Страница 77 из 194
He grabbed her wrist in the dark. “What’ve I done wrong?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” she said. “The perfect hostess and her mate will now rejoin the beauty and chivalry of West Twelfth Street.” She pulled her arm away from his grasp and went down the stairs. A moment later Willie came down, too. He had stayed behind to plant a martini’d kiss on his son’s forehead.
She saw Rudolph had quit Joh
She waved to Rudolph but she did not catch his eye and as she went toward him she was stopped by an advertising account executive, too beautifully dressed, and with a haircut that was too becoming. “Mine hostess,” the man said, thin as an English actor. His name was Alec Lister. He had started as a page boy at CBS, but that was long behind him. “Let me congratulate you on an absolutely splendid do.”
“Are you a likely candidate?” she asked, staring at him.
“What?” Lister transferred his glass uneasily from one hand to another. He was not used to being asked puzzling questions.
“Nothing,” she said. “Train of thought, I’m glad you like the animals.”
“I like them very much.” Lister put his imprimatur firmly on the assemblage. “I’ll tell you something else I like. Your pieces in the magazine.”
“I will be known as the Samuel Taylor Coleridge of radio and television,” she said. Lister was one of the guests who could not be insulted, but she was out after all scalps tonight.
“What was that?” He was puzzled for the second time in thirty seconds and he was begi
“Oh,” she said calmly, “you caught that.”
He stared at her evenly, all cordiality gone, his office face, cool and pitiless, replacing in a fraction of a second his tolerant English actor party face. “Yes, I caught it,” he said. “And I’m not the only one. In today’s atmosphere, with everybody being investigated, and advertisers being damn careful that they’re not giving their good money to people whose motives might not be acceptable …”
“Are you warning me?” Gretchen asked.
“You might put it like that,” the man said. “Out of friendship.”
“It’s good of you, dear,” she touched his arm lightly, smiling tenderly at him, “but I’m afraid it’s too late. I’m a red, raving Communist, in the pay of Moscow, plotting to destroy NBC and MGM and bring Ralston’s Cereals crashing to the ground.”
“She’s putting on everyone tonight, Alec.” Willie was standing next to her, his hand tightening on her elbow. “She thinks it’s Halloween. Come on into the kitchen, I’ll freshen your drink.”
“Thanks, Willie,” Lister said, “but I’m afraid I have to push on. I have two more parties I said I’d look in on tonight.” He kissed Gretchen’s cheek, a brush of ether on her skin. “Good night, sweets. I do hope you remember what I told you.”
“Chiseled in stone,” she said.
Expressionless, flat-eyed, he made his way toward the door, putting his glass down on a bookcase, where it would leave a ring.
“What’s the matter?” Willie said in a low voice. “You hate money?”
“I hate him,” she said. She pulled away from Willie and wove through the guests, smiling brightly, to where Rudolph and Julie were talking in the corner. They were talking in near whispers. There was an air of tension about them which built an invisible wall around them, cutting them off from all the laughter and conversation in the room. Julie seemed on the verge of tears and Rudolph looked concentrated and stubborn.
“I think it’s terrible,” Julie was saying. “That’s what I think.”
“You look beautiful tonight, Julie,” Gretchen interrupted. “Very femme-fatalish.”
“Well, I don’t feel it.” Julie’s voice quavered.
“What’s the matter?” Gretchen asked.
“You tell her,” Julie said to Rudolph.
“Some other time,” Rudolph said, lips tight. “This is a party.”
“He’s going to work permanently at Calderwood’s,” Julie said. “Starting tomorrow morning.”
“Nothing is permanent,” Rudolph said.
“Stuck away behind a counter for his whole life,” Julie rushed on. “In a little one-horse town. What’s the sense of going to college, if that’s all you’re going to do with it?”
“I told you I’m not going to be stuck anywhere all my life,” Rudolph said.
“Tell her the rest,” Julie said hotly. “I dare you to tell her the rest.”
“What’s the rest?” Gretchen asked. She, too, was disappointed, Rudolph’s choice was inglorious. But she was relieved, too. Working at Calderwood’s, he would continue to take care of their mother and she would not have to face the problem herself or ask for help from Willie. The sense of relief was ignoble, but there was no denying to herself that it existed.
“I’ve been offered the summer in Europe,” Rudolph said evenly, “as a gift.”
“By whom?” Gretchen asked, although she knew the answer.
“Teddy Boylan.”
“I know my parents would let me go, too,” Julie said. “We could have the best summer of our whole lives.”
“I haven’t got time for the best summer of our whole lives,” Rudolph said, biting on the words.
“Can’t you talk to him, Gretchen?” Julie said.
“Rudy,” Gretchen said, “don’t you think you owe yourself a little fun, after the way you’ve been working?”
“Europe won’t go away,” he said. “I’ll go there when I’m ready for it.”
“Teddy Boylan must have been pleased when you turned him down,” Gretchen said.
“He’ll get over it.”
“I wish somebody would offer me a trip to Europe,” Gretchen said. “I’d be on that boat so fast …”
“Gretchen, can you give us a hand?” One of the younger male guests had come over. “We want to play the phonograph and it seems to be kaput.”
“I’ll talk to you two later,” Gretchen said to Rudolph and Julie. “We’ll work something out.” She went over to the phonograph with the young man. She bent down and fumbled for the plug. The colored maid had been in to clean that day and she always left the plug out after she vacuumed. “I bend enough,” she had told Gretchen when Gretchen complained.
The phonograph warmed up with a hollow sound and then it began to play the first record from the album of South Pacific. Childish voices, sweet and American, far away on a make-believe warm island, piped the words to “Dites-moi.” When Gretchen stood up she saw that Rudolph and Julie had gone. I’m not going to have a party in this place for a whole year, she decided. She went into the kitchen and had Mary Jane pour her a stiff drink of Scotch. Mary Jane had long, red hair these days and a great deal of blue eye shadow and long false eyelashes. From a distance she was a beauty but close up things came apart a little. Still, now, in the third hour of the party, with all the men passing through her domain and flattering her, she was at her peak for the day, flashing-eyed, her bright-red lips half open, avid and provocative. “What glory,” she said, whiskey-hoarse. “This party. And that new man, Alec What’s-his-name …”