by Ira Levin
“No,” Guy said, “the fellow who played Weinand was. I just covered two of the smaller parts.”
“That’s strange,” Mr. Castevet said; “I was quite certain that you were his understudy. I remember being struck by a gesture you made and checking in the program to see who you were; and I could swear you were listed as Finney’s understudy.”
“What gesture do you mean?” Guy asked.
“I’m not sure now; a movement of your—”
“I used to do a thing with my arms when Luther had the fit, a sort of involuntary reaching—”
“Exactly,” Mr. Castevet said. “That’s just what I meant. It had a wonderful authenticity to it. In contrast, may I say, to everything Mr. Finney was doing.”
“Oh, come on now,” Guy said.
“I thought his performance was considerably overrated,” Mr. Castevet said. “I’d be most curious to see what you would have done with the part.”
Laughing, Guy said, “That makes two of us,” and cast a bright-eyed glance at Rosemary. She smiled back, pleased that Guy was pleased; there would be no reproofs from him now for an evening wasted talking with Ma and Pa Settle. No, Kettle.
“My father was a theatrical producer,” Mr. Castevet said, “and my early years were spent in the company of such people as Mrs. Fiske and Forbes-Robertson, Otis Skinner and Modjeska. I tend, therefore, to look for something more than mere competence in actors. You have a most interesting inner quality, Guy. It appears in your television work too, and it should carry you very far indeed; provided, of course, that you get those initial ‘breaks’ upon which even the greatest actors are to some degree dependent. Are you preparing for a show now?”
“I’m up for a couple of parts,” Guy said.
“I can’t believe that you won’t get them,” Mr. Castevet said.
“I can,” Guy said.
Mr. Castevet stared at him. “Are you serious?” he asked.
Dessert was a homemade Boston cream pie that, though better than the steak and vegetables, had for Rosemary a peculiar and unpleasant sweetness. Guy, however, praised it heartily and ate a second helping. Perhaps he was only acting, Rosemary thought; repaying compliments with compliments.
After dinner Rosemary offered to help with the cleaning up. Mrs. Castevet accepted the offer instantly and the two women cleared the table while Guy and Mr. Castevet went into the living room.
The kitchen, opening off the foyer, was small, and made smaller still by the miniature greenhouse Terry had mentioned. Some three feet long, it stood on a large white table near the room’s one window. Goosenecked lamps leaned close around it, their bright bulbs reflecting in the glass and making it blinding white rather than transparent. In the remaining space the sink, stove, and refrigerator stood close together with cabinets jutting out above them on all sides. Rosemary wiped dishes at Mrs. Castevet’s elbow, working diligently and conscientiously in the pleasing knowledge that her own kitchen was larger and more graciously equipped. “Terry told me about that greenhouse,” she said.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Castevet said. “It’s a nice hobby. You ought to do it too.”
“I’d like to have a spice garden some day,” Rosemary said. “Out of the city, of course. If Guy ever gets a movie offer we’re going to grab it and go live in Los Angeles. I’m a country girl at heart.”
“Do you come from a big family?” Mrs. Castevet asked.
“Yes,” Rosemary said. “I have three brothers and two sisters. I’m the baby.”
“Are your sisters married?”
“Yes, they are.”
Mrs. Castevet pushed a soapy sponge up and down inside a glass. “Do they have children?” she asked.
“One has two and the other has four,” Rosemary said. “At least that was the count the last I heard. It could be three and five by now.”
“Well that’s a good sign for you,” Mrs. Castevet said, still soaping the glass. She was a slow and thorough washer. “If your sisters have lots of children, chances are you will too. Things like that go in families.”
“Oh, we’re fertile, all right,” Rosemary said, waiting towel in hand for the glass. “My brother Eddie has eight already and he’s only twenty-six.”
“My goodness!” Mrs. Castevet said. She rinsed the glass and gave it to Rosemary.
“All told I’ve got twenty nieces and nephews,” Rosemary said. “I haven’t even seen half of them.”
“Don’t you go home every once in a while?” Mrs. Castevet asked.
“No, I don’t,” Rosemary said. “I’m not on the best of terms with my family, except one brother. They feel I’m the black sheep.”
“Oh? How is that?”
“Because Guy isn’t Catholic, and we didn’t have a church wedding.”
“Tsk,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Isn’t it something the way people fuss about religion? Well, it’s their loss, not yours; don’t you let it bother you any.”
“That’s more easily said than done,” Rosemary said, putting the glass on a shelf. “Would you like me to wash and you wipe for a while?”
“No, this is fine, dear,” Mrs. Castevet said.
Rosemary looked outside the door. She could see only the end of the living room that was bridge tables and file cabinets; Guy and Mr. Castevet were at the other end. A plane of blue cigarette smoke lay motionless in the air.
“Rosemary?”
She turned. Mrs. Castevet, smiling, held out a wet plate in a green rubber-gloved hand.
It took almost an hour to do the dishes and pans and silver, although Rosemary felt she could have done them alone in less than half that time. When she and Mrs. Castevet came out of the kitchen and into the living room, Guy and Mr. Castevet were sitting facing each other on the settee, Mr. Castevet driving home point after point with repeated strikings of his forefinger against his palm.
“Now Roman, you stop bending Guy’s ear with your Modjeska stories,” Mrs. Castevet said. “He’s only listening ’cause he’s polite.”
“No, it’s interesting, Mrs. Castevet,” Guy said.
“You see?” Mr. Castevet said.
“Minnie,” Mrs. Castevet told Guy. “I’m Minnie and he’s Roman; okay?” She looked mock-defiantly at Rosemary. “Okay?”
Guy laughed. “Okay, Minnie,” he said.
They talked about the Goulds and the Bruhns and Dubin-and-DeVore; about Terry’s sailor brother who had turned out to be in a civilian hospital in Saigon; and, because Mr. Castevet was reading a book critical of the Warren Report, about the Kennedy assassination. Rosemary, in one of the straight-backed chairs, felt oddly out of things, as if the Castevets were old friends of Guy’s to whom she had just been introduced. “Do you think it could have been a plot of some kind?” Mr. Castevet asked her, and she answered awkwardly, aware that a considerate host was drawing a left-out guest into conversation. She excused herself and followed Mrs. Castevet’s directions to the bathroom, where there were flowered paper towels inscribed For Our Guest and a book called Jokes for The John that wasn’t especially funny.
They left at ten-thirty, saying “Good-by, Roman” and “Thank you, Minnie” and shaking hands with an enthusiasm and an implied promise of more such evenings together that, on Rosemary’s part, was completely false. Rounding the first bend in the hallway and hearing the door close behind them, she blew out a relieved sigh and grinned happily at Guy when she saw him doing exactly the same.
“Naow Roman,” he said, working his eyebrows comically, “yew stop bendin’ Guy’s ee-yurs with them thar Mojesky sto-rees!”
Laughing, Rosemary cringed and hushed him, and they ran hand in hand on ultra-quiet tiptoes to their own door, which they unlocked, opened, slammed, locked, bolted, chained; and Guy nailed it over with imaginary beams, pushed up three imaginary boulders, hoisted an imaginary drawbridge, and mopped his brow and panted while Rosemary bent over double and laughed into both hands.
“About that steak,” Guy said.
“Oh my God!” Rosemary said. “The pie! Ho
w did you eat two pieces of it? It was weird!”
“Dear girl,” Guy said, “that was an act of superhuman courage and self-sacrifice. I said to myself, ‘Ye gods, I’ll bet nobody’s ever asked this old bat for seconds on anything in her entire life!’ So I did it.” He waved a hand grandly. “Now and again I get these noble urges.”
They went into the bedroom. “She raises herbs and spices,” Rosemary said, “and when they’re full-grown she throws them out the window.”
“Shh, the walls have ears,” Guy said. “Hey, how about that silverware?”
“Isn’t that funny?” Rosemary said, working her feet against the floor to unshoe them; “only three dinner plates that match, and they’ve got that beautiful, beautiful silver.”
“Let’s be nice; maybe they’ll will it to us.”
“Let’s be nasty and buy our own. Did you go to the bathroom?”
“There? No.”
“Guess what they’ve got in it.”
“A bidet.”
“No, Jokes for The John.”
“No.”
Rosemary shucked off her dress. “A book on a hook,” she said. “Right next to the toilet.”
Guy smiled and shook his head. He began taking out his cufflinks, standing beside the armoire. “Those stories of Roman’s, though,” he said, “were pretty damn interesting, actually. I’d never even heard of Forbes-Robertson before, but he was a very big star in his day.” He worked at the second link, having trouble with it. “I’m going to go over there again tomorrow night and hear some more,” he said.
Rosemary looked at him, disconcerted. “You are?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “he asked me.” He held out his hand to her. “Can you get this off for me?”
She went to him and worked at the link, feeling suddenly lost and uncertain. “I thought we were going to do something with Jimmy and Tiger,” she said.
“Was that definite?” he asked. His eyes looked into hers. “I thought we were just going to call and see.”
“It wasn’t definite,” she said.
He shrugged. “We’ll see them Wednesday or Thursday.”
She got the link out and held it on her palm. He took it. “Thanks,” he said. “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to; you can stay here.”
“I think I will,” she said. “Stay here.” She went to the bed and sat down.
“He knew Henry Irving too,” Guy said. “It’s really terrifically interesting.”
Rosemary unhooked her stockings. “Why did they take down the pictures,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Their pictures; they took them down. In the living room and in the hallway leading back to the bathroom. There are hooks in the wall and clean places. And the one picture that is there, over the mantel, doesn’t fit. There are two inches of clean at both sides of it.”
Guy looked at her. “I didn’t notice,” he said.
“And why do they have all those files and things in the living room?” she asked.
“That he told me,” Guy said, taking off his shirt. “He puts out a newsletter for stamp collectors. All over the world. That’s why they get so much foreign mail.”
“Yes, but why in the living room?” Rosemary said. “They have three or four other rooms, all with the doors closed. Why doesn’t he use one of those?”
Guy went to her, shirt in hand, and pressed her nose with a firm fingertip. “You’re getting nosier than Minnie,” he said, kissed air at her, and went out to the bathroom.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, while in the kitchen putting on water for coffee, Rosemary got the sharp pain in her middle that was the night-before signal of her period. She relaxed with one hand against the corner of the stove, letting the pain have its brief way, and then she got out a Chemex paper and the can of coffee, feeling disappointed and forlorn.
She was twenty-four and they wanted three children two years apart; but Guy “wasn’t ready yet”—nor would he ever be ready, she feared, until he was as big as Marlon Brando and Richard Burton put together. Didn’t he know how handsome and talented he was, how sure to succeed? So her plan was to get pregnant by “accident” the pills gave her headaches, she said, and rubber gadgets were repulsive. Guy said that subconsciously she was still a good Catholic, and she protested enough to support the explanation. Indulgently he studied the calendar and avoided the “dangerous days,” and she said, “No, it’s safe today, darling; I’m sure it is.”
And again this month he had won and she had lost, in this undignified contest in which he didn’t even know they were engaged. “Damn!” she said, and banged the coffee can down on the stove. Guy, in the den, called, “What happened?”
“I bumped my elbow!” she called back.
At least she knew now why she had become depressed during the evening.
Double damn! If they were living together and not married she would have been pregnant fifty times by now!
CHAPTER 7
THE FOLLOWING EVENING after dinner Guy went over to the Castevets’. Rosemary straightened up the kitchen and was debating whether to work on the window-seat cushions or get into bed with Manchild in The Promised Land when the doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Castevet, and with her another woman, short, plump, and smiling, with a Buckley-for-Mayor button on the shoulder of a green dress.
“Hi, dear, we’re not bothering you, are we?” Mrs. Castevet said when Rosemary had opened the door. “This is my dear friend Laura-Louise McBurney, who lives up on twelve. Laura-Louise, this is Guy’s wife Rosemary.”
“Hello, Rosemary! Welcome to the Bram!”
“Laura-Louise just met Guy over to our place and she wanted to meet you too, so we came on over. Guy said you were staying in not doing anything. Can we come in?”
With resigned good grace Rosemary showed them into the living room.
“Oh, you’ve got new chairs,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Aren’t they beautiful!”
“They came this morning,” Rosemary said.
“Are you all right, dear? You look worn.”
“I’m fine,” Rosemary said and smiled. “It’s the first day of my period.”
“And you’re up and around?” Laura-Louise asked, sitting. “On my first days I experienced such pain that I couldn’t move or eat or anything. Dan had to give me gin through a straw to kill the pain and we were one-hundred-per-cent Temperance at the time, with that one exception.”
“Girls today take things more in their stride than we did,” Mrs. Castevet said, sitting too. “They’re healthier than we were, thanks to vitamins and better medical care.”
Both women had brought identical green sewing bags and, to Rosemary’s surprise, were opening them now and taking out crocheting (Laura-Louise) and darning (Mrs. Castevet); settling down for a long evening of needlework and conversation. “What’s that over there?” Mrs. Castevet asked. “Seat covers?”
“Cushions for the window seats,” Rosemary said, and thinking Oh all right, I will, went over and got the work and brought it back and joined them.
Laura-Louise said, “You’ve certainly made a tremendous change in the apartment, Rosemary.”
“Oh, before I forget,” Mrs. Castevet said, “this is for you. From Roman and me.” She put a small packet of pink tissue paper into Rosemary’s hand, with a hardness inside it.
“For me?” Rosemary asked. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s just a little present is all,” Mrs. Castevet said, dismissing Rosemary’s puzzlement with quick hand-waves. “For moving in.”
“But there’s no reason for you to…” Rosemary unfolded the leaves of used-before tissue paper. Within the pink was Terry’s silver filigree ball-charm and its clustered-together neckchain. The smell of the ball’s filling made Rosemary pull her head away.
“It’s real old,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Over three hundred years.”
“It’s lovely,” Rosemary said, examining the ball and wondering whether she should tell that Terry ha
d shown it to her. The moment for doing so slipped by.
“The green inside is called tannis root,” Mrs. Castevet said. “It’s good luck.”
Not for Terry, Rosemary thought, and said, “It’s lovely, but I can’t accept such a—”
“You already have,” Mrs. Castevet said, darning a brown sock and not looking at Rosemary. “Put it on.”
Laura-Louise said, “You’ll get used to the smell before you know it.”
“Go on,” Mrs. Castevet said.
“Well, thank you,” Rosemary said; and uncertainly she put the chain over her head and tucked the ball into the collar of her dress. It dropped down between her breasts, cold for a moment and obtrusive. I’ll take it off when they go, she thought.
Laura-Louise said, “A friend of ours made the chain entirely by hand. He’s a retired dentist and his hobby is making jewelry out of silver and gold. You’ll meet him at Minnie and Roman’s on—on some night soon, I’m sure, because they entertain so much. You’ll probably meet all their friends, all our friends.”
Rosemary looked up from her work and saw Laura-Louise pink with an embarrassment that had hurried and confused her last words. Minnie was busy darning, unaware. Laura-Louise smiled and Rosemary smiled back.
“Do you make your own clothes?” Laura-Louise asked.
“No, I don’t,” Rosemary said, letting the subject be changed. “I try to every once in a while but nothing ever hangs right.”
It turned out to be a fairly pleasant evening. Minnie told some amusing stories about her girlhood in Oklahoma, and Laura-Louise showed Rosemary two useful sewing tricks and explained feelingly how Buckley, the Conservative mayoral candidate, could win the coming election despite the high odds against him.
Guy came back at eleven, quiet and oddly self-contained. He said hello to the women and, by Rosemary’s chair, bent and kissed her cheek. Minnie said, “Eleven? My land! Come on, Laura-Louise.” Laura-Louise said, “Come and visit me any time you want, Rosemary; I’m in twelve F.” The two women closed their sewing bags and went quickly away.