Chapter 4

Nadine arose on Saturday morning reluctantly and, she thought, heroically, considering that she wanted nothing more than a few more hours of sleep.

Over the breakfast table, Paul brightened Nadine's heavy-lidded outlook by acknowledging her sacrifice. "You're a honey, Mom. God, how I hate to eat breakfast alone. I didn't mind fixing it, understand. I just like to have you around."

He kissed her warmly before taking off for the airport. "Back to the sack, witch. Sher and I won't be back for at least two hours. Go on ... you'll fall asleep standing up."

Nadine returned to the comforting warmth of the bed. Sleep eluded her and she toyed with a review of her meeting with Monty Carrell. His effect upon her, she acknowledged placidly, had been devastating. She had been devastated before, certainly, but with the others she had been forced to blind herself to a variety of shortcomings. Roy Stroud had been uncompromising, headstrong and something of a moralist, demanding a clean break, refusing to take the sensible course of having and eating his cake at the same time. Vince was incurably romantic. Not talented, really ... the poetry he wrote for her, seen objectively, was maudlin, trite; an example of revoltingly amateurish prosody. He allowed Gwen to wear the pants in the family. He drank. Drunk, he reduced himself to the most unromantic, crude levels imaginable. And there was something pool-hall-corner-tavernish about his background that clung to him. People might grow wealthy peddling beer or pinball machines, but somehow they couldn't shake off the shoddy aroma. Songwriting dilettante. Vince could afford the Riverdale Country Club, but he'd have blended more gracefully into the Fifty-fifth Street S.A.C., chairman of the St. Patrick's Day Dance, "Count" Kowalski and his Rhythm Counters ... Poor Vince, imagining himself the Misunderstood-Artist-Chained-to-the-Callous-Businesswoman ... oh, and Warren singing a similar tune now, though Warren's only fault was that naivete ... admitting to Nadine that he'd never looked at another woman, apart from the Childhood Sweetheart Mabel! He might have used imagination enough to invent a few affairs to entice her! Good Lutheran stock. Exciting as a bowl of cold noodles. And all that breast-beating about not being able to go on this way! Rather shocking to realize that the Ryners were probably millionaires! But still Little League. No foggy notion of what goes on outside the tiny Riverdale-to-the-Brewery microcosm, Caribbean cruises and European tours notwithstanding.

Still, she was fond of them all, had relished the illusion of being in love with them for brief and limited spans. But there had always been so much about them that it had been necessary to exclude, otherwise the illusion would have been destroyed from the start.

But Monty ... what was it necessary to erase from her picture of him? Nothing she could say would go over his head; he had anticipated her most carefully polished lines. Having admitted a degree of phoniness, she couldn't find fault with him on that score. Rather, he had welcomed her into an exclusive club of one; by confiding and then laughing off his less admirable qualities, he had closed the door to any criticisms she might offer now. Which was clever. And Nadine admired cleverness. Nurtured it in herself, had sought it in others ... and had usually been disappointed. (Paul was intelligent; he was not clever. And Paul was something else again.) Yet how clever Monty would have to be if they were to see each other again! And who could doubt that they would? He would have to do and say what a polished lover had to do and say, without letting Nadine see through the mechanics! And she, too, would be obliged to make him feel important, yet always expendable. She would have to walk a delicate tightrope between practiced allure and casual indifference. And like counter-counter-counter espionage agents, they would develop the most ingenious, most challenging, most subtle of intrigues!

She remembered herself in the stranger's arms. It could be. It could very well be! And a lesser woman would have run from the possibility. That Nadine would not run seemed, at the moment, to be preordained. She could not recall a time in her life when she had run in any direction but forward.

Later that morning there had been two brief visits, one from Warren, who came ostensibly to discuss the revamped Weidberger label (a conscience-clearing maneuver), and one from a curious Leila, who had witnessed Sherry's untimely arrival from her figurative watchtower across the street.

But it was late afternoon now and the Whittens were alone, lolling around the glass-walled living room, Paul attempting to inject some parental dignity into the reunion, Nadine content to study her daughter objectively.

Sherry had stretched herself on the floor, stomach down, her pixie chin propped in her hands. She was slim and a bit gangly, inheriting Paul's height along with his coloring. Something would have to be done about that outdated, chewed-off, Italian-movie star hairdo, and even then, Sherry would retain that paradoxical gawky-gamin appearance. In Nadine's adolescence, Sherry would have been called tomboyish. But to her natural outdoorsy breeziness, Sherry had added the results of a recently blossomed desire for glamour. Too much lipstick. Ye Gods, eyeshadow, too ... and not deftly applied.

Yet Nadine felt no lessening of her own attractions in viewing Sherry's growing maturity. She rather enjoyed telling people that she had a sixteen-year-old daughter. Somehow, even in Sherry's presence, no one quite believed Nadine could be her mother. Yet the tired old "you could pass for sisters" bit was beneath Nadine. They were not close enough for sisters. And, like most considerate strangers, they got along together amicably.

"Wasn't that the end?" Sherry was moaning. "Getting wasted the way I did? That was cold!"

"I'm still not clear on the details," Nadine said. "Did you have a reason for going to Richmond?"

"No. Carolyn and I just got jazzed about the idea one night. You'd have to live in that Mickey Mouse school to know how we felt. And all we did was put on jeans and old sweaters and split down to the railroad yard. And then we hopped this crazy freight car and met this crazy old character. Man, he had a harmonica and he played a lot of rank pop things ... thought he was real cool, I guess."

"A bum?' Paul's face had gone pale. "You didn't tell me...."

"Well, don't sweat it, Daddy. He was older than you are. No sweat at all."

"God."

"But it was funny. He'd finish a number and Carolyn would say, 'How does that grab you, Whitten?' Or I'd say, 'I feature that, don't you, Sankey?' He thought we were wild about him and he kept playing encores. We were gassed!"

"Sherry, did it occur to you that...?" Paul left the implication dangling in mid-air.

"But that's all there was to it," Sherry explained. "Then we got to Richmond and Carolyn knew this boy she said we could count on to drive us back to school. It took us hours to find his house and by that time she had chickened out and said it was too late to call on anybody. So we had to find the bus station and the next bus that got us anywhere near Pine Cove didn't leave until morning."

"You spent the night in a bus station?"

"It could have been the boxcar, Paul," Nadine said consolingly.

"And the heck of it was, we had just enough bread for our ticket, and we were starved. And then we had to walk five or six miles to the school after we got off the bus. So we sneak in the dorm and all hell breaks loose. Tillotson had everybody in a mad uproar. Bla, bla, bla ... I nearly died! She was so positive we'd been out with some horrible boys. That's what you'd expect from an old maid dean ... she couldn't feature anything but you-know-what."

"We don't know what," Paul said irascibly.

"Sure you do. Sex."

"Sherry...."

Nadine shot one of her let-it-go, we'll-talk-about-it-later glances toward Paul.

"I guess you think we were out of our gourds. I mean, it's sort of a burn to get thrown out of school. But you know how it is when you get bugged with an idea."

"I know how it is," Nadine said. "I think we ought to forget it now. Start thinking about next semester."

"I'd like to finish out here. Riverdale High."

Paul seemed relieved. "That might be wise."

"I'll have to get to know some of the kids again." Sherry scrambled up from the floor.

"Mabel's cousin's going to spend the summer here," Paul told her.

"Really, dear?" Nadine hadn't heard. "He's down at Urbana, isn't he?"

"U. of I.?" Sherry's interest flared and then cooled suddenly. "Mrs. Ryner's cousin?"

"He's only about nineteen," Paul said.

"Yes, but he'll probably think he's twenty-five and I'm eight. And if he's anything like Mrs. Ryner, he'll make me think of malt and hops."

Paul got up to throw an affectionate arm around Sherry. "Malt and hops are what keep the wolf from our door, honey."

"I guess. You've done all right for dear old Weidberger, too, haven't you? Carolyn's father owns a department store in Bowling Green. They're lousy with money, but you're tougher stuff in advertising."

"I hope you didn't brag about me."

"I just told the kids you're a genius."

Paul laughed. They were close, those two. Nadine felt warmed by their closeness, completely unresentful and un-possessive, sure of their affection for her, with no need to compete.

"You had me slightly overrated," Paul was telling Sherry. "In fact, until I got the Weidberger account I wasn't even a junior partner. But I've learned a few things along the way."

"Like what?" Sherry wanted to know.

"Oh ... just recently I decided there's only one simple rule for success. Size up the competition-go it one better."

Sherry looked up at her father with amazement. "You just found that out? Oh, man, Mom could have told you that years ago!"

It was after eleven when Nadine walked out of the bathroom, clicked the hall switch and then noticed the pencil-thin shaft of light under Sherry's door.

From her own room came the peaceful rhythmic rumble of Paul asleep and snoring. Nadine moved quietly to the end of the carpeted hallway. Sher had probably conked out with the light on. Pushing the door open cautiously, Nadine was startled to see Sherry sitting up in bed.

"I thought you were asleep almost an hour ago."

"I can't sleep," Sherry said. She looked more like a child in the figured flannel pajamas and her face looked tear-smudged.

"Sher ... you haven't been crying?" Nadine's brow furrowed and she crossed the room to perch at the foot of the bed. '.'We weren't too rough on you about the school thing? I'm sure we weren't."

Sherry shook her head negatively, biting her lower lip. "You didn't say anything." A fresh flood of tears threatened Sherry's cheeks and her voice rose to a strident, accusing pitch. "You didn't seem to care!"

"Darling, of course I cared! I didn't want to rub it in, so...."

"Carolyn's mother was almost hysterical when she found out."

"Would you have liked it better if I'd made a big fuss?"

Sherry looked into the bedspread, embarrassed. Paul had been right. The freight-train episode was less a lark than a bid for attention.

"You know I care what happens to you, goose." Nadine patted what was probably Sherry's calf under the covers. Brightly, she added, "Next time I'll throw a real tizzy."

"There isn't going to be a next time."

"I hope not. It didn't sound too exciting."

"You always manage to make things happen when you're bored," Sherry said. "It turns out all right for you, too. Once in my life I try to be different and all I do is goof."

Nadine felt her body stiffen. "What do you mean ... I make things happen?"

"Oh, you ... whatever you do. Change the house around or get your hair cut. Throw a party. You know what I mean."

Nadine relaxed. "There's no comparison, dear...."

"... or get somebody all worked up over you."

Sherry was looking at her closely now and it was an effort not to react. "I don't understand that last remark!"

"Well, take the way Mr. Ryner feels about you. Did you look at his face today? Man!"

"Sherry, you mustn't let that ... romantic imagination run away with you. I don't think this sort of talk is a bit clever."

"Maybe you don't even know it. But I think it's fabulous.

I mean, I'd give anything to ... have people go ape over me. But I goof up everything. I blab out everything. There's no ... mystery about me or anything."

"At sixteen, I'd hope not."

"You don't know what I mean. You're ... oh, it's like being on a stage all the time. People flip, but you pretend you don't know how they feel...."

"Honey, this is all garbled and ridiculous...."

"No, it's not. I used to watch the kids in drama class. Some of them had it and ... most of us didn't. I guess the ones that had it were ... sort of phonies. But phonies get a bigger charge out of life. Even when they foul up, they're smart enough not to let anybody know it. I try to do something different and ... either I get a loud ha-ha in my face, or I'm in trouble up to here."

"Sherry, we haven't seen each other since Easter vacation. It seems to me you'd have something more decent to say about...."

"You don't understand...."

"You've practically come out and called me a phony."

"See? Now you're doing the injured mother bit ... and it's so real, anybody'd believe it."

"You don't?"

Sherry hesitated, her eyes focused again on the bedclothes. "Don't sweat it, Mother. It's a compliment, sort of. Most of the kids I know think their mothers aren't too sharp. And, anyway, actresses aren't for real, but people flip over them, don't they?"

"I didn't like that reference to Mr. Ryner, Sherry. It wasn't a bit flattering."

"I guess he is kind of a clod. Nice, though."

"That isn't what I meant. He's a close friend and a rather important business associate. I expect you to show some respect for him. And I don't want any more imaginary implications." Nadine spoke with a convincing resentment-outraged decency was a snap. (Distend the nostrils, stare determinedly into space and think outrage.)

"You don't have to tell me you're mad for Daddy, if that's what you mean. Who wouldn't be? But it must be kicks to know that...."

"That's enough on the subject, Sher. Let's get some rest now. And no more moaning because I didn't throw a fit." Nadine rose, moved toward Sherry and kissed her cheek perfunctorily. The gesture seemed wooden and self-conscious; it was the first time Nadine could recall feeling uncomfortable and insincere, as though Sherry's perceptive analysis had unmasked her. It was like stepping onto a stage without costumes or makeup, suddenly knowing the audience was aware that your lines and postures were only theatrical contrivances, that nothing you were doing was genuine. And finding it impossible to persuade that audience or yourself that it was otherwise.

"Good night, dear," Nadine said absently. "It's good to have you home."

"Would have been a lot better two weeks from now."

"No one has to know all the details, Sher. We'll think of some excuse for your not finishing the semester."

Sherry jerked her head upward convulsively. "No, we won't. Maybe you could get away with it, but I couldn't."

Nadine hesitated in the doorway. Her daughter, like Paul, was painfully addicted to that other kind of truth ... the literal, external, openly discernible reality which needed no imaginative embellishment or rationalization. Yet Sherry's bluntness ignited a small flame of resentment. You could get away with a lie because lying is second nature to you. "You want everyone to know Miss Tillotson shipped you home for staying out all night?"

"I told Leila this afternoon. While you were fixing coffee."

"Oh?"

"She was shocked. She said I could have gotten raped. Or murdered."

"And she hugged you, I suppose?"

"Well, you know she would. Leila's awfully affectionate. Oh, and she said it gave her cold chills to think I'd had such a narrow escape." Sherry's eyes, far from tearful, shone now with a deep satisfaction. "Man, she was really shook!"

Strangely, Nadine had never before considered Leila a competitor ... certainly not in this area. Yet, after she had said good night to Sherry once more and left the room, her mouth felt parched by the first, faint taste of personal defeat.

Leila had probably strengthened her hand with Sherry unwittingly. She wasn't clever enough to ... what was it Paul had stated as his formula for success? "Size up the competition and go it one better." But she had given Sherry the reaction the child wanted; Sherry's adventure had not been permissively dismissed, but magnified and dramatized. "You might have been raped ... or murdered!"

And later, lying stiffly beside Paul in her own bed, Nadine wondered if it was only a mild jealousy over Sherry's affections that rankled inside her. But another concern clung like an unwelcome parasite to her thought. Did Leila know too much? Did Sherry sense too much? They might even be drawn together by a common viewpoint!

This was nonsense, yet how else could she account for the unfamiliar queasiness in her stomach, the initial fluttering of a visceral disquiet closely resembling fear?

Nadine burrowed her head deeply into her pillow. What a convenient faculty ... to be able to draw a curtain on the vaguely unpleasant and turn her mind to brighter vistas! She could think about Monty, savoring their conversation, remembering the uncompromising insistence of his physical overture, projecting herself into that not-distant hour when every implanted seed of promise would mature and be harvested.

For there was one more vital truth about herself to be faced. When the intriguing new episode beckoned, the possibility of discovery would not hold her back. She would not consciously risk disrupting the status quo with Paul and with her daughter. She would merely use the most common-sense caution, trust to luck, and plunge forward.

Early in the week, Nadine thought, yawning. Monday or Tuesday. Give Monty time to think about her, but not long enough to forget.