The Bird’s Nest (17 page)

Sometime later, back on the bed playing her game with the feather, she was quieter again. This only meant, she reasoned, that she had less time than she had thought. She must quite simply get to her mother just as quickly as possible.

It was by then nearly noon, and she could not remember whether or how she had had dinner the evening before. She turned her back resolutely on the icy little reminders that there seemed to be a good deal of time unaccounted for, all around; why, for instance, had it been afternoon when she left the lunch table, and night when she returned after meeting Robin? She thought she had probably not had dinner, because she was now so extremely hungry, and she dwelt with gratitude upon her hunger, which was surely a healthy and a normal feeling, and not at all dangerous, except that it entailed going out of her hotel room. At last she reasoned shrewdly that if the doctor was still watching for her downstairs he had to stop sometime to eat, too, and if he stopped to eat his lunch or his dinner he would put someone else to watching her, and whoever he got to watch her would have to have dinner or lunch, too, so she would be, to all effects, invisible, if she was only having dinner or lunch, and might come and go as she pleased. Thinking of the little cakes, she moved hastily to the shattered mirror and arranged her hair and then, taking her pocketbook—thankful that because she had Aunt-Morgen-ishly hidden it on the closet shelf, it had escaped the ruin of the room—she unlocked the door of the room and locked it again, leaving the chaos inside, and dropped the libertine key into Elizabeth's chaste pocketbook and went down the hall to the elevator. When she came into the dining room she walked proudly, and even stopped for a minute inside the door to consider and choose a particular table; she sat down with perfect ease, and ordered herself a glass of sherry.

“But then why did Robin run away?” he asked.

“Because I said I'd tell my mother what we did.” She looked up, dumfounded, fork in hand; “no,” she whispered, staring fearfully, “no,” she said, and then, just like Elizabeth, “why?” looking from him to her plate to her fork to the pastries, “why are you talking to me?” she said.

“Please,” he said, half-rising, “please, it's all right, Bess, really—”

“Bess?” she said.
“Bess?”

 • • •

Now she knew concretely that she had almost no time; she had wasted so many minutes, looking out of windows and gloating over cakes, and they were close behind her now, the doctor in the dining room and Aunt Morgen and perhaps even the betraying bus driver, and the whole city still to search for her mother. Perhaps, she thought, stopping in her flight to stand for a minute in the half darkness apart from the hotel entrance, perhaps if I just stand here she might come. Mother, she said silently at the people going past, mother, come and find me; I'm lost and I'm tired and I'm afraid, come and find your baby, please?

“My dear child,” he said, coming silently up behind her, “do come back inside; I promise you I only want—”

“It's Robin,” she said, and ran again, going in and out between people, not wondering if they saw her or thought she was strange, listening only to hear if he was following her. She came to a corner and turned, and went into a lighted doorway into an endless bright store; “Too late, closing,” a girl said to her, just inside, and she turned without speaking and ran out another doorway into another street and down the street and on until she saw a crowd ahead and thought, “He's in there, waiting,” and turned and ran back down the street and turned at the corner and stopped.

“How can he find me?” she thought, reasonably at last. “He doesn't even know my name.” She breathed deeply, standing against the wall of a building. This corner was darker and there were fewer people passing, going always toward the lights beyond; for a few minutes she watched the street light turn red and green and red and green, and then she thought no sense wasting any
more
time, no one could ever find me here, and she laughed that she still had her pocketbook, because all the time the strap had been firmly hooked over her elbow.

“Where is a bus?” she asked a man passing by, and the man stopped, and thought, and then said, “Bus to where, miss?”

“I don't care,” she said.

“Well,” the man said, “if you don't
care,
why take a bus? Why not walk?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Where are
you
going?”

“I'm going over across town about three blocks,” he said. “I'm going to get my wife a birthday present, a necklace.”

“Can I come? My mother likes necklaces and things like that.”

“Come along,” he said. “You can help me pick it out. She likes,” he went on, as Betsy walked along beside him, “she likes jewelry, but not ordinary jewelry. Not the kind you get just
any
where. Unusual stuff.”

“That's the best kind,” Betsy said. “Of course, almost anything is unusual if you're not used to it.”

“Well, that's what I mean,” the man said. “There's this little shop I know about, and of course
she
doesn't. So it's got to be a surprise.”

“I'm sure she'll like it very much,” Betsy said. “Coming from you, that is.”

“Well, I guess she will,” the man said. “She likes just about everything I pick out, because of course I always look for unusual things.”

“Of course I do too,” Betsy said. “Right now, I'm looking for my mother and being new here I don't know what's unusual or not, but my mother will know. She lives here somewhere.”

“It's a pretty good town,” the man said, consideringly. “Of course you have to live here to appreciate it.”

“I'm going to live with my mother when I find her,” Betsy said.

“She live in Brooklyn?”

“Probably,” Betsy said doubtfully.

“How're you going to
find
her?” the man asked.

“Well,” Betsy said, “you're looking for something, and I'm looking for my mother, and so if I go along with you maybe I'll find my mother.”

“
My
mother now,” the man said, “you could find
her
any time.”

“Well, you see, I came here to meet my mother and I just haven't gotten to her yet. It just takes looking. Does your wife live in Brooklyn?”

“No,” the man said, surprised. “She lives with me.”

“Where do you live?”

“Uptown.” He stopped, and looked at her searchingly. “You all right, kid?” he asked.

“Of course,” Betsy said. “Why?”

“Thinking I lived in Brooklyn,” the man said, going on. “At this time of night.”

“Does your wife,” Betsy asked, hurrying to catch up with him again, “know you're getting her a birthday present?”

“Sure,” the man said. “Only she doesn't know where, you see.”

“How about a cake?” Betsy asked. “She ought to have a cake, with ‘Happy Birthday' and candles.”

“Golly,” the man said, stopping again. “Golly. Let's see,” he said. “You figure a cake costs—what? Say, sixty cents?”

“Just about that, I guess,” Betsy said.

“And then you got to have candles,” the man said. “Now, let's think this over. You say candles cost maybe a dime? And the cake sixty? Because then you got to get a thing says ‘Happy Birthday' and that's maybe twenty-nine cents, you find a five and ten open if you
can
. So there goes another buck. So the necklace costs—”

“
I
know,” Betsy said. “
I
get the cake and all.
You
get the necklace. Then it's all right. Cake from me, necklace from you.”

“Right,” the man said. “Cake from you, necklace from me. You say chocolate, maybe? Mocha?”

“I like chocolate,” Betsy said. “Get a nice card, too, and tell her it's from me.” She stopped under a street light and gave him a handful of change from her pocketbook. “Because,” she pointed out, “if you're going uptown or to Brooklyn it's no help to me anyway, because my mother's the other direction. But thank you very much anyway.”

“Right,” the man said. “Cake from you,” he went on, worried, “necklace from me. But listen—” he called, as Betsy turned to go the other way, “who'll I say? On the card and all?”

“Tell her it's from Betsy, with my love.”

“Right,” the man said. And as Betsy hurried down a side-street she heard him calling, “Hey—thanks.”

“Many happy returns,” she called back, and went on her way. Although she had very little hope of finding her mother so soon, she was glad she had remembered the cake anyway. We always have cakes on birthdays, she thought; my mother would be disappointed if I forgot; my name is Betsy Richmond and my mother's name is . . . She stopped short and laughed aloud; things were good again at last.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, stepping out among the people passing; she took hold of the arm of a woman going by alone and said “I beg your pardon” again.

“Well,” said the woman good-humoredly, “if you're not a cop, you can beg my pardon and get away with it. Something you want?”

“Do you know someone named Elizabeth Richmond? Where she lives, I mean?”

“Richmond? No. Why,” the woman asked, peering at Betsy, “you looking for her?”

“It's my mother. I'm to meet her, and I've forgotten where she lives.”

“Whyn't you look in a phone book? Under R, for instance?”

“I didn't think of that,” said Betsy blankly.

The woman laughed. “You kids,” she said, and went on.

It was so easy Betsy was almost afraid. She walked down to the corner to a lighted drugstore, went inside and directly back to a rack where the phone books were piled; it was too easy, she thought dubiously, not willing to touch the pages, it was a trap; but how could she ever look at her mother and say she had taken so long because she thought it was a trap? Could people afford to be afraid if they were going to their mothers? Why would her mother want to make a trap for her Betsy who was her darling?

RICHMOND, ELIZABETH. It stood out from the page, blackly, and then, below it, RICHMOND, ELIZABETH, and below that, RICHMOND, ELIZABETH, and, again, RICHMOND, ELIZABETH. Who, Betsy thought, staring, who? My mother's name. . .

She turned hastily away from the telephone books and then told herself sternly no, no traps, and turned back again, and put her finger down on the page. Silly, she thought, lots of people have the same name.
I
have the same name. And anyway it's the
place
I want, I already
know
my mother's
name.
So find an address, and it's somewhere near Sixteenth, she said, and anyway how many people are having birthdays tonight? It's west of the bus, I know
that,
and you can see the river, and I'll just be careful not to tell anyone where I'm going because of traps.

One of the addresses said West Eighteenth, and that seemed good, and so did West Twelfth, and the others were East, and one of them was a hundred and something, which seemed fairly uptown, so that narrowed it down to two, and
now,
Betsy thought triumphantly, things are getting very very good, because now I've got the best clue of all, and I can go right there and maybe even be in time for the candles.

When she came out of the bright drugstore into the darker street she realized that it had really gotten quite late, and she did not dare look for a bus, with so little time; she got, instead, into a taxi, and told him West Eighteenth Street. Her time was growing shorter; she felt the minutes pulling at her, and when she looked out of the taxi window at the lights outside she felt them surge sickeningly against her, and had to hold tight to keep her eyes from blurring and she wanted acutely not to breathe. Just a little while more, she whispered, just a little while more, Betsy is my darling. The taxi let her off at the corner of Fifth and Eighteenth, and the driver showed her which way to start. She hurried, because it was better, walking, and the streets were almost empty. I said I'd do it and I will, she whispered, I said I'd do it and I will,
my
mother is waiting for me and the rest of you will die.

She could not remember at all whether the first address had been twelve or a hundred and twelve or twelve squared or a hundred and twenty-one; twelve seemed to be a shop and as she looked into the darkened windows, going by, she saw that it might be a dress shop and, although she could not read the name darkly on the window, she knew that it must be Abigail's and she knew she was right, at last; here I come, she whispered, I am coming and my name is Betsy . . . It must be a hundred and twelve or a hundred and twenty-one; they were almost across the street from one another and she stopped and looked at the lights of a hundred and twelve and thought, here it is, this is it.

No fish here, she thought, entering, and wondered with surprise why it should seem important not to have fish painted on the walls. “Excuse me,” she said, putting her face close to the little barred window which seemed so absurdly small for her mother to get through, “I'd like to find Mrs. Richmond. Elizabeth Richmond.”

“Not here.”

“But I'm sure this was the address. Do your rooms have a view of the river?”

“Naturally, miss.
All
our rooms—”

“Then she might be using her other name. Try under Jones.”

“Not here.”

“But I'm sure—”

“Try over across the way.”

Of course, she thought; it was the place with the fish after all, they probably just pretend to see the river. She crossed the street, setting her back firmly to the useless apartment house, and came into another lobby; no fish
here,
she thought with satisfaction. “I'm looking for my mother,” she said, standing with her knees tight against the desk in the lobby; the lady behind the desk had a pink dress on and of course that was a very
very
good sign. “My mother,” she explained.