Nikki (12 page)

“While you go on to another crest,” Dolores said understanding “and get involved with other keyed-up parts of people who will soon go back home and leave you. Oh, honey, I think that must be just terrible for you.”

“Well …”

Dolores reached over and stroked her cheek slowly, looking down at her. Nikki shut her eyes to hide the shameless bliss she felt and shifted her body a trifle, fitting the curve of her waist even more comfortingly against the round of Dolores’s hip.

“Oh-h-h,” she moaned softly, “your sympathy feels so good, Taffy Head.” She opened her eyes, sat up and hugged Dolores.

She lay contentedly gazing up at her friend. “Now that I’m going to make my home out here near you, I just
know
how right everything’s going to be. It made me so happy when you told me before the dinner last night that you knew I could settle down.”

Dolores smiled warmly, but a vagueness came into her expression. She reached for her cigarettes, stood and lighted one, then lay back down on her own lounge.

“I’m sure things will work out,” she said. Nikki felt a slight chill. Dolores had denied that Nikki couldn’t fit into her world and that she would be a disruptive force and a liability as a friend, but Nikki sensed she had been thinking about it since and couldn’t deny it. After a long pause, Dolores added, “Jim’s happy about it. Maybe
too
happy.”

Nikki felt her scalp crawl with tension. She stared straight up, not daring to glance at Dolores. “I’m glad he is,” she said casually. “But neither of you should take me too seriously. What I’ll be using the apartment for is a base, and I’ll be gone for tournaments and one thing and another here and abroad and on business back in Virginia for probably ten-eleven months of the year. In for a day or a weekend, then out again. You know me.”

“That still sounds hectic,” Dolores protested, but not without relief.

“Let’s face it; I am hectic. Tell me about your life.”

Nikki chain-smoked three cigarettes, while Dolores talked about clubs, committees, luncheons, teas, dinners, charity drives, social-business engagements, care of children, her various friendships. She was amusing and interesting, but Nikki found more and more often she had to lengthen and stiffen her upper lip to keep from yawning. Dolores stopped abruptly.

“Go on and yawn,” she said edgily.

“Huh?” Nikki looked at her anxiously. “I wasn’t yawning, fool.”

“I bore you,” Dolores said flatly.

“I’ve been utterly fascinated, Taffy Head. Honest to goodness!”

“Oh, please!”

She swung up quickly, sat on Dolores’s chaise, peered insistently into her eyes. “I swear. It sounds so beautiful and happy, and I was listening so hungrily, trying to picture myself in that kind of life, because I want it, more than anything. But such a life—” she looked away, lifted and dropped a hand despairingly—”seems so … so
remote
.”

Dolores sat up, turning the other way, and got to her feet. “The kids are counting on seeing you. Shall we drive over?”

“Fine.”

On the way downstairs Nikki shook Dolores’ arm. “You’re hurt.”

“Hon, I’m not hurt, but let’s face it. As you put it, we’re … remote. You think the world of me and I do of you, but it’s true, I bore you. It’s inevitable. You feed on excitement; my pace and my temperament are just too slow. I don’t feel hurt. I don’t feel good about it, either. I’m just resigned. I couldn’t be much different even if I wanted to, and you couldn’t either. So there we are.”

Oh, no. No, we’re not. Honestly, we’re not. Don’t be that way,” Nikki said in a rush, her eyes bright and anxious, staring intently at Dolores. Abruptly she turned away and began to walk rapidly toward the car, her breath coming fast, her throat aching. At the car she turned.

“Or maybe let’s not get the kids. I’ll call a cab.” As Dolores reached her she veered off toward the house, calling, “I just remembered I had an appointment to interview a housekeeper. They’re so damned hard to get.”

She was at the phone when Dolores caught up. “No, Nikki.”

“I swear! The apartment’s all furnished and all but I haven’t got any help.” Her underlip began to quiver out of control. She turned her face. “Please call a cab for me!”

“You’re not going like this, Nikki.”

“Don’t look at me.” She searched wildly, headed through the living room. “I forget where the bathroom is.”

“Right down here.” Dolores was at her side, an arm around her.

Nikki stood in the middle of the bathroom, shaking her head, trying to tell Dolores to go out. Her hands had begun to shake violently. She clamped her mouth shut, trying to steady the swift shallowness of her breathing. She dropped her head back, opened her mouth wide and pulled in a long breath.

“You mustn’t see me like this,” she pleaded.

“Go on and cry,” Dolores said softly, her eyes tender.

“Why, for heaven’s sake? What I am I am.” She backstepped hastily as Dolores came closer. “You see … well, you see, when I was small, very small, do you know what my mother said about me?” She wiped at her eyes, grinned and shook her head. “She would say …” she stopped and laughed thinly, briefly. “‘Such a rewarding child’ and I was. I was, really; that’s how I was. I mean …” She submitted as Dolores put her arms around her. “I just ruin everything. I don’t blame you for giving up on me.”

“You’re going to stay here, Nikki. Not just this afternoon. You’re moving into the guest room.”

“No.”

“Yes, Nikki. You’re going to ease off, honey, and get hold of yourself. I’m not going to let you down, Nikki. You’re my dearest friend, and you need me, Nikki. You needn’t be ashamed with me. You ought to know that.”

“You don’t know how horrible I was to your friend John Barket.”

“I don’t care.”

“And you don’t know …”

“Shush, now!” Dolores squeezed her and kissed her cheek. “Now you get your face washed and we’ll go get the kids; they’re dying to see Aunt Nikki.”

Driving over to get the children, Nikki listened, subdued, while Dolores assured her the children wouldn’t reject her.

“They’re both affectionate, although Jimmy’s not so demonstrative. On his own he’s slower to take to people, but if Val takes to them he will. I was afraid, as young as they are—Jimmy’s just three and Val’s not quite five—that they wouldn’t remember you too well. So I appointed Jim co-chairman of the remembering committee and assigned him to Val, who in turn would bring influence to bear on her little brother.

“At breakfast Jim kept telling Val he was sure she remembered this and that about you and things we did last time you were here. She actually remembered; but, you can bet, she would remember if Daddy expected it of her. Not that she’s exclusively Daddy’s girl. Mommy still has her uses, but …” Dolores smiled wryly.

They turned into the Hawthorne’s private driveway that climbed shallowly in a straight line to the rear of the grounds, coming out between open iron gates into a garage area. The house, a shadowless pink-and-white modern built around a quadrangle, resembled a swank barracks or motel, Nikki thought.

But when Dolores said: “Isn’t it smart? Ginny herself designed it,” Nikki decided it was quite smart and attractive. Clearly, Dolores approved of Ginny Hawthorne.

Nikki said, “It’s striking; she must be awfully interesting.”

“There they are!” Dolores nodded toward an expanse of side lawn where a sun-toasted little group of barefooted children in playsuits were stomping around in a solemn, silent circle.

Nikki touched her arm when they reached the edge of the lawn. “Wait a second; let’s just watch them. Val’s prettier than ever, and Jimmy’s just a
dumpling
. Oh, Dolores, they’re simply beautiful. I’m so happy for you. Have you ever in your life seen anything so
earnest
?”

Most earnest of them all was the youngest, Dolores’s Jimmy, who drove his feet down so hard that his chubby legs trembled and his baby-fat cheeks quivered.

Nikki fixed her eager attention on the little blonde girl in the blue sunsuit with blue bows tied to the ends of her braids. Valerie, one of the taller children, and the prettiest, had an utterly enchanting little face; a rounded square, top-heavy with enormous brown eyes, and a wide pink confection of a mouth that seemed to hover with an impish charm at the edge of a good-natured grin.

“They’ve seen us. And would you just look at the change in character of the performance? What a difference an audience makes!” Nikki said, half-regretfully.

Val, in particular, got a lot of high-wing action in her arms and flung her legs about so enthusiastically that she kneed her chest on the upstrokes and kicked her round bottom on the backswings. Little Jimmy got ahead of himself in the effort to keep pace and took a spill, from which he came up scowling, then stomped back into action. Then that laughter-promising, impish mouth of Valerie’s stretched and opened in a huge, irresistible grin and she broke from the circle.

“Aunt Nikki! Aunt Nikki!” Val cried.

She came flying, her enchanting, square little face aflood with light and laughter, her braids bouncing from her narrow shoulders, her thin arms swimming the air, her long, straight legs stretching to their limit. There was a tiny off-beat between the rhythms of her arms and legs, an endearing little trace of awkwardness that moved Nikki profoundly, flavoring the grace and natural beauty of that surging, healthy young body with an incredible sweetness.

There was a piercing pain in Nikki’s breast and a sweep of tenderness through her so powerful that it seemed to draw the blood from her head and leave her literally faint for a moment. She stepped forward with a dumb smile on her face as though helpless against the child’s pull, her arms reaching, her fingers trembling.

She caught Valerie around the waist and swung her high in the air, looking up at her with joyous, softly adoring eyes. She drew the warm, wriggling little body in against her own, hugging and fondling her while she received a faceful of eager, sweaty kisses. Mute, Nikki kissed the child, petted her, kissed her again before she managed to speak.

“How are you, sweetheart? Oh, I’m so glad, so glad to see you,” she said in a rushing, laughing voice.

Giggling and wriggly, Val said: “You know what I can do, Aunt Nikki? Break unbreakable Hi-Fi records.”

“A child after my own heart. Oh, I adore you.”

All the other children had already arrived but Jimmy, who came churning along, undaunted. Flushed and laughing happily, Nikki knelt, lowering Val, and, holding her with one arm, she opened the other to Jimmy.

Val, twisting around, piped in that delicious, flutey little voice, “This is Aunt Nikki, Jimmy. Say hello to Aunt Nikki!” Val was taken with a fit of laughter. “Isn’t he
cute
, Aunt Nikki?”

“Hello, Aunt Nikki.” He came grinning into the curve of her arm. “We made rain.”

“Come right here, doll! I saw you, and you were just a wonderful rain maker.”

Jimmy allowed himself to be loved briefly, then squirmed. “There’s my Mommy!”

Nikki became sharply aware of herself. She released him and then with a light spank freed Val, too.

“Not that I’d steal them,” Nikki said, looking at Dolores a little apprehensively. “I was just thinking of buying them. How much are you asking per pound?”

“To you, fourteen cents. They’re worth sixteen.”

Watching fascinatedly, the other children laughed. Val shrilled with glee, “Is Aunt Nikki going to buy us?”

“Would you like that?” Dolores asked, a little too casually, Nikki thought.

She said hastily, “I’ll bet
Jimmy
wishes his Mommy would sell him.”

“I don’t either.” He frowned and blinked rapidly. “No, I don’t.
Would
you, Mommy?”

“Don’t you know when Aunt Nikki and Mommy are joking, silly?”

Val laughed, shutting her eyes and shaking her head over the childishness of young people. “Oh, you silly! Don’t you even know when people are making jokes?”

Jimmy shut his eyes, shook his head and laughed. “Oh, boy, I sure do
laugh
when people are making jokes!”

Nikki turned to the other children, still feeling a vague chill of self-consciousness. “Hi, charmers.”

The kids liked her and began outdoing each other in showing off, and the mothers would no sooner calm them down than they were out of hand again.

Later, sitting in the patio with Dolores and Ginny Hawthorne, Nikki made pleasant talk and, taking cues from Dolores, ingratiated herself with the hostess. Nikki tried not to undermine the mothers, but the kids had spotted an ally, and she couldn’t conceal her appreciation of their nonsense. There was a grand finale of ice cream flinging and loss of maternal tempers.

“I don’t know what has gotten into them today!” Ginny Hawthorne kept saying.

Riding home, with Jimmy standing moodily on the seat between her and Dolores, and Val silent on Nikki’s lap, Nikki felt scolded. Dolores wasn’t saying a word. Now and then Val inspected her hands, gummy with ice cream, and wiped them on the sides of her sunsuit. Nikki leaned forward and kissed the back of Val’s neck. Val giggled and kicked her feet, then glanced at her mother and sobered. After a moment she crept her head around to look at Nikki, giving her a conspiratorial grin.

“Don’t think I don’t see that,” Dolores said calmly. “You think you were pretty cute back there. But Aunt Nikki doesn’t, any more than I do. Do you, Aunt Nikki?”

“Oh, no!” Nikki took the stand for virtue with such overemphasis that Val began to squeal, as though she’d never heard anything so funny in her life. She turned around, sat astraddle of Nikki and stared at her, grinning widely.

“You know what you can do, Aunt Nikki? Comb my hair tonight.” Clearly Val was bestowing a privilege and withdrawing it from her mother. Nikki glanced worriedly at Dolores.

“Oh, I’d love to, darling.” She kissed her nose. “But I don’t know how the way Mommy does.”

“I’ll show you just how.”

“She will, too,” Dolores said lightly. “Show you
just
how. Aunt Nikki was just teasing, honey. She knows how, and she’d love to.”

In the house, Dolores sent the kids ahead to start undressing for their baths. “It’s easy,” she told Nikki, smiling at her. “Just flow on out to them. Don’t hold back.”