He had been standing there almost a half hour when she came out the door and stood under the canopy while the doorman hailed her a cab. Quickly he went around the corner and got into his car thinking that he could catch the cab on Michigan and follow her. He made Michigan quickly and the light was green but when he looked down the street there were about eight cabs and he couldn’t tell which one was hers.
Frustrated and, outraged and feeling very taken in he drove around feeling that if he ever got close enough to her he would like to spit on her and degrade her and let her know how he knew that she was lying. He decided he would go over to the Four Winds, thinking that she might be there. He went in but she wasn’t there. He had a casual drink with Hy and subtly probed to find out where she might have gone. Hy only knew of one other place where she might be and Nick went over there and she hadn’t been there in six months the bartender said.
He drove back past her apartment. He wondered if he ought to try and slip the doorman a ten to let him in and go up and wait for her. Then suddenly he decided to go back to Los Caballeros where the crowd from Raul’s party would now be, probably.
All the way out north he thought about her, and wondered what made her lie, and thought again how she must have looked selling newspapers, and remembered again how fine she was in the bed and then began to really believe that he was in love with her and felt wretched for being in love with her.
It was a little past twelve when he got to Los Caballeros. Yvonne was sitting up on the bar telling stories when he got there. And most of the rest of the party, including Raul’s father and the group from the Glencoe Little Theatre, were all there around the bar.
He walked up to Ellen the Fair. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he said. “She asked me to drive her out to the south side to her aunt’s. Then I had to go in and meet the aunt. I got back as quick as I could.”
“You missed it, Nick,” Ellen said. “Your sister just did a Greek dance for us. She brought down the house. What are you drinking?”
“I’ll have a stinger with you—will you?” She nodded and he ordered the stingers.
“Where did you ever find that tramp?” Yvonne leaned over and whispered to Nick.
“Nora?” Nick said with a hurt expression.
“Nora,” Yvonne confirmed.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” he whispered. “But you’ve got her all wrong, baby.”
Yvonne laughed a knowing womanly laugh.
“Dance with me, Nick,” Ellen the Fair said.
“Sure. You know I think I’m beginning to like this dancing business. We won’t stay too long, though. I’ve got to go down to the office with Old Pete tomorrow.”
“You’re going to work, then?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. Recite me some poetry while we dance, will you?”
“All right,” she smiled her nun’s smile.
And they silently toasted each other with the stingers and drank them half down with that happy defiance and vengeance with which they all seemed to drink and started out towards the dance floor.
CHAPTER XXII
THE next day Nick went to the office with old Pete. Old Pete was very proud showing Nick around, and especially proud when he showed Nick last month’s financial statement which Nick could not quite comprehend. Nick was surprised to see what a fine office Old Pete had, and Old Pete ranted for a while on all the money Mary had spent decorating it. At the Old Timers’ Baseball luncheon, Nick excused himself and called Nora. Nora acted as if they hadn’t had any argument at all and they made a date for dinner Wednesday night.
Monday night Yvonne and Nick had dinner with Old Gus at his shack as they had planned. It was the finest dinner they had ever had there. The dandelion greens were excellent and the lamb was tender and they drank much wine and sang while Old Gus played his zither and later the three of them went down to Halstead Street. They picked up Old Joe of the one eye and went over to the Acropolis and did the Greek dance and sang some more and had a fine time. And while they were at the Acropolis, Joe got Nick to agree to go fishing in Florida instead of Wisconsin.
The next night Nick had dinner at Ellen’s. Then Nick and Ellen and her mother and father all went out to the country club and played bingo, then Nick and Ellen went out to Los Caballeros and had a couple of drinks with Tuttle and Raul and Raul’s girl Speedy-Weedy. Nick was surprised to see Pierro and Marci walk in around twelve o’clock and asked them to join their party at the bar. But Pierro said no, they had just come from a concert at Ravinia and were going to have a sandwich in the dining room.
Wednesday Nick had dinner with Nora. They went to the Buttery and then went back to her apartment as if they never had had any argument at all. It was quite a night in her apartment. Nick didn’t say anything to her about seeing her go out after he had taken her home the other night. Mary was upset the next day because Nick hadn’t come home and asked him all kinds of questions about where he had been and what girls he had seen and how he ought to watch out for women as they were liable to corrupt the high moral standards that she had set for him.
Thursday night Nick went to Pierro’s for dinner. Yvonne went too. They ate early and left early and after Nick took Yvonne home he went out to Los Caballeros by himself and sat around with Raul, and Tuttle, and Tuttle’s bride-to-be and talked about the war and about business until Nick was sick of that talk and went home and went to bed.
Old Pete got through the Peru crisis without a scratch. He even had the Peru paper print a retraction of its implication regarding Interstate. And Interstate presented the girl who had been critically hurt by the flying glass from the homemade bomb with a year’s pass to the Interstate theatres in that town. And Old Pete himself issued a statement that reflected on the tactics employed by the Union people.
Yvonne and Nick spent almost all of every day on the beach. Ellen sat with them a lot. Nick was getting very tan. Each day he would run up the beach a little farther and he was in the best condition he had been in since before he was wounded the last time. It was very busy around the Stratton House in Winnetka. The day of the wedding was approaching and Mary and Old Pete were both very busy with a lot of the details and once in a while Nick and Yvonne would help out by running an errand for Mary or driving down to Chicago to pick up a package for Old Pete. Mary got another stay-in maid to help out. Sophia moved out to Winnetka to be near Mary as there were so many things they had to do together.
Old Pete had phoned his friend John Rakis, the theatre man, down in Atlanta. Rakis said he would be happy to come to the wedding and bring his daughter Pat. Old Pete could tell from the way John spoke on the phone that John must have pretty much the same idea for Nick and Pat as he, Old Pete, had. Old Pete was dying to tell someone that John Rakis, one of America’s richest (if not the richest) Greeks was coming up for the wedding Old Pete was throwing for his niece. But he was getting just as much pleasure keeping it to himself, too, and visualizing how everyone would react when they saw his son Nick with Pat Rakis and his nephew Pierro with Marci Preston.
Old Pete was very easy to get along with that week. He gave Mary some extra cash and slipped Nick a check for five hundred and told him it was a little coming home present. That was on Friday and the following Monday Nick’s bank statement came in the mail and Old Pete opened it, ‘by accident’ he said, and when Old Pete saw that Nick had over nine thousand in the bank he was very upset over having given Nick the five hundred and told Nick about it and censured Nick for not having bought something nice for his mother and sister when he had all that money in the bank. And wondered how Nick could possibly have accumulated all that money in his four years in the army. And told Nick that he really shouldn’t leave all that money sitting around in the bank. That what he really ought to do was take about seventy-five hundred of it out and let Old Pete put it to work for him. But Nick knew better than that. He knew he’d never see his money again if he turned it over to Old Pete and Nick told Old Pete that he had some plans for the mon
ey himself. And when Old Pete asked him what his plans were he said he was thinking of going into the coin operated machine business with Raul and Tuttle.
Nick and Nora got along fine. As if they never had had an argument. Nick saw quite a bit of her and talked to her every day on the phone and had thought several times of marrying her. And wanting, too, very bad to talk to someone about how he felt about her but didn’t know whom to talk to—he couldn’t talk to Yvonne because he knew Yvonne didn’t like her at all. In fact, it seemed that lately Yvonne didn’t like anyone except Ellen. Had even gone to lunch with Ellen twice.
By the end of that week, Pierro had quit working altogether. He accepted a luncheon invitation from Old Pete on the following Monday. He was very surprised Old Pete asking him to lunch at the Camellia Room of the Drake and even more surprised when Old Pete told him to bring Marci along. Pierro couldn’t quite figure that out. But once when Marci went to the ladies’ room, Old Pete told Pierro that the reason he had wanted him to bring Marci was because he was thinking of asking Marci’s father for a favor, Marci’s father being very influential with a certain politician whom Old Pete had wanted to reach for some time—then went on to subtly elaborate on the importance of the Preston name in all influential circles of Chicago life.
Everything was really going along fine on all fronts. At least it was until the following Thursday when things erupted abruptly at the Strattons’ in Winnetka. It happened as usual at the dinner table.
“Well,” Old Pete said, “I gotta little surprise for you, son.” It was during the coffee right after Old Pete had lighted his ten-cent cigar. “And for you, too, Mary.”
“It certainly has been a happy home since you came home. Nick,” Mary said.
“We’ve had fun, haven’t we?” Yvonne said.
“Don’t you want to hear what I got to say,” Old Pete said. “I’ve had a hell of a time not mentioning it before.”
“Of course we want to hear,” Mary said. “Don’t we Nick?”
“Of course, Mother,” Nick said.
“Yes,” Yvonne said slightly plaintively, “I’d like to hear myself.”
“Well, guess who’s coming to the wedding,” Old Pete said with a wry smile of satisfaction on his face. “Guess?”
“The mayor,” Mary said.
“Oh, he’s coming,” Old Pete said, “I thought I told you that.”
“The governor?” Mary questioned.
“No,” Old Pete said, “he’s a Republican.”
“Charley Grimm,” Nick said, wondering if Old Pete would get his attempted sarcasm.
“Grimm will be there, I think,” Old Pete said. “Hartnett will be there for sure. And Mordicai Brown. And maybe Hack Wilson if I can get a hold of him. But you’re not even close, Nick.”
“Gypsy Rose Lee,” Yvonne said winking at Nick.
“Yvonne,” Mary said, “have some respect.”
“The King of Greece,” Nick said, “King Paul.”
“No, no, no—” Old Pete said. “John Rakis, that’s who. My old friend, John Rakis, that’s who. And he’s bringing his daughter. How do you like that, Nick? You’ll have the most beautiful Greek girl in America, in the world maybe, for the wedding. And John Rakis’ daughter besides. What do ya think about that?” Old Pete said smiling, satisfied.
“I ain’t taking her,” Nick said abruptly.
“You—” Old Pete started.
“Nick—” Mary said.
“I got a date for the wedding,” Nick said staring at his coffee cup and sulking.
“If it’s Ellen, I’m sure you can get out of it,” Mary said.
“It ain’t Ellen and I’m not getting out of it,” Nick said.
“What do you mean, Nicol—ain’t?” Mary said. “I didn’t teach you to talk like that. You know better than to use ‘ain’t’.”
“Ain’t for effect,” Nick said in that half-lazy, half-sardonic way of his. “Which means NO. N-O.”
“Goddamn it, Nick, watch how you talk to your mother,” Old Pete said.
“I didn’t start this,” Nick said.
“Well, I’m gonna finish it,” Old Pete said.
“Go ahead and finish it,” Nick said. “But get someone else to do your dirty work. I got a date. It’s a free country.”
“What the hell kind of son I got,” Old Pete said. “Yvonne, what kind of brother you got talks to his mother and father this way?”
“Nick’s got a date,” Yvonne said.
“You keep out of this,” Old Pete said.
Nick laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Old Pete said, “what’s so goddamn funny?”
“Stop it this minute,” Mary said.
“Stop what?” Nick said. “For Christ’s sake I ain’t done anything but laugh. Is it a crime to laugh, too?”
“Nick, your language is atrocious,” Mary said. “I didn’t bring you up to speak like that. Why if someone heard you what would they think of me?”
“He oughta be ashamed. He oughta get down on his hands and knees and apologize to God for acting this way towards his mother and father,” Old Pete said crossing himself Orthodox fashion. “He’s so goddamn dumb though I don’t think he’s got brains enough to be ashamed.” Then Old Pete crossed himself again, crossed himself as if gesturing to God for God’s help for his son, who God in Heaven must know needed help awful bad.
“I’m not taking that girl,” Nick said. “And that’s final.”
“He must be crazy. Ca-ra-zy,” Old Pete said. “He must be Ca-ra-zy,” Old Pete looked at Mary unbelievingly.
Nick got up. Threw his napkin on his chair. Looked sardonically around the table and left.
“Don’t worry, Pete,” Mary said soothingly, as soon as Nick was out of earshot. “We’ll work it out. It’ll all work out.”
“You shouldn’t approach Nick like that, Daddy. Really you shouldn’t. He’s terribly touchy since he came home.”
“It’s the war,” Mary said. “Some people will just never know what our boys went through.”
“I can’t understand that kid. He must be nuts. That hit in the head must’ve hurt him worse than the doctors said. I hate to say it but by God it must of.”
“Peter,” Mary said. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Please, Daddy,” Yvonne said.
“Who’s he taking?” Old Pete asked Yvonne.
“I think it’s Nora,” Yvonne said.
“Who’s Nora?” Old Pete asked.
“It’s that woman from Chicago,” Mary said.
“What woman?” Old Pete asked.
“A widow,” Yvonne said. “A rich widow.”
“A widow!” Old Pete said and crossed himself again. “Why the hell hasn’t someone told me about this, Mary?”
“Now don’t get excited, Pete,” she said. “I didn’t think it was anything serious. Why didn’t you tell me, Yvonne?”
“Who said it was serious,” Yvonne said. “Besides, no one asked me.”
“I never know what’s going on around this place,” Old Pete said. “Goddamn it, Yvonne, why don’t you tell me about these things? How am I gonna protect your brother if you don’t tell me about these things?”
“I don’t know anything,” Yvonne said.
“Oh,” Mary threw her hands to her face and began to cry. “Oh, my God, my poor Nick.”
“Mother,” Yvonne said.
“What’s wrong with her?” Old Pete asked Yvonne pokerfaced.
“Oh,” Mary cried again, “my boy.”
“For Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with you?” Old Pete said bewildered. “What’s going on around here?”
“Oh,” Mary practically wailed. “That’s who he’s been with when he hasn’t come home. I know it. I feel it. You know how I feel things. I knew he was getting mixed up with the wrong woman. I could feel it.”
Yvonne felt so like giggling that she rushed from the table into the kitchen where she busted up giggling and laughing and listening.
“For Chri
st’s sake he’s a man,” Old Pete said. “What you expect? Thank God he’s a man, anyhow. Instead of like that sissy cousin of his.”
“Pierro?” Mary stopped crying abruptly.
“Who else,” Old Pete said.
“Peter Stratton, you’ve a foul mind. A rotten dirty old mind.”
Old—Old Pete repeated to himself. Old. These goddamn women. These rotten women when they’re mad. Always hitting below the belt.
“You’re nuts,” he said. “You’re all nuts around here. What the hell kind of family I got? What kind of family did I raise? Tell me what kind of family—hiding things? How’s a man gonna protect his family if he don’t know what’s going on—Mary, you ought to be ashamed.”
Mary started to cry real hard and got up and left the table.
Old Pete followed her out of the dining room into the living room but she continued on upstairs. He paced back and forth in the living room puffing on the ten-cent cigar and Nick came in from the porch.
“You oughta be ashamed,” Old Pete said to him.
“Of what?” Nick said.
“Of upsetting your mother like that.”
“Like what?” Nick said.
“Making your mother cry.”
“I didn’t make her cry.”
“I suppose I did,” Old Pete said.
“You do most of the time,” Nick said.
“You ought to be ashamed,” Old Pete said. “Ashamed—you ought to apologize to God for the way you speak to your mother and father. The way we worked and slaved—”
“I know, I know,” Nick said.
“I think mother’s gonna faint,” Yvonne hollered from upstairs.
“Get up there to your mother, Nick. Apologize to your mother.”
Nick just stood there staring at the old man for a moment, feeling suddenly very sorry for him; sorry because he knew that now that maybe Mary was going to faint Old Pete wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of it, wouldn’t be able to go near her anymore than he could go near anyone that was sick. It frightened him so seeing anyone sick. God, Nick thought, it must be terrible to be so afraid of dying. Afraid like Old Pete was. It was pitiful seeing anyone that afraid of anything.
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