Highsmith, Patricia (20 page)

Therese was getting two eggs out of the refrigerator. “Yes,” she said, smiling. She dropped one of the eggs into the water that was just beginning to heat. Her answer sounded rather flat, but what other answer was there? When she turned around after setting the breakfast tray, she saw Florence had put the second egg in the water. Therese took it out with her fingers. “She wants only one egg,” Therese said. “That’s for my omelette.”

“Does she? She always used to eat two.”

“Well—she doesn’t now,” Therese said.

“Shouldn’t you measure that egg anyway, miss?” Florence gave her the pleasant professional smile. “Here’s the egg timer, top of the stove.”

Therese shook her head. “It comes out better when I guess.” She had never gone wrong yet on Carol’s egg. Carol liked it a little better done than the egg timer made it. Therese looked at Florence, who was concentrating now on the two eggs she was frying in the skillet. The coffee was almost all filtered. In silence, Therese prepared the cup to take up to Carol.

Later in the morning, Therese helped Carol take in the white iron chairs and the glider from the lawn in back of the house. It would be simpler with Florence there, Carol said, but Carol had sent her away marketing, then had a sudden whim to get the furniture in. It was Harge’s idea to leave them out all winter, she said, but she thought they looked bleak.

Finally only one chair remained by the round fountain, a prim little chair of white metal with a bulging bottom and four lacy feet. Therese looked at it and wondered who had sat there.

“I wish there were more plays that happened out of doors,” Therese said.

“What do you think of first when you start to make a set?” Carol asked.

“What do you start from?”

“The mood of the play, I suppose. What do you mean?”

“Do you think of the kind of play it is, or of something you want to see?”

One of Mr. Donohue’s remarks brushed Therese’s mind with a vague unpleasantness. Carol was in an argumentative mood this morning. “I think you’re determined to consider me an amateur,” Therese said.

“I think you’re rather subjective. That’s amateurish, isn’t it?”

“Not always.” But she knew what Carol meant.

“You have to know a lot to be absolutely subjective, don’t you? In those things you showed me, I think you’re too subjective—without knowing enough.”

Therese made fists of her hands in her pockets. She had so hoped Carol would like her work, unqualifiedly. It had hurt her terribly that Carol hadn’t liked in the least a certain few sets she had shown her. Carol knew nothing about it, technically, yet she could demolish a set with a phrase.

“I think a look at the West would do you good. When did you say you had to be back? The middle of February?”

“Well, now I don’t—I just heard yesterday.”

“What do you mean? It fell through? The Philadelphia job?”

“They called me up. They want somebody from Philadelphia.”

“Oh, baby. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s just this business,” Therese said. Carol’s hand was on the back of her neck, Carol’s thumb rubbing behind her ear as Carol might have fondled a dog.

“You weren’t going to tell me.”

“Yes, I was.”

“When?”

“Sometime on the trip.”

“Are you very disappointed?”

“No,” Therese said positively.

They heated the last cup of coffee and took it out to the white chair on the lawn and shared it.

“Shall we have lunch out somewhere?” Carol asked her. “Let’s go to the club. Then I ought to do some shopping in Newark. How about a jacket?

Would you like a tweed jacket?”

Therese was sitting on the edge of the fountain, one hand pressed against her ear because it was aching from the cold. “I don’t particularly need one,” she said.

“But I’d particularly like to see you in one.”

Therese was upstairs, changing her clothes, when she heard the telephone ring. She heard Florence say, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Aird. Yes, I’ll call her right now,” and Therese crossed the room and closed the door.

Restlessly, she began to put the room in order, hung her clothes in the closet, and smoothed the bed she had already made. Then Carol knocked on the door and put her head in. “Harge is coming by in a few minutes. I don’t think he’ll be long.”

Therese did not want to see him. “Would you like for me to take a walk?”

Carol smiled. “No. Stay up here and read a book, if you want to.”

Therese got the book she had bought yesterday, the Oxford Book of English Verse, and tried to read it, but the words stayed separate and meaningless. She had a disquieting sense of hiding, so she went to the door and opened it.

Carol was just coming from her room, and for an instant, Therese saw the same look of indecision cross her face that Therese remembered from the first moment she had entered the house. Then she said, “Come down.”

Harge’s car drove up as they walked into the living room. Carol went to the door, and Therese heard their greeting, Carol’s only cordial, but Harge’s very cheerful, and Carol came in with a long flower box in her arms.

“Harge, this is Miss Belivet. I think you met her once,” Carol said.

Harge’s eyes narrowed a little, then opened. “Oh, yes. How do you do?”

“How do you do?”

Florence came in, and Carol handed the flower box to her.

“Would you put these in something?” Carol said.

“Ah, here’s that pipe. I thought so.” Harge reached behind the ivy on the mantel, and brought forth a pipe.

“Everything is fine at home?” Carol asked as she sat down at the end of the sofa.

“Yes. Very.” Harge’s tense smile did not show his teeth, but his face and the quick turns of his head radiated geniality and self-satisfaction. He watched with proprietary pleasure as Florence brought in the flowers, red roses, in a vase, and set them on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

Therese wished suddenly that she had brought Carol flowers, brought them on any of a half a dozen occasions past, and she remembered the flowers Dannie had brought to her one day when he simply dropped in at the theater. She looked at Harge, and his eyes glanced away from her, the peaked brow lifting still higher, the eyes darting everywhere, as if he looked for little changes in the room. But it might all be pretense, Therese thought, his air of good cheer. And if he cared enough to pretend he must also care in some way for Carol.

“May I take one for Rindy?” Harge asked.

“Of course.” Carol got up, and she would have broken a flower, but Harge stepped forward and put a little knife blade against the stem and the flower came off. “They’re very beautiful. Thank you, Harge.”

Harge lifted the flower to his nose. Half to Carol, half to Therese, he said, “It’s a beautiful day. Are you going to take a drive?”

“Yes, we were,” Carol said. “By the way, I’d like to drive over one afternoon next week. Perhaps Tuesday.”

Harge thought a moment. “All right. I’ll tell her.”

“I’ll speak to her on the phone. I meant tell your family.”

Harge nodded once, in acquiescence, then looked at Therese. “Yes, I remember you. Of course. You were here about three weeks ago. Before Christmas.”

“Yes. One Sunday.” Therese stood up. She wanted to leave them alone.

“I’ll go upstairs,” she said to Carol. “Good-by, Mr. Aird.”

Harge made her a little bow. “Good-by.”

As she went up the stairs, she heard Harge say, “Well, many happy returns, Carol. I’d like to say it. Do you mind?”

Carol’s birthday, Therese thought. Of course, Carol wouldn’t have told her.

She closed the door and looked around the room, realized she was looking for any sign that she had spent the night. There was none. She stopped at the mirror and looked at herself for a moment, frowningly. She was not so pale as she had been three weeks ago when Harge saw her, she did not feel like the drooping, frightened thing Harge had met then. From the top drawer, she got her handbag and took her lipstick out of it. Then she heard Harge knock on the door, and she closed the drawer.

“Come in.”

“Excuse me. I must get something.” He crossed the room quickly, went into the bathroom, and he was smiling as he came back with the razor in his hand. “You were in the restaurant with Carol last Sunday, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Therese said.

“Carol said you do stage designing.”

“Yes.”

He glanced from her face to her hands, to the floor, and up again. “I hope you see that Carol gets out enough,” he said. “You look young and spry. Make her take some walks.”

Then he went briskly out the door, leaving behind him a faint shaving-soap scent. Therese tossed her lipstick onto the bed, and wiped her palms down the side of her skirt. She wondered why Harge troubled to let her know he took it for granted she spent a great deal of time with Carol.

“Therese!” Carol called suddenly. “Come down!”

Carol was sitting on the sofa, smoking a cigarette. Harge had gone. She looked at Therese with a little smile. Then Florence came in and Carol said, “Florence, you can take these somewhere else. Put them in the dining room.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Carol winked at Therese.

Nobody used the dining room, Therese knew. Carol preferred to eat anywhere else. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” Therese asked her.

“Oh!” Carol laughed. “It’s not. It’s my wedding anniversary. Get your coat and let’s go.”

As they backed out of the driveway, Carol said, “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a hypocrite.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing of any importance.” Carol was still smiling.

“But you said he was a hypocrite.”

“Par excellence.”

“Pretending all this good humor?”

“Oh—just partially that.”

“Did he say anything about me?”

“He said you looked like a nice girl. Is that news?” Carol shot the car down the narrow road to the village. “He said the divorce will take about six weeks longer than we’d thought, due to some more red tape. That’s news. He has an idea I still might change my mind in the meantime. That’s hypocrisy. I think he likes to fool himself.”

Was life, were human relations like this always, Therese wondered. Never solid ground underfoot. Always like gravel, a little yielding, noisy so the whole world could hear, so one always listened, too, for the loud, harsh step of the intruder’s foot.

“Carol I never took that check, you know,” Therese remarked suddenly. “I stuck it under the cloth on the table by the bed.”

“What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know. Do you want me to tear it up? I started to that night.”

“If you insist,” Carol said.

THERESE LOOKED DOWN at the big cardboard box. “I don’t want to take it.”

Her hands were full. “I can let Mrs. Osborne take the food out and the rest can stay here.”

“Bring it,” Carol said, going out the door. She carried down the last dribble of things, the books and the jackets Therese had decided at the last minute that she wanted.

Therese came back upstairs for the box. It had come an hour ago by messenger—a lot of sandwiches in wax paper, a bottle of blackberry wine, a cake, and a box containing the white dress Mrs. Semco had promised her.

Richard had had nothing to do with the box, she knew, or there would have been a book or an extra note in it.

An unwanted dress still lay on the couch, a corner of the rug was turned back, but Therese was impatient to be off. She pulled the door shut, and hurried down the steps with the box, past the Kellys’ who were both away at work, past Mrs. Osborne’s door. She had said good-by to Mrs. Osborne an hour ago when she had paid the next month’s rent.

Therese was just closing the car door, when Mrs. Osborne called her from the front steps.

“Telephone call!” Mrs. Osborne shouted, and reluctantly Therese got out, thinking it was Richard.

It was Phil McElroy, calling her to ask about the interview with Harkevy yesterday. She had told Dannie about it last night when they had had dinner together. Harkevy hadn’t promised her a job, but he had said to keep in touch, and Therese felt he meant it. He had let her come to see him backstage in the theater where he was supervising the set for Winter Town. He had chosen three of her cardboard models and looked very carefully at them, dismissed one as a little dull, pointed out some impracticality in the second, and liked best the hall-like set Therese had started the evening she had come back from the first visit to Carol’s house. He was the first person who had ever given her less conventional sets a serious consideration. She had called Carol up immediately and told her about the meeting. She told Phil about the Harkevy interview, but she didn’t mention that the Andronich job had fallen through. She knew it was because she didn’t want Richard to hear about it. Therese asked Phil to let her know what play Harkevy was doing sets for next, because he said he hadn’t decided himself between two plays. There was more of a chance he would take her on as apprentice, if he chose the English play he had talked about yesterday.

“I don’t know any address to give you yet,” Therese said. “I know we’ll get to Chicago.”

Phil said he might drop her a letter general delivery there.

“Was that Richard?” Carol asked when she came back.

“No. Phil McElroy.”

“So you haven’t heard from Richard?”

“I haven’t for the last few days. He sent me a telegram this morning.”

Therese hesitated, then took it from her pocket and read it. “I have not changed, neither have you.

WRITE TO ME. I LOVE YOU. RICHARD.”

“I think you should call him,” Carol said. “Call him from my house.”

They were going to spend the night at Carol’s house and leave early in the morning.

“Will you put on that dress tonight?” Carol asked.

“I’ll try it on. It looks like a wedding dress.”

Therese put on the dress just before dinner. It hung below her calf, and the waist tied in back with long white bands that in front were stitched down and embroidered. She went down to show it to Carol. Carol was in the living room writing a letter.

“Look,” Therese said, smiling.

Carol looked at her for a long moment, then came over and examined the embroidery at the waist. “That’s a museum piece. You look adorable. Wear it this evening, will you?”