Where Love Has Gone (34 page)

Suddenly she felt very much alone As if the discarded tissues had been a link with the past and now that link had been broken. Only Rick had tried to understand, but now there was nobody.

Nobody. She began to cry again.

Sally Jennings looked up at the clock. It was a quarter to six. She looked down at her desk impatiently. There were so many reports to get out. She began to put the neatly into her briefcase. Maybe she’d be able to get at some of them after she got home from the theater.

She had waited a long time to get tickets for this play and this was one time nothing was going to interfere with seeing it. By the time she got home and changed, then downtown again, she’d just have time for a quick bite before curtain time.

There was a hesitant knock at the door. “Yes,” she called impatiently.

At first all she could see was the white uniform of the matron behind the glass door, then the door opened and Dani came in.

Dani stood there in the doorway. “Miss Jennings,” she asked in a thin, small voice, “can I talk to you?”

The psychologist looked at her for a moment. The child had been crying, she could see that, but there was also a forlorn look about her that hadn’t been there before. “Of course, Dani.”

Dani looked down at the open briefcase. “If you’re leaving, Miss Jennings, I can come back in the morning.”

Sally Jennings closed the briefcase and put it on the floor behind the desk. “No. As a matter of fact I’d been planning to stay and work tonight.”

Dani came further into the office. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

Miss Jennings smiled at her, and when she smiled she suddenly seemed very young. “Tell you what. Suppose we have supper in the cafeteria together? It will be so nice to have someone to talk to for a change.”

Dani glanced over her shoulder at the matron, still waiting outside the office. “Do you—do you think they’d let me?”

Sally Jennings reached for the telephone and dialed the chief probation officer. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “I think it could be arranged.”

Maybe it wasn’t relief or gratitude that the psychologist saw in Dani’s eyes, but suddenly it seemed that the forlornness had disappeared from her face. Suddenly the play she’d been waiting to long to see just wasn’t important anymore.

13

__________________________________________

“The first time I found out that people weren’t forever was when my father stopped coming to see me.” Dani looked across the desk at Miss Jennings. They had just come back from dinner. “You know what I mean? When you’re little it’s like you’re the center of the whole world, but when you get older you find out you’re not. I cried every day for a month. Then I got used to the idea.

“Uncle Sam, that’s Mr. Corwin, was very nice. Mother married him after she divorced my father. I think he felt kind of sorry for me. He used to take me out like my father used to. To the parks and the zoo. Once he even took me sailing. But he wasn’t like Daddy. When I was with Daddy it was like he never thought about anything else but me. With Uncle Sam, it was different. He tried very hard, but I was only one of the many things he thought about. But I liked him just the same. And then one day, he was gone. I remember that day.”

Dani fell silent, looking down at the smoldering cigarette between her fingers.

“Go on, Dani,” the psychologist urged. “You remember that day. What happened to make you remember it?”

The blue-and-white station wagon with the words
Miss Randolph’s School
lettered delicately on the door pulled into the driveway and stopped. The driver, in a smart gray uniform, got out and opened the door. Dani came flying out of the car, her long black hair streaming behind her, her white blouse and navy-blue pleated skirt bright in the sunlight. She ran up the steps to the front door.

“Have a nice weekend, Miss Dani,” the driver called after her.

She flashed a bright smile back at him from the door. “You too, Axel.”

She dropped her books on the table in the foyer end, holding her report card in her hand, dashed around the circular staircase and down the corridor to the studio.

She flung the door open and ran inside calling, “Mother! Mother! I got an A in Art!”

She’d run all the way into the studio, the card still held high in her hand, before she realized that no one was there. She went over to the small room that was just off the studio.

The door was closed. She knocked at it lightly. “Mother. Mother, are you in there?” There was no answer.

Carefully she opened the door and peeked inside. The room was empty. Slowly she closed the door. She was puzzled. Usually her mother was working at that time of day.

She went back to the foyer. She picked up her books from the table and started up the stairs.

Charles was just coming out of Uncle Sam’s room. “Good afternoon, Miss Dani.” She looked up at him. “Where’s Mother?”

The butler looked uncomfortable. “She went out, Miss Dani.”

“Did she say when she’d be back?” Dani held up the report card. “I got an A in Art. I want her to see it.”

“Isn’t that wonderful, Miss Dani.” Then the butler’s tone changed. “Madam didn’t say when she’d return.”

“Oh,” Dani said in a disappointed voice. She started toward her room, then stopped and looked back. “Let me know when she comes in, Charles. I want her to see it.”

“Of course, Miss Dani.”

Mrs. Holman was hanging some dresses in the closet when Dani came into her room. A big smile came over her face as she saw the child. “So there you are. I was wondering when you’d come home. Did you get it?”

Dani grinned. “What do you think?”

“Let me see,” the old governess said. “I can’t wait!”

Mischievously Dani held the report card behind her. “I won’t let you see it, Nanny, until you keep your promise!”

“I have the cake already baked.”

“All right, then!” Dani held the card out to her.

“I’ve got to get my glasses,” Mrs. Holman said. “I’m so excited I can’t read!”

She found them in a pocket of her uniform and put them on. Quickly she looked down at the card. “Oh, Dani,” she exclaimed, “An A in Art!”

The governess pulled Dani to her. “I’m so proud of you,” she said warmly. She kissed Dani on the cheek. “Your mother will be proud too when she sees it.”

“Where is Mother? She wasn’t in the studio.”

The same look she had seen in Charles’s eyes came over the governess’ face. “Your mother had to go away suddenly on a business trip. She’ll be back Monday.”

“Oh.” Her mother had taken quite a few of these unexpected weekend business trips lately. She took the report card back from the governess. “I hope she’s back in time to sign my report card. I have to return it on Monday.”

“I’m sure she’ll be back in time. Now, why don’t we go down to the kitchen and ask Cookie to put out the milk and the cake? We’ll have a little party, just the three of us.”

Dani looked at the old woman. She was tired of having parties with her. It would be nice if Mother came to one of her parties for a change. “I don’t feel like a party.”

“You do what Nanny tells you,” the governess said with halfhearted sternness. She knew what

Dani was thinking.

“Okay.” Dani turned and went out the door. She met Uncle Sam and Charles in the hallway. Each was carrying several suitcases.

“Uncle Sam!” Dani shouted, running to him.

He turned to wait for her. Charles went on down the stairs with the luggage. “Yes, Dani?” “I got an A in Art!”

“That’s great, Dani.”

There was something in Uncle Sam’s voice that made her look up into his face. He looked tired and she felt in him a kind of sadness. She glanced at the bags. “Are you going away for the weekend too? Are you going to meet Mother?”

“I’m going away, Dani. But I won’t be meeting your mother.” “Oh! I thought if you saw her you could tell her.”

He seemed to be thinking of something else. “Tell her what?” “That I got an A in Art.”

“I won’t be seeing her, Dani.” “Will you be back on Monday?”

He looked down at her silently for a moment, then put the luggage down. “No, Dani, I won’t be back on Monday. I won’t be back at all.”

“Not ever?” she asked in a puzzled voice. “No. I’m moving out.”

The tears rushed to her eyes suddenly. It was just like Daddy. One day he moved out and after a while he stopped coming to see her. “Why? Don’t you like us anymore?”

He saw the tears in her eyes and heard the concern in her voice. He took her hand. “That’s not it, Dani. It isn’t you. But sometimes things don’t work out the way they should. Your mother and I are getting a divorce.”

“Like Mother and Daddy?” He nodded.

“That means you won’t come to see me anymore?” She began to cry. “Now nobody will come to see me.”

He put his arm around her awkwardly. “I’d like to come to see you, Dani. But I can’t.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Susie Colter’s mother was divorced five times and all
her
fathers come to see her. I know because she sits next to me in class and she always shows me the presents they bring her.”

“Your mother wouldn’t like it.”

“Why can’t she move out when she gets a divorce?” Dani demanded, beginning to get angry.

“Why does the daddy always have to move out?” “I don’t know.”

Impulsively she threw her arms around him. “Don’t go, Uncle Sam! I’ll miss you something awful!”

He smiled and put his cheek alongside hers. “I’ll miss you too, Dani. You be a big girl and let me go and I’ll send you a present every now and then. You can show it to your friend so she’ll know she’s not the only one whose Daddy gives her presents.”

“All right,” Dani said hesitantly. She kissed his cheek. “But I’ll miss you anyway.” Sam kissed her again and straightened up. He picked up his bags. “I’ll have to hurry.”

She followed him down the stairs. “Are you going to La Jolla and live on a boat like my daddy?”

He laughed. “No, Dani. I’m going to live in New York for awhile.”

Her voice was disappointed. “If you lived on a boat we could go sailing.” He laughed again. “I’m not as good a sailor as your daddy.”

Dani followed him to the door and watched Charles put the bags into the taxi. Uncle Sam bent down and kissed her again. “Goodbye, Dani.”

She waved to him as the cab began to move. “Goodbye, Uncle Sam!” she called, and then because she didn’t know what else to day, “Have a good time!”

She walked thoughtfully through the house to the kitchen. Charles, Cookie and Nanny were waiting for her. All of them except Violet, who was her mother’s maid. Violet was never around when her mother went away.

“Mother and Uncle Sam are getting a divorce,” she announced. “Uncle Sam’s going to live in New York.”

Mrs. Holman brought out the chocolate layer cake and put it on the table. “How do you like that for a cake?”

Dani looked at it. “It’s wonderful.” But there was no enthusiasm in her voice. “You sit down at the table and I’ll cut you a piece,” Cookie said.

Obediently, Dani sat down. Cookie cut a big wedge and put it on her plate, next to a glass of milk. Then she cut pieces for the others and they all sat down. Dani knew they were waiting for her to taste is so they could start. She cut a piece with her fork and put it in her mouth. “This cake is delicious,” she mumbled.

“Not with your mouth full, Dani.”

They all began to eat. “The cake is very good, Mrs. Holman,” Charles said. “Take it easy, now,” Cookie warned him, laughing.

“Of course your cakes are very good too, Cookie,” Charles said, aware the good cooks weren’t that easy to come by these days.

“Why are they getting divorced?” Dani asked suddenly.

The servants exchanged awkward glances. It was the governess who answered. “We don’t know, child. It’s not our place to know.”

“Is it because Mother is so pretty and has too many friends?” They didn’t answer.

“I heard Uncle Sam and Mother quarreling a few days ago. Uncle Sam said he was sick and tired of her sleeping partners. I know that Uncle Sam and Mrs. Scaasi were partners but I didn’t know that Mother had partners too. Why didn’t I know that?”

“That’s none of our business, child,” Mrs. Holman said sternly. “And none of your either. You just eat your cake and worry about the things that concern you.”

Dani ate silently for a few minutes more, then looked up. “Uncle Sam said he would send me presents so I could show Susie Colter she isn’t the only one who gets presents from her daddies.”

Two weeks later she was ten years old and a big crate came for her from New York. It was filled with presents. Uncle Sam had kept his word. She felt a little better then. But in her own way she missed him.

When school closed her mother took her to a dude ranch near Lake Tahoe for the summer. Mother said she had to do it to get her divorce, but Dani didn’t mind. It was a lot of fun. She went horseback riding every morning and she was on the lake every afternoon. Rick was there too. He was her mother’s new manager. He must have been one of the partners she’d heard Uncle Sam and Mother quarreling about, because once in a while she’d see him coming from her mother’s room in the morning.

But she liked Rick. He enjoyed doing the same things she did. He’d go horseback riding with her and he taught her to water ski. And he used to laugh a lot. Not like Uncle Sam, who never laughed very much at all. Mother used to say that Rick seemed as much of a kid as she was.

Mother didn’t like to ride horseback or spend a lot of time on the water. She said it was bad for her skin, she got sunburnt too easily. Instead, she spent most of her time in the room she had fixed up as a studio. At night she’d get up and she and Rick would go into to Reno. Then Mother would sleep late. But Rick was up early every morning for their ride together. He used to call her Little Swinger.

He had a mustache at the time. A grim line, a little wider than a pencil stroke, that reached to the corners of his wide mouth. She thought it made him look cute. Something like Clark Gable. One day she told her mother that and for some reason her mother got angry. She told Rick to shave the silly thing off.

Dani began to cry. She didn’t know why she was crying. “Don’t shave it off!” she begged. “Please don’t!”