Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (157 page)

“You’re welcome.”

“Thanks.” This last was said to an empty line. Dinah’s sister had hung up.

THE WALLACE FAMILY was comprised of Mrs. Wallace (currently invalided), Mr. Wallace, Joanie Wallace — aged eight — and Wendy Wallace, four. They were comfortably off, it seemed, for they had a housekeeper-cook, Elvira, a Swedish woman who whisked through the apartment leaving cleanliness in her wake and who cooked superb meals before retiring to her room as soon as she washed up the dinner dishes. Elvira, who was a television buff, said good night at nine o’clock with a shy, salutary smile and closed herself in her maid’s quarters, disappearing from man’s ken until early the following morning.

This time I really am tied down
, Dinah thought; she had been three days in the Wallace household at Nine-twenty Park Avenue and was spending a good deal of her time supervising the children. Today Joanie was finger-painting and her hands were a mess. She had to be forcibly restrained from tracking green and yellow goo all over the house. “I’ll bring you your snack,” Dinah said, pushing her back in her playroom. “You stay right here, and that’s an order.”

Mrs. Wallace claimed her attention next. She was a handsome woman with big bones and a complexion like a milkmaid. Dinah liked her. She had had surgery on her knee and was in a cast from hip to ankle. She was next door to being a dead weight, incapacitated as she was by the heavy burden of the cast, which was like a great, doughy extension of herself. “It’s like a loathsome parasite growing on me,” Mrs. Wallace said dolefully.

“Are you very uncomfortable, poor thing?”

“Don’t give me sympathy! I’ll start blubbering. Be nasty. Tell me I’m a drag and a bore.”

“You’re not. There, comfy now?”

Mrs. Wallace settled herself in the bed. “I feel like throwing myself out the window, cast and all,” she said grimly. “I
hate
being dependent. I won’t ever let myself get old and alone and a burden. If it ever comes to that I’ll eat lye, like Emma Bovary.”

“All this will be a memory in another few weeks,” Dinah said soothingly. “When it’s over you’ll be a new woman.”

“With an estranged family,” Mrs. Wallace said darkly. “Tom’s probably having an affair with his secretary. I wouldn’t blame him. Useless thing that I am. It’s a good thing we aren’t the double bed type of couple, or I’d probably club him to death in his sleep with this monstrous appendage.”

“Mr. Wallace gives me the impression of being a happily married man.”

“It’s these beastly unforeseen things that drive men to other women.”

“Stop worrying.”

“And the children. What’s Wendy up to?”

“I’m sure she’s behaving.”

“You don’t know Wendy. Dinah, will you investigate? For all I know she may have decided to run away from home, with a rucksack and her Barbie doll. I haven’t heard a sound out of her for a whole hour. Do check on her, Di. Goodness knows what mischief she’s up to.”

Wendy, when checked on, proved to be having a cozy telephone conversation. “Joanie thinks she’s so
great
,” she was confiding, with her pink mouth practically plastered to the receiver. “Just because she’s
four
years older. She thinks she’s so
great.
”

A drone at the other end of the wire reached Dinah’s ears. It sounded rather staccato. One of her little friends, she thought, reassured. Very good. Wendy was up to no mischief. She stayed for a while, leaning against the doorjamb, because it was fun to watch the little girl aping the grownups. “And besides,” Wendy said censoriously, “she gets perfectly awful marks in arithmetic. She gets
C’s.
That’s the lowest mark you can get, short of failing.”

The drone on the other end of the wire continued, more staccato than ever. “I’m Wendy, I
told
you that,” the child said. “Wendy Wallace. I can write my name; did you know that?”

Bully for you
, Dinah thought, enjoying the picture of the little girl curled up on the windowseat, with the long cord, having an adult conversation. She was terribly appealing, all almond eyes and straight black hair. “My birthday’s soon,” Wendy said. “Will you bring me a present?”

“Wendy, Wendy,” Dinah murmured reprovingly, and the child looked up. The voice on the other end of the lines puttered over the wires.
Why, that doesn’t sound like a child
, Dinah thought, and said sharply, “Wendy, to whom are you talking?”

“My friend,” Wendy said, sotto voce, and turned back to the receiver again. “What?”

She listened, frowning. “Mommy’s sick,” she finally said. “She had an operation on her knee.”

“Who is that?” Dinah demanded, and firmly took the receiver out of Wendy’s reluctant hand. “Hello, who is this,” she asked.

“This is Richard Claiborne,” a masculine voice said. “I’m trying to get in touch with Dinah Mason, and I understand she’s on a job there. I’ve been trying to reach her for some time. Please, can you help me? Is there a Dinah Mason at this address?”

Richard Claiborne. A sunny afternoon, a young man following her with an overnight case. “
I’ll
drive you wherever you’re going … my car’s parked right up there.
”

I’ve always wanted something like this to happen to me
, Dinah thought.
Someone coming unexpectedly into my life … remembering me. Not forgetting. Calling me up …

“Hello?” the voice said sharply, and she came back to earth.

“Hi,” she said. “This is Dinah.”

“Well, hello.”

“Hello.”

“At long last.”

“At long last?”

“I called Mrs. Paley. She said you’d left. Then I called Lenox Hill. You’d left. Then it came to me, dimwit that I am, that you might have a telephone number under your own name. You did. I called there. Your sister answered. She has a nice voice. Almost as nice as yours. She gave me this number. End of chapter. Start of new chapter. May I see you?”

“That’s quite a long story,” Dinah said.

“It was all rather difficult. But worth it. That is, if you’ll have dinner with me this evening.”

“I can’t. I’m on a case.”

“Even nurses have time off, surely.”

“Yes, that’s quite true.”

“Then if not tonight, when?” he asked.

“I’m off on Saturday.”

“All day Saturday?”

“All day.”

“May I pick you up about nine? A.M., that is.”

“Could we make it at ten? I don’t have many chances for sleeping late.”

“Very well, ten.”

“It’s Nine-twenty Park. The name is Wallace. Twelfth floor.”

“Wallace. Twelfth floor. Ten o’clock.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it, Dinah.”

“Thank you. So will I.”

“I want to say good-bye,” Wendy said, tugging at her sleeve.

“Someone wants to say good-bye,” Dinah said, and handed Wendy the phone.

“Good-bye, and don’t forget my birthday,” Wendy said. “It’s the month after this. What month comes after this?”

There was the drone over the wires. “August,” the child said. “That’s right, it’s in August. Good-bye. It was lovely to talk to you. Dinah says good-bye too.”

The phone was abruptly hung up. “I told him you said good-bye too,” Wendy announced. “Who was that, anyway?”

“A friend of mine,” Dinah said, and remembered Dick’s long story. He had called Mrs. Paley and then he had called the hospital. Then he had called home. And finally called her. It was like getting flowers on the first of May, or an unanticipated Valentine.
I
’
m of a romantic nature
, she admitted to herself, and was conscious of a deep and satisfying pleasure running through her.
I
hope I don’t get hurt
, she thought fleetingly, but at the moment didn’t care. She was already planning what to wear on Saturday.

Dick made an instant hit with the Wallace children. He brought them presents. “For your birthday,” he said to Wendy.

“You
did
remember!”

“You didn’t think I’d forget?”

“It isn’t really
yet
,” she said, a thread of conscience pricking her. “It’s next month. What month comes after this?”

“August. Write this off as an advance birthday present. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“What do you say, Wendy?” Dinah prompted.

“Thank you. I was
going
to say it, Dinah. Thank you,
thank
you, Mr. Claiborne.”

“Call me Dick,” he invited. “No need to be formal, is there?” He handed Joanie a gaily-wrapped package too. “Just in case your birthday’s on the way too,” he said, and eyed Dinah. “I suppose now you’ll tell me your birthday impends. Oh, all right, I’ll buy you an ice cream soda.”

He had picked out exactly the right things, Steiff toys, a stuffed owl and leopard. The girls were ecstatic. Mrs. Wallace asked Dinah to bring in that nice boy so she could thank him for his largesse. “You
shouldn’t
have,” she said. “But it was darling of you, simply darling. Where are you two going?”

“Lots of places,” Dick said. “Wherever our fancy takes us. It’s a terrific day, all green and gold and not too hot. There’s a slight breeze.”

“Imagine walking around outdoors,” Mrs. Wallace said. “When I lick this beastly thing and get my cast off, I’ll walk until I’m blue in the face.”

“It won’t be too long,” Dinah reassured her.

“Tomorrow would be too far away.”

Downstairs in the lobby they ran into Mr. Wallace, back from some errand or other. “Delighted to meet you,” he said to Dick when they were introduced. “Dinah, you look like a strawberry. Good enough to eat.”

She had on a hot pink linen dress that was just about the color of fresh strawberries at that. They said good-bye to Mr. Wallace and when they were out on the street Richard said that Mr. Wallace was right; she did look like a strawberry, and made him remember something he thought he’d forgotten. “My aunt has a collection of porcelain replicas of fruit … oh, a lemon, an apple, so on and so forth. And a strawberry,” he explained. “They’re very tiny and very delicate. Meissen, I suppose, or Dresden. As a shaver I was permitted to play with them. Imagine my remembering that after all these years. But enough of things past. You look stupendous. Your hair’s like wheat in a country field.”

“Redundant,” she said. “There aren’t any fields in cities. Or wheat either, for that matter. But thanks for the graceful compliment.”

“There will be others,” he assured her.

It was a really resplendent day; as Dick had said, all green and gold, with a fresh, sweet-smelling breeze shivering the leaves in the trees that lined the streets of the upper East Side. On a day like this it was difficult to believe that the air was poisoned with monoxides. Dinah looked for Dick’s car at the curb, but it wasn’t there. “I really meant walk,” he told her. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, I’d rather,” she said. “I don’t get half the exercise I should. Where are we going?”

“Let’s just let our feet take us somewhere,” he suggested. “Let’s just set out and see what happens.”

“I’m game.”

“Good girl,” he said, and took her arm at a crossing.

They circled the reservoir at Central Park. The water was as blue as lapis lazuli, shimmering in the sun. Wandering, they found themselves near the zoo. They strolled, communing with the animals. Dinah fell in love with a llama, Dick with a bobcat. They watched the seals flapping their flippers and barking hoarsely. “How do you feel about renting bikes?” Dick asked after a while. “Or would it be a hazard in that pretty dress?”

“I’d love it! I’m a whizz on a bicycle. With or without a dress. Wonderful idea, Dick.”

They rode the closed-off paths for an hour. “You’re an outdoor girl,” Dick praised, when they turned in their bikes. “I like that. Ah, there’s a stand. How about a hot dog?”

They had hot dogs. Walking farther, they heard the sprightly music in the distance. “The merry-go-round,” Dick exclaimed. “We have to do that. Come on, Dinah.”

They rode the carousel three times running. Laughing, they decided to call it quits. “I like Central Park,” Dick said as they forged on. “Just the same, it can’t hold a candle to the Jardin d’Acclimatation.”

“Where’s that, Dick?”

“In Paris. Have you been to Paris?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, you see, there’s this stupendous park for kids. With a tiny train you can ride in. And a really great merry-go-round. And a boat ride on the Rivière Enchantée.”

“It sounds very nice.”

“It is.” He looked down at her. “We should have taken one more go op the merry-go-round. I suppose I go for them most of all.”

“Me too. It’s mostly the music.”

“But you’re so right,” he agreed. “There’s no more exciting music in the world. It’s the music of eternal enchantment.” He spread his arms. “What a super, superlative knockout of a day!”

“Yes, it’s heaven.”

“What would you like to do next?”

“I’m open to suggestion.”

“Then,” he said, “how about walking down to the Village?”

“All the way down there?”

“Chicken?”

“Not at all. Let’s go.”

They stopped off at Murray Hill, for an aperitif in the oak-paneled cocktail room of a staid old hotel, then continued on down to Washington Square, turning west. “It’s three o’clock,” Dick said. “You must be famished.”

“As a matter of fact I am.”

“We’ll remedy that.”

Their late lunch was at a place called Minetta’s, where they had canelloni, red wine and a tossed salad with Roquefort dressing. Dinah did a bit of face-repairing in the ladies’ lounge, and when she came out Dick said there was a good art film not far away. Since she hadn’t seen the picture, they made their way over to the theater, arriving just a few minutes before the next showing.

When they got out it was purply dusk, with night only moments away. “I’m hungry again,” Dick said. “Movies always give me an appetite. Let’s go to Bank Street. The food’s not much to brag about, but it’s substantial, and there’s a very nice garden.”

I never went to places like this with Mike
, Dinah thought, as they took their places at a table in a tree-flamed garden dining area where candles flickered on the red-checked tablecloths. She was brimming with contentment, happier than she ever remembered being, so much at peace that she would almost have settled for this perfect day being the last one of her life.
It’s like a fantasy
, she thought.