“Come here, baby.”
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed.
He caught her arm but she pulled away, and with all the strength left in her she lashed out and slapped him sharply in the face.
“You’re just like the rest of them!” she cried harshly, her lips trembling. “You’re all alike!”
With a little cry, she opened the door and ran out into the hall.
“Good-by, Hilda,” he said softly to himself.
He could hear her hurrying down the corridor and then she was in the elevator, and he knew that by the time she reached the street her heart would have stopped pounding and the terrible hurt would already have started to heal.
He put on his hat and coat and took one long, last look at the office. Then he snapped off the lights and stepped out into the hall and watched the door slowly lock shut on part of his life, and somehow he didn’t feel as bad as he had thought he would.
In a week or so, another man would be sitting at his desk. And when the work slowed down, or when Kennedy was gone for the day, or when it was raining out and there’d be luncheon sandwiches and coffee sent up from the drugstore, Hilda would be telling her stories to someone new. Only now, it would be different.
For her, at least, it would always be different.
You Can’t Have Everything
SHE CLUNG TO MY ARM TIGHTLY, as though somehow that would show the others in the living room that I cared for her.
“Don’t you want to dance?” she asked.
“I’m tired,” I said.
“Is anything wrong, Roy?”
I turned to her, gazing at the plain, unbeautiful face that seemed to have been made for slapping. “I told you, Marsha,” I said, “I’m tired. I’ve been working hard all week.”
“Gee, I’m sorry, dear. I do want you to enjoy yourself. It’s only for you that I have parties like this.”
“For me? Why for me?” I demanded. “You know I don’t go for these people.”
She gave a little giggle. “I’m proud of you, silly. I like to have them look at you while I say to myself, ‘He’s mine. All mine.’”
I pulled my arm free.
“Roy—isn’t that the way you feel when people look at me?”
I didn’t answer.
“Roy?” Her eyes had me trapped.
“All this talk, honey,” I said, looking away. “I’m worn out. It’s Saturday night. Can’t you let me relax?”
But she had already stopped listening. Sometimes not listening was the only protection she had. She drifted away to the kitchen, holding her quivering lips in a meaningless little smile, and I started breathing again. I stood there in the crowded, noisy room playing with my drink and wondering to myself, as I had wondered so many times in the past six months, how much longer I would be able to go on keeping Marsha Cornell dangling on the string while I played the field.
I glanced around the enormous room at the old masters on the walls, at the magnificent furnishings that had been brought over, piece by piece, from the finest establishments in Europe during the first hot flush of Mr. Cornell’s newly attained affluence. The old guy had it all right—plenty of it—and a lot of it would be mine someday, just as soon as I popped the proper question. The only trouble was, it would be a package deal, and Marsha came in the package.
But what the hell—I shrugged and headed for the bar. … You can’t have everything.
Halfway across the room I made the big mistake. I never should have turned my head. Because when I did, I saw the girl. She was on the powder-blue love seat beneath the Gainsborough. She had on a black, off-the-shoulder affair and she wasn’t bothering to look even politely amused. I walked right over and sat down next to her.
“You mind?”
She turned cold gray eyes on me. “It’s too early to tell.” Then she smiled, and she was almost beautiful.
“Finish your drink,” I said, “and I’ll show you how to dance. Are you alone!”
“Practically. I came with Henry De Witt.” She got rid of the glass. “He’s out like a mazda in the guest room—on three drinks.”
I laughed. “You sure pick ’em.” Henry De Witt had gone straight from Harvard to a shiny desk at National City and his grandfather had left him a small fortune to play around with in his spare time, but he still was a terrible bust. He was too shy to talk and when he did talk no one liked what he said, and because he couldn’t stand that, he’d pass out at parties as rapidly as the power of alcohol would permit. Everything he touched turned to lead. But this girl was definitely not lead. …
Someone had stacked oldies on the hi-fi and Tommy Dorsey was giving out with “You’re a Sweetheart.” We got up and she moved into my arms and we started a smooth slow-foxtrot and I knew right away that I wasn’t going to show her how to dance. I wasn’t going to show her anything.
“Tell me about you and Henry,” I murmured to the scent of Jungle Gardenia in her hair.
“Must I?”
I thought it over for a moment. “No,” I smiled, holding her a little closer. “By all means, no.”
“What’s your name?”
“Roy,” I said. “Roy Samson.”
“Oh …” She took her face from my shoulder and looked at me. You’re … Marsha’s …”
She winced as my hand dug into her back.
“Don’t say that,” I muttered harshly.
She hid her face. “I’m … I’m sorry. I must have confused you with—”
“You didn’t confuse me with anyone. Just don’t say it—that way.”
We danced for a while, nursing the strained silence, until finally she asked, “What do you do, Roy?”
“I’m a junior customer’s man at Harris, Upjohn and Company, down in the Street, if that means anything to you. I make a lot of money for some people and practically nothing for myself.” And then, because I felt I had to, I added, “Marsha’s father is my one big account.”
“I see,” she said simply, and I had an idea she did see.“Now what about you?”
“Ursula Wynant,” she said.
“Pretty.”
“I model for—ha ha—a living.” She kept talking, and I kept staring at her lips.
“Look,” I broke in, “I don’t suppose you’d care to do an off-to-Buffalo?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. Then she said, “What about Marsha?”
“Let me do the ‘worrying.’”
“And Henry?”
“Let him do ‘the worrying.’” I eased her toward the foyer.
We got away without being too obvious. Marsha was still in the kitchen.
Outside, the cold night air was intoxicating. Or maybe it was the strange new hand held tightly in mine. We went to a small bar where the lights were kind, and we talked and drank and drank and talked, and occasionally the truth crept through the banter, and that was when the part that was the drinking suddenly seemed terribly necessary.
I kept staring at her pale, angular face, trying to decide what it was that made me feel she’d never do too well as a model, and it wasn’t easy to figure out, because she wasn’t far from being beautiful. She was a girl sitting at a bar in midtown Manhattan with a strange young man on a Saturday night and the future lay ahead, bright with promise and mystery. But as she talked, none of that seemed to mean as much to her as the dull years of poverty in a small Midwestern town that lay behind. And it was then, as she told me of the grubby jobs she had held before coming to New York, that I decided it was the eyes that were wrong, out of key with the rest of her. It was more than too much eye-shadow that gave them the faintly lurking sadness.
Suddenly the eyes made me uneasy. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. We walked aimlessly for a couple of blocks, holding hands and not saying anything, and every now and then I could feel her looking at me, but I didn’t mind the eyes in the darkness. I felt good walking at her side, better than I had felt in a long time, and I began to wonder what it would be like to feel that way for a lifetime
… or at least a whole night, anyway.
Waiting at the curb for the light to change, I glanced at her and our eyes met and then I moved close and took her face in my hands.
“I don’t know what the hell this is all about,” I murmured, kissing her softly on the lips.
She didn’t resist. “Don’t you think we ought to be getting back to the party now?”
“Ursula, I want to be alone with you.”
“Oh, Roy …” She shook her head and sighed a small, hopeless sigh.
“Please, honey.”
We stood there at the curb and let the people stare at us. I didn’t give a damn. I kissed her again. “Where do you live?” I said heavily.
“Well … I have a little place on Sixty-eighth just off Lexington. But … but the heat goes on at eleven. …”
“Shall we walk it?”
She gazed into my eyes until I had to look away. And then I heard her say, “It’s later than you think, Roy.”
And looking back on it now, I remember that I thought she meant the hour. We took a cab.
Her apartment was in one of those old private houses. It was small and poorly furnished. She hung up my hat and coat and brought drinks from the kitchenette.
“To us,” I said. It wasn’t Canadian Club and there were no canapes with it and the hooked rug beneath my feet wasn’t wall-to-wall carpeting. But what the hell— you can’t have everything.
“Don’t go away,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t go away. Not then, I didn’t.
But later, the blackness outside her windows started turning to gray and I was down to my last cigarette and I knew it was time to leave, but I wasn’t sure just what it was I wanted to say.
“Ursula—honey—”
She covered my mouth quickly with her lips. “Don’t, darling,” she said. “Let’s not talk about love.”
I gazed at her for a moment. “Okay,” I shrugged. “Okay by me.”
When I came back from the closet with my hat and coat, her eyes searched mine anxiously. “But I am glad you sat down beside me tonight,” she said. “Are you, Roy?”
I took her face in my hands. “What do you think?” It was late. I was tired. And she had said, “Let’s not talk about love.” So I said, “What do you think?”
It wasn’t very clever.
Ma had roast beef for Sunday dinner, served with brown gravy and the usual questions: How was Marsha? Why did I stay out so late? How was Marsha? And how was Marsha?
“Please pass the potatoes, Pop.”
“Why do you change the subject?” my mother asked.
“I’m not changing the subject. I happen to be rather hungry today.”
“Marsha is a nice girl. She comes from a fine family. I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”
“I’d rather not talk about it. Do you mind?” Not today I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to go on remembering last night.
“How are you fixed for money these days?” my father said.
I glanced at him sharply. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, yesterday I got a bill from Tripler’s for four hundred and twenty dollars for an overcoat, two suits and a dozen ties.”
“Damn it!” I shouted, reddening. “I told them to send it to the office!”
“Roy!” my mother cried.
“I’ll pay for it by the first of the month,” I muttered to the plate.
“I wasn’t worrying about that,” my father said quietly. “I just wanted to know what it was all about. It seems to me that for a boy who is earning a hundred dollars a week, you have very expensive tastes. I hope you can afford them.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I threw my napkin down and left the table.
I didn’t want to have to tell them about the gin games with Mr. Cornell. At first, during the early weeks, I had gone around feeling good because I thought I was a guy who could play better gin than a man who smoked dollar cigars. I had even boasted about it a little. And then, slowly, I had become aware of the fact that he was throwing the games to me, and I knew then how very much the Cornells wanted me for Marsha, how high Mr. C. was prepared to go to keep me visiting their home and leaving contented. That gave me an even nicer feeling, cozy and secure … but it was nothing I cared to talk about.
So far, it had cost Mr. Cornell plenty. The latest figures on the cover of our score-sheet showed that he owed me twenty-three hundred dollars, and though neither of us had ever put it in so many words, we both knew under what happy circumstances payment in full would be made. …
I took a bus downtown and went window-shopping along the avenues, looking at the women and seeing only their mink coats, and looking at the Cadillacs and Lincolns and seeing only their price tags. It was then that I had to start thinking about Ursula Wynant again. But thinking about her didn’t seem to be enough, so I went into a drugstore and dialed her number.
No answer.
I wasn’t going to call Marsha Cornell. But I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the fountain and something that I saw there made me change my mind. It was one of the new suits from Tripler’s. It looked damned good on me.
She answered on the third ring.
“Oh … Roy …” her voice wavered uncertainly.
“Are you angry, Marsha?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Why should I be angry?” I could almost see her pale lips trembling.
“About last night,” I said. “About my leaving so early.”
“You’re—you’re perfectly free—” she struggled with the words. “Free to do as you please.”
“I was awfully tired, honey.”
“I—I know. You told me several times. I—”
“What’s the matter with your voice?”
“I have a cold,” she blurted out. “Oh, Roy, couldn’t you at least have said good night to me? Couldn’t you—?”
“You were busy, honey, and I didn’t want to start anything … with all those people there. You know how you get.”
“No, Roy, I don’t know. Tell me how I get.”
“Well, you sort of … complain.”
She gave a little moan. “Is that what I do? I complain. I must learn to stop, mustn’t I …”
“Oh, it’s not so bad.”
“Thank you, Roy,” she said weakly.
“Did Henry De Witt get home all right?” I made it sound casual.
“Two of the boys took him home. He’s a sensitive boy. That’s why he has to drink so much … to deaden the pain. Liquor makes me sick. That’s the only reason I don’t touch it. She was so lovely, wasn’t she?”
“Who?”
“Ursula Wynant. The girl Henry brought. …”
“Oh.”
“The girl you left with.”
I swallowed, groping for words. “Now, Marsha …”
“Do I sound complaining, Roy?” Her voice quivered. “I don’t mean to.
“Look, honey, she asked me to drop her off on the way—”
“There’s no need to explain.”
“You know how a girl feels when she’s left alone at a party.”
“I do, Roy, don’t I?” I could hardly hear her.
“Now if I wasn’t all tied up tonight I’d come over and take you to a movie and in no time at all you’d get over any foolish notions about—”
“I don’t feel well.” Her voice broke. “I have to hang up now.”
“Wait a minute, honey, you’re not angry now, are you?”
“Good-by, Roy.”
“I’ll see you early in the week. Okay?”
“Will you?” It was a small moan. “Shall I wait at the telephone?”
“Now, Marsha. … Hello?”
But she had hung up. I stumbled from the booth, mopping my forehead. I was going to have to warm her up again the next time I saw her. I’d have to tell her I loved her. Maybe I’d even have to kiss her.
The trouble you could get into for only a dime …
I phoned him after the close.
“See what I mean, Mr. Cornell? Four thousand dollars on a three-day trade. Not bad, not bad.”
He grunted wordlessly.
I said, “You don’t sound very excited.”
“All right—four thousand dollars,” he said in a flat voice. “It’s only money.”
“Only money. Hah! You bet it’s only money.”
“There are other things more important in life than money, Roy.”
I had to laugh. He was the one to talk. “Like what, Mr. Cornell?” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Like my daughter’s happiness,” he said. “But I don’t have to tell you that, do I, Roy?”
“Of course not.”
“I’ve told you many times that she’s the only thing that means anything to me.”
I was smiling to myself. I knew what he was getting around to.“Certainly,” I said.
“Are you doing anything tonight, Roy?”
“Why do you ask?” As though I didn’t know.
“I thought … I thought maybe you’d come up and play a little gin.”
“Gee, Mr. Cornell,” I said, “I don’t know if I’ll be free tonight.” Worry him a little.
“You’re busy these nights, Roy, aren’t you?” There was a strange note in his voice.
“Not so very. It’s just that—”
“How would you like it if we raise the stakes to fifty cents a point?”
“It’s just that sometimes things come up unexpectedly and I’m never sure what I’m going to be doing, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll push everything aside and make it my business to see you tonight. How is Marsha feeling?”
“Say around eight-thirty, Roy?”
“Eight-thirty. Right.” I grinned as I hung up. Fifty cents a point! I punched my open palm with my fist. Oh … brother!
The only trouble was, I’d have to put off seeing Ursula until tomorrow. But what the hell—you can’t have every thing.
Sweet Smell of Success Page 10