Once Is Not Enough (11 page)

“I’d love to see you, Linda, but I don’t know about a story.”

“Well talk about it tomorrow. You know where the Mosler building is, don’t you? Fifty-second, near Madison. We have the entire top three floors. Come to the executive penthouse. See you then.
Ciao.”

January ran the bath and got into the tub and closed her eyes. She hadn’t realized how tired she was. She thought about Linda—so ugly, so eager, so energetic . . . And now she was . . . well, she sounded important. January felt so tired. She knew she was falling asleep. It seemed just seconds later when she heard Sadie whisper, “Miss January, wake up.”

She sat up. The water was tepid. Good Lord, it was six o’clock!

“Miss Deirdre says it’s time for you to dress for dinner,” Sadie explained. “I pressed your dress. It’s hanging in the bedroom closet.”

She was dressed when Dee knocked on her door and swept into the bedroom. For a moment they both stared at one another. Then, self-consciously, January held out her hand. “Congratulations. I’m afraid I forgot to say that last night.”

Dee pressed her cheek against January’s cheek. “I don’t think either of us said too much last night. It wasn’t exactly the best way to become acquainted.”

“I—oh, good Lord . . .”

“What’s wrong?” Dee asked.

“I forgot to buy a robe!”

Dee laughed. “Keep Mike’s. It looked marvelous on you. Some women look fabulous in men’s robes. I’m not one of them.”

January decided Dee was more attractive than she had originally thought. Tonight she wore the frosted hair in a Gibson-girl style. And January knew the globs of diamonds on Dee’s ears were real. She looked very feminine in black silk harem pants, and January suddenly wondered if the patchwork skirt was right.

Dee stood back and appraised her. “I like it . . . but I think we need a bit of jewelry.” She buzzed Sadie who appeared instantly. “Get my box of gold jewelry, Sadie.”

Sadie returned with a huge leather jewel case, and Dee began draping gold chains around January’s neck. She insisted January wear gold hoop earrings. (“Darling, with your tan it’s perfect . . . gives you a gypsy effect.”)

January felt weighted down with four chains, a jade figa, and a lion’s tooth set in gold. (Dee explained she had shot the lion herself on a safari).

“I like your makeup,” Dee said as she came up close. “They’re your own lashes. Fan
tas
tic! I love that no-lipstick look you young girls affect. And your hair . . . well, it’s marvelous. Today you young things have it made, wearing it just long and straight. When I was your age, I was all clipped and permanented for the bloody Italian cut. That was the rage in the early fifties. I always told Gina I could kill her for starting that style. I have straight hair, and it seems to me I’ve spent half my life in rollers under driers. And now that long straight hair is in . . . well, one really can’t wear it hanging down to her shoulders after thirty-five. At least I don’t think one should
. . . although God knows Karla hasn’t changed her hair style since she was eighteen.”

“What is she like?”

Dee shrugged. “Karla is one of my oldest and dearest friends . . . although God knows why I put up with her eccentricities.”

“At Miss Haddon’s,” January said, “we all watched her movies on television. To me she is even greater than Garbo or Dietrich because she moves like a dancer. Imagine having the guts to retire at forty-two and stay retired.”

Dee reached over and lit a cigarette. “She never cared about acting. She always said that as soon as she made enough money she would quit. And she’s got the first dime she ever made!”

“Where is she now?” January asked.

“I believe she’s back in town. She’ll get around to calling soon. She keeps an apartment at the East River View. Marvelous building, but aside from a few good paintings that were gifts and some good rugs—also gifts—the apartment is barely furnished. Karla has a sickness about spending money. She was supposed to come to Marbella. Your father was so disappointed . . . I know he wanted to meet her. Good Lord, until this summer she was always around. Last spring poor David was stuck taking both of us around. Not that she gads about, but she adores the ballet. Other than that, Karla still sticks to her old movie routine—up at seven, four hours of ballet exercises, long walks, bed at ten. But she will go to dinner with a close friend and she adores watching television. Actually, she’s quite dreary once you get to know her. And then there’s her disappearing act. She does that. Like last June—she just goes off without so much as an ‘I’ll see you.’ Personally”—Dee lowered her voice—”I think she went off to have her face done. She was just beginning to sag a bit . . . and God forbid anything happened to hurt that Polish bone structure that is now so immortal.”

January laughed. “Now I’m really nervous about meeting David.”

“Good Lord, why?”

“Well, if David felt ‘stuck’ taking Karla around as a favor to you, then taking me out must be the Big Daddy of all favors.”

Dee smiled. “You darling child. Look in the mirror. Karla is
over fifty and David is twenty-eight.” She put out her cigarette. “And now it’s time I checked on your father. If I know him he’s watching the news and still hasn’t shaved. Why do men hate shaving twice a day? Women put on makeup at least that many times. Oh, by the way, I’ve told everyone, including David, that you’ve been away at school in Switzerland at the Institut International. It’s an excellent college.”

“But why?”

“You do speak French, don’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“My dear, trust me. There’s just no point in bringing up the accident. Why have anyone think you might have brain damage? And some people get sticky the moment they hear one has been at a sanitarium. Now we want you to meet the right people and have a wonderful life . . . so we mustn’t handicap ourself with a past illness.”

“But a brain concussion and broken bones isn’t an illness—”

“My dear, anything with the brain throws people off. I remember Kurt . . . I almost married him until he told me he had a steel plate in his head from a skiing accident.” She shuddered. “I just couldn’t bear the thought of touching a man’s head with steel in it. There was something Frankensteinish about the whole thing. Besides, if one has a piece of steel against one’s brain . . . well, it stands to reason the pressure
must
do something. Do it my way, dear. Now then . . . I’ve asked David to come twenty minutes before the others. You stay in your room until he arrives. I’ll give you the signal when to come out. One must always make an entrance.” She started for the door and turned. “You’ll fall in love with David. Every woman does. Even Karla found him a little more than entertaining; and Karla’s not capable of falling in love with anyone. So don’t let his good looks throw you. Just play it cool and pour on the charm. I’m sure you have some. After all, your father has almost too much.” She opened the door, and stopped just as January was about to sink on the edge of the bed. “No . . . no. Mustn’t sit. You’ll crease your skirt. One must be perfect for an entrance. Now I must dash. Ernest is waiting to put the final spray to my hair. You just stay here . . . until it’s time to meet David.”

Four

A
T SIX-THIRTY
, David Milford rushed to his apartment to change his clothes. He jammed in the plug of his electric razor. Goddammit but he hated Dee! But anything Cousin Deirdre wanted—Cousin Deirdre got! The acceptance of her autonomy had come into full cognizance with his promotion to a vice-presidency at Herbert, Chasin and Arthur. In a down market, with most brokerage houses cutting back—
he
had been promoted. And his future with the firm was assured—just so long as he handled Dee’s stocks. Damn Dee! And damn his father for not having his own fortune. No, he didn’t mean that. After all, the old man worked hard, made close to a hundred and fifty thousand a year. But with his mother insisting on the ten-room Fifth Avenue co-op, three in help, and the house in Southampton . . . well, there certainly wasn’t going to be anything left for him to inherit. But then no one was expected to amass a fortune; because Cousin Dee had enough for them all.

Her marriage to Mike Wayne had thrown them into shock. His mother went into one of her major traumas—three days of Librium and tears. Dee’s past husbands had never been a threat. They had all been of the same cut. Charming, well-bred lightweights. But Mike Wayne was no lightweight. And his past record indicated that his romantic affiliations had always been with girls half Dee’s age. But their major concern was the absence of the “will ritual.” His father handled that end of her business. Dee had what the family jokingly referred to as the “loose-leaf will.” Before every marriage, she and her “husband-to-be” would arrive at his father’s office, and Dee would dictate
a new will with a generous inheritance for her new groom. On the day of the wedding, a signed copy was presented to him. The following day, Dee would return to the office alone, draw up a new will, allotting a nominal sum to the new husband
if
he was still her husband at the time of her death.

She had been married to Mike almost a month. And Mike’s name hadn’t been entered in the loose-leaf will. As it now stood, he and his father and Cliff (his mother’s younger brother, who was also in the law firm) would serve as executors of her estate. Each of them would wind up with several million on that end alone. The bulk of the estate would go to the Granger Foundation, and he would be designated to officiate as president at a salary of one hundred thousand a year.

Of course, Dee was still very much alive, and fifty was not old. But Dee’s prospects for a golden age didn’t seem very likely. For years the newspapers had given extensive coverage to her consistent bouts of illnesses. First there were the fainting attacks which medical tests diagnosed as an organic heart murmur and chronic high blood pressure (but Dee refused to give up the strong diet pills and reveled in her high-fashion gauntness). There were also several operations . . . female stuff. And the “influenza” that had almost killed her a few years ago (that had really been an overdose of sleeping pills over some mysterious love affair). Odd, he had never thought Dee capable of feeling any desperate emotion. But why not? He had never thought he could ever feel any real emotion either.

He pulled out the plug of the razor and slapped some aftershave lotion on his face. Might as well look at the cheerful side. So far as the will was concerned—maybe Mike wasn’t playing the super-operator, maybe he was really in love with Dee. Maybe he didn’t care about her money. Hell, there was enough for everyone as long as Wayne didn’t get greedy. But why did he have to have a daughter to complicate things! No one knew she even existed until a week ago when Dee’s call came, “David. darling. Mike has this divine daughter who is arriving any day. You’ve got to help me out and take her around. It would please me to know she was taken care of by someone
I
care about. I’d consider it
such
a favor.”

Favor? It was a command!

And once again he swore softly. Goddammit but he hated Dee. But hell, he hated everything and everyone these days. Everything and everyone who kept him away from Karla.

Karla! For a moment he stood and stared at himself in the mirror. It didn’t seem possible. He, David Milford, was Karla’s lover! He wanted to shout it to the world, to stop people on the street and tell them. But he knew that absolute silence was the major law in his relationship with Karla.

Karla! At fourteen, he had masturbated with her picture propped up before him. His friends had their school lockers loaded with pinups of Doris Day, Marilyn, Ava, and other glamor girls of the fifties. But with him it had always been Karla. At seventeen, the first girl he had gone to bed with was a horse-faced debutante who had hair like Karla’s. In the years that followed he often found a girl who had a quality that was reminiscent of Karla. But as he matured he accepted each girl on her own individual charm, and the image of Karla receded into some kind of mystic dream.

And then, eight years ago, he had come across a newspaper picture of Karla on Dee’s yacht. He had immediately written Dee an impassioned letter pleading for an introduction. She had ignored it. But he never failed to renew the request every time he saw Dee. And then, last spring, when he had all but given up, Dee had casually said, “Oh, by the way, David, Karla is in town. Would you care to take us to the ballet?”

He had been like an idiot that first night. He hadn’t done any work at the office all day. He had rushed home and changed suits three times before he decided which one would be proper. And then . . . Dee’s casual introduction . . . Karla’s firm handshake . . . he knew he had stood there just staring at that wonderful face . . . listening to the low voice he had heard so often on the screen. He had moved about in a catatonic state that night, unable to comprehend that he was actually sitting beside her, unable to concentrate on the ballet on the stage, unable to believe the casual way Dee behaved in the presence of this magnificent woman. But then, when you had Dee’s kind of money maybe nothing really turned you on. To Dee, even Karla was just another “fun”
person, a name to encase in a silver frame to join the exclusive gallery on the piano.

The day after the ballet he had sent Karla three dozen roses. His office number was on his card, but he also added his unlisted apartment number. She called just as he was leaving the office. The cool low voice thanked him but told him firmly never to do that again as she was allergic to flowers. She had already sent them off with her maid. When he began to stutter, she laughed and said, “But in return, I will give you a drink. Come to my apartment this afternoon at five.”

He was shaking like a schoolboy when he rang her bell.

She opened the door herself and greeted him with outstretched hands. “My so very young admirer. Come in. Come in. And please do not be so nervous, because I want you to make love to me.”

She had led him into the apartment as she spoke. His eyes never left her face. But he was aware of an empty spaciousness to the room. A few paintings, a TV set, a large couch, a wood-burning fireplace that looked as if it had never been used, a staircase that obviously led to a second floor—but most of all, he felt no reflection of Karla’s personality in the apartment. It was almost as if she had “borrowed” it. For a moment they looked at one another. Then she held out her arms and the schoolboy vanished. And when their bodies came together, David suddenly knew the difference between sex and making love. On that late spring afternoon, his one wish was to please her . . . and when he did, oddly enough his own gratification seemed intensified.