Chapter 9
"It looks as if we've both been stood up," suggested Larry, smiling at her.
"No Margo?" Sophia slipped into her orange topper, pretending not to notice his smile. The other day someone in the troupe said, it was a rare occasion when Larry Barker broke that marble face and looked pleasant.
Maybe tonight, she thought warily, was a rare occasion in more ways than one.
"No Margo," he repeated, nodding. "She sent word just a few minutes ago that an interviewer from one of the plush magazines called to interview her; she'd forgotten the appointment entirely. So that leaves Old Man Barker on his own. What's your excuse?"
"I've no excuse. Old Lady Holland's been a man-less woman for days now."
"Well, that should be remedied; for the evening at least. Have you had dinner yet?"
"No. I'm on my way now. I have a reservation for a table at Bickford's Cafeteria. I'm famished."
"A cafeteria? Guhh-hh!" He was already leading her to the door. "Why is that? To save your bankroll, or are you just queer for cafeterias?"
"You guess," Sophia bantered, producing her sauciest grin. Larry's hand on the sleeve of her coat was instantly thrilling, evoking a sensation she sought to restrain. There would be nothing wrong in their eating together (although he still hadn't formally invited her), but he was her sister's man; without the remotest threat, Margo had told her that again and again.
"I never guess anything on an empty stomach." The door pushed back and they were out of the building. The night air braced them both, after a full day of working through stale cigarette smoke and stifling quarters. "How about a real feed bag, Sophia? Briani's isn't too far away."
She caught herself in time from crying out. Briani's was a fancy New York landmark, known even back in Willetsville. It was on a chi-chi dining par with TwentyOne, The Stork Club and The Sert Room.
"Well...."
"There's a cab. Yes? No?"
"I don't-want anything to get complicated, Larry," she said quietly.
He frowned at her. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning Margo."
"Mar-Have you flipped your wig?"
He didn't wait for an answer or even a reaction. Gruffly he held her arm a little more tightly and guided her to the waiting taxi. Opening the door he snapped, "In. And no yelps of terror about being abducted."
"Yes, sir."
The rear seat was wide but he sat extremely close to her. He called, "Briani's," to the driver and then settled back. Once the meter started to tick and the motor was gunned, Larry looked at her with a reproduction of the inexplicable intimacy he had shown during the performance, the same intimacy that confused her.
"Do you know why you're either going to tear your beautiful hair or leap out of the cab?" he asked.
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to say something I'm sure you hear eight hundred and seventy-seven times a day."
"Well, let's see what that could be. Four hundred times a day Rubirosa phones me and proposes. Four hundred and two times a day Elton John asks to take me to his ranch...."
"No, it's just this: you and Margo are completely different types of girls."
"Umm."
"See? I should've warned you I don't scintillate as a fresh conversationalist."
"We aren't alike, that's true. Nobody seems to know why. We had the same parents, the same background. The difference began, I guess, when Margo decided to leave home. She's had several more years of exposure to civilization."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"No?"
"Don't let me start you dragging out the old family album. I simply wanted to make an observation." He paused, regarded her and then declared, "You're a lovely girl, Sophia."
Embarrassed about being embarrassed, she murmured, "Thank you."
"And you have a raft of talent. You keep plugging and you'll go places."
"I have talent?" She laughed, stunned. "But from all I could decipher since I met you, I was sure you thought I had two left feet."
"Where'd you get that brainstorm?"
"Come now, Mr. Barker. The time I missed a step, for instance, at final rehearsal. You shot me a glance that made me cringe. I was convinced you were going to tell the prop boy to have me taken out to be tarred and feathered."
"Nonsense." Larry laughed and rested his strong hand over hers. "If I'm ever sweetness and light to a performer, it's because there's no hope for her and she's on her way out. I assumed you understood elemental psychology."
He was no longer the stern, slave-driving, single-minded Larry Barker, television director. He was a man-a human being, of all things-and in his only vaguely guarded, defensive way, he was silently insisting that this taxi ride carried more than an employer who was being appropriately polite to one of his employees.
And Sophia still was not certain of how to respond.
"Here ya' go," called the driver, pulling up to the restaurant and stopping the meter clock.
"Ready to tear into a steak?" Larry asked.
"Just point me to it!"
Larry slid out and once more took her hand. The pressure was held just a trace longer than seemed necessary.
Briani's, like many of the elite dining places in Manhattan, was not particularly impressive from the outside, but once inside, all splendor came alive. The host, the headwaiters, the waiters, even the busboys were dressed and moved as though they were entertaining royalty. The murals on the walls, the soft lighting, the red sashes, the deep carpets-everything was designed to give an atmosphere of luxury.
"A toast," Larry said, touching his highball glass to hers, "to you, Sophia. May the most you hope for be the least you get."
"Thank you, Larry."
Gradually, as she sipped from her glass, as she listened to him talk the proper inconsequential and watched him watching her, she was conscious of how she was dressed. Her simple blue sheath was out of place amidst the galaxy of glamorously bedecked women.
But in a short time her nagging feelings of inadequacy left her. Larry's consideration and concentration on her were complete. He was accepting her. Yes, his eyes roved over her body now and then, and it was clear he appreciated her as no man ever had. He was approving of the Sophia Holland she wanted to be.
The dinner he ordered was delicious. The talk (very directedly shop-talk) was stimulating. Only over coffee, when no more trivia was possible did Sophia know that she had to broach the subject of Margo.
"Why is Margo so important, Sophia?" he inquired, lighting her cigarette.
"Margo concerns me, Larry. She's awfully hard to get to, so hard to know. I wouldn't want to hurt her."
"How could you hurt her?"
"Maybe with a meaningless thing like having dinner with the man she loves." Larry paused. "Is it meaningless to you?"
"Don't ask a question like that."
"All right. Then let's say it is meaningless. So what's wrong with two hungry members of a hard-working television show having dinner together?"
"Because you belong to Margo."
"Does Margo say that?"
"Yes."
"Have I been asked if Margo belongs to me?"
"That isn't the point."
"It is, Sophia. Margo's a remarkable girl and a wonderful girl, but we certainly don't belong to one another."
"Larry, please try to understand. Margo's taken me into her home. Forget the fact that we're sisters; Margo and I weren't especially close even back in Willetsville. But she's given me every possible indication that there's nothing she wouldn't do for me. She helped me get my job; she gave me money, clothes; she expects nothing in return."
"But you still haven't answered me. We're two pleasant people having dinner together. If it's meaningless to you, then why are you upset?"
"I'm not upset. But I don't want her to ever ... distrust either of us."
As she talked, Sophia was convinced she was making a mess of it. She meant everything she said, but each word somehow spelled out that their very being together was a testament of their involvement with each other. She was involved with Larry Barker. If he was at all interested in her, he had offered no irrefutable sign of it.
But the mess remained. I must either stop talking altogether, she thought, or tell him outright just how much I care for him....
Larry helped.
"Do you feel what I feel, Sophia?" His hand was on hers. "Larry...."
"I was drawn to you the first day I saw you at the apartment. I yelled and growled and made like an unobserving punk in the studio. But the more I yelled the more I wanted you." He waited only a beat. His eyes were insistent. "Did I read wrong, Sophia, or did you want me from the beginning?"
"No," she whispered, but she could no longer look at him.
"And now? What about now?"
"I don't know," she whispered, gazing at, the table. "I mustn't ... we mustn't think of it."
"Finished your coffee?"
"Why?"
"So we can get out of here and walk."
"... It's late, Larry. I should be getting home."
"Do you really mean that?"
She wished all the suave replies wouldn't get so cluttered in her head.
Finally she said simply, "No. No, I don't."
"Then I'll get the check."
Maybe it was strategy on his part, Sophia thought as they walked in the direction of Third Avenue: his technique of saying no more about his feelings than was absolutely necessary. There was something of the attorney about him. He had a way of observing her, of softly asking personal questions and softly demanding answers-and getting them. But there was no yardstick by which to measure his own true emotions.
"What about you, Larry?" asked Sophia, subtly anticipating the possibility of his questioning her more. "Have you always been a director-all your life and for twenty-four hours a day? Or are there other vital statistics about this man who stomps like a gargoyle and bullies us poor folk?"
"Statistics ... well, let's see. I'm thirt-yone years old, born in West Virginia, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, had twenty-eight months in the Navy. Married for three years, divorced two and a half years ago."
"Oh?"
Larry became a bit pensive. "And that's that."
"Would you tell me about her?"
"Not just yet, Sophia. I keep telling myself the scars have healed completely, but it's still a fairly delicate issue. Okay with you?"
"Sure."
Immersed in the nearness of him, Sophia lost track of time and place. She was wakened by his pointing to a cellar club and saying, "Do you like good, unrefined jazz? I usually drop by here for a drink on my way home. It's nothing ornate, but it's kind of fun."
Sophia agreed. She knew she would probably agree to anything he suggested tonight. And the realization didn't stun her.
They approached the club, a four-steps down dark room with the legend Scrubby's printed over the door. To the side was a dimly lighted yet garish photograph of a not-quite-nude Amazon, her fingers daintily covering the tips of her mammoth breasts. The sign beneath the picture read:
Exotic, provocative CYNTHIA LASTARR 3 Shows Nitely
Larry opened the door for her and they walked in, in the middle of an earsplitting hot session coming from up front. It was a wholly different atmosphere from Briani's and it was hardly a place for relaxation, but it gave off a quality of hectic life that excited Sophia.
Scrubby's was crowded. All the tables were occupied, and patrons appeared to be two-deep at the bar. Several people called, "Hello Larry," and, "How's it going, Larry?" as he guided her to the bar, and he waved his greetings back. Even the oily haired drummer up on the stand lifted one of his sticks to welcome the director.
The music was deafening but creative. Sophia felt an animal tension flying through the room. Several of the youngsters at the tables were keeping time to the off-beat music by swaying back and forth in their seats, and by patting their palms like drum brushes on the tables. At the bar a few over-painted, daringly gowned women were conning their escorts, kissing their men, talking low. Sophia couldn't help dredging up a picture in her mind of Willetsville. There was about as much chance of a spontaneous place like Scrubby's setting up business there as there was for the moon to fall.
Larry managed to wriggle himself and Sophia to the counter.
"Scotch and soda?"
She nodded.
He ordered two by raising two fingers. The bartender, who evidently knew him, nodded. The combo on the stand had reached a crescendo and the music was a tangible thing firing through the club. Sophia felt Larry's fingers move over her back, then clench her arm. When she looked up at him, he grinned at her.
"Cool?" he kidded.
"Real cool!" she asserted and, tingling, turned again to face the bandstand.
There was no actual way of knowing when one improvisation from the combo ended and another began. It didn't matter. Nothing really mattered except that, through the blue ribbons of smoke, and the wafting smell of cheap but potent perfume and the welter of lusty activity, Sophia was enthused. She had youth and beauty. And, for now at least, she had Larry Barker.
By the time they'd started on their second drink, the noise had lessened somewhat, although the band was still at work. The familiar strains of How Deep Is the Hurt? was being played, with attention paid to a melodic line. Sophia managed to forget there was something forbidden in being with him.
"It's a little out of character, you know," she remarked, folding her hands daintily. "You're such a rigid task-master at work-no deviations allowed."
"That's the Dr. Jekyll part of my personality." He toasted his glass to hers. "Meet Mr. Hyde."
Her second Scotch had its seductive effect; there was a tingling under her skin and a heightening of wanting to break through the barriers of formality, so that she could be kissed by him.
The self-realization wasn't shocking to Sophia. She had wanted his lips for a long time.
She was about to banteringly ask him, to offset the urge to make her feelings for him known, whether he and Margo had ever been here. But she was interrupted by an elaborate rumbling at the drums, which evidently was to introduce the floor show.
The bandleader bawled into the microphone, 'Tnnerdoocing th' one an' only Cynthia La Starr!"
Above a mingled applause, Larry murmured, "I'd forgotten this was coming on now. Would you rather go? This'll be pretty rough."
Sophia shook her head. Larry shrugged, as if it didn't matter one way or the other to him, but she could tell he was humorously grateful for the reprieve.
All the lights went out for one startling moment as a sensuous, bawdy melody sounded from the saxophone. A spotlight, directed to the bandstand, hit squarely on a naked thigh. There was applause and vulgar catcalls; then still in darkness came a brazen female voice: "Let's hear a li'l more welcome before Cynthia goes to work, sweeties!"
Rewarded with obedient and wild applause, Cynthia La Starr emitted a fierce yelp of approval. The bandstand lights went up, revealing the same Amazon advertised on the outside poster, only the poster photograph had been taken a good five or six years ago. But according to the vigorous acceptance by many of the patrons, age was no deterring factor.
Sophia glanced hiddenly at Larry. His mouth was turned downward in what might have been poised as moralistic disapproval, but his eyes were keenly trained on the star. In the limited space alloted her in front of the microphone and band, the Amazon wore nothing more than a black brassiere, black mesh panties and high black mesh stockings with lacy sandals. Her hands were on her flabby hips, and her coral lips were moistened in an indecent grin. There were signs of pockmarks on her cheeks, and her large eyes appeared to be dulled by alcohol or perhaps marijuana, but there was an indefinable sweetness in her face.
But if she knew it anymore, she disregarded it. She was merchandising sex.
Her opening speech, aimed at her faceless male audience, was annoyingly crude, just this side of obscenity. The band joined in softly as she spoke; she asked the audience what would make them happy, then she guffawed at their crude answers. Larry chuckled, seemingly in spite of himself, but he regarded Sophia and once more asked if she'd prefer to leave. Sophia pursed a soundless "No," on her lips.
"Well, then, let's put this here show on the trail!" boomed Cynthia. "Puhfessor, a little Mozart, please!"
The combo ripped into a strenuous rendition of Sweet and Slowly, and Cynthia La Starr commenced to gyrate. Her entire lush body moved, twisting and contorting, failing to prepare her audience with any kind of subtlety.
Whimpering lasciviously, she dipped forward, shook and maneuvered her torso violently in the exaggerated pantomime of lust, all the while continuing to guffaw menacingly.
Blinking, Sophia watched in abstract fascination at the lengths to which an overzealously endowed woman would go to expose herself. The hand of Larry Barker was once more on her arm, protectively, conveying his concern for whether or not she was offended.
I am offended, she thought glumly, but not for the reason he'd think. I'm offended because that isn't Cynthia La Starr up there, that's Sophia Holland....
The fantasy tortured and numbed her.
Cynthia La Starr fell conveniently into the arms of the grinning, oily-haired drummer; then she embraced and kissed him. Rising swiftly (to the violent laughter of a segment of her audience), she bolted forward. Twisting once, she snapped the hook at the back of her brassiere, and it fell to the floor.
"Had enough sweeties?" she cried, raising her arms above her head.
"No! No, no, no!"
Still guffawing, she continued with the rest of her act. Sophia felt ill and expressed it by leaning, limply, against the bar.
Larry was quickly beside her. "Anything wrong?"
"Come on. Let's go."
"Don't let me spoil-"
"Hell. Come on."
Then he was leading her out of the cramped room and back into the street.
"What happened in there?"
"I'm so ashamed of myself. Maybe it was the liquor or the lack of air. For a second I felt a little sick."
"It's my fault," he confessed. "I didn't stop to ask what you wanted to do. I just dragged you along. Is the air helping any?"
"Yes. I hate to be so lily-livered. Why don't you just dump me in a cab and send me home? Methinks Miss Holland is a drag."
"Would a nightcap help?"
Again he was being blunt, forcing her to tip her hand. He knew, by her indecisive words and motions, that she hadn't the faintest wish to get into a taxi and leave him. They were fencing, and he was winning the duel.
"Apparently two Scotches are my limit. And I've already had two Scotches."
"Some hot coffee. I'm not a Parisian chef, but I do have a kitchenette up at my digs. At the end of the block, by the way."
"You live on this block?" she asked.
Larry affirmed it. Smiling shyly, she volunteered, "Now isn't that the most amazing coincidence?"
"No coincidence at all. Every step of the way was distinctly planned."
"I-see."
"Hot coffee sound inviting?"
Her pause was only momentary. Shutting out the swift image of Margo, she looked at him and nodded.
"Hot coffee sounds divine."