Wake Up With a Stranger (13 page)

He had been drinking, was really quite drunk, and this was a condition she had never seen him in before. He stood looking at her with eyes that expressed the same strange confusion of anger and desperation she had heard in the buzzer. This seemed to her wholly irrational, because she could see no reason why he should be either angry or desperate. His face, she saw now, was much thinner than it used to be, and it looked older and tireder than the intervening years should have made it. At first, right after opening the door, she was angry that he had presumed to come here after she had told him not to come, very late and clearly drunk in addition, but her anger, if it was actually strong enough to be called that, was quickly gone. She understood perfectly well that he had come now, neither earlier nor later, because he was somehow driven and could not help it. She felt strong by comparison but somehow vulnerable.

“You had better come in,” she said.

He walked past her into the room and sat down in almost the exact center of the sofa, folding carefully at knees and hips and sitting with a peculiar rigidity of his torso, not touching with his back the back of the sofa. She sat down beside him. Turning his head only slightly, he looked at her from the corners of his eyes with a curious mixture of uncertainty and slyness.

“Are you angry because I’ve come?” he said.

“No,” she said. “For a moment I was, but now I’m not.”

“Why? Why aren’t you angry?”

“I don’t know. I admit that I should be, but I’m not.”

“You shouldn’t have let me in, you know.”

“No doubt you’re right. At this hour, I probably should never have answered the door. Nevertheless, I have let you in, and here you are, and I should like to know why you have come.”

“That’s simple. Because I wanted to see you, and I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

“Well, I find that difficult to accept. You have been in town since January, you said, and you might have seen me long ago.”

“I told you that I was afraid you wouldn’t care to see me again. You remember that I don’t like to risk rejection. After I saw you tonight, though, it became different. It became intense and near again, as it was that last summer, and I had to come.”

He spoke slowly, with slightly exaggerated enunciation. He had been drinking heavily, that much was certain, but he did not speak as if he were drunk, or had even drunk excessively, except for the abnormal caution he was exercising.

“You have had too much to drink,” she said.

“Yes, I have. I admit that I have. Having too much is something I do too often, and I admit that also.”

“You didn’t used to drink at all, except a little beer.”

“True. It’s something I’ve learned since then.”

“Why do you do it?”

“Well, it comes in handy.”

“For what?”

“Oh, for all sorts of things. For forgetting things, and for making things seem different than they are, and for acquiring courage to do things I wouldn’t otherwise do.”

“Is that why you drank tonight? The last reason?”

“To get the courage to come here? Yes. Of course. There is certainly no point in denying it. I drank quite a lot in quite a short time, and here I am.”

“It was completely unnecessary. Now that you’re here, I’m very glad to see you.”

She said it, she thought, only to reassure him, but after the words were spoken she realized that they were true. She realized also that they should not, for her own good, have been true at all. In her life, he could be at best no more than a mistake, and this kind of mistake at this time was something she could not afford.

“Why are you glad?” he said.

“I don’t know. Perhaps I am also remembering how it was that summer.”

He turned to face her more directly. Without thinking, she reached out and took one of his hands. “Is that true?” he said.

“I think so. I’m not completely sure. I may know definitely after a while.”

“It was good, that summer. It was the best time of my life. Do you know that I was a little afraid of you?”

“Why ever should you have been?”

“Because you were so sure of yourself and I was not. You knew just what you wanted to do, and I hadn’t the least idea. Still haven’t, for that matter. Are you designing, as you planned?”

“Yes. I’m working in a shop here.”

“Are you successful?”

“Somewhat. I’m becoming so, I think.”

“You see? You are certain to succeed in anything you choose, and I am just as certain to fail.”

“There’s no good reason why you should fail. Why do you feel this way?”

“I’ve tried to understand it, and I believe it is because I do not choose at all. I’m always chosen. Do you see the difference between us? You choose, I am chosen.”

“I don’t think I see any sense whatever in that.”

“Maybe there isn’t any.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Teaching.”

“Here in the city?”

“Yes. At Pine Hill.”

“Teaching at such an exclusive school is quite an accomplishment, it seems to me.”

“Not at all. It’s a horrible place, crawling with detestable little monsters. Every day I think I cannot possibly endure another one.”

“Oh, please! It can’t be as bad as that.”

“It’s worse. It’s unspeakable, and therefore I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right. We won’t mention it again. Would you like me to make you some coffee?”

“No, thank you. I don’t believe I need any coffee. What I need more than anything else is to go to bed, but what I need least of anything else is to go back to my room at the school, and this puts me in a dilemma. I’m no good in a dilemma. When I’m in a dilemma, I just do nothing or start drinking. That’s something else that drinking is handy for that I forgot to mention.”

She knew while he was speaking what she would do, and knew also she shouldn’t do it. Once, a very long time ago, she had wanted him and had had him briefly. Afterward she had not wanted him in the least, and had been unable to understand why she had ever wanted him. Now, because of her strange vulnerability, she wanted him again, knowing the time would shortly come when she would again
not
want him.

“Would you like to stay here?” she asked.

“I’d like it very much if you will let me.”

“It’s all right. You can stay if you want to.”

He leaned toward her and let his head fall forward upon her shoulder. She put her arms around him and felt, under the thin stuff of her gown, the hot appeal of his hands, to which she responded.

He is lonely and in need of me,
she thought,
and I am lonely and in need of him too, though he doesn’t know it, and if it is a mistake for one or for both of us, as it will certainly turn out to be, it is at least one that we can now make the most of.

Disengaging an arm for a moment, she removed her glasses and laid them aside.

Thinking severity would be appropriate, she wore a brown wool gabardine suit and a simple white Dacron blouse with a string bow at the collar. As she waited in an outer office for Tyler to become free, Donna wondered that she had bothered to come here on an errand, certainly futile and with small chance of success. But she understood she was compelled to explore all possibilities, however remote, just as she had been compelled to effect the fiasco with Shirley Burns. Two hundred thousand dollars was to her an enormous sum of money, something about which one might talk, as one talked about the light years to the sun, but which was never quite clearly comprehended or obtained. Here in the rich atmosphere of the bank, where money was handled and kept in staggering amounts, paradoxically it seemed to be more remote and unobtainable than ever. However hard she tried to convince herself of the reasonableness of her effort, she simply could not imagine that a shrewd and conservative financier would risk so large an investment in her talent and confidence, which were all that she had to offer as security. Perhaps he would scoff at her. Perhaps, even worse, he would treat her appeal with the kind condescension that one accords the fantasy of a child. She could not bear the thought she was absolutely the greatest possible fool to expose herself to such humiliation, and if she were to leave immediately, she could still avoid it. But she did not leave, of course. Because she was compelled, she sat and waited.

“Mr. Tyler is ready to see you now. Please go right in.” Standing, Donna crossed to Tyler’s door and let herself into the office. Now that she was irrevocably committed and was acting positively, her dread of the interview was suddenly gone. The first thing she felt inside the office was an extravagant pleasure that she had worn by chance a color that went well with the dark walnut paneling, and she was able, moreover, to be amused by her pleasure as she would have been amused at choosing a hat to match a car. Tyler was seated behind a massive desk, walnut like the paneling, and he stood up as she entered and came around to meet her. Behind him an expanse of Venetian blinds admitted light in a pattern of horizontal bars. He was wearing gray, as he had been the one time she had seen him in the shop, expensive and impeccable, and he held her hand a moment with the same cool, dry touch she had noted then.

“How are you, Miss Buchanan?” he said. “I’m happy to see you again.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I wasn’t certain that you’d remember me.”

“You’re much too modest. It would be more difficult to forget you than it is to remember you.” He indicated a chair beside the desk. “Will you sit down?”

She thanked him again and accepted the chair. Seated again, he offered her a cigarette from a silver box on the desk, leaning forward to light it with a lighter that matched the box. The cigarette was just what she needed. She felt relaxed and durable and, if not confident of success, at least prepared to accept failure.

“Has Mr. Joslin spoken with you?” she asked.

“Yes, he has. About you — and very highly.”

“Mr. Joslin has been kind and helpful. I don’t know why he should concern himself with my affairs, but I’m thankful that he does. I suppose he explained to you why I asked to see you.”

“He did, of course, but I’d like to hear it again from you.”

“Well, I don’t know how to say it except simply. The shop in which I work, which was left by Aaron Burns as part of his estate, is to be sold. I would like to buy it myself, but I have practically no money and no security. My proposition is that your bank loan me two hundred thousand dollars, which would be secured by a mortgage on the business.”

“For better or worse, you have at least put it precisely. I understand from Mr. Joslin that the business has been doing extremely well.”

“Yes. It has done well, and I’m certain that it will do even better in the future if I am able to continue along the lines we have established.”

“I can easily check the past record of the business, of course, but it is not so easy to verify what may be anticipated. What makes you feel, now that Mr. Burns is dead, that the business will not deteriorate?”

“Because I contributed much to its growth in the past few years.”

“That you are exceptionally talented in the designing and execution of fashions I am convinced. There is more to operating a business, however, than the creation of a product. Do you also have the training and the quite different kind of ability that would make you successful in management?”

“I think I have. When Mr. Burns had his second heart attack, I was left in charge. I admit this was for a short period. Nevertheless, it was long enough to give me the feel of things and to assure me that I could have run the shop indefinitely.”

Tyler helped himself to a cigarette. He sat quietly for a few seconds, looking down at the glowing ash and the thin ascending silver smoke.

“Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money, Miss Buchanan,” he said at last. “It is especially a lot of money when it belongs to someone else and is merely in one’s custody. What I’m trying to say is, I must exercise a conservatism in the investment of bank funds that I might not exercise in the investment of my own. At any rate, a loan of this kind and size could be made only after a very meticulous investigation, and I must tell you honestly that I can’t offer you much reason for optimism. I accept personally your statement about the condition of the business, but you can surely see that you as an individual are an additional and relatively unknown factor of peculiar significance in this case. I am certain, I must tell you, that your request for this loan will not be approved.”

She received his judgment with no sense of shock, as if, after all, it was of little importance. Anyhow, nothing had been said that she had not anticipated and been prepared for. Smiling faintly, she stood up.

“In that case, I’ll not waste any more of your time. Thank you for being honest with me.”

“Please.” He lifted a hand and looked at her, and after a moment she sat down again in the chair. “As I indicated previously, I am not always so conservative as an individual as I am as a banker. When Earl Joslin talked with me about this, he suggested two alternatives to a bank loan. One was a personal loan. The other was that I buy the shop myself and let you manage it. I am willing to consider either of these alternatives, but I confess that the latter appeals to me more. If I am to gamble, I want it to be for high stakes, and the profit from the business — if it were to be as successful as both you and Earl expect — would be far in excess of legal interest. I’d have little or no time to devote to the enterprise and would be dependent upon you, on whom I’d be gambling. Would you consider such an arrangement?”

“Yes. Mr. Joslin also suggested that possibility to me. I told him then that I was agreeable, and I still am. The truth is, of course, that I would consider it an extremely good opportunity.”

“Good. You understand, I hope, that I’m not committing myself. I’ll check thoroughly and consider carefully, and I reserve the right to decide on either the loan or the purchase, or neither.”

“That’s understood.”

“In that case, I’ll let you know my decision as soon as possible.”

She inferred from this that the interview was at an end. She stood up, and he stood up after her, and she offered her hand again to the cool, dry contact of his.

“You have been very considerate,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He shook his head and smiled. “Perhaps it will come to nothing, and you will have nothing to thank me for. Goodby, Miss Buchanan.”

On the street, she felt a singing sense of exhilaration and a lightness of body that made every step seem ludicrously high and long, as if she had to force her feet to earth against a tendency to float. At a corner she paused and considered where she should go and what she should do. If she returned to the shop, she would have to tell Gussie about the interview, and this she did not want to do, not because she did not want Gussie to know, but simply because the exhilaration, the singing sense of good feeling, would surely deaden and dissipate if it were touched by words, and she wanted to hold it as long as she could. She did not, however, want to be alone. She wanted someone with her, someone to talk with and to touch and possibly to love — and the one she wanted, she realized suddenly, was Enos Simon. She would return to her apartment, she thought, and perhaps call the school; and she would walk the long way to her apartment because she was feeling wonderful on a wonderful day and simply preferred walking to riding.

She walked steadily for a long time, but, slowly, as she walked, her euphoria and effervescense diminished as her body tired. By the time she reached the apartment she was depressed, and convinced that she had allowed herself to be deceived by an attempt at kindness, which if it was only that was really cruelty. The more depressed and hopeless she became, the more she wanted someone with her — not just anyone but Enos Simon specifically.

William Walter Tyler, behind his desk, sat and watched the pattern of light on the heavy carpet. It was quite still in the room. From the outer office and the bank and the street, no sound penetrated. The horizontal bars had moved a little, a little farther out upon the carpet, and would soon disappear.

He thought with a stirring of quiet bitterness that a man was entitled to a time of peace. After a while, after the passing of so many years, the feelings of hunger and emptiness should pass and leave a man alone. He was forty-eight, and he had thought indeed that he had reached the time that was surely the right of every man — a time if not of peace at least of quiet, if not of fulfillment at least of the absence of nagging desire. Now he knew that such a time had not come to him. He watched the pattern of light, the sign of the sun that rose and set. He remembered a young woman with a restless feeling he should never have felt. A young woman, hardly more than a girl, with a supple body that housed needs he could never meet because it was, for him, simply too late. That is what he told himself, that it was simply too late. But he watched the pattern and did not move, and remembered her face and hands and voice.

He had twice before been disturbed in the way he was now disturbed, once by a child when he was a child, and once by a woman when he was a man. The child had been fifteen; he had loved her; and she had died. She had been, in fact, the cook’s daughter, coming now and then to the Tyler home, but he had hardly even spoken to her, because he wasn’t allowed to fraternize with servants’ children. When she came, she always remained in the kitchen, or in the garden just outside the kitchen door, and she was, he thought, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Having been taught by his mother to be a snob, he could not understand why a person of his social position should be so affected by the daughter of a cook. He suffered intensely, as a young boy suffers. Sometimes he lay in bed at night and remembered her as he had seen her in the garden, he thought that his heart would literally burst. It was then that he learned something of the nature of pain, that it was an immensely complex and irrational reaction.

He suffered from loving her, and the suffering was ecstasy, but then she died, and he suffered still, but there was no ecstasy in it any longer. His anguish was secret and somehow shameful, so intense and shattering that it was like a brutal physical violation of his incipient manhood. In his room, he wept. In his heart, he despised himself because by his snobbishness he had deprived himself of a friend, or the more that she might have been. When she was buried, the Tyler family sent a magnificent arrangement of white carnations, and Mr. Tyler, William Walter’s father, attended the funeral as the representative of the family.

She died of tetanus. Trying to understand why it was necessary for her to die at all, William Walter saw it in its simplest terms as a mortal conflict between a beautiful girl and a microscopic bug. The bug had been the victor, that was certain, and since he had been taught that God took a personal interest in such matters, he could only assume that God had been on the bug’s side. This thought was not original with him. It was something he had heard or read, the effect of a similiar experience related by someone else. It was an intolerable assumption, however, one which he could not accept; neither could he subscribe to the hypocrisy that such things happened for the best in God’s design. The truth of it, so far as he could see, was that God was compassionless, remote and unconcerned, if not impotent, and beyond the reach of supplication. This was a belief he always held afterward, the only tenable one in his judgment. The Tylers had been Episcopalians for generations, and he remained an Episcopalian, attending and supporting the church but accepting little that was taught in it.

The second person to disturb him comparably, quite a long time later, was the young woman he married. He met her at a tea dance to which he had gone reluctantly. She was a cousin of his hostess, her house guest, and her name was Harriet Cochran. Her family was wealthy, though not nearly so wealthy as the Tylers; and when he looked at her, he thought of expensive crystal gleaming in candlelight. That was an understandable response to her particular kind of loveliness, for she gave a deceptive impression of cool and detached delicacy. Actually, she was physically strong, and psychically she was both strong and resourceful. William Walter fell in love with her immediately, which was disturbing but not unpleasant, for love is unpleasant only when it is frustrated or dying. She responded to him promptly, with restraint, and was obviously prepared from the beginning to marry him. Their courtship fell just short of formality, all things always in the best of taste; they were united eventually in a grand ceremony and went to Europe on their honeymoon. The union was approved by both families, and everyone considered it especially fortunate.

It wasn’t. When they returned from Europe, he had already accepted the truth that he was not married in any real sense at all. This was traumatic, and it reflected favorably on the resiliency of his personality that he was able to adjust to this readily and adequately. At first their failure caused him naturally to wonder and probe and diagnose, but slowly, or really relatively quickly, he became convinced that it was something much better left alone. More than that, it was something that could be vastly disruptive if disturbed. He felt in the beginning defiled and tainted, as well as cheated, but self-devaluation was not natural to him, and the feeling passed. In his public life he remained aggressive, adding to a fortune that was already large, but in his private emotional life he withdrew and became passive, thankful, as the years were used up, for the gradually diminishing demands of his body.