“You’re tired,” I said. “I’d better be going.”
“What are you going to go for?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“Why, yes,” I said, “of course,” and then she laughed an
d I saw that her face was wet. “Marvin, what are you crying about?”
“Darling,” she whispered, “promise me something.”
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t say you’ve got to be going.”
“All right,” I said. “I won’t.”
“Just try to forget that there’s anyone but me.”
In the years that followed, when I never consciously thought of Marvin Myles, she must have been somewhere in my mind, waiting for me to remember. And now that I start thinking of her it is almost as though it had never ended. Perhaps a lot of things do not end when you think they are over. Lately in those interminable bouts of conversation when people endeavor to be sophisticated, I have heard a good deal of talk about “affairs.” It is mostly talk, of course, because not many of us have ever had any, but I have often been interested as I have listened. I have often wondered whether what occurred between Marvin and me could possibly fall into that dreary pattern. Somehow I have never thought so, for it was all new to us both, and somehow it still remains new to me. I am still certain—and my certainty is all that matters—that everything with Marvin and me was unique, not to be placed in any single category, that nothing in this world was ever like it.
XVIII
I Remember Marvin Myles
Next morning the girl at the information desk at J. T. Bullard’s did not appear to notice anything unusual about me.
“Good morning,” she said. “You’re early, Mr. Pulham.”
I was wondering what Marvin would be thinking, now that a new day was starting. I was wondering if she would be there already and what we would say to each other when we met. I was wondering if she would ever speak to me again. Bill was at his desk, with his hands in his pockets and with his chair tilted back, looking out of the window, but Marvin was not there. I was afraid she might be staying away because she could not bear the sight of me. I thought that Bill would certainly notice something, but he only waved his hand at me languidly.
“Hello, Bill,” I said. “What were you doing in Chicago?”
“The rubber webbing account,” Bill said. “We got it. How was everybody at home? How was Kay Motford?”
“Fine,” I said. “She asked for you.”
“I wish I could have gone up with you,” Bill said. “How’s your father? Did they want to get you out of this?”
“Yes,” I said. “But never mind about it, Bill.”
“Well, don’t let them,” Bill said. “You won’t know yourself when you forget the Skipper and the crowd in the entry. Where’s Marvin? She’s late.”
“I don’t know where she is,” I said.
“Well, never mind,” Bill said. “Let me ask you a personal question. How do you keep your pants up?”
“What?” I asked. I was getting used to the speed of Bill’s mind.
“I’m just asking,” Bill said patiently. “You wear a belt, don’t you?”
“Of course I wear a belt,” I answered.
“Well, that’s just the point,” Bill said. “You wear a belt and I wear a belt. Every day you wear a belt, and every hour, every minute, you’re unconsciously weakening your abdomen. Those lazy abdominal muscles, each hour, each minute, are becoming more flabby. A hundred hidden dangers lurk about your waistline.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“About the Winetka Woven Web Company,” Bill said. “They’re troubled about their suspenders. American manhood is going to be put back into galluses. Abraham Lincoln wore suspenders. He didn’t have a weak abdomen. Nearly everyone in Great Britain wears suspenders. A London tailor never even puts belt loops on his pants. You don’t see fat, pot-bellied Englishmen with lazy weakened abdomens. Why? Because they don’t wear belts. It’s the belt that’s ruining the manhood of America. It’s going to be a crusade.”
“Did you think up that yourself?” I asked. Of course I knew that he had. Already everyone was saying that Bill was a great idea man.
“Anything the matter with it?” Bill asked. “It’s going to be a crusade based on fear. If you do it right you can scare off all the belts in the country. A hundred hidden dangers lurk—”
“How do you know there are a hundred hidden dangers?” I asked. Bill could think of something new every minute.
“Suppose there aren’t a hundred hidden dangers,” Bill said. “Suppose there are only three—or fifty-three. It’s good enough for a raise.” Bill smiled at me and ran his hand through his light curly hair, the way he did when he was pleased with himself.
Then Marvin Myles came in. As far as I could see, it might have been any other day.
“Hello, boys,” she said.
“I’ve got to be going while I’m enthusiastic,” Bill said. “I’m going to take it in to Bullard,” and he pushed himself out of his chair. “Every day—every hour—nature’s wall of muscle—Marvin, what’s happened to you?”
A silence followed that seemed very long, but I don’t suppose it was.
“Why?” Marvin said. “What makes you ask?”
“You’re looking pretty,” said Bill, “awfully, awfully pretty.”
“Why, thanks, Bill,” Marvin said.
“Well, so long,” Bill said. “I’ll see you later.”
I did not know what to say to Marvin. I did not want to look at her, and everything that Bill had said made it all much worse.
“Marvin,” I said, “I suppose you can’t help hating me.”
Then our glances met and the corners of her lips curled upward.
“Why,” she said, “I don’t hate you. Why should I?”
“You ought to,” I said. “You’ve got every reason to. It might help you to know that I hate myself. I never knew that I could—”
“Could what?” Marvin asked.
“Forget myself so far,” I said.
Then I heard her laugh. I could not believe she was laughing.
“Why, you damn fool,” Marvin said, “you sweet, dear damn fool!”
Then everything was all right. It was what I’ve always felt—that everything was always all right whenever Marvin was there.
One of the few times in my life when I stood on my own two feet was at the Bullard agency, and if I have ever done well at anything since, I owe a good deal to the training I received there. I liked detail and I was a thorough and hard worker, which may have made up for what I lacked in creative brilliance. I never could hit on ideas the way Bill did and I never could write as well as Marvin Myles, but in some ways I could think more clearly than either of them. There is a tremendous lot in the advertising business which requires common sense and a dull sort of accuracy. They put me to work on scientific data and statistics, and some of the things I did formed the background of two or three of the best merchandising campaigns. For example, I wrote a report on suspenders that made the client offer me a job. I was the one who suggested a certain amount of color in the product and the idea of selling a number of braces to go with every suit. Bill may have invented the dangers that lurk about the waistline, but I was the one who thought of the idea that suspenders might be something which you need not be ashamed of when you had your coat off in summer. Though the idea did not go very far, I still think there is something to it. Another thing which helped me, I think, was my habit of not talking too much, rather a rare attribute in an advertising agency; nor did I ever have any great desire to show off when I was in the room with Mr. Kaufman or Mr. Bullard.
This is not an effort to build myself up, but it indicates that the things I achieved began to give me a sort of confidence. I could even listen to Bill’s ideas and pick out which were good and which were bad. The belief that I was getting somewhere, that I was learning enough about merchandising so that I could earn my living by it, was satisfying—but any such thoughts are always mixed up with Marvin Myles and Bill.
In those days when the speakeasies were beginning to crop up on Murray Hill and in the old dwelling houses on the west side of Fifth Avenue, we three used to meet at one o
f them in the afternoon and then have dinner at some queer place—either an Italian restaurant near Bleecker Street or one of the German places in the eighties. I don’t know how much Bill knew about Marvin and me then, although he must have seen that we liked each other. As a matter of fact, Bill was a good deal more interested in himself that summer and autumn than in anything else—in himself and in ideas. Whenever I heard him talking with Marvin at one of those restaurants I wondered what Marvin saw in me. Bill had read almost everything and if he hadn’t he could make you think he had. He had seen nearly all the shows and the exhibitions in the galleries. He had kept up his contact with newspaper friends and he knew all sorts of people—actors and headwaiters and playwrights and taxi drivers, and when we had dinner he was always waving to someone at another table and going over to talk to someone else.
He used to spend a good deal of time talking about college, because I imagine that he liked to have me argue with him. When he said that Bo-jo Brown and Sam. Green and Joe Bingham and Bob Carroll and all the rest of them were stuffed shirts, it always made me angry. I used to tell him that he did not really know what he was talking about, because he never really knew them.
“If it hadn’t been for me,” Bill said, “you wouldn’t be down here, boy. I’m the best friend you ever had.”
“There’s nothing the matter with where I was,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Marvin used to say. “I never knew any boys like that.”
“You wouldn’t, darling,” Bill said. “But you know Harry. He’s like that.”
“No, he isn’t,” Marvin said, “not really.”
I began to be acquainted with other people in the office, men who were married and who lived in the suburbs, or girls who were typing or keeping the scrapbooks and the files. Most of the time I never saw my old friends and when I did I never seemed to have much to say to them.
Once or twice Joe Bingham came to town and called me up, asking me to furnish him with some sort of entertainment. One night I took him down to Greenwich Village. I suppose there is a time in everyone’s life when Greenwich Village exerts a peculiar charm. It was like passages from Du Maurier’s Trilby and a little like something I had seen in Paris once when I was on leave from the front. The ventilation and the food were often pretty bad, and guttering candles on saucers on the table furnished the only illumination, but as a rule everyone could talk to everyone else about subjects which were usually banned at home, such as free love and trial marriage and symbols in dreams, and motion in art, and Marxism. It did not actually matter, however, whether you had ever heard of the subjects, for you could soon pick up the phrases, and there was always someone who was anxious to explain. Marvin pointed out to me that most of the villagers were no good, just on the fringe of everything, but she rather enjoyed it too, and she said that, bad as it was, it did me good. It still gives me a peculiar sort of pleasure to remember that I could call Sonia, the cigarette girl, “Sonia” without her minding it at all, and that I could call Romany Marie “Marie.” That was where I saw O’Neill’s plays first, down in the stable which had been made into a theater, and once I even met O’Neill. I know it is the fashion to laugh about Greenwich Village and to say hard things about it, but for me it still has an especial sort of beauty, because I associate it with Marvin Myles.
H. M. Pulham, Esquire Page 20