Don't Speak to Strange Girls (19 page)

“People like that, Joanne?” His voice was ragged.

“Yes. All right. Yes. They’re my friends. They don’t spoil everything … I was all right. Tonight I was on top of the world. I had everything I wanted.”

He stood in the chill night, shoulders sagged round, looking down at her. Blood leaked from his face. He lifted the back of his hand, wiped at it, smearing it across his cheek.

Joanne was crying abruptly, her body shaking.

“Please. Let me alone,” she begged. “Tonight was so nice — and you had to come around — and spoil it all.”

chapter twenty

C
LAY LAY
a long time on his rumpled bed that night, unable to sleep. His thoughts crawled in torturous ways no matter how hard he tried to blot them out. The agony of his torn, bruised face no longer hurt him at all, but he felt helpless against the bruising force of his thoughts.

He had reached bottom tonight, drunk and beaten in that loud apartment among those smelly kids, hearing Joanne saying his brawling could ruin her, tonight was so nice and he had come around and spoiled it all.

He could think clearly, despite the pain, and he knew he was not going to see her any more. From now on she could not touch him, and he thought this with a mixture of pain and sadness but also a terrible kind of finality.

He twisted on the bed, thinking that he had always felt she needed him, and might need him more than ever. And thinking this, his mouth twisted into a painful smile. She had lived before he came along, she would live when he had forgotten her name.

He fell asleep thinking about her, and the way it had been between them, the way it would never be any more, but already it was something he could put behind him and his last conscious thought was of the sharp lances of sunlight against his swollen lids.

He awoke at three o’clock that afternoon, thinking about Joanne, but also aware of the hollow physical pain that was more urgent. Every day he awoke wanting to call her and he glanced at the telephone now. But he got up, dressed and ate brunch on the flagstone terrace and did not call her at all. When his thoughts turned back to her, he forced himself to remember the way she’d cried out that he’d spoiled everything. It made staying away from the telephone easier.

McEsters studied his torn and battered face without seeming to look at him at all. The dark glasses were the only concealment Clay wore, and he offered no explanation even when his nose bled abruptly and inexplicably.

He thought about
Man of the Desert
with almost a sense of longing. He went into the library, locked the door though this was unreasonable; except for the servants, he was alone in the house.

He opened the script and scanned through the sides marked for Pinto. He tried desperately to see all the excitement and power that Dick Creek had found in the desert man, but he could not concentrate yet, and when the telephone rang, he pounced upon it as if it were his last means of escape.

For a moment he felt the unreasoning fear that it might be Joanne and all his vows would go out the window. He felt his stomach nerves tighten up. He held his hand poised above the receiver. Then the phone rang again. He warned himself he couldn’t be afraid of her; if he had to talk to her, it would be for the last time and only when she called.

He picked up the receiver, gripping it tightly.

“Hello.”

“Daddy?”

“Sharon! Good Lord. Where are you?” His face ached when he stretched the muscles, smiling, and he thought what a mess he looked.

“I’m at the airport. Would you come and get me?”

He pressed his fingers against the proud, purpled flesh, on the flat imprint of a shoe sole across his mouth and cheek. “Lord yes. I’d love it. Can you wait for me to comb my hair?”

“You better put on a pair of pants, too.”

He laughed, face hurting. “It’s so good to hear you.”

Ten minutes later he was cruising down Sunset. The boulevard was quiet at this hour. He passed a Beverly Hills police cruiser. He swung right at La Cienega and went downhill.

There was only sparse mid-afternoon traffic. He made good time crossing town. When he reached the airport, however, it was as though the population explosion had converged upon this one area. He decided these people were always in airports, always the same ones, never sleeping, never shaving, always looking rushed and haggard as if they’d just missed the last plane out.

Sharon was sitting in the waiting-room near the American Airlines desk. She got up when she saw him. She carried only an overnight bag and make-up kit. She set them down and threw her arms around him, but stopped at the sight of his discolored face.

He held her a moment, stroking her tenderly.

“You walked into a door in the dark,” she said.

He nodded. “And when I hit it, it hit me back.”

“Poor daddy.”

“What happened to you?” he said. “They didn’t fire you?” He felt a sudden constriction in his solar-plexus, thinking about this man Darrow who had been after Sharon. It would be hell if she’d gotten over her head in trouble while he pushed her aside in his mind, snarled up in his own private agonies.

“No. I took time off. I came home.”

He carried her bags and they walked out to his hardtop convertible in the clotted parking lot. People recognized Stuart, even with his dark glasses and purpled face. They nudged each other and whispered.

Sharon looked Clay over. Her voice was light, but the undercurrent of worry threaded through it. “You been all right — except for fighting back at doors in the dark?”

“Yes. I’ve missed you… .” He put her bags in the car, helped her in, went around and got under the wheel. “But you haven’t told me yet why you dashed home like this.”

She waited until they were out in traffic, headed toward town. “I missed you,” she said. “I worried about you … I was sorry I didn’t stay and take care of you — the way you asked … But I’m here now.”

“But what about — ” He hesitated, still unable to speak Amory Darrow’s name. “What about school?”

“I got to thinking. About what you said about wanting to go somewhere, and I decided we had little enough time together. You were right. School can wait.”

He studied her, trying to find hurt in her eyes, the faint
new twist of pain about her mouth. If Darrow had hurt her, he would kill him.
This was all he really needed anyhow, to kill somebody, and Amory Darrow — whoever
he was — would do nicely. He would get him down in the street the way
the colonel had pummeled that drummer in that faraway Nebraska summer.

“You arrived at this conclusion by yourself?” he said.

She blushed. She did not meet his gaze. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “Your exams must be about due.”

“Yes.”

“And this near getting that degree, you just quit and came home?”

“Yes.” She sighed heavily, covered his hand with hers. “We can go down into Mexico. So many places we could go. So many things we could do.”

He felt a sudden rising sensation of anxiety and hope. They could have a fine time together. He and Sharon. They could go anywhere they wanted. He could give the studio the final nix on
Man of the Desert.
This in itself would be pleasurable. He and Sharon would get out of this town. They would be together and they would move, and keep moving. Whatever she wanted to do. He would keep all his thoughts on Sharon. There was a whole wide damned world that he could show her, that he could see anew through her eyes.

A smile pulled at his torn mouth. This had to be the answer. He didn’t care who had written to her, or called her at the school and told her he needed her, that she might save him by coming home at once. Maybe they had frightened her; well, he would make it up to her.

He glanced at her face. She was so pretty, so fresh and young, even sleepless as she was, even tired from the long flight. And I’m so tired. Tired of this rat race. Beaten — in more ways than one, so beaten that the physical beating didn’t even matter. I’m tired wanting something I can’t have. Tired knowing I must return to work and knowing I can’t face it. Sharon was what he needed, someone to care about, to think about, to run with. She was young and he could be young with her and she could save him.

She yawned and for a moment she looked like a little girl. And abruptly he remembered the way she’d looked that day of Ruth’s funeral. There was a loss in her eyes then, and there was a loss now, only he had been too involved in himself to see it. Even when he had thought about showing the world to Sharon, he had not really been thinking about Sharon at all, or what Sharon really wanted.

He had been thinking about himself.

• • •

They were gathered like a conclave of the clan in the foyer when Clay and Sharon entered the house. Sharon cried out happily and ran to them, kissing Hoff, Shatner and then clinging to Kay.

“How did you people know Sharon was in town?” Clay said.

“I told them,” Kay said, staring past Sharon’s head.

Clay’s jaw tilted. So Kay had called Sharon, urging her to drop everything, studies, romance, daily existence and come running back to daddy. Trust Kay Ringling to know exactly what to do for him. She had known precisely the kind of girl that would topple the defenses he’d set up around himself after Ruth’s death. No one else had known, but Kay had known, to the width of the girl’s smile, the depth of her eyes. And now when things got out of hand, Kay knew the answer to that problem, too. It didn’t matter what the sacrifice cost Sharon. There was no sacrifice Kay Ringling wouldn’t make for Clay Stuart, none she wouldn’t quietly ask of others.

He opened his mouth to ask her what right she had interfering, but something in her face stopped him. They could talk about it later.

He said, “If you’re tired, Sharon, why don’t you freshen up?”

The four of them trooped into the library after Sharon had gone up the stairs, followed by McEsters with her bags and a maid to see that she had everything she needed.

“God, it’s good to see her,” Hoff said.

“She gets prettier every time,” Shatner said.

Clay flopped down on the divan and stared at them. “Stop talking around it. Kay sent for Sharon. Now everything is going to be fine for the old fellow, isn’t it? Senile. He can’t take care of himself. But then he doesn’t have to. He has you two, and Kay Ringling.”

“Your face doesn’t look like you do so well when we’re not around,” Kay Ringling said.

“Never mind my face.”

“I know an elephant did it,” Shatner said. “But why? I never knew you had a hate for elephants.”

“He’s got a hate for everybody,” Kay Ringling said.

“But you’re going to fix that, aren’t you? Daddy will be a good boy with Sharon in the house, won’t he?” Clay said.

“God knows, I hope so,” Kay told him.

“To get back to work,” Hoff said. “That’s the thing. You shouldn’t hate us who love you, Clay. Get to work. Everything will be fine.”

“I’m thinking about taking a cruise,” he said, with malice. “Just Sharon and me.”

Hoff clutched his fat breast above his heart and paced in a tight circle. Shatner exhaled heavily, walked to the window and stared through it. But he did not say anything. Kay sat in a club chair under a reading lamp. They heard a car, distantly, in the drive, but none of them said anything.

After a moment the library door opened. McEsters said, “Miss Joanne Stark is outside, Mr. Stuart. She’d like to talk to you.”

• • •

Joanne came into the library. Through the French windows she could see Shatner, Ringling and Hoff in deck chairs beside the pool. She did not mention them. Her smile was troubled, and she asked first about Clay’s face.

“Do you hate me?” she asked.

He shook his head, watching her, trying to see in advance what she wanted.

“You’ve always loved me, haven’t you?” she said. “From the first.” She fell on the divan in the old way she always had, as if it had been only last night she’d been in this room, pushing off her high-heeled slippers and wriggling her toes. “From the first day you’ve loved me, haven’t you? And I treated you so badly.”

Stuart shrugged. “You did what you had to do.”

“Could I — have a drink?” she said, smiling. “Anything. Just whiskey on rocks. Anything.”

Clay got her a drink, watching her through the dark glasses. But he was aware he could not see into her clearly, even with vision unimpaired. You could not see into her; when you tried to understand Joanne it was like a face seen in the glass of a dusty mirror.

She took a long drink, stared into the glass, at the rug, at the backs of her fingers. She did not lift her head.

“But you couldn’t love me any more — after the way I’ve acted — could you?” she said. There was a faint plaintive note of pleading deep under the surface of her voice.

“God knows.”

She dropped the glass and ran around the couch suddenly. She grabbed his arms. Her fingers tightened, her eyes were wild, her voice was urgent.

“You do love me, don’t you?” She searched his eyes behind those glasses. “No matter what a fool I’ve been. I’ve been a fool. I — didn’t know what a fool until last night. Please, you’ve got to believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter, Joanne.”

“I’ll make it up to you. Will you let me? You won’t send me away? I’ve got my suitcase — out in the taxi … I came back — if you want me — if you’ll let me make up the hurt.”

He stared at her, but he was thinking about Sharon upstairs. There was no chance of letting her stay in this house while Sharon was here, even if he wanted her to. This no longer entered into it. How right Ringling was. She was always right about him. It was indecent for any woman to understand a man so fully. Daddy would behave himself with Sharon in the house.

“I want to stay here, Clay. It’s all I want. All I’ve ever wanted, really.” She pressed herself against him. “You’ve got to love me, Clay. I’ll make it up to you. All of it.”

• • •

Shatner tossed pennies into the pool, watching them sinking, twisting and glinting to the bottom. “What are you doing?” Hoff said.

“Haven’t you ever thrown pennies into a well to wish?” Shamer asked.