by Ira Levin
“I just came over to thank you,” Mrs. Castevet said, “for saying those nice things to us the other night, poor Terry telling you she was grateful to us for what we done. You’ll never know how comforting it was to hear something like that in such a shock moment, because in both of our minds was the thought that maybe we had failed her in some way and drove her to it, although her note made it crystal clear, of course, that she did it of her own free will; but anyway it was a blessing to hear the words spoken out loud like that by somebody Terry had confided in just before the end.”
“Please, there’s no reason to thank me,” Rosemary said. “All I did was tell you what she said to me.”
“A lot of people wouldn’t have bothered,” Mrs. Castevet said. “They’d have just walked away without wanting to spend the air and the little bit of musclepower. When you’re older you’ll come to realize that acts of kindness are few and far between in this world of ours. So I do thank you, and Roman does too. Roman is my hubby.”
Rosemary ducked her head in concession, smiled, and said, “You’re welcome. I’m glad that I helped.”
“She was cremated yesterday morning with no ceremony,” Mrs. Castevet said. “That’s the way she wanted it. Now we have to forget and go on. It certainly won’t be easy; we took a lot of pleasure in having her around, not having children of our own. Do you have any?”
“No, we don’t,” Rosemary said.
Mrs. Castevet looked into the kitchen. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, “the pans hanging on the wall that way. And look how you put the table, isn’t that interesting.”
“It was in a magazine,” Rosemary said.
“You certainly got a nice paint job,” Mrs. Castevet said, fingering the door jamb appraisingly. “Did the house do it? You must have been mighty openhanded with the painters; they didn’t do this kind of work for us.”
“All we gave them was five dollars each,” Rosemary said.
“Oh, is that all?” Mrs. Castevet turned around and looked into the den. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, “a TV room.”
“It’s only temporary,” Rosemary said. “At least I hope it is. It’s going to be a nursery.”
“Are you pregnant?” Mrs. Castevet asked, looking at her.
“Not yet,” Rosemary said, “but I hope to be, as soon as we’re settled.”
“That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Castevet said. “You’re young and healthy; you ought to have lots of children.”
“We plan to have three,” Rosemary said. “Would you like to see the rest of the apartment?”
“I’d love to,” Mrs. Castevet said. “I’m dying to see what you’ve done to it. I used to be in here almost every day. The woman who had it before you was a dear friend of mine.”
“I know,” Rosemary said, easing past Mrs. Castevet to lead the way; “Terry told me.”
“Oh, did she,” Mrs. Castevet said, following along. “It sounds like you two had some long talks together down there in the laundry room.”
“Only one,” Rosemary said.
The living room startled Mrs. Castevet. “My goodness!” she said. “I can’t get over the change! It looks so much brighter! Oh and look at that chair. Isn’t that handsome?”
“It just came Friday,” Rosemary said.
“What did you pay for a chair like that?”
Rosemary, disconcerted, said, “I’m not sure. I think it was about two hundred dollars.”
“You don’t mind my asking, do you?” Mrs. Castevet said, and tapped her nose. “That’s how I got a big nose, by being nosy.”
Rosemary laughed and said, “No, no, it’s all right. I don’t mind.”
Mrs. Castevet inspected the living room, the bedroom, and the bathroom, asking how much Mrs. Gardenia’s son had charged them for the rug and the vanity, where they had got the night-table lamps, exactly how old Rosemary was, and if an electric toothbrush was really any better than the old kind. Rosemary found herself enjoying this open forthright old woman with her loud voice and her blunt questions. She offered coffee and cake to her.
“What does your hubby do?” Mrs. Castevet asked, sitting at the kitchen table idly checking prices on cans of soup and oysters. Rosemary, folding a Chemex paper, told her. “I knew it! Mrs. Castevet said. “I said to Roman yesterday, “He’s so good-looking I’ll bet he’s a movie actor’! There’s three-four of them in the building, you know. What movies was he in?”
“No movies,” Rosemary said. “He was in two plays called Luther and Nobody Loves An Albatross and he does a lot of work in television and radio.”
They had the coffee and cake in the kitchen, Mrs. Castevet refusing to let Rosemary disturb the living room on her account. “Listen, Rosemary,” she said, swallowing cake and coffee at once, “I’ve got a two-inch-thick sirloin steak sitting defrosting right this minute, and half of it’s going to go to waste with just Roman and me there to eat it. Why don’t you and Guy come over and have supper with us tonight, what do you say?”
“Oh, no, we couldn’t,” Rosemary said.
“Sure you could; why not?”
“No, really, I’m sure you don’t want to—”
“It would be a big help to us if you would,” Mrs. Castevet said. She looked into her lap, then looked up at Rosemary with a hard-to-carry smile. “We had friends with us last night and Saturday,” she said, “but this’ll be the first night we’ll be alone since—the other night.”
Rosemary leaned forward feelingly. “If you’re sure it won’t be trouble for you,” she said.
“Honey, if it was trouble I wouldn’t ask you,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Believe me, I’m as selfish as the day is long.”
Rosemary smiled. “That isn’t what Terry told me,” she said.
“Well,” Mrs. Castevet said with a pleased smile, “Terry didn’t know what she was talking about.”
“I’ll have to check with Guy,” Rosemary said, “but you go ahead and count on us.”
Mrs. Castevet said happily, “Listen! You tell him I won’t take no for an answer! I want to be able to tell folks I knew him when!”
They ate their cake and coffee, talking of the excitements and hazards of an acting career, the new season’s television shows and how bad they were, and the continuing newspaper strike.
“Will six-thirty be too early for you?” Mrs. Castevet asked at the door.
“It’ll be perfect,” Rosemary said.
“Roman don’t like to eat any later than that,” Mrs. Castevet said. “He has stomach trouble and if he eats too late he can’t get to sleep. You know where we are, don’t you? Seven A, at six-thirty. We’ll be looking forward. Oh, here’s your mail, dear; I’ll get it. Ads. Well, it’s better than getting nothing, isn’t it?”
Guy came home at two-thirty in a bad mood; he had learned from his agent that, as he had feared, the grotesquely named Donald Baumgart had won the part he had come within a hair of getting. Rosemary kissed him and installed him in his new easy chair with a melted cheese sandwich and a glass of beer. She had read the script of the play and not liked it; it would probably close out of town, she told Guy, and Donald Baumgart would never be heard of again.
“Even if it folds,” Guy said, “it’s the kind of part that gets noticed. You’ll see; he’ll get something else right after.” He opened the corner of his sandwich, looked in bitterly, closed it, and started eating.
“Mrs. Castevet was here this morning,” Rosemary said. “To thank me for telling them that Terry was grateful to them. I think she really just wanted to see the apartment. She’s absolutely the nosiest person I’ve ever seen. She actually asked the prices of things.”
“No kidding,” Guy said.
“She comes right out and admits she’s nosy, though, so it’s kind of funny and forgivable instead of annoying. She even looked into the medicine chest.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. And guess what she was wearing.”
“A Pillsbury sack with three X’s on it.”
“No, toreador pants.”
“Toreador pants?”
“Lime-green ones.”
“Ye gods.”
Kneeling on the floor between the bay windows, Rosemary drew a line on brown paper with crayon and a yardstick and then measured the depth of the window seats. “She invited us to have dinner with them this evening,” she said, and looked at Guy. “I told her I’d have to check with you, but that it would probably be okay.”
“Ah, Jesus, Ro,” Guy said, “we don’t want to do that, do we?”
“I think they’re lonely,” Rosemary said. “Because of Terry.”
“Honey,” Guy said, “if we get friendly with an old couple like that we’re never going to get them off our necks. They’re right here on the same floor with us, they’ll be looking in six times a day. Especially if she’s nosy to begin with.”
“I told her she could count on us,” Rosemary said.
“I thought you told her you had to check first.”
“I did, but I told her she could count on us too.” Rosemary looked helplessly at Guy. “She was so anxious for us to come.”
“Well it’s not my night for being kind to Ma and Pa Kettle,” Guy said. “I’m sorry, honey, call her up and tell her we can’t make it.”
“All right, I will,” Rosemary said, and drew another line with the crayon and the yardstick.
Guy finished his sandwich. “You don’t have to sulk about it,” he said.
“I’m not sulking,” Rosemary said. “I see exactly what you mean about them being on the same floor. It’s a valid point and you’re absolutely right. I’m not sulking at all.”
“Oh hell,” Guy said, “we’ll go.”
“No, no, what for? We don’t have to. I shopped for dinner before she came, so that’s no problem.”
“We’ll go,” Guy said.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to. That sounds so phony but I really mean it, really I do.”
“We’ll go. It’ll be my good deed for the day.”
“All right, but only if you want to. And we’ll make it very clear to them that it’s only this one time and not the beginning of anything. Right?”
“Right.”
CHAPTER 6
AT A FEW MINUTES past six-thirty Rosemary and Guy left their apartment and walked through the branches of dark green hallway to the Castevets’ door. As Guy rang the doorbell the elevator behind them clanged open and Mr. Dubin or Mr. DeVore (they didn’t know which was which) came out carrying a suit swathed in cleaner’s plastic. He smiled and, unlocking the door of 7B next to them, said, “You’re in the wrong place, aren’t you?” Rosemary and Guy made friendly laughs and he let himself in, calling “Me!” and allowing them a glimpse of a black sideboard and red-and-gold wallpaper.
The Castevets’ door opened and Mrs. Castevet was there, powdered and rouged and smiling broadly in light green silk and a frilled pink apron. “Perfect timing!” she said. “Come on in! Roman’s making Vodka Blushes in the blender. My, I’m glad you could come, Guy! I’m fixing to tell people I knew you when! ‘Had dinner right off that plate, he did—Guy Woodhouse in person!’ I’m not going to wash it when you’re done; I’m going to leave it just as is!”
Guy and Rosemary laughed and exchanged glances; Your friend, his said, and hers said, What can I do?
There was a large foyer in which a rectangular table was set for four, with an embroidered white cloth, plates that didn’t all match, and bright ranks of ornate silver. To the left the foyer opened on a living room easily twice the size of Rosemary and Guy’s but otherwise much like it. It had one large bay window instead of two smaller ones, and a huge pink marble mantel sculptured with lavish scrollwork. The room was oddly furnished; at the fireplace end there were a settee and a lamp table and a few chairs, and at the opposite end an officelike clutter of file cabinets, bridge tables piled with newspapers, overfilled bookshelves, and a typewriter on a metal stand. Between the two ends of the room was a twenty-foot field of brown wall-to-wall carpet, deep and new-looking, marked with the trail of a vacuum cleaner. In the center of it, entirely alone, a small round table stood holding Life and Look and Scientific American.
Mrs. Castevet showed them across the brown carpet and seated them on the settee; and as they sat Mr. Castevet came in, holding in both hands a small tray on which four cocktail glasses ran over with clear pink liquid. Staring at the rims of the glasses he shuffled forward across the carpet, looking as if with every next step he would trip and fall disastrously. “I seem to have overfilled the glasses,” he said. “No, no, don’t get up. Please. Generally I pour these out as precisely as a bartender, don’t I, Minnie?”
Mrs. Castevet said, “Just watch the carpet.”
“But this evening,” Mr. Castevet continued, coming closer, “I made a little too much, and rather than leave the surplus in the blender, I’m afraid I thought I…There we are. Please, sit down. Mrs. Woodhouse?”
Rosemary took a glass, thanked him, and sat. Mrs. Castevet quickly put a paper cocktail napkin in her lap.
“Mr. Woodhouse? A Vodka Blush. Have you ever tasted one?”
“No,” Guy said, taking one and sitting.
“Minnie,” Mr. Castevet said.
“It looks delicious,” Rosemary said, smiling vividly as she wiped the base of her glass.
“They’re very popular in Australia,” Mr. Castevet said. He took the final glass and raised it to Rosemary and Guy. “To our guests,” he said. “Welcome to our home.” He drank and cocked his head critically, one eye partway closed, the tray at his side dripping on the carpet.
Mrs. Castevet coughed in mid-swallow. “The carpet!” she choked, pointing.
Mr. Castevet looked down. “Oh dear,” he said, and held the tray up uncertainly.
Mrs. Castevet thrust aside her drink, hurried to her knees, and laid a paper napkin carefully over the wetness. “Brand-new carpet,” she said. “Brand-new carpet. This man is so clumsy!”
The Vodka Blushes were tart and quite good.
“Do you come from Australia?” Rosemary asked, when the carpet had been blotted, the tray safely kitchened, and the Castevets seated in straight-backed chairs.
“Oh no,” Mr. Castevet said, “I’m from right here in New York City. I’ve been there though. I’ve been everywhere. Literally.” He sipped Vodka Blush, sitting with his legs crossed and a hand on his knee. He was wearing black loafers with tassels, gray slacks, a white blouse, and a blue-and-gold striped ascot. “Every continent, every country,” he said. “Every major city. You name a place and I’ve been there. Go ahead. Name a place.”
Guy said, “Fairbanks, Alaska.”
“I’ve been there,” Mr. Castevet said. “I’ve been all over Alaska; Fairbanks, Juneau, Anchorage, Nome, Seward; I spent four months there in 1938 and I’ve made a lot of one-day stop-overs in Fairbanks and Anchorage on my way to places in the Far East. I’ve been in small towns in Alaska too; Dillingham and Akulurak.”
“Where are you folks from?” Mrs. Castevet asked, fixing the folds at the bosom of her dress.
“I’m from Omaha,” Rosemary said, “and Guy is from Baltimore.”
“Omaha is a good city,” Mr. Castevet said. “Baltimore is too.”
“Did you travel for business reasons?” Rosemary asked him.
“Business and pleasure both,” he said. “I’m seventy-nine years old and I’ve been going one place or another since I was ten. You name it, I’ve been there.”
“What business were you in?” Guy asked.
“Just about every business,” Mr. Castevet said. “Wool, sugar, toys, machine parts, marine insurance, oil…”
A bell pinged in the kitchen. “Steak’s ready,” Mrs. Castevet said, standing up with her glass in her hand. “Don’t rush your drinks now; take them along to the table. Roman, take your pill.”
“It will end on October third,” Mr. Castevet said; “the day before the Pope gets here. No Pope ever visits a city where the newspapers are on strike.
”
“I heard on TV that he’s going to postpone and wait till it’s over,” Mrs. Castevet said.
Guy smiled. “Well,” he said, “that’s show biz.”
Mr. and Mrs. Castevet laughed, and Guy along with them. Rosemary smiled and cut her steak. It was overdone and juiceless, flanked by peas and mashed potatoes under flour-laden gravy.
Still laughing, Mr. Castevet said, “It is, you know! That’s just what it is; show biz!”
“You can say that again,” Guy said.
“The costumes, the rituals,” Mr. Castevet said; “every religion, not only Catholicism. Pageants for the ignorant.”
Mrs. Castevet said, “I think we’re offending Rosemary.”
“No, no, not at all,” Rosemary said.
“You aren’t religious, my dear, are you?” Mr. Castevet asked.
“I was brought up to be,” Rosemary said, “but now I’m an agnostic. I wasn’t offended. Really I wasn’t.”
“And you, Guy?” Mr. Castevet asked. “Are you an agnostic too?”
“I guess so,” Guy said. “I don’t see how anyone can be anything else. I mean, there’s no absolute proof one way or the other, is there?”
“No, there isn’t,” Mr. Castevet said.
Mrs. Castevet, studying Rosemary, said, “You looked uncomfortable before, when we were laughing at Guy’s little joke about the Pope.”
“Well he is the Pope,” Rosemary said. “I guess I’ve been conditioned to have respect for him and I still do, even if I don’t think he’s holy any more.”
“If you don’t think he’s holy,” Mr. Castevet said, “you should have no respect for him at all, because he’s going around deceiving people and pretending he is holy.”
“Good point,” Guy said.
“When I think what they spend on robes and jewels,” Mrs. Castevet said.
“A good picture of the hypocrisy behind organized religion,” Mr. Castevet said, “was given, I thought, in Luther. Did you ever get to play the leading part, Guy?”
“Me? No,” Guy said.
“Weren’t you Albert Finney’s understudy?” Mr. Castevet asked.