The Last Chance (19 page)

“Oh, I won’t,” Ellen said. How nice to be privy to these little secrets, to be so close to the source of power!

The inn was on the outskirts of a tiny town nearly two hours away from the city. It was surrounded by trees and hills and had a lake with an old gristmill. The lake was stocked with trout and bass which were cooked and served up fresh for dinner in the inn’s dining room. Ellen and Reuben went to their room, made love, showered together, and went downstairs to have drinks on the terrace and watch the sunset.

“Do you know,” Reuben said, “that Herbert Ellis called me up at home last night at four o’clock in the morning, collect, to complain that there were none of his books in the Everflow, Idaho, train depot?”

“What a nerve.”

“Well, he can’t find me this weekend.” He smiled and took her hand.

They had dinner at a table in the quietest corner of the inn’s dining room, lit by candles, served by a waitress dressed in Revolutionary costume.

“What would you like to do tomorrow?” Reuben asked Ellen.

“Just poke around. What would you like to do?”

“That sounds great.”

After dinner they had brandy on the terrace until the mosquitoes drove them indoors. They went to their room, made love again, and went to sleep, nestled together in the too-small double bed with the antique four-poster frame built for midgets of a former generation.

Saturday was sunny. After breakfast they got into the car and explored the countryside. They didn’t talk much but they were very companionable. Ellen felt she had known him for a long time. There would be no unpleasant surprises. When she saw a bam with a sign
Antiques For Sale
she gave a shriek of joy.

“Oh, let’s look!”

He parked and they went into the barn, looking at everything and pricing the things they liked. Ellen had hardly any money with her and didn’t intend to do more than look. She didn’t know the difference between real and fake anyway. They paused at a tray of old jewelry.

“Those wedding rings always make me feel sad,” Reuben said.

“Why?”

“I wonder who they belonged to and why they ended up here.” He picked one up and showed it to her. “See inside? They put their names. They must have loved one another. Maybe she died and the ring ended at auction with all her things … maybe the marriage didn’t work and she sold it.”

“People didn’t get divorced in those days,” Ellen said.

“I wonder if they were happy or unhappy,” he said. “You wear a ring and you’re not happy. I wear a ring and I’m unhappy too. I wonder if my wife is happy. We don’t discuss it. Is your husband happy?”

“I suppose so,” Ellen said. “I don’t know.”

“In those days it didn’t really matter,” Reuben said. “People accepted their fates. Today it’s the opposite; they can’t wait to change things that don’t suit them. You and I are caught in the middle. We’re living with values that no longer apply, but we’re used to it. There ought to be something better, something more.”

“May I help you?” The owner, who had waited respectfully in the background, came up to them.

“Where did you get these rings?” Reuben asked.

“Oh, all around. That’s an old one, a hundred years old. See the color? Eighteen karat.”

“I wouldn’t want someone else’s ring,” Ellen said. “It might be jinxed.”

“The kids like them a lot,” the owner said. “Antiques are big with them. It’s the whole back-to-nature thing. An antique doesn’t count as jewelry, it’s more like heritage, history. I sell a lot of old wedding rings to kids.”

“Kids are so romantic,” Ellen said.

“We are too,” Reuben said. “Except our wedding rings
are
antiques.” He smiled, and the owner smiled back and put the case of jewelry away.

“Just look around till you find something you like,” he said, and left them to their browsing.

“I feel like having a drink,” Reuben said.

They drove back to the inn. They sat on the cool porch overlooking the lake and Reuben ordered champagne. When it arrived at once, cold in a silver bucket, and Ellen saw that it was Dom Pérignon, she realized he had ordered it in advance. When? This morning after breakfast? Last night? In the city?

“You didn’t mind when I said our rings were antiques?” he asked her.

“I was a little insulted,” she said with a smile, “but as long as you don’t think the same thing about the wearers …”

“No, we’re younger than we ever were. It’s our marriages that are old.” He refilled their glasses. Ellen felt a little high. She hardly ever drank before lunch. “I want you to think about something,” Reuben said.

“Okay.”

“Are we going to have just another romantic, self-deceptive love affair or is this going to be important to us?”

“It happens I have been thinking about it,” she said.

“And …?”

“I think it’s something one has to think about. I haven’t found any answers yet, have you?”

“Yes. I know it’s important. To me anyway. I wanted to tell you this so you wouldn’t be afraid to start thinking it might be very important to you too.”

Ellen sighed. “I’m afraid it is important to me already.”

He beamed at her. “Then maybe we’ll be among the few lucky ones.”

“Who are they?”

“The ones who change their lives just when they’ve given up hope that they ever could.”

For the first time in one of her affairs Ellen didn’t ask what would happen to her children or his children. She just drank her champagne and looked into his eyes. He was the same as the others. He wasn’t special, he had just come along at the right time. Timing. That was the whole secret of love. She realized she hadn’t loved any of the others at all. It was just that love was part of her peculiar morality. But she could love this one, she could adore him, because he would save her. No, because she would
let
him save her.

“Do you believe me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Will you let yourself trust me?”

“Should I?”

“Yes,” Reuben said. “Because I won’t hurt you. I never could.”

And I won’t hurt you either, Ellen thought. She didn’t say it, because she knew it would scare him too much to think that she was perfectly able to do so.

Nikki was aware that she was changing, and she liked it. For one thing, she noticed the world around her in a less romantic way, and instead of being disappointing or making her bitter, it made her feel more secure. All her life she had lived in a pack, and now she only had to take care of herself. She talked to Robert every day on the phone, but when he asked her which train she was taking up to the house on Friday she always had some excuse—special meetings at the office, extra work. The August heat wave gave her a good excuse because they’d never had their house air-conditioned. One weekend she invented an ovarian cyst. Gynecological problems always repulsed Robert, and he asked if she would be all right and then dropped the subject. He never offered to come into the city. He had never given in to her on anything without a great deal of subterfuge on her part, and she didn’t intend to trick him now. She regretted that she still didn’t have the courage to tell him that she found weekends in the country with him unpleasant, that they made her uncomfortable. The secret excuse she had given herself, fear of another robbery, was no longer valid. Her windows had bars, her door its super lock, and she was not afraid. Saturdays she went to the stores, which were all having sales, and replaced her wardrobe. Luckily all she’d had in the apartment was her summer clothes. The winter ones were in Wilton in garment bags with mothballs, a dread habit she’d inherited from her mother.

The clock radio, the little color TV, the cassette player, all were replaced too, by Nikki, not the police. The police never did find any of her things. She realized that she had never really expected them to. She registered with an organization that fed your Social Security number into a computer at the police station, and she stenciled her number on everything of value with a special marker they lent her. The point seemed to be that a burglar wouldn’t steal something that was registered, because he wouldn’t be able to fence it. She was quite proud of herself for never having told Robert about the robbery.

The last thing she replaced was the rug, but instead of fur she got a Rya on sale. Fur was
nouveau riche
anyway, she decided. She didn’t get a new bedspread either. A bedspread was something a suburban matron had. She bought a blanket cover, so she could lie on the bed and read, and found it cut her morning bed-making time too. She was less neat than she used to be. She did things in order of their importance to herself, not to other people. Perhaps it was the hot weather, or the fact that it stayed light so much longer in the evenings during the summer, but Nikki discovered she wasn’t as frantic as she used to be about having a dinner date every night. She was getting used to her own company, and she found she liked it.

At the office she automatically asked for a raise, as she did every August. To her great surprise she was not only given the money she asked for but was promoted too. She was now managing editor. Everybody in executive positions had been stepped up one notch. She had new stationery with her name and title on it. All her spring books had done well, and she had brought in two good new authors, but she suspected that the main reason she had been promoted was the change in her attitude and behavior in the office. She still flirted and acted cuddly, but she was stronger, more sure of herself, and occasionally she dropped the pretense altogether and let them know she was aware of how bright she was. This did not seem to offend anyone—in fact they respected her for it. I am probably the last of the emancipated ladies, Nikki thought ruefully. Look at all I missed!

She had decided not to take her vacation this summer. Robert had not said anything about it. When she suggested casually that they might take their vacations together in the fall and go somewhere instead of just puttering around the house in the country, he replied vaguely that it might be a good idea if he could clear up his work load. She realized he wasn’t looking forward to going away with her any more than she was looking forward to going away with him. Fall was such an exciting time in New York, and Nikki decided to get tickets to a lot of plays. If Robert didn’t want to go she could take Rachel or Margot or Ellen.

There was a rumor going around among all the female employees of Heller & Strauss, from typists to editors, that they were going to snare John Griffin. Movie stars writing their autobiographies was in this year, and Nikki wasn’t surprised that John Griffin would join the group; if every taxi driver thought he could write his life story, why shouldn’t every actor? But what surprised her was that John Griffin’s book was going to be a serious novel and that she was assigned to be his editor. She doubted that John Griffin, from the image she’d gotten of him, would have enough respect for a woman to let her mess around with his words. He couldn’t even walk in the street without women clutching at him, his two marriages (and divorces) had been stormy and well publicized, his love affairs equally so. He was known to relax in the company of men and had no women friends or business associates. Women were to marry and have children with, or to take to Europe on location as part of the entertainment. She hoped his manuscript wasn’t bad and that they would get along. It would be a rotten trick if they had assigned him to her just because she was known to be a devious flirt.

He came in alone, without his agent. That was nice. He was taller and even more handsome than he seemed in the movies, or perhaps movie stars just seemed larger than life. His skin was tanned, his teeth were perfect (real?), and his eyes a deep blue. He was wearing a suit and tie, even carrying an attaché case, and he shook Nikki’s hand. So far she liked his act. What she didn’t like was that he had obviously asked to meet her before he entrusted his manuscript to her, and she resented being auditioned just as much as he did, although she was more used to it by upbringing.

“I hope you like it at Heller & Strauss,” Nikki said pleasantly. “We’ll all do everything we can to help you, and we’re all on your side. I can’t wait to read the book.”

“The hundred pages,” he said. “The rest is in outline.”

“That’s great. A hundred pages is fine.”

“I know I’m going to need help,” he said easily. “I’ve never written a book before and sometimes my ideas run ahead of my words.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

He looked toward the open door of her office. In the hall there was nearly every woman in the place, from nineteen to ninety, gaping at him.

“God, I’m sorry,” Nikki said. She went to the door and closed it. “That won’t happen again.”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it, but when it comes to my baby—my book—I feel a little vulnerable.”

“They certainly won’t read it,” Nikki said, “—until it’s published, of course. I will read it, and our editor in chief, Pete, whom you’ve met, and that’s it. Your work will always be sacred. As for your person, once you’re out in the hall, I can’t make any guarantees.” She smiled but did not giggle. The new Nikki. She was proud of herself.

He opened his attache case, took out an agent’s folder with a thin manuscript in it, and handed it to her. “This is it,” he said. He then took it back and wrote something on the folder. “This is my private home number. Please call me when you’ve read it, even if it’s in the middle of the night. You can talk about business with my agent, but please talk about rewrites with me.”

“Of course,” Nikki said.

“Where can I reach you when you’re not at the office?” She wrote down her apartment number and gave it to him. He glanced at it and put it into his pocket.

“That’s unlisted,” Nikki said. “Don’t send it to the cleaner’s with the suit.”

“You’d be surprised how well I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure.”

He stood up. “When will I hear from you?”

“I’ll call you first thing tomorrow morning. Is ten too early?”

“I’ll be waiting.” He shook her hand again, and she walked with him down the hall to the elevator. Even the men were gaping at him. While she and John Griffin were waiting for the elevator Nikki allowed herself to give him a guarded once-over. Almost too handsome, but apparently nice and sincere, at least about his book. Perhaps later he would show fangs and claws. Well, lots of writers did, even when they weren’t movie stars. He seemed to trust her. She was glad she had decided not to play her usual role with him.