Complete Stories (30 page)

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Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca

BOOK: Complete Stories
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“Darling,” he said, for he was often a young man of simple statements, “you were the worst I ever saw.”
“And doesn’t that come straight from Sir Hubert!” she said. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, dear. What can I say? ‘Sorry’ isn’t nearly enough. I’m broken. I’m in little bits. Would you mind doing something about putting me together again?”
She held out her arms to him.
The young man rose, came over to the sofa, and kissed her. He had intended a quick, good-humored kiss, a moment’s stop on a projected trip out to his little pantry to mix cocktails. But her arms clasped him so close and so gladly that he dismissed the plan. He lifted her to her feet, and did not leave her.
Presently she moved her head and hid her face above his heart.
“Listen,” she said, against cloth. “I want to say it all now, and then never say it any more. I want to tell you that there’ll never, never be anything like last Wednesday again. What we have is so much too lovely ever to cheapen. I promise, oh, I promise you, I won’t ever be like—like anybody else.”
“You couldn’t be, Kit,” he said.
“Ah, think that always,” she said, “and say it sometimes. It’s so sweet to hear. Will you, Hobie?”
“For your size,” he said, “you talk an awful lot.” His fingers slid to her chin and he held her face for his greater convenience.
After a while she moved again.
“Guess who I’d rather be, right this minute, than anybody in the whole world,” she said.
“Who?” he said.
“Me,” she said.
The telephone rang.
The telephone was in the young man’s bedroom, standing in frequent silence on the little table by his bed. There was no door to the bed-chamber; a plan which had disadvantages, too. Only a curtained archway sequestered its intimacies from those of the living-room. Another archway, also streaming chintz, gave from the bedroom upon a tiny passage, along which were ranged the bathroom and the pantry. It was only by entering either of these, closing the door behind, and turning the faucets on to the full that any second person in the apartment could avoid hearing what was being said over the telephone. The young man sometimes thought of removing to a flat of more sympathetic design.
“There’s that damn telephone,” the young man said.
“Isn’t it?” the young woman said. “And wouldn’t it be?”
“Let’s not answer it,” he said. “Let’s let it ring.”
“No, you mustn’t,” she said. “I must be big and strong. Anyway, maybe it’s only somebody that just died and left you twenty million dollars. Maybe it isn’t some other woman at all. And if it is, what difference does it make? See how sweet and reasonable I am? Look at me being generous.”
“You can afford to be, sweetheart,” he said.
“I know I can,” she said. “After all, whoever she is, she’s way off on an end of a wire, and I’m right here.”
She smiled up at him. So it was nearly half a minute before he went away to the telephone.
Still smiling, the young woman stretched her head back, closed her eyes and flung her arms wide. A long sigh raised her breast. Thus she stood, then she went and settled back on the sofa. She essayed whistling softly, but the issuing sounds would not resemble the intended tune and she felt, though interested, vaguely betrayed. Then she looked about the dusk-filled room. Then she pondered her finger nails, bringing each bent hand close to her eyes, and could find no fault. Then she smoothed her skirt along her legs and shook out the chiffon frills at her wrists. Then she spread her little handkerchief on her knee and with exquisite care traced the “Katherine” embroidered in script across one of its corners. Then she gave it all up and did nothing but listen.
“Yes?” the young man was saying. “Hello? Hello. I
told
you this is Mr. Ogden. Well, I
am
holding the wire. I’ve
been
holding the wire.
You’re
the one that went away. Hello? Ah, now listen—Hello? Hey. Oh, what the hell
is
this? Come back, will you? Operator! Hello,
yes
, this is Mr. Ogden. Who? Oh, hello, Connie. How are you, dear? What? You’re what? Oh, that’s too bad. What’s the matter? Why can’t you? Where are you, in Greenwich? Oh, I see. When, now? Why, Connie, the only thing is I’ve got to go right out. So if you came in to town now, it really wouldn’t do much—Well, I couldn’t very well do that, dear. I’m keeping these people waiting as it is. I say I’m late now, I was just going out the door when you called. Why, I’d better not say that, Connie, because there’s no telling when I’ll be able to break away. Look, why don’t you wait and come in to town tomorrow some time? What? Can’t you tell me now? Oh—Well—Oh, Connie, there’s no reason to talk like that. Why, of course I’d do anything in the world I could, but I tell you I can’t tonight. No, no, no, no, no, it isn’t that at all. No, it’s nothing like that, I tell you. These people are friends of my sister’s, and it’s just one of those things you’ve got to do. Why don’t you be a good girl and go to bed early, and then you’ll feel better tomorrow? Hm? Will you do that? What? Of course I do, Connie. I’ll try to later on if I can, dear. Well, all right, if you want to, but I don’t know what time I’ll be home. Of course I do. Of course I do. Yes,
do,
Connie. You be a good girl, won’t you? ’By, dear.”
The young man returned, through the chintz. He had a rather worn look. It was, of course, becoming to him.
“God,” he said, simply.
The young woman on the sofa looked at him as if through clear ice.
“And how
is
dear Mrs. Holt?” she said.
“Great,” he said. “Corking. Way up at the top of her form.” He dropped wearily into the low chair. “She says she has something she wants to tell me.”
“It can’t be her age,” she said.
He smiled without joy. “She says it’s too hard to say over the wire,” he said.
“Then it may be her age,” she said. “She’s afraid it might sound like her telephone number.”
“About twice a week,” he said, “Connie has something she must tell you right away, that she couldn’t possibly say over the telephone. Usually it turns out she’s caught the butler drinking again.”
“I see,” she said.
“Well,” he said. “Poor little Connie.”
“Poor little Connie,” she said. “Oh, my God. That saber-toothed tigress. Poor little Connie.”
“Darling, why do we have to waste time talking about Connie Holt?” he said. “Can’t we just be peaceful?”
“Not while that she-beast prowls the streets,” she said. “Is she coming in to town tonight?”
“Well, she was,” he said, “but then she more or less said she wouldn’t.”
“Oh, she will,” she said. “You get right down out of that fool’s paradise you’re in. She’ll shoot out of Greenwich like a bat out of hell, if she thinks there’s a chance of seeing you. Ah, Hobie, you don’t really want to see that old thing, do you? Do you? Because if you do—Well, I suppose maybe you do. Naturally, if she has something she must tell you right away, you want to see her. Look, Hobie, you know you can see me any time. It isn’t a bit important, seeing me tonight. Why don’t you call up Mrs. Holt and tell her to take the next train in? She’d get here quicker by train than by motor, wouldn’t she? Please go ahead and do it. It’s quite all right about me. Really.”
“You know,” he said, “I knew that was coming. I could tell it by the way you were when I came back from the telephone. Oh, Kit, what makes you want to talk like that? You know damned well the last thing I want to do is see Connie Holt. You know how I want to be with you. Why do you want to work up all this? I watched you just sit there and deliberately talk yourself into it, starting right out of nothing. Now what’s the idea of that? Oh, good Lord, what’s the matter with women, anyway?”
“Please don’t call me ‘women,’ ” she said.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he said. “I didn’t mean to use bad words.” He smiled at her. She felt her heart go liquid, but she did her best to be harder won.
“Doubtless,” she said, and her words fell like snow when there is no wind, “I spoke ill-advisedly. If I said, as I must have, something to distress you, I can only beg you to believe that that was my misfortune, and not my intention. It seemed to me as if I were doing only a courteous thing in suggesting that you need feel no obligation about spending the evening with me, when you would naturally wish to be with Mrs. Holt. I simply felt that—Oh, the hell with it! I’m no good at this. Of course I didn’t mean it, dearest. If you had said, ‘All right,’ and had gone and told her to come in, I should have died. I just said it because I wanted to hear you say it was me you wanted to be with. Oh, I need to hear you say that, Hobie. It’s—it’s what I live on, darling.”
“Kit,” he said, “you ought to know, without my saying it. You know. It’s this feeling you
have
to say things—that’s what spoils everything.”
“I suppose so,” she said. “I suppose I know so. Only—the thing is, I get so mixed up, I just—I just can’t go on. I’ve got to be reassured, dearest. I didn’t need to be at first, when everything was gay and sure, but things aren’t—well, they aren’t the same now. There seem to be so many others that—So I need so terribly to have you tell me that it’s me and not anybody else. Oh, I
had
to have you say that, a few minutes ago. Look, Hobie. How do you think it makes me feel to sit here and hear you lie to Connie Holt—to hear you say you have to go out with friends of your sister’s? Now why couldn’t you say you had a date with me? Are you ashamed of me, Hobie? Is that it?”
“Oh, Kit,” he said, “for heaven’s sake! I don’t know why I did it. I did it before I even thought. I did it—well, sort of instinctively, I guess, because it seemed to be the easiest thing to do. I suppose I’m just weak.”
“No!” she said. “You weak? Well! And is there any other news tonight?”
“I know I am,” he said. “I know it’s weak to do anything in the world to avoid a scene.”
“Exactly what,” she said, “is Mrs. Holt to you and you to her that she may make a scene if she learns that you have an engagement with another woman?”
“Oh, God!” he said. “I told you I don’t give a damn about Connie Holt. She’s nothing to me. Now will you for God’s sake let it drop?”
“Oh, she’s nothing to you,” she said. “I see. Naturally, that would be why you called her ‘dear’ every other word.”
“If I did,” he said, “I never knew I was saying it. Good Lord, that doesn’t mean anything. It’s simply a—a form of nervousness, I suppose. I say it when I can’t think what to call people. Why, I call telephone operators ‘dear.’ ”
“I’m sure you do!” she said.
They glared. It was the young man who gave first. He went and sat close to her on the sofa, and for a while there were only murmurs. Then he said, “Will you stop? Will you stop it? Will you always be just like this—just sweet and the way you’re meant to be and no fighting?”
“I will,” she said. “Honest, I mean to. Let’s not let anything come between us again ever. Mrs. Holt, indeed! Hell with her.”
“Hell with her,” he said. There was another silence, during which the young man did several things that he did extraordinarily well.
Suddenly the young woman stiffened her arms and pushed him away from her.
“And how do I know,” she said, “that the way you talk to me about Connie Holt isn’t just the way you talk to her about me when I’m not here? How do I know that?”
“Oh, my Lord,” he said. “Oh, my dear, sweet Lord. Just when everything was all right. Ah, stop it, will you, baby? Let’s just be quiet. Like this. See?”
A little later he said. “Look, sweet, how about a cocktail? Mightn’t that be an idea? I’ll go make them. And would you like the lights lighted?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I like it better in the dusk, like this. It’s sweet. Dusk is so personal, somehow. And this way you can’t see those lampshades. Hobie, if you knew how I hate your lampshades!”
“Honestly?” he said, with less injury than bewilderment in his voice. He looked at the shades as if he saw them for the first time. They were of vellum, or some substance near it, and upon each was painted a panorama of the right bank of the Seine, with the minute windows of the buildings cut out, under the direction of a superior mind, so that light might come through. “What’s the matter with them, Kit?”
“Dearest, if you don’t know, I can’t ever explain it to you,” she said. “Among other things, they’re banal, inappropriate, and unbeautiful.
They’re exactly what Evie Maynard
would
have chosen. She thinks, just because they show views of Paris, that they’re pretty darned sophisticated. She is that not uncommon type of woman that thinks any reference to la belle France is an invitation to the waltz. ‘Not uncommon. ’ If that isn’t the mildest word-picture that ever was painted of that——”
“Don’t you like the way she decorated the apartment?” he said.
“Sweetheart,” she said. “I think it’s poisonous. You know that.”
“Would you like to do it over?” he said.
“I should say not,” she said. “Look, Hobie, don’t you remember me? I’m the one that doesn’t want to decorate your flat. Now do you place me? But if I ever
did,
the first thing I should do would be to paint these walls putty color—no, I guess first I’d tear off all this chintz and fling it to the winds, and then I’d——”

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