“You’ve probably been to more of these than me.”
“Perhaps, ma’am.”
Instead of engaging her in further conversation, the young man began to pull spare glasses from a shelf beneath the bar, setting them out for future use. Eleanor felt silly.
“Have a good evening,” she said.
“You as well, ma’am.”
Flushed with alcohol, she stepped away from the bar. The guests had vacated the library in favor of the living room, which had a wonderful view of the surrounding buildings. She looked at the crowd of men. One smiled at her, then turned back to his conversation partner. Someone passed, complimenting her on her performance once more. There was no one else to engage in conversation; the men were speaking to each other. She wandered over to the fireplace, where some of the women were talking, and hovered. A few glanced her way and smiled, but they went on among themselves. Two women discussed boarding schools in Connecticut. Eleanor waited a few minutes before she left them, too.
She looked off into the dark hallway and, checking that no one saw her, slipped into the library and shut the door before anyone could follow. She turned, looking about the room, until she saw the piano and jumped.
“Don,” she said, hand over her heart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you in here.”
“It seems we’re both hiding.”
Though the party continued outside, she felt very alone with him. It sped up her pulse. “Do you want a drink? I could fetch one.”
“No, thank you. I don’t care for champagne.”
“That’s a good thing.” He didn’t ask, but she continued. “I can’t have more. I’ll get too tight.” He still didn’t look at her.
He set his hands on the keys and played a quiet chord.
Eleanor toyed with one of her gold clip-ons and watched him in the lamplight, in shirtsleeves.
“You did well tonight,” he said. “Those earrings were the right choice.”
She approached the piano, feeling the confidence of the compliment. “Can I tell you a secret?” She paused. “I felt like I knew you even before I did.”
He chuckled again. “Many people think they know me.”
The champagne stirred her blood, and she felt galvanized in the same way as she had back in the Plymouth during Maggie’s Charades debut. She sat next to him on the piano bench. Body heat came off him in waves, and she felt it through her dress. His leg was close to hers, one shoe pressing down a brass pedal. He had loosened his tie. The notch of skin drew her eyes, made her feel warm.
“Do you remember when I told you I felt your musicals? I didn’t fit in at all in Wisconsin. Then I heard your musicals and knew it wasn’t just me who felt that way.”
Don stopped moving his fingers on top of the keys. He was tense. Somehow he no longer seemed twenty years older. In the last few months, the mysticism had worn away, until he became a man she knew.
“It was you, too,” she continued. “You felt like me.”
“Everyone is lonely,” Don said. “I hope you aren’t like me.”
“This discomfort inside of me—yours is the same. You said so yourself. We’re apart from the rest. There’s no one like us, Don.”
His breathing was audible, rasping beside her ear.
“Darling,” he said finally. “You think our pain is the same only because you can’t imagine any greater than your own. You’d feel the same way of anyone outside the middle.”
“No.” Eleanor had never felt such kinship with another person. It was attraction, physical and mental. “You’ve said yourself we have something in common.”
He looked up then, and his expression was hard. She had upset him. But then he softened. “In some ways, I suppose.” He played an augmented chord, soft. “We worship the same gods.”
Her fear had mixed with excitement until it had reached an intoxicating height. Her hands were shaking but she loved it.
More than anything, she wished to kiss him. Unlike with Tommy, when the option had been there from the very beginning, she felt that such an action was, with Don, unreachable. Perhaps it was because he was so shy. Everything about him was calculated, careful. He did not improvise or make mistakes.
His hands stayed on the keys.
Eleanor felt drunk and couldn’t stop herself. She spoke low. “Did the lipstick work?”
He glanced up, amusement in his eyes. She felt both adorable and brave under his gaze, like when she watched the foals fight to stand for the first time.
She made her voice low. “Did all the men imagine kissing me?”
He chuckled in his throat.
Heat rose in her body.
He looked at her again, almost through her. “I’m confident they did.”
Every bit of her called out to him. But while he did not move away, she felt no opening, no invitation.
Eleanor wondered if he had ever had a relationship. It was difficult to imagine him with anyone. The noise from the party was dull around them, turning the room into a pocket of intimacy. Eleanor felt the desire to kiss him, but also the desire to have kissed him—to possess the experience, to merge herself with this soul she knew so well.
Without any better idea of how to do it, Eleanor leaned forward.
Don retreated. He raised his eyebrows. Eleanor froze. Her neck and chest flushed, advertising her shame.
Don smiled a smile she had never seen before, soft with pity yet understanding. It leveled her. He blinked and looked down, and in that allowance of embarrassment, she saw a flash of the real him, one she had barely gotten to know. Eleanor understood at once that Don bowed his head before very few people. She felt a dropping of formality, a moment in which she saw a man apart from his achievements. Don looked back up. His eyes were wet. She kept still, afraid to move until she understood what was happening, lest she make a catastrophic choice.
He placed an arm around her. His touch was gentle, and he cupped her shoulder, pulled her close to his chest. She rested her head on his heart. He kissed her temple, breathed in against her hair. “Harry will be looking for us.” He nodded at the wall, which muffled the party sounds. “We’ve been gone a long time.”
“Oh.” Eleanor sat up. “Of course.”
“It’s been a long night,” Don said, his business smile coming back on. “Why don’t I take you to say your goodbyes?”
Eleanor searched his face for a clue, for rejection or acceptance or any emotion at all. She found nothing.
* * *
Outside, it was cold, but she barely cared. She’d run out of the apartment before Don could fetch Harry, terrified to hear what he’d say. All the tension that had knotted up as she sat with Don at the piano had stayed within her, hot and impossible to ignore. His rebuff of her seemed more complicated the longer she walked down Broadway, until she reached the fifties and the glow of Times Square. He hadn’t allowed a kiss, but the warmth of his embrace stayed with her. With no way of interpreting the situation, Eleanor enjoyed the memory as she could and walked south with her arms around herself.
“Pretty baby.” A man leered at her, then passed, chuckling. She shivered with a shock of fear that reminded her she could not stay out by herself. Taxis passed with vacancy lights on. She hailed one but stopped short of giving her address. It was Tommy’s free night, she remembered. He had invited her out with his friends and their girls.
“McCloughan’s on Forty-Fifth and Ninth, please,” she said.
* * *
“There she is!” Tommy opened his arm when she arrived and drew her close, kissing the top of her head. “Isn’t she pretty, fellas?”
She pressed against him. “How much have you had to drink, Tommy?”
He touched her nose. “Just one, baby.”
She gave him a smile that she’d seen other women give and plucked the beer from his hand. The boys howled when she took a long si
p.
“How was the party?” When he was drunk, he got happy eyes, holding a smile even when his mouth dropped it.
“Not as fun as this,” Eleanor said. “Want to dance?”
“Absolutely not. But I’ll watch you.”
She giggled. His hand was hot on her hip. He angled her so she was partially concealed by the bar, then placed his palm on her backside. She squealed, not even having to play the flirt.
Tommy was affectionate, kissing the side of her face until she laughed. But then she heard one of his friends say, “You can stand to kiss her after that?”
Eleanor pressed Tommy’s shoulder when he tried to kiss her again. “What’s that?”
“They’re just teasing me,” he said. “Nothing to worry yourself over.”
Eleanor looked at Tommy’s friend again. He was talking to another young man but still looking at Tommy. She felt a creeping down her back. “Tommy.”
“They’re giving me trouble because you kiss another guy. Nothing I can’t handle.”
Eleanor felt heat all down her neck. How could they know what had just happened with Don? But then she realized he meant Charles. “I’m an actress.”
“I know that.” Tommy pulled her in. “Look, it’s just something between the guys.”
She heard more male laughter, louder this time. “Tommy, I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I know that.” His ears were pink.
Eleanor pulled away from him and went up to the friend, who was still watching them. “What’s your name?”
His hand went slack around the neck of his beer. “Jeff.”
“Okay, Jeff. Tell me, why are you laughing?”
Jeff turned to the other young man and raised his eyebrows. Tommy touched her shoulder. She shook him off. Tommy smiled at the other guys. “We’ve all had a few too many.”
“I’m an actress,” Eleanor said. “I have a job to do. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t make insinuations.”
Jeff looked at Tommy. “This one’s mouthy.”
Tommy’s grip tightened on her shoulder. She regretted his discomfort but continued.
“If you have a problem, come out with it instead of giggling like a little boy.”
Jeff looked surprised, and then he straightened to his full height. “It’s not the acting, sweetheart. You’re running around town kissing Negroes. My friend deserves better than that.”
Eleanor slapped him. Jeff put his hand to his face. He turned to Tommy. “What the hell?”
Tommy tugged her arm. “Let’s go.” He raised a hand at Jeff in apology. “C’mon, Eleanor, let’s go.”
She jerked from his grip but left the bar, knocking into a few customers as she went.
Outside, Tommy took her by the shoulders. “You do not get to slap my friends.”
She poked him in the chest. “Me? What else could I do? You didn’t stand up for me.”
Tommy’s face went slack, then he pulled his eyebrows together. “What the hell? You think people respond to that sort of behavior, Eleanor?”
“Maybe I got a bit carried away. But I was mad. Charles is my friend. Why didn’t you stand up for me? For Charles?”
“And alienate everyone by starting a brawl in a bar?” Tommy shook his head. “I told you, I don’t care what they say. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not so weak that I need to slug any guy who I have a problem with.”
“But you should make them stop.” She felt frantic. “He was wrong, Tommy.”
“I know that. But I can’t control everyone,” Tommy said. “I can only control myself. You know I don’t think that way about Charles. But other people will. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.”
Eleanor was aware that she was upset because she had, in a private way, been unfaithful to him tonight. But that wasn’t all it was. Charles had warned her about this. She wasn’t at all sure she believed Tommy meant what he said.
“You should stand up for what’s right, regardless of if it makes a difference.”
Tommy took her in his arms. “Ellie,” he said. “Jeff was drunk. He’s not a bad guy. He just doesn’t agree with you on this. Trust me, I know him better than you. He’s a good guy.”
“Are you going to stay friends with him?” Her voice sounded shrill.
Tommy looked surprised, and then angry, and Eleanor flushed. What was she doing, bossing a young man around like this? She’d almost kissed another man tonight, then slapped one of Tommy’s friends for the very insinuation. She shook her head. She would never be able to keep a man, acting like this. Tommy’s hands were warm on her waist. She leaned into his chest, inhaled his scent. “I’m sorry.”
He took her in his arms. “I don’t think it’s right, either. But, Eleanor, I can’t control him. I can be friends with people I disagree with. It’s no way to live, cutting people off.”
She felt ashamed, dirty, knowing she’d pushed too far. She nodded. “Take me home?”
As always, he obliged, but when they reached her door, she lingered in the goodnight kiss. She liked the look of him in her hall light. “Tuck me in?”
Her confidence stretched as far as the bedroom, where she led him by the collar of his shirt. Once inside, she stiffened. Tommy sensed the change in her and adjusted. He held her hands in his own and kissed her palms, then kissed her mouth until the tension left her shoulders, until she slumped against him.
By the time they were on the bed, Eleanor’s thoughts were wild. Was she about to do this? For all of her New York adventures, no one, not even Rosie, would suspect she was capable of what she was about to do. She had been raised Catholic, raised to be “nice.” Back home the only girls who went all the way were easy, lost causes. But this felt like it was happening to another person, a person she liked being. She was a free girl from New York, who kissed Negroes at her acting job and brought boys home to bed. Boys she didn’t even love.
Tommy was good at what he did, and they quickly advanced past all they had done before. She trembled from nerves and probably adrenaline, but he touched and kissed her body in ways she didn’t know to ask for, soothing and agitating at the same time. So this was being with a man. The sensations were surprising in their intensity. Everyone in the world could not possibly have experienced this; it felt too illicit, too appealing.
It was dark, but when Tommy asked to turn on the lamp, she said no. His momentary disappointment vanished the moment he found the zipper on her dress. He groaned, dragging a hand over her stomach until he reached her underwear, which he also removed. When he lay over her and their skin touched, something primal rose up in her. She rolled her head back in surrender, not to him but to her own desire.
With her body beneath him, Tommy changed, like every particle of him was drawn to her, awake and humming. He was both sweet and passionate. He covered her with kisses in places she’d never thought to appreciate—her shoulders, her navel, the sensitive backs of her knees. His mouth was warm and slow and she nearly wept from the tenderness.
Small groans came from deep inside him, more truthful than words. He pressed against her. That roughness, animalism, brought the world back into the room. She pushed hard on his chest.
“Tommy, we have to be careful.”
“I know that.” He kissed her again, until she worried he hadn’t listened. She couldn’t relax anymore, afraid that she’d have to stop, afraid he’d be angry, or worse, that she would make a mistake and lose her spot in A Tender Thing because of one night with a boy.
Eleanor squirmed beneath him.
“Tommy, did you hear me? I can’t get pregnant.”
He sat up. “I promise if that happened, I’d marry you.”
She swallowed, her heart pounding now, sweating. “Tommy, I can’t have a child now.”
He didn’t understand, and Eleanor knew that he would never understand.
“Are yo
u frightened?” he asked. “We can stop.”
She heard the reluctance in his voice, but also the honesty. She didn’t want to stop—her arousal was demanding and loud. What had once seemed far off or impossible was now vital, like she would die if she didn’t do it.
She waited in the dark a long time, until her eyes were filled with tears.
She felt for Tommy’s hand in the sheets, found his leg instead. “I’m sorry.”
Tommy didn’t speak, just held her close. He kissed the top of her head, right where Don had. Eleanor felt something crack inside her, until she couldn’t bear Tommy’s touch any longer, couldn’t bear his closeness or his normalcy. For Don had been right; she did have one foot in each world. There was a part of her that wanted this: a man’s touch, a person in her bed, easy dinners and nights watching television, weekends in the park, companionship and sex and intimacy. Though the other part of her—the part that pushed her to chase her dream, the part of her that made her risk everything—was stronger, this was nonetheless a terrible loss.
She searched through the dark for her nightgown, then climbed back into bed. Tommy pulled her against him and kissed the back of her neck. Eleanor stifled a sob.
* * *
Eleanor woke with a start the next day, as if she’d been shaken. Tommy slept beside her. The sight of him roused anxiety, but not much. She felt that a turmoil had been resolved. It was still dark, but she rose. She turned on the shower and, while it heated, boiled a pot of coffee.
She could hardly stand to look at her body in the mirror, so she opened the medicine cabinet and looked at lipstick, soap, and talcum powder instead. Tommy would wake soon, and Eleanor dreaded it. She could not think of what to say.
She washed. Thoughts of what she would miss, the box she had put herself in, invaded her peace, but she focused on washing her hair. She ran through her day in her mind and the altered scenes she would need to know for rehearsal. The choice was made, and though she mourned, she did not regret it.
Eleanor dressed herself as quietly as possible. But when she finished fastening her buttons, she saw Tommy looking at her. He raised an arm to her, beckoning her back to bed.
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