Chapter 3
THE PHONE RANG AT SIX-THIRTY sharp. Helen, standing at the far side of the room, stared at it and shuddered. She knew it was Henry Kohler ringing her, for he always rang at precisely this time of the night-just fifteen minutes after she returned from the office. She started across the room. She must reply, though she dreaded hearing the sound of his voice just now. The dry, monotonous voice, chiding, reprimanding, scolding-trying to make her see the light. It would probably be true, all that he would say, but that would make it no easier to take. She lifted the phone.
He began to scold at once. Why had it taken her so long to answer?-did she suppose he had nothing else to do than stand in a phone booth and listen to the ringing of a phone?-he was a busy man, she knew that. An instant of silence; then, accusingly: "You were out with the boy last night, weren't you?"
"Yes," she admitted in a hushed, choked voice.
"It's insanity, you know-it will lead to no good!"
She admitted that what he said was most likely true, but added: "Yet I must go on seeing him, I can't help myself."
Bitterly he asked, "Did you pay him his weekly stipend?"
She hesitated, blushed to the roots of her hair, but finally said, "I paid him."
"The usual forty, I suppose."
"Yes."
Another instant of silence; then, in a voice that tried for detachment, he remarked. "I had a chat with your boss-Barton Whitmore himself. Ran into him at lunch today. I suppose you know whom our conversation revolved about."
"Me?-you spoke about me?"
"About you, Helen. He told me that he's worried about you-your work has fallen off badly." Henry's voice took a note of supplication. "Take yourself in hand, my dear....Oh, if only you could see as I do, how this past month has changed you! You were a happy thing-gay, carefree, smiling, not a worry in the world: You danced, you laughed, you chatted light-heartedly. Now what's become of you?"
"I'll try-But I can't promise .. ... Yes, goodbye Henry, and thank you for calling....I'm sorry."
She hung up the phone. A month, Henry had said. Was it really that? Had she been seeing Joe Brody as long as that? The calendar verified that the date was the eighteenth of September. It was true then, she had been seeing him a month. And in that time she had fallen madly in love with him. It was not his youth, or his strength, or his looks. These things may have helped, yes-but it was something else-something-she could not describe it precisely-but it had something to do with the way he slept, with his head on her breast. And something else, too. The look she sometimes caught in his eyes, perhaps, when he was off guard, when he did not expect her to be searching his eyes. A look of deep sadness, in which there was a trace of uncertainty and possibly fear. It reminded her of the look you might glimpse in the eyes of a small boy when he at last realizes that he has overstepped the limits of allowable bad behavior and sees the punishment awaiting him. It reminded her of the image of the young Marine with whom even now she found herself identifying him.
She saw him twice a week, on Wendesday and Saturday, and on one of those days, she gave him money. This practice had started at the end of the third date. He had suddenly confided in her, telling her that he was out of work and in desperate need. Pity had welled up in her and she had given him all she had in her purse-forty dollars. He had accepted it humbly and promised to repay it. But since then he seemed to have come to expect forty dollars each week. Now he wanted her to go to Florida with him.
It was just too confusing. She must think it out.
She had no time to think, however, for Sue made her entrance just then, and she hurriedly set about preparing supper. Sue sat at the table, watching her, saying nothing. It made her uneasy. Lately tension had sprung up between them, they who in the past had always been so tender and confiding, had loved and respected each other. Sue was jealous, and it was all so silly really! A nineteen-year-old jealous of her thirty-one year old spinster sister....Yet Joe Brody had preferred the thirty-one year old spinster to the fresh, blossoming girl. Why? He had explained it to her and it had made sense at the time, but now ... Oh God, how confused she was!
They ate in silence, with eyes lowered to the food, but when they were having dessert Sue suddenly set down her spoon and in a voice of reproach de manded:
"You were out late last night. Why?"
She raised her eyes and tried to smile at her younger sister, but her lips trembled. "Wednesday-it was Wednesday," she faltered. "And you know that-"
"That you see him Wednesday"-Sue finished it for her, tauntingly.
"Yes-yes-I see him Wednesdays." She bowed her head, unable to face her sister's accusing eyes. "Oh, Sue-Sue, forgive me! You see, I-"
"Forgive you-I, forgive you!" She leapt to her feet and tears of rage shone in her eyes. "He's making a fool of you-taking money from you-don't you see that! Are you blind? He doesn't prefer you to me, you-you old woman!"
She ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Helen sat at the table, dazed, more confused than ever. If only she could get away, think this out for herself. She remembered again that Joe had been pressing her to run off with him to Florida, and wondered suddenly if this were not the best thing she could do. Pick herself up and leave them-Sue, Henry Kohler, Barton Whitmore-leave them all behind. She would be alone with Joe, and she would have' time to herself, to think it all out. They all of them condemned her, all but Joe. He was young and yet he alone understood her. He alone loved her.
She got to her feet wearily, shuffled across to the door of her bedroom, and pressed on the light. Making her way to the dresser, she leaned on it and looked into the glass. A plain little face, pale, oval-shaped, with shadows under the eyes, looked back at her. A thirty-one year old spinster's face. Could a nineteen year old boy, strong, handsome, possibly love her?
She began to wonder about Joe also. There was evil in him. The cruel curve of his lips, the way his eyes seemed to laugh at her sometimes, the nonchalant way he took money from her and pocketed it, as if he had earned it and it was his. She had confided in him that she had thirty thousand dollars in the bank. Knowing of that money, might he not have an ulterior motive in wishing to have her go to Florida with him? Might he not, as Henry Kohler had so ruefully warned her, be seeking to get his hands on her money and run off? What if these were his intentions? Oh God, she was confused-utterly and completely confused!
She cut short this line of thought. No, Joe Brody wouldn't do that to her; he couldn't. He loved her. He had said so, and had spoken so earnestly, with-for his age-such deep and tender feeling. But even if these were his intentions, she still didn't cure. It didn't matter; nothing mattered. Only that he was hers for the present, and that she loved him, adored him, worshiped him. He was everything to her-everything. He was both her son and her lover.
A week and half later the three of them-Henry Kohler, Joe Brody, and herself-sat together in a Madison Avenue restaurant. They had been to the theater together, and had dined, now were sipping coffee and puffing cigarettes. She smoked only on very special occasions, and this to her mind was one. The trio on a date had been her idea. The men had been against it, but she kept at them and finally they had given in.
Things had come off fairly well, better perhaps than she had expected. How debonair, how worldly beyond his years, her darling had looked in the dark blue suit and contrasting white shirt that she had bought him. (After finally agreeing to the date he had confessed rather shamefacedly that he had no clothes for the occasion.) The men had shaken hands and looked each other squarely in the face, and when Henry had winced first and lowered his gaze, she had been secretly delighted. Oh how decent and honest Joe looked tonight; not like a hunting animal prowling the night, but like a man, an ordinary young man. Her man!-the thought of it made her pulses race.
At the start the men had tried to be pleasant, had even tried to carry on a conversation of sorts. But after a while they had given up the attempt and both of them remained silent. Joe looked at Henry with open disdain, as if his homeliness and age put him in another category. Henry when he glanced at Joe, had done so slyly and-so she thought-with disguised hatred. She believed that Henry feared Joe, was actually physically afraid of him, and that this prevented him from coming out with what was on his mind. On the other hand, Joe's silence was not restraint, it was part of him. He was silent by nature, only in rare moments came out with what was on his mind.
Henry set down his cup, and looking to her asked, "Shall we leave? It's rather late."
He paid the check; on his own insistence, it was he who was standing treat tonight.
When they emerged from the restaurant, Henry hailed a cab. Tliey got in and he told the driver to take them to Brooklyn. The silence became irksome. The squeaking and rattling of the cab got on her nerves. She started a conversation, as she had been starting them all evening, but like previous attempts this one came to naught.
She glanced towards Henry, and feeling a pang of pity, moved closer to him. He drew away abruptly, and the quick movement caused his glasses to slip from his nose and fall to the floor of the cab. He bent to retrieve them, and as he did she looked down at the bald spot in back of his head. The pity rose in her, choking her, bringing tears to her eyes. How abject in defeat was this once proud and supercilious man. Had he loved her as much as all that? Could any man possibly love her that much?
How sorry she was for Henry at that moment! Yet, at the same time, she was more certain than ever that she was done with him.
Yes, she would run off with Joe to Florida, leaving everything and everyone behind-her career, her home, Henry, Sue, Barton Whitmore! She would run of! at once, the moment he was ready to go. Nothing, no one mattered to her now. She loved him, she was his slave.
...."Where have I seen him before?" Joe was drinking. And then he found himself thinking of the homosexuals he had picked up on the Coney Island boardwalk....There was a resemblance, no, it couldn't be ... but there was a resemblance....