The Best of Everything (42 page)

"What?"

"I told you I love you."

"I know. Several times."

"Several times!" She hadn't realized it was as bad as that. "Do you mind?"

"Oh!" he said, a half-deprecating, half-angry sound that wasn't even a word. "How could I object? I wish to hell I did."

She was lying on her back with her arms crossed under her head. He leaned down and kissed the smooth place beneath her arm. "How can you do that?" she asked.

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

He shut his eyes. His voice when he spoke was in that same strained, almost angry tone. "I guess I love you too."

"You don't have to say that," Barbara said gently. "I won't ask you for anything."

"Remember when I said you wouldn't fall in love with me and you said that was a dangerous thing to say to you?"

"Yes ..."

"Well, what you just said is a dangerous thing to say to me."

"Oh, darling, I meant it."

He was leaning on one elbow looking down at her and he

smoothed her hair oflF her forehead. "You're Barbara Lemont, the girl who wants to get married. I remember that too."

"All girls want to get married."

"I want you to get married. I want you to be happy. You're such a good person."

"I will get married someday," Barbara said, trying to sound cheerful. "You said that to me once, and I have a good memory too."

"You make me feel like a bastard."

"Why? I never thought I would find anyone to love, and then I found you. So it stands to reason that I'll find someone to marry eventually, because that's much less of a miracle."

He took her into his arms and held her tightly without a word. Then he released her. His face was troubled. "Get dressed," he said. "We'll go down to the bar and have a drink."

They had two drinks in the bar, holding hands under the table. Barbara wondered whether anyone who saw them there could possibly guess that they had just gotten out of bed. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror behind them and she knew she had never looked better in her life. She felt calm and relaxed and very happy.

At twelve-thirty he took her home. He went upstairs with her and stopped just outside her apartment door. "I won't come in," he whispered. "I don't want your mother to have to jump up from the Late Show."

Barbara smiled. "When will I see you?"

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

He put his arms around her and stood there for a moment with his lips against her cheek. She could feel them move as he spoke to her and she could feel the whisper of his breath. "What will become of us?" he murmured.

She couldn't answer. She didn't know.

All the next day at her ofiice a silly line kept running through Barbara's head, like something out of one of Americas Woman's own stories. / love him so much I can't see straight. She had never thought that she would ever think anything like that, and what was more, believe it. Love covered her, she felt it. What could be more idiotic, and she had never been happier. At lunchtime she had a sandwich sent in and closed the door to her office and sat there and

mooned. She had never thought that she, Barbara Lemont, the girl who would jump three feet if you touched her, would turn into such a love-sick creature. She was waiting outside her office at five minutes to five. She saw Sidney crossing the street and hurrying when he noticed her waiting for him.

"Hello," she said. She had the feeling that her smile covered her entire face and what was more that she was possibly blushing.

"How lovely you look." He sounded disturbed as he looked at her, and took her arm quickly.

When he took her to the married-man's bar where they had first met Barbara thought it was amusing. It was very dark in there and they were alone except for the bartender polishing glasses. It was too early for the Hawaiians to appear, and evidently also too early for their hvely clientele. Sidney ordered two Martinis.

"I have to leave at seven o'clock," he said. "I have a business meeting."

"Oh . . . All right." She reached for his hand. "I'm glad I could see you at all."

"Barbara," he said, "don't make it difficult for me, please. I feel like such a bastard. I just don't know what to tell you."

She withdrew her hand and crossed her arms and grinned at him. "1 don't know how to tell you," she said, imitating his solemn voice, "but I'm married. I was afraid to tell you for fear you wouldn't like me any more."

He smiled back at her and she noticed for the first time how tired he looked, like someone with a pain who is laughing anyway because the joke is funny, even though laughing makes it hvurt more. "What is it?" she asked.

He picked up his Martini and nodded at her, so she lifted hers and took a sip of it. "I'll make you a prophecy," he said. "This time next year you'll be drinking one of these with someone you love."

"Who?" But she knew without asking what he meant and she felt a stab of pain that they would have to subject themselves to such a tiresome discussion. Why did he have to spoil everything?

"I don't know yet," he said. "But I hope you'll tell me when you find him."

"That's a safe promise."

"You call me up, and say, 'Sidney, I'm in love.'" He smiled at her,

this time his old smile, full of pleasure and charm. "No, you'll forget to tell me. And then I'll know you really love him."

"Do we have to talk about him, whoever he is? It's making me feel uncomfortable."

"Were you drunk last night?" he asked abruptly.

"No. Why, did I do something silly?"

"No. Oh, God, no," he said. "That was just me giving myself a last little trap door to slide out from under my conscience."

"Well, I wasn't drunk and you didn't seduce me," Barbara said, "and I should think you'd feel less conscience-stricken in that case."

"As a matter of fact I don't."

I have a feeling I'm going to need this Martini, she thought, and she drank it down, the entire thing, like medicine, and coughed. "I don't understand."

"I've been trying to figure it out in myself, because I'm actually not this sort of person. Obviously a guy who calls you up coldbloodedly and leads you off to the sack is not going to be the same guy who cringes with conscience afterward. And yet I am."

"Obviously," Barbara said, "a man who can make a speech like that is 'that sort of person,' as you put it. I haven't heard many such speeches in my long career."

"You haven't had a long career."

"Not of giving in, no. But I've met enough wolves to know which are the real ones."

He said nothing, but smoked his cigarette, and when it was finished he put it out and drank his Martini and gestured to the waiter for two more, all still in silence.

"Well," Barbara said, "I had a funny kind of day today," and she went on, describing things that had happened which she thought might amuse him, although it was extremely difficult to say cheerful things to someone who was obviously making an effort not to feel depressed. They had their round of drinks, and then another, making conversation which would have seemed pleasant enough to anyone else but which Barbara realized instantly and with pain was entirely strained. Small talk, but this time without the glow of two people realizing they are falling in love and learning about each other. There must be many kinds of small talk, she was thinking, and this kind is the one that says everything is dying. Why? Why?

Sidney looked at his watch. "It's a quarter to seven. I'd never just get up and walk away, you know that, don't you?"

". . . Yes."

"I'm not going to call you any more," he said. "But if you ever need anything—anything—if you're in trouble or you need help from me as a friend who cares about you a great deal, then you call me."

"What does that mean?" Barbara asked, her throat tight.

"It means," he said, smiling, "that I know a little bit more than a girl half my age."

"All of a sudden you're playing Father Time," Barbara said hghtly.

"The diflFerence in our ages means absolutely nothing to me," he said. "I guess it was a badly chosen phrase."

Barbara looked at her hands. They looked so lonely; she had come in here with them and soon she would leave with them, always empty. "A better phrase would be: It was great fun, but it was just one of those things," she said. She tried to keep her face pleasant, with no trace of bitterness in her tone. "Right?"

"Don't make me angry."

Tears sprang into her eyes. "Angry? Angry? You terrify me."

"I'd like to kiss you right now," he said quietly. "I'd like to take you by the hand and bring you to my room and keep you there for a year." He stood up. "But I'm not even going to think about any of those things any more. Ready?"

She did not rise but sat there looking up at him. "You should have told me all this last night," she said bitterly. "When we had just gotten out of bed and you were zipping up my dress. That would have been even more appropriate." She stood then, keeping her eyes away from his face, and picked up her purse and gloves. She followed Sidney out of the bar and on to the sidewalk. The late-afternoon sun hurt her eyes.

"I'll take you home," he said.

"I don't feel like going home right now. Thank you just the same. I think I'll walk for a while. I'd go shopping, but the stores aren't open late tonight, it's Friday." She looked at him for the first time. "It is Friday. I forgot all about it. Aren't you going to Nantucket?"

"On the eight-o'clock plane," he said.

That hurt, more than anything else. He had tried to make it easier

for her by saying it was a business conference, but he was going to his family. Perhaps he loved her, perhaps he would have a harder time keeping the proper face over the dinner table than she would, but he was going to his family. It was his life, part of his routine and, even more, his obligation. She wondered what the virtue was in an obligation that meant life without love, but she said nothing.

"Barbara," he said. "Please."

"You told me to call you if I need you," she said. "If I call you and tell you I need you to love me, what will you do?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "I won't take you out," he said finally. "And then you'll know tliat I do."

She stood there on the sidewalk looking at him, memorizing his face, not able to bear leaving him and at the same time trying to pull herself together. Don't drag it out, she told herself, don't make a fool of yourself. He obviously wants to get rid of you. Be gracious, say the right thing, so tliat at least he will remember you well and not with distaste.

She held out her hand, immaculate in its fresh white glove. "Goodbye," she said, "You'd better not miss your plane."

He took her hand almost gingerly. "If . . ." he began, and then stopped. There was a taxi cruising along the street and he waved at it. It pulled up to tlie curb. "Goodbye," he said, and added foolishly, "Give my love to your little girl."

"Give my love to your little boy. And read my column."

"I will."

He climbed into the taxi and it drove oflF with a grinding of gears. Barbara began to walk quickly in the opposite direction so that in case Sidney turned around for one last look he would know that she already had someplace to go.

She walked for hours, looking into shop windows and not seeing anything that was before her eyes, bumping into people and murmuring, "Excuse me," and wishing she could thrash out and strike one of those unfeeling bodies. There was such a pain in her heart she could hardly breathe. She had never before believed tliat the word heartache had any basis in anatomical fact, but now she knew it was true. She could almost believe it was also true that someone could die of a broken heart. What had she done wrong? Perhaps, Barbara thought, I should never have gone to bed with him. He had me and he's finished. There are men like that. But they

don't call it quits after one night; if a girl's reasonably good in bed and they think she's easy, they come back, at least for a while. I couldn't have been that bad in bed, I know I wasn't. And I didn't ask him to marry me, I always made it plain that I was glad just to know him. What did I do wrong?

She was afraid to go home because she felt so fragile that she knew if anyone said one out-of-the-way thing to her she would fall apart. Her mother expected her to be out for the evening and would take care of Hillary. Barbara passed an art movie theater with no line in front of it and bought a ticket and went in. She sat far over on the side, with nearly a whole row of empty seats between her and the other people. It was the middle of the picture and as she looked at it she could hardly make out the forms of the actors and objects. It was just a lot of motion and whiteness and noise. She covered her face with her hands and cried.

On Monday at the office Barbara tried to immerse herself in work. They were closing an issue and fortunately everyone was frantic with last-minute hurry. It was easier not to think when she had so much to do, but every time the phone rang her heart nearly stopped and when she lifted the receiver and heard someone else's voice—not Sidney's—she could hardly summon up the cheerfulness to speak. But she knew he would never call. This other, this hope, was only a delusion she gave herself in order to go on. You could say. He'll call in a month, and then you could go on functioning until that month was over. On Wednesday afternoon her boss called her into her office.

"We have some wonderful news, Barbara."

There are two of us, Barbara thought, looking at this woman behind the huge desk; both of us in love with married men. Now I understand you. "Yes? What?"

"The Sidney Carter Agency called and they're going to run an ad for Wonderful perfume every other month for the next year. They said they're going to advertise because they like your column so much, and the way they want to advertise is to have you mention the perfume in your column, I spoke to Mr. Bossart about it and he says there's no reason why not since you're such a clever writer."

"That's crazy," Barbara murmiured. "I can't write about the same perfume every month."

"That's what we thought, and that's why we decided we're going to give you two columns to do starting with the December issue. One will be shop talk about different products, but written with a flair and style so that it seems much more personal than that. And the other will be the same beauty column you've been doing all along. I called Sidney Carter himself and asked him what he thought of it, and he said that was fine, as long as you were doing the writing. How do you like that?"