Clair De Lune (13 page)

That's when he would go to Kansas City; they had requested he play Mozart's
Sonata Pathetique
.

But they rejoiced anyway. The scholarship now seemed in hand.

It was fun being together again, keyed up and celebrating. But she and Toby could not keep their eyes from meeting, nor control the secretive smiles. And she was glad when, after a couple of beers, George said he'd better get home; tomorrow was Saturday and he had to work at the store.

“But I'm only going to work half a day. I've got to practice at least six hours. And more on Sunday.”

They bid him good-bye at the bus stop and went on together to her dim-lit room to settle into their usual places and turn on the phonograph and talk until it was time to dance.

In an affair of “love” (not the long Victorian engagement but a mutual obsession of some intensity), it is usually understood by both parties that this is no lasting condition. It will run its course. And the length is neither spoken of nor considered. Such an affair can last for a number of months, rarely as long as a year, before it becomes something else. But rapture of the most irrational sort, when the world and all its atoms compact into a single form, so that nothing exists that is not contained within that form, that face, that voice, can scarcely sustain itself for long. The affair you remember is the one that lasted three days. Or a week, perhaps even a month. The fine, lovely flash in the pan; the compressed affair, all the astonishment, the delight, and the anguish fused by a sudden explosion, with no time for thinning out or diminishing before it goes almost as it came, in a burst.

Hers lasted for nearly three weeks.

Somewhere along, she became aware, mostly when Toby was not around, of some vague lack. It was not sex she wanted. Brought up as they were to restraint, respectability, and fear, the game was to flirt all around it but carefully hold back. It was the romance of the thing that mattered. But something was missing. She felt the need of something beyond the circumscribed pattern of their meetings. The ritual had been enough at first. But there was a restlessness in her now, the vaguest murmur of something that said
move
: the need to stretch after a long time in one position. She wanted to bust loose, out of this room, this apartment—but with him. She imagined them driving together in an open car on a sunny afternoon, as the Maxes did, and dancing on terraces at the country club.

What touched it off, no doubt, was Maxine's announcement party. The account of it appeared in the paper, written up in detail. It had, in fact, taken up the entire society column that day. According to the writer, no more lavish affair had graced the country club since the Chrysanthemum Balls before the crash. The decor, the floral arrangements, the lovely gowns, the elegance of the gentlemen, and the joyful spirits, the orchestra that played until two in the morning. Lovely, all of it, lovely, lovely. Allen read it a number of times.

She was not envious of Maxine, but envious of what Maxine could do—wear evening clothes and go to dinner, have lunch with her lover, dance until two and drink champagne (she supposed, though the paper didn't come right out and say so). Maxine lived in a world where such things were sanctioned. Besides, in a few weeks she would no longer be part of the school. The rest of them would be. And in their world, one did not ride around with a lover in the middle of the day. Even if one had a car.

Restrictions notwithstanding, the wistful visions danced in her head, the glitter and glamour of a world where affairs of the heart were conducted with style and
éclat
. They were beyond her reach. She knew this well enough and never for a moment persuaded herself that they weren't. But neither did she concede that some approximation of such pleasures was not available to her. Casting about for some way to extend, to vary the pattern, keep it fresh and diverting, she came up with the notion of an intimate dinner party.

Just the two of them. A real dinner, not potato chips and cheese, but an elegant dinner for two, with candlelight and background music (that part was easy) and hors d'oeuvres, and wine. And just for the hell of it they could dress up.

The idea struck her all of a heap on a Sunday afternoon, when Toby was home and writing a paper and George was practicing and Monday was eons away. Letting no grass grow, she got herself dressed, sashayed off to the Bonne Terre Hotel, and after leafing through the women's magazines at the newsstand, bought two of them and hurried home. She studied them thoroughly and spent the rest of the afternoon agonizing over a menu and how to get the kitchen table through the door into the living room.

The dinner party occupied her for the next three days. But at last, guided by the magazines and memories of intimate dinners in the movies (with William Powell or Charles Boyer), she had it planned to the last detail. And on Wednesday night, before Toby was about to leave, she issued her invitation.

“Saturday night,” she said, “about seven.”

“Oh nuts! Murdstone has invited somebody for dinner that night and I have to be there.”

“Can't you get out of it?”

“Not without a row. I'll come over later, soon as I can get away.”

“But I have it all planned. Isn't there some way you could weasel out?”

“There must be.”

“I wish you could.”

“Let me work on it.”

It was Friday noon before she saw him again. The halls were clearing for the lunch hour. She had started toward the lounge when George hailed her from down the hall. “Hiya, Teach, want to go eat? I didn't eat lunch at home, so I could come early.”

“Sorry, I—”

“Hey, Tobe!” Toby was coming up the stairs from the lockers. “Want to go eat with us?”

“Sure,” Toby said.

“I can't,” Allen said. “Wish I could, but we're taking Maxine to lunch.”

“Do you have to go? Let the rest of 'em take her.”

“No, I have to go. I'm one of the bunch.”

“We're a bunch too. Come with us, you'll have more fun.”

“I know that. But not this time. I've got to go now.”

“Hey, wait, Teach.”

“I'm already late.”

“Look, I've practiced till I'm blue in the face. Want to go to the movies tomorrow night? I'll be done with my audition and need to blow off some steam”

“Well, I—”

“They're showing
Rebecca
at the Osage.”

“Oh boy! I'd love to see it, but—” She glanced at Toby—there was a look in his eyes that gave him dead away—and hastily back to George. “But I can't. I'm tied up tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow's Saturday,” George said. “You don't have to go out with the biddies on Saturday night!”

“It's not the biddies,” she protested, laughing. “And keep your voice down.”

Slowly George took off his glasses. “Hear that, Tobe? There's another man in her life.”

“Sure there is,” she said. “Cary Grant.”

“All right, abandon us. See if we care. We'll get over it, won't we, Tobe?”

“Oh, go on away! You are not abandoned. I just happen to have something else cooking for a change.”

“Cooking! You hear that, Tobe? For who or whom?”

“Cary Grant.”

Again the quick glance at Toby, who had said nothing. “George dear, I can't and that's that. Really.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, better luck next time. You want to go, Tobe?”

Toby hesitated only a second. “Jeez,” he said, “I can't go either. My folks got something planned.”

“You mean I've got to spend Saturday night by myself? And after my audition, you don't want to help me celebrate?”

“They'd be mad as hell if I don't stay home.”

“Poor George,” said Allen. “Why can't we all go Sunday night?”

“I got a paper to do.”

“Do it tomorrow night.”

“I don't want to write a paper after I've been to Kansas City.”

“I'm really sorry, George.”

“Oh well, what the hell. I'll find somebody else to go to the movies. You guys have fun with your folks—and Cary Grant.” He grinned and socked Toby on the arm. “Let's go eat.”

She lingered a moment, watching them lope off up the hall. He would come to her dinner party! Covering her excitement, she put on a sober face and went in to join the Ladies. They were waiting for her. Verna was in a swivet.

Thirteen

S
he had said about seven. She was ready by six, the salad in the refrigerator, slices of baked ham covered with brown sugar and waiting in the oven, and she, bathed and sneezing in a cloud of Houbigant, was all dressed up in her brand-new dress, a red checkered affair with a long skirt and straps that crossed over her bare back. She looked nice, she thought. Maybe a bit skinny for a low-cut dress. But fetching. The straps helped.

In the living room the kitchen table, maneuvered through the door earlier in the day, was covered with a white cloth, with candles in clear glass holders (bought at the dime store along with two wineglasses), and two gardenias afloat in a cereal bowl. She surveyed it happily, breathing in the heavy, distinctive perfume of the flowers.

Seven o'clock came but no Toby. She was already nervous, and by 7:30 she began to be jumpy. Maybe he had not been able to get away and wasn't coming at all. But no. That look on his face yesterday noon—he would be here. Ten minutes later she lit the candles. Then she blew them out. Using a kitchen chair as a barre, she did some leg extensions and a few
pliés
. At the bathroom mirror she combed her hair again and touched up her lipstick. Any minute now she was going to be sick. By the time the screen door opened, after eight, she was furious with him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Well! I thought maybe you'd changed your mind.”

“Am I late?”

“You know damn well you are.”

“I'm sorry. I had to stick around long enough to be polite. Anyway, I thought I ought to wait till it got dark, sort of.”

He stood there, hesitant, in his good suit, with a starched white shirt and a tie. Straight and sturdy and dark, glossy from soap and water and a touch of the razor. There was a luster about him, like a polished apple. She wanted to bite into him. “Come on in,” she said, forgiving him everything.

“Oh—here,” he said as they went into the living room, “I thought I'd better return this.” It was her copy of
A Portrait of the Artist
, borrowed weeks before. “Figured it was about time.”

“Oh, that. I meant you to keep it. You like it so much.”

“Nah, it's your book. I wouldn't feel right about it.”

“But I'm giving it to you. Don't you understand?”

“But I—”

“I'll get another copy.”

He laid the book on the table. “No, you keep it. Thanks anyway.”

“But I thought—” she said, and stopped.

Toby sank into the big chair. “Looks nice,” he said of the room.

She hesitated, with a wistful glance at the book. “Thank you.” But then she smiled. “Want to light the candles?” (Give them something to do, the magazine said, make them feel at ease.) He stood up, fumbling in his pockets. “There are matches on the table,” she said.

“Oh. I didn't see.”

She drew the blinds partway and set the music going. Then she came to him and lifted her face. “Kiss me. Like you mean it.” She took his arms and put them around her and for a moment he held her. “Would you like some wine?”

“Yes, thanks.”

They talked across the room, saying nothing of consequence, in short sentences with gaps between them. Toby drank his wine at a gulp. She noticed and pretended not to. After a bit she rose and refilled his glass. This time he timed his drinking to hers. After two glasses she went to the kitchen and lit the oven.

Always before, when she'd scrambled eggs after the movies, or late afternoons when they walked her home from school, the boys would be all over the kitchen, astraddle the chairs, in her way at the icebox door, rattling potato chips out of the sack, washing their hands at the sink. This time she had to invite him in.

“You can toss the salad,” she said. “Better take off your coat.”

“How do I do this?” he said.

“Just pick it up with the spoon and fork and sort of throw it around.” She poured more wine and Toby loosened up a little as he harried the lettuce.

“Kee-rist,” he said, dropping the salt shaker. “Ol' butterfingers.”

“Bad luck. Throw some over your shoulder.”

“Which one?” His hand struck the salad spoon, knocking it to the floor. “Oh, for godsake! Where's a mop—anything?”

“Don't worry. It's good for the linoleum. Did you get oil on your shirt?”

“I don't think so. I better get out of here before I mess up the whole place.”