Chapter 5

On Tuesday, with a dreary rain thumping against the sidewalk outside, Nadine had lunch with Paul in a French arcade restaurant conveniently close to his office.

Her plan to drive him downtown, meet him for lunch, and spend the hours before-and-after shopping, had been announced abruptly on Monday evening. (Abruptly, but a discreet hour after Sherry had made telephone arrangements to spend Tuesday visiting Riverdale High with Fran Lindholm, a former grade-school chum.)

During coffee, Paul lit a cigarette. "What'd you shop for this morning?"

"Oh ... the gourmet shop at Field's had pomegranate juice. I had them send out a case."

Paul nodded sagely. "We needed that badly."

"And I got a chi-chi bathing suit for Sher at Carson's. Oh, and a book about mushrooms for the cleaning woman's husband. Mr. Sefcik is a bug on mushrooms."

"That's all?"

Nadine considered her purchases for a moment and laughed. "Oh, there's one more thing. I have to pick up something for Gwen Allegretti's birthday."

"When's that?"

"August. It takes time to find something she'll like. But I'm not going back to the Loop. I think I'll comb Michigan Avenue until you punch out."

"Saks rears its ugly head." Paul drained his coffee cup. "You're a child. Once you get a bug in your ear about doing something...." He reached over to pat Nadine's hand lightly. "Don't grow up, Nadine. Keep driving forty miles through downpours to buy pomegranate juice ... and textbooks for the maid's old man. As long as you're a child, you'll need me around."

Paul's compliments were pleasant, but Nadine listened vaguely, wondering how much time Monty Carrell spent in the agency's art department and why he hadn't phoned her ... and why she had really expected to see him today, knowing he free-lanced, and what the next move would be if he didn't happen to be around the agency.

"I'm not rushing you, Mom, but Oliver thinks there's an Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not begin a one-thirty meeting at one-thirty-five."

"I'll run up to the office with you," Nadine said casually.

"Oh? Fine."

"I haven't stopped in to say hello in ages. It's all right with you, isn't it, Paul?"

"Sure. Matter of fact, the girls in copy asked about you this morning. What's her name ... Dorothy ... and Miss Levitt."

"I'll make it a quick goodwill tour."

"Good to see you that interested." Paul flashed his quick smile. "Get over to art and production, too, honey. Old Man Pritchard gets a big charge out of you."

"Oh, really? I'm glad you reminded me," Nadine said. Pritchard was the agency's production chief, she recalled.. Fat, nearing retirement, and given to leaving traces of rubber cement when he pinched your cheek. "I hadn't planned on the art room, but guess I can't leave without dropping in on old Pritch, can I?"

Fortunately, Paul's partners were locked with him behind one of the doors in the executive suite. Instead she had devoted five full minutes to a Dorothy Somebody in Copy. She had waved at somebody else in Media and passed Mr. Oliver's office, noting the framed sign above his desk: "I've never met a man I didn't like," and thinking that was going a little too far. Then, after a brief stop in the ladies' room to repair the rain damage, she had swept into the art department, only to discover that Monty Carrell never came near the place! He had occasional meetings with Paul and the art director, but he insisted that the actual production be handled by remote control.

It was simple enough to pry this information from Old Man Pritchard. "I hear you're going in for curvaceous cuties," Nadine told him.

The old boy, harried and messy, sat w-edged behind a littered table of layouts, proofs and the inevitable pot of rubber cement. "Yes, yes," he said in a remarkably high-pitched voice. "Oliver, Lindsay and Whitten going in for jail-bait posters. Never thought I'd live to see the day."

"Easy with the criticism, Pritch. It was my husband's idea, you know."

"Liable to get myself fired, eh? Don't get me wrong, Mrs. Whitten. I still get a rise out of pretty girls." He held up a square of art board, lifted the protective flap, and wagged his head at an illustrated doll. Half-reclining, she smiled at Nadine and toasted the world with a tall, foam-topped glass of amber brew. Under the dark, sheer harem trousers, her legs looked lusciously three-dimensional; her breasts jutted forward with an arrogance that seemed to add a fourth dimension.

"Makes you want to run out and swig beer 'til you're unconscious, hey?" Old Man Pritchard patted the Weidberger Girl's fanny carefully with a plump forefinger. Then he returned her to an artwork rack beside his desk, still addressing her lovingly, "Your daddy's a pain in the tail, sweetheart, but you I like!"

"Don't you get along with Mr. Carrell?" Nadine asked, smiling.

"In this department, you're supposed to genuflect when you mention that sacred name. The day I see an illustrator send back a layout ... he doesn't like it! Nothing like deadlines to think about. No, sir! Engravers like to work all night! And to make things a little more interesting, God sends the rain, so I can't even find a messenger boy to take the damned revision to his studio!"

Pritchard grabbed the phone at his elbow and squeaked, "Did you get a boy to take that envelope to Carrell yet?" He listened for an instant and then his flabby face quivered with frustration. "What do those bastards do ... hide in a movie house when it rains? It's not going all the way to Cicero, Margaret! Just over to Rush Street...."

"Could I take it over for you?" Nadine asked, all concern.

Pritchard slammed the phone down. "He's a spoiled prima donna now. What'll he be like once the bosses' wives start running his errands?"

"But it wouldn't be any trouble. I was going to the Near North Side anyway. If you're really in a hurry to get your layout to Mr. Carrell...."

Pritchard blotted his forehead with a rumpled handkerchief. "Well ... if he gets it before three o'clock, the Lord might get the job back here before Resurrection Day." He looked at Nadine dubiously. "You're sure you won't be going out of your way?"

"Not at all!"

Hesitantly, Pritchard added, "It's raining...."

Nadine got up from her chair opposite the big production table. "I always feel cozy when it rains, don't you?"

"I meant ... Mr. Whitten won't like me using you for a delivery boy."

Nadine reached over to pull a switch on the normal procedure. She pinched Old Man Pritchard's fleshy cheek. "If that's the case, we won't tell him." She smiled. "Is it at the switchboard? ... The layout?"

Pritchard nodded. "Ask Margaret for the manila envelope with Carrell's name on it." Nadine was at the door. "And, say ... thanks a lot!"

"Thank you," Nadine said.

Old Man Pritchard looked up quizzically. Then he shrugged his pulpy shoulders and busied himself with a sheaf of type proofs. Nadine hurried out of the room.

Lovely, lovely, lovely....

Monty Carrell's studio was on the second floor of an old brownstone three-story along what nostalgic Chicagoans poetically call "The Gold Coast." The building's austere facade was forgotten once Nadine mounted the stairway. Plush grey carpeting, a banister of thick, fuchsia-colored silken cord, and a gold and chalk-white wallpaper mural had probably shot the rent to an astronomical figure.

There was only one door on the second-floor landing. It was lacquered black and hung with a polished brass Oriental letter that served as a knocker. Nadine lifted the Chinese arrangement and let it drop. The result was a flat, hollow, unmetallic sound, as if someone had set a frying pan on a table. When Monty opened the door a few seconds later, she smiled her approval of the quick results and said, "It's useful as well as Oriental."

Monty was faithful to an urban sophistication that precluded looking surprised. His eyes, reflecting a cool, pleasurable recognition, moved slowly from Nadine's face, to the doorknocker, to the large manila envelope in her hand. "I don't usually invite the messengers in, but I'll be glad to make an exception in your case."

Nadine paused. "Not if you're working. I happened to be...."

"You happened to be in the neighborhood and you're doing that corpulent gargoyle, Pritchard, a favor."

Before his astute analysis could irritate or embarrass her, Monty took Nadine's arm, ushering her into the apartment and glancing with amusement at the black continental dressing gown in which he was robed. "These aren't my working clothes, so you know I'm not merely being polite. I actually wasn't working."

He led her into a spacious, barely furnished room. A bright red couch and suspended bookshelves occupied one wall, a bank of windows the northern end of the studio. There was a portable bar, in contemporary design, separating a compact kitchen from this area, and a closed door led, presumably, to the bedroom and bath.

In spite of the lack of furnishings, the room did not give the impression that its occupant was impoverished. It was kept simple and uncarpeted for functional reasons; an easel, a small cabinet of paints, and an oxygen cylinder intended for airbrush operation dominated the center of the parquet floor.

"To tell the truth," Monty said, moving away from Nadine and toward the kitchen, "you caught me in the act of brewing my favorite damp-weather drink." He had taken the envelope from her and dropped it now, unopened, on the paint cabinet

"Boiled Weidberger?" Nadine started to examine Monty's library.

He laughed. "Don't report me, dear, but I can't bear the stuff, boiled, sauted, on the rocks or en casserole. Matter of fact, the thought of beer sends cold chills down my spine."

He proceeded to spoon a variety of ingredients into two pottery mugs on the bar. Why had there been two, Nadine wondered? Or had he just placed them there now?

"Wait'll you sample this." Monty filled a jigger from a bottle, the label of which Nadine could not identify at that distance. "All that's missing is a violent snowstorm, skis and a hunting lodge fireplace."

"I'll take off my parka and unbridle the huskies." Nadine slipped out of her coat and draped it over the red couch.

While Monty filled the mugs from a steaming teakettle, Nadine scanned the titles in his bookshelf. His tastes ran to French existentialist novels and avant-garde poets and playwrights. A few art books indicated his preference for the more revolutionary moderns.

"You're taking unfair advantage," Monty cautioned from the kitchen. "Books are a dead giveaway."

Monty rummaged impatiently through what appeared to be a spice shelf. "Damn it! Don't tell me I don't ... no, here it is ... nutmeg. Come over and join the people."

Nadine walked over to perch on a wrought-iron barstool. The hot drinks, frothy and in the process of being garnished with nutmeg, sent up a sensuous, spicy aroma. Monty came around to her side of the bar and settled himself on another stool beside her.

"So you've psyched me out. Now see if you can analyze my private recipe." He lifted one of the mugs and raised it in a toast. "To Oliver, Lindsay and Whitten, Incorporated. And to their excellent taste in messengers."

"Cheers!" Nadine tasted her drink cautiously, Monty watching closely for her reaction.

"Nice?" he asked.

Nadine concentrated on the flavor. "Three guesses, what is it?"

"Something I learned in a London pub. What do you think?"

"I think it's a bastard Tom and Jerry." Monty was amused. "That's close. Damned close. Now see how well you've done figuring me from my reading matter."

"I know one thing. You can't bear an author if he isn't obscure."

"Bravo!"

"You're something of an intellectual snob." Monty seemed perversely delighted.

"And I wouldn't know that if I didn't like exactly the same dish of tea, so that makes two of us."

"Nadine, you're a challenge. By God, upstairs and downstairs, you're a challenge!" The barstools remained stationary, but she felt an illusion of Monty moving closer to her.

She sipped from the mug more confidently now, letting the Christmasy concoction warm her insides, hearing the increased tempo of the rain against the wide window on the opposite end of the room. A few moments ago, when he had called her "dear," she had been seized by a disturbing unsureness, thinking he had forgotten her name. It wasn't a common, easily remembered name, but men invariably remembered it. Now, hearing Monty call her "Nadine," she felt a resurgence of the more familiar glow.

Sometime during this silent reflection, she became palpably conscious of his gaze. This was the moment in which she would choose to be impersonal and noncommital, letting him know that the incident at Ryners' was nothing more than a casual party frolic, or extend the challenge to which Monty had referred.

She turned her head, meeting his gaze squarely. Neither of them were smiling or flippant now, burrowing into each others' secret worlds with their eyes. Something in the pit of Nadine's stomach fluttered uneasily ... a sensation of doves shaking their feathers through her body ... flapping wings inside her head. It was an effort not to let him stare her down. Both of them invincible, they might have continued the stubborn, intimate deadlock indefinitely. Except for the opening of Monty's bedroom door.

It was also an effort for Nadine to show no reaction. Because the party of the third part who came briskly into the studio bore a striking resemblance to the harem-trousered Weidberger Girl Nadine had seen pictured on the artboard at the agency. Except that the pretty brunette was outfitted now in a comparatively prim powder-blue suit, a sport coat thrown over her shoulders, and except that, for all the voluptuousness of her body, her face branded her as freshly wholesome and twenty-twoish.

"I have to get home, Monty," the girl said before she noticed Nadine. Then she looked faintly embarrassed, faintly distant, and, finally, unmistakably resentful.

"So you do," Monty said cheerfully. He waved the mug in introduction. "Mrs. Whitten, Ann Helsley."

"How do you do?" Ann said stiffly.

"Hello, Ann."

"Mrs. Whitten's from Lindsay, Oliver and Whitten," Monty explained. "She brought up a revision of that layout I was discussing."

"Oh ... the one you said was too busy? Not enough white space?"

"That's right, dear." Monty spoke to her indulgently, as though she had just been a bright little girl and deserved a gold star.

Ann was too attractive to look awkward, but she managed to do it anyway, standing near the bar, smiling weakly, pretending not to be inspecting Nadine and probably pondering an appropriate exit line. Nadine felt sorry for her and was relieved when Monty got down from his barstool, took Ann's elbow and graciously guided her toward the door. "I'm sorry you have to run, Annie. Keep in touch."

Ann leaned to mutter something into his ear and Monty returned an adoring smile. She appeared to be more at ease when she turned from the open door and smiled shyly at Nadine. "It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Whitten."

"You, too, Ann."

There were a few more hushed confidences at the door and then Ann Helsley was gone.

Monty headed for the red couch, the thick cup still in his hand. He drew a resigned breath. "Do you know, I completely forgot she was still here! Those barstools are murder. Bring your drink over here where we can be more comfortable."

Nadine joined him and they sat a few feet apart, not discreetly, but because both had a healthy contempt for the obvious.

"She's a lovely girl. Not the sort you'd expect to mislay around the house and forget." Monty sighed.

"In love with you, of course."

"Suffocatingly."

"I was glad you presented me as a business associate. She seemed relieved."

Monty laughed shortly. "I could hardly introduce you as a new mistress."

"An old friend?" Nadine suggested.

"I couldn't have gotten away with it. You don't look like anybody's old friend. But you know what I mean about these carried-away romantics. They get tacky after awhile. I don't have the heart to tell them...."

"No, it's always difficult," Nadine agreed. "And, then, why should you? You never know when you might want to see them again." She finished the mellowing drink and set the mug on an end table. "I'd worry about cutting someone off."

"Afraid they might do something desperate? Oh, they never do," Monty said wisely. "You always think they're going to enter a monastery in Tibet or swallow cyanide tablets. But usually ... I'm speaking only of the women, of course ... usually they move in with a married sister who lives in Win-netka. Or they cash in their government bonds and open a health food store in a poor location." Monty eyed Nadine's empty cup. "Fix us another?"

"No, thank you. I'm driving."

"Not yet. Here, let me...."

"No, really, Monty. One's plenty."

"You don't drink, don't smoke. It frightens me. You swear, I hope?"

"Like a stevedore."

"Good. Then there's hope for you." Monty lighted a cigarette, talking between the initial puffs. "But, you know ... I can't imagine finding you disappointing in any way. And forgive me if this sounds smug, but I like to think of myself as a connoisseur."

"You know the best vintages, the best vineyards?"

"Yes, but when you scratch the surface, people rarely reflect the character of the place that spawns them. I've known socialites from Bar Harbor to Grosse Isle to the Balboa Bay Club. You'd expect them to be at least a trifle swank in the feathers. But if I'm looking for a vulgar evening, the possibilities are infinitely greater with a bored debutante ... or her mother, for that matter, than with a headliner from the Zam-Zam Club."

"How do you account for it?" Nadine asked across the room.

"Oh ... a woman is rarely interesting in bed unless-unless she's trying to prove she has many facets. The Zam-Zam girl tries to convince you she's a lady. Elegant women, matrons, especially, are usually dying to be recognized as good lovers."

"Good God, but you're clinical."

"It pays to be. I've exploited that particular conceit with the most gratifying results." Monty smiled at her engagingly as he got up to refill her drink.

"How many times have you given that lecture? You've got it down so pat, I suspect you've worked the Women's Club circuit."

Monty got their drinks to a table. His hands free, he leaned over to cup her face, lifting it to meet his. "What am I going to do with you? I've run the gamut of approaches and now all I have left is...."

"Boyish confusion?" Nadine said tauntingly.

"Well, hardly!" Monty pressed his mouth against hers. He kissed her once and repeated the word...."Hardly," easing himself downward to the couch until his body was separated from Nadine's by a few magnetized inches. "Somehow you don't bring out the little boy in me."

Considering Nadine's many and varied extracurricular activities, it would have been difficult to convince a casual observer that the purely physical aspects were not especially important to her. Until now, she thought. Breathing unevenly at the withheld nearness of Monty's flesh ... the black robe carelessly tied ... aromatic heat of the first drink making the second one superfluous. Then, too, the knowledge that this was no easily overwhelmed suburban husband. A connoisseur. A thoroughly grounded expert. Obviously attracted to her....

There was only the slightest sinewy moment between Nadine's thought and the moment in which he had slid to the couch, locking her in a purposeful, intense embrace. Then the discovery ... the more abandoned her response to his kisses, the less self-conscious her abandon became. Until, under the exploratory travel of Monty's hands, she experienced a surge of genuine, bona-fide, gold-plated and irrefutable passion, a desire far exceeding her histrionic talents. Supple and malleable in his arms, Nadine forgot to play the actress and the director, becoming a tingling mass of woman-about-to-be-made-love-to.

Except that when Monty's superbly demonstrated art had fanned her to a febrile state, he suddenly lay his head in Nadine's lap, as though succumbing to a mutual lassitude, snuggling his face indolently against the flatness of her belly. "We're a pair, you and I."

She traced the strongly defined outline of Monty's lips and his chin with her fingers, his hand reaching up to press her open palm against his mouth. One thing was certain. He wasn't predictable. She could have sworn they'd....

"When will you have time?" Monty asked. His eyes closed, he seemed to be allowing the momentary sensations to consume him.

"Time?"

"Lovemakimg is like ... breakfast. Some people never appreciate the difference between strawberries out of season and eggs with truffles, in bed ... and coffee and a Danish at Walgreen's counter. I know the difference. When the dish is exquisite, you don't gulp. You ... savor slowly." Monty opened his eyes, looking directly up at her. "Don't tell me I'm presumptuous ... you said that last time."

"What do you mean by ... time?"

"Nobody breathing down our necks. I suppose you'll be going home with your husband?"

"Yes. I'm picking him up at five."

"Of course. He started at nine. But we didn't. Will you call me when you've got a whole day?"

"I don't ... "

"Yes, I know. You're accustomed to being called. But it's much more practical for you to phone me." Nadine hesitated. "All right."

"Please sound more enthusiastic, darling. I really want you to." He had dropped the facetious, airy tone and sounded contrastingly solemn. The depth of his passion reflected itself in his eyes. She felt, once again, the involuntary tremor inside, in the regions where love registers itself biologically and without asking permission.

Later, when he kissed her goodbye at the door, he had still not resumed the crisp, independent attitude she had identified with him earlier. Without sounding maudlin, he held her close and murmured a few soulful phrases into her ear. "Call me tomorrow?" he said huskily.

"Yes."

"Lover ... I can't believe you've happened to me." (There wasn't a man on earth who could have said that insincerely with so much conviction!) For real, Nadine thought. This is for real and it goes for both of us.

Nadine didn't remember going down the stairs. Sometime between then and the time when Paul met her in the parking lot off Michigan Avenue, she recalled a snatch of melody....

"It's almost like being in love."

And sometime, in the interim, she had miraculously found a place to park the Chrysler and had rushed into Saks and hurriedly purchased the first item that caught her eye; an intricately beaded, pale blue evening bag that Gwen Allegretti could wear to the annual Coin Machine Manufacturers' Banquet next fall. (Vince would like it. Vince admired her taste.)

Rain came down in a vengeful torrent as she drove home with Paul.

He had taken the wheel. Peering through the drenched windshield, he said, "Just think, I could be reading my paper on the good old C.B. and Q. right now. I hope whatever you accomplished was worth it."

"It was worth it," Nadine assured him.

"Driving these damn throughways leaves me jumpy. Fix me a nice, relaxing drink when we get home?"

"Sure, honey." She sighed contentedly. "Something hot and spicy?"