Chapter 8
For the rest of the week, Jackie was too busy to feel lonely, or to feel any need to make casual trips to the club and its swimming pool. There was a distinct soreness in her nether regions, too, that made her walk, she thought, with a self-conscious stiffness, but nobody else seemed to notice it. Harold might have, but he was in Chicago. Tom might have, but she didn't see Tom. Or hear from him, either, and she'd rather expected that he'd call. But when he didn't, she put it down as an attack of married-man's conscience, and was just as glad.
On Friday, in town, she concluded arrangements to make a series of TV commercials, the following month, wearing a swimsuit, to persuade people to come to colorful, carefree Caracas, on the one airline that took them there non-stop and crammed them with nothing but steak and lobsters on the way. Jackie figured she ought to get a trip to Caracas out of it, but the agency that handled the account didn't think it would be necessary.
On Saturday morning, Niles Wallach called. She had been wondering about Niles. Worrying about him, in fact. She thought she might have pushed his patience too far. Might never hear from him again.
When she heard his voice on the phone she couldn't keep the happiness out of her tone.
"I am so God damn glad you called," she said. "I thought maybe something had happened to you."
"Nothing ever happens to me," Niles said. "Did I get you up?"
"I've been up practically since dawn. I'm hip deep in housework now." She wasn't yet, but she would be. Any hour now.
"I can't quite picture it. But anyway. Will you have dinner with me Monday night?"
"Monday?" she said, and thought for a moment. "Sure."
"See you at Sir's. Around six."
She had a thought. A much better thought.
"Niles?"
"I'm still here."
"Just for a change, why don't you drive out here for dinner? We can do a steak out back, and sit around and listen to records. You've never heard my old records."
"You're right," Niles said. T never have heard your old records."
"Get here as early as you can, while it's light. We can have a long cocktail hour. A long, al fresco cocktail hour."
"All 'al fresco' ever meant to me was grass stains on the elbows," Niles said.
"There you go again," she said, "you and your one-track mind. Anyway, there's no need for any grass stains."
"You're sounding better," Niles said. "Much better. But I thought you said your son was home."
"He was, briefly, but he's away again. I don't expect him home till late in the week."
"Good for him," Niles said.
"I don't know if it is so good for him. I never know where he is or what he's doing, or what's going on in his head."
"Who does, with kids that age? They come out of it all right."
"That's not all," Jackie said. "He's got a girl."
"You mean he's getting laid."
"That's exactly what I mean."
"What's so bad about that?"
"Well," Jackie said, lamely, "he isn't even sixteen yet."
"When you were fifteen, going on sixteen..."
"Never mind," Jackie said. "Anyway, that's different."
"I know," he said. "You were a girl."
"I was older at his age than he is."
"Sure you were," Niles said.
"Anyway, I wish you'd have a talk with him, sometime."
"About getting laid?"
"No, you jackass," she said. "But I think it's time a man had a talk with him. He doesn't tell me anything."
"This is the first time anyone ever considered me an advisor to the young," he said. "It kind of chokes me up."
"You want to know something, Niles."
"What?"
"I think I love you."
"Well I'll be a son of a bitch," Niles said.
Sunday night, Jackie had one of her infrequent attacks of insomnia, and tossed and turned and smoked and read all through the night. It was almost dawn when she finally fell asleep.
She was in a deep sleep when the ringing of the phone by her bedside awakened her. She opened her eyes and glared glumly at the clock. It was ten minutes to eleven. Good God, she thought. She had a vague idea that she ought to be somewhere, but she couldn't think where. She picked up the phone.
"Bide-a-Wee Home," she said.
"Jackie?" a female voice uncertainly. "This is Mavis.
"For God's sake," Jackie said, still foggy. "How are you?"
"Fine. And free as a bird. I just packed Charlie and the kids off to his folks."
"That makes two of us," Jackie said, feeling for cigarettes. The pack was empty. "Free as two birds."
"We talked about a visit last week, remember? I thought I'd drive down this afternoon."
"Wonderful," Jackie said, holding the phone to her ear as she put her head back on the pillow. "Get here early and we'll go out to the club."
"Good," Mavis said. Jackie dropped the phone into its cradle and went back to sleep.
It was around one o'clock when she woke again. She padded downstairs in a bathrobe and slippers and got the mail out of the box on the side porch. Among the bills was a card from Bob, postmarked 'Montauk.' The face of the postcard was a glossy photograph of a young blonde with awesome, jutting breasts that made a mockery of her bikini top.
"She's out here on account of her health," Bob had written on the back. "Bad lungs."
She had to laugh, despite herself. Some card, she thought, for a boy to send his poor old mother. He was getting bolder and bawdier every day. Then she read the postscript: "P.S.-The station wagon's running fine, but you could have emptied the ashtray. Be careful not to wrinkle the Volks. B."
She'd break his neck, when she got her hands on him.
It wasn't until she was making coffee that she happened to glance at a calendar on the kitchen wall, and realized suddenly what day it was. Monday. Niles was coming to dinner.
She ran to the phone, then had to get Mavis' number through information. When the call finally went through, and there was no answer right away, she started counting the rings after four. She hung up after fifteen. Mavis was on her way, and there was nothing she could do about it now.
She could call Niles at the office, of course. But he was out to lunch now, she knew, and what was she going to say to him, anyway? Don't come, because I've been an idiot and an old girl friend is going to be here for a few days? An old girl friend of Niles, too, she had a hunch. Oh, they'd make a happy trio during the cocktail hour-Niles with the hots for her, and her with the hots for Niles, and Mavis sitting there, the old friend, the young mother, the suburban matron. Suburban matrons probably had the hots, too, Jackie thought gloomily, with their husbands away. A mess, she'd made. She'd have to think of something. But what? Whatever she did come up with, she'd sure messed up her plans for Niles that evening. And Niles' plans for her, she was sure. How long would he put up with it?
But she'd think of something, she told herself. She always did.
She had her coffee and took a shower and was reasonably composed by the time Mavis pulled up in front of the house. She went out to meet her.
Mavis looked wonderful, Jackie had to admit, as she slid out of the car. She was all legs, like a colt. Her red hair shone in the sun, making the whiteness of her skin the more startling.
"We're having a little dinner party tonight," she told Mavis, as she helped her get the bags out of the trunk. "Mostly on account of my confusion about calendars."
"How's that?" Mavis asked.
"Instead of you and I having an unbroken tete-a-tete, tonight it's going to be a tete-a-tete-a-tete. A few days ago I invited Niles Wallach to come out here for dinner. Monday, I told him-and just a little while ago I realized that today is Monday."
Jackie saw a look of naked shock, then confusion, on Mavis' mannequin features. But the redhead recovered quickly.
"Don't let me break anything up," she said. "It's easy enough for me to drive back to Darien. I can always drop down later in the week."
"Don't be a nut," Jackie said. "We should have a fine time. Don't you want to see Niles again?"
"Yes, I guess so. It's been a long time."
They were at the door leading in from the side porch. Jackie opened the door with her free hand.
"There's nothing quite like an intimate little triangle of friends," she said.
They had a lot of talking to do, a lot of time to catch up with, and Jackie forgot about the evening ahead during the ride to the club. But when they were walking along the edge of the swimming pool, she spotted the solution to the puzzle of what to do about the evening, the way to de-fuse the bomb the evening might turn out to be.
Tom was sitting in his usual chair, alone, with a drink beside him. He looked up as they approached, eyed the slender form of the redhead walking at Jackie's side, and smiled a greeting of genuine joy.
"I was going to ask if there were any more at home like you," Tom said to Jackie. "But this is too much, for a boy with a weak heart."
"This is my mother," Jackie said. With that skin and that smile and that leggy form, Mavis looked about eighteen, instead of twenty-eight or whatever. "Her name is Mavis. Mavis, meet Tom."
"Hello, Mom."
"Hi, Dad," Mavis said. "That water looks so good, I'm going right in for a dip." She headed for the diving board, and Tom got up and dragged over two more beach chairs.
"A lesser girl than you would have to be jealous," Tom said. "She's lovely."
"Isn't she?" Jackie said, settling back in the chair. "How's your Christmas tree?"
"The needles are falling off."
"Tom, you could help me out of an awkward situation, if you would."
"Anything at all," he said. He looked at her without smiling, waiting.
"Come over to my house and join us for dinner tonight."
"Can't think of anything I'd like better," Tom said. "What's so awkward?"
"When I asked Mavis to come down today I forgot that I'd invited a friend for dinner. A man friend."
"Oh," Tom said.
"And he happens to have been a boy friend of Mavis', way back. She's married now, of course."
"Of course," Tom said.
"So you'd make it sort of a party if you came."
"I'm practically there," Tom said. "I'll be Mavis' date, the lucky girl."
"You get the general idea. And, Tom."
"What?"
"This is strictly a polite suburban patio party. Nothing horizontal about it, you understand."
"I understand. You don't know it, but on normal social occasions I am the almost-perfect gentleman. They don't call me Fats Fauntleroy for nothing."
Jackie had to laugh. Tom was probably the skinniest man she'd ever known.
Mavis came up to them from the pool, sleek and glistening wetly in her flesh-colored suit.
"You know something, Mom?" Tom said. "You're enough to make me forget my vows."
"What vows?" Mavis said, reaching for a towel.
"Any God damn vows," Tom said.
When they got home from the club, Jackie tried to call Niles at the office, but it was too late; he'd already left for the day. Jackie had just finished showering and dressing when she saw Niles' Mercedes pulling in to the curb in front of the house. She ran downstairs and outside to the car to meet him.
He was carrying a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Jackie took them and pulled the paper away from the tops and smelled them, abstractedly.
"They're beautiful," she said. "Niles?" They were standing on the sidewalk and she made no move to lead him inside.
"What's wrong?"
"I goofed," she said. "When I asked you to come out I forgot I'd invited Mavis Whittaker to spend a few days. Now she's here."
"Mavis?" Niles said. "Here?" She had expected him to be angry, momentarily at least, but he seemed to be vastly amused. She had never seen such an odd grin on his face.
"I invited a neighbor over, so you won't have two girls on your hands."
"I don't mind having two girls on my hands," Niles said, "but I'm all in favor of neighbors, too."
They were moving slowly toward the house.
"Niles? Do you play bridge?"
"Not if I can help it."
"Good. Neither do I."
Mavis was coming down the stairs as they came through the door. Jackie had elected to wear skintight slacks and a blouse as appropriate for outdoor drinking and charcoal cooking. Mavis had chosen to wear a dress-a short, light, simple cotton summer dress that made her look like a teenager. At least she isn't wearing a bow in her hair, Jackie thought. Her skin was dazzlingly white, unaffected by that afternoon's sun, against the bright burnished copper of her hair. She was incredibly lovely, Jackie had to admit, incredibly delicate, like a flower unfolding. Niles was staring at her. The bitch, Jackie thought.
Mavis hesitated at the foot of the stairs, then took three swift steps and put her arms around Niles. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
"It's been such a long time," she said, looking up at him.
"A few short years," he said. "You're lovelier than ever."
Tm going to find a vase for these roses," Jackie said. "And make us a Martini."
"A wonderful piece of thinking," Niles said. "If there's anything I like, it's a bright, practical girl."
"I'll practical-girl him, Jackie thought Both of them. She headed for the kitchen.
When she came back to the living room, carrying a tray with the tall pitcher of Martinis, they were sitting across from each other, not talking. After all those years, Jackie thought they ought to have something to say, instead of just looking at each other. She put the tray down on the coffee table by the couch. When they'd gotten back from the club, she'd put the glasses in the freezing compartment of the refrigerator, and now a frost had formed on the crystal stemware. Jackie thought she had never seen glasses that looked so inviting.
"You pour the Martinis, Niles," she said. "I'm a nervous hostess, and I hate to spill good gin."
Tm willing to bet you never spilled a drop in your life," he said. "But I'll be glad to pour."
He got up and came over to the coffee table and poured the Martinis lovingly, holding the ice back in the pitcher with the long glass stirring rod. He handed a brimful glass to Mavis, without spilling a drop, another to Jackie, and held his own up at eye level, looking at it with genuine affection. "Here's to old times," he said, glancing at Mavis. T don't think I want to drink to that," Jackie said, pretending to smile. To the future, then."
That's better," Jackie said, and took a long sip.