Looking for a Love Story (31 page)

“It’s not for him, it’s for you,” said the landlady.

“It can’t be.” But then she realized: Benny worked for Keith’s. And of course he’d know she was in town with Joe.
And Benny hasn’t married anyone yet
. The stupid thought flashed through her mind before she could stop it. She took the note from Mrs. Pastor.

Ellie
—not Ellie Masters, just plain
Ellie
—was written on the front of the envelope in Benny’s big, loopy handwriting with the forward slant. She tore it open.

He wanted her to meet him the next day at a restaurant called Manaletta’s on Forty-fourth Street. It wasn’t a usual show-business haunt; she’d never heard of it before. So Benny wanted to be discreet. Her heart was beating too fast, and she felt lightheaded. She sat on the velvet love seat in Mrs. Pastor’s parlor and tried to make her mind grasp the meaning of the words in the note.
Benny wants to see me. After all this time. After he drove away from me in Shell Point
.

She wanted to see him too. She had to see him. There was no question; she would go to the out-of-the-way restaurant, and she would have lunch with him tomorrow. The only decision to be made was, should she tell Joe? She and Joe had an understanding—that hadn’t changed—so there was no reason not to tell him. But agreeing to something with your brain didn’t mean that your feelings went along with it. She sat in Mrs. Pastor’s parlor for what seemed like hours, trying to figure out what to do. It was the opening at the Jefferson that finally decided her. With that ahead of him, Joe had enough to think about. There was no need to add to it by telling him she was meeting Benny for lunch. She stuffed the note into her pocket and started up the stairs to their room.

I’ll tell Joe I’m going to do some shopping. He knows I’ve been wanting a new coat. But then I’ll have to tell him I didn’t find one I liked. Or I’ll have to buy one. I hate lying to Joe!

That was when she realized that in three years she’d only done it once—when she didn’t tell him about Shell Point. And that wasn’t a real lie, it was more like keeping a secret from him. Everyone had secrets, didn’t they?

Baby was in her room playing; Ellie could hear her murmuring the way she did when she was deep in make-believe. Joe was reading a newspaper; even though it was too soon to work on the monologue, they both read every line of every newspaper every day. It had become a habit for them—one of many they’d slipped into together, she thought. Joe looked up and smiled at her, a familiar smile she’d seen so many times. And before she could begin telling the lie she’d rehearsed, she heard herself say, “This came for me today,” and she took the crumpled note out of her pocket and handed it to him.

It seemed to take him a long time to read it, but it was probably only a minute or two. Finally he handed it back. “Do you want to go?” he asked.

“Yes.” And then, even though they had an understanding and they both knew that she was free to do this, as he was free to do whatever he wanted, she heard herself add, “I’m sorry.”

Something flickered in his eyes when she said that, and for a second she thought he was going to ask her not to go. But they had an understanding. Or maybe it wasn’t because of the understanding, maybe he was truly all right with it. Whatever the reason, he took another pause and then picked up the newspaper again. “Well,” he said, “if that’s what you want to do, you should do it.” And he started to read.

THE NEXT DAY
she wore her everyday dress for her lunch with Benny; she brushed her hair and pinned it in a simple updo on the top of her head. There was no need to fuss, she told herself. And
besides, she didn’t want Joe to catch her primping—even though they had an understanding. But Joe had been out of the room all morning with Baby. By the time Ellie was ready to go, he still wasn’t back. She was grateful to him for that, although she didn’t want to think too much about why he’d done it. She didn’t want to feel that she was hurting him, but she also found she didn’t like the idea that he wasn’t concerned, at least a little. The odd thing was, she missed him. It had been a long time since she’d had to do something momentous on her own, and she found herself wishing she could ask him for advice. Not that there was any need for advice. All she was going to do was have lunch.

Manaletta’s was a small restaurant that occupied the bottom half of a four-story brownstone. The doorman told her Mr. George was waiting for her in the dining room on the second floor. She climbed the stairs, pushed open the door, and couldn’t resist a gasp of delight. The room was a riot of color. Its walls were covered with murals depicting a garden full of flowers and trees, and green velvet curtains were draped in luxurious swags over the bow window. The shades on the chandeliers and the wall sconces were flowers made of tinted glass, so the light that shone through them onto the white tablecloths was colored like a rainbow. But even more beautiful than the spun-glass flowers were the vases and baskets of real red roses that crowded every available surface. And standing in the center of the room with a red rose in one hand was Benny. He was smiling the same confident smile that had always convinced her that everything was going to be just grand, and if anything he was even more handsome than he’d been four years ago. The double-breasted coat of his bespoke suit was tailored to show off his broad shoulders, and the pants clung fashionably to his narrow waist and long legs. There was a softness in his strong features now, as if success had worn away the sharp edges. His mop of blond curls wasn’t parted and pomaded anymore, so tendrils
fell down onto his forehead. “Good,” he said softly. “You haven’t bobbed your hair.”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

He laughed at that. “Oh, I’ve missed you, Ellie. Nobody says things like that.” His bright blue eyes were glowing with tenderness.

She found she didn’t want to see the expression in his eyes. She looked around the room instead. “Do we have this place to ourselves?” she asked.

He nodded. “I reserved the whole floor for us. Is it too much?” Then he added quickly, “Don’t answer that. If it is, I don’t want to know. Will you sit down? I’ve ordered lobsters, and we have champagne. And for dessert, hot fudge sundaes.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“I tried.”

“Why?”

“Could we please sit down?”

She sat and waited while he poured the champagne. He raised his glass. “I haven’t thought of a toast. I’m just glad you’re here,” he said, and they both drank the sparkling, bittersweet wine. She’d never had champagne before. She thought it lived up to its reputation.

“I’ve kept track of you,” he said. “I knew you’d had the child—a girl.” She nodded. “I know every town you and Joe played. I drove out to Connecticut once because I knew you’d be there.”

“At Shell Point. You didn’t get out of the car.”

“You saw me.” She nodded again. “I just wanted to look at you. And her.” He sipped his champagne. “There’s no way to say this except to admit I was wrong four years ago. I was scared, Ellie. We were both so young. I couldn’t see how we could take care of ourselves and a baby. I thought what I was telling you to do … was the only way. I wasn’t ready for you. Or her. Not then.”

“And now?”

“Now I am.”

There had been so many times when she would have given anything to hear him say that. And to see the light in his eyes as he looked at her. “How come?” she asked.

She watched him pull his thoughts together. No wonder he was a good booking agent. He could sell anything. “It’s taken me all this time to do what I set out to do,” he said. “I’ve made something of myself. I couldn’t have done that with a family. I know that was selfish of me—”

“Yes.”

“But now things are different.”

“And you want me back.”

“I always wanted you. There’s no one like you. Not for me.”

“You never sent me a letter. You came to see me once in four years—and drove away without talking to me.”

“I’d walked out on you, Ellie! What was I going to say to you after that? I thought you’d spit in my face….” He paused. “I didn’t plan to do this … to see you again. I planned to forget you.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I saw your daughter—my daughter.”

That was a surprise. “My daughter? Where did you see her?”

“She came into Neely’s with Joe yesterday. It was only for a minute.” He studied her face. “He didn’t tell you.”

“No.” So Joe kept secrets from her too.

“When I saw her, I thought … Ellie, we could give her the best of everything.”

“We?”

“We could be a family, you and I and our little girl. It should be the three of us. I know we’re getting a late start, and I know that’s my fault. Let me make it up to you.”

“You saw her for a moment in a coffee shop and now you’re telling me you want us to be a family?”

“I think I’ve been wanting it for a long time. Seeing her just made me realize it. I have so much to give you now. Not just money, although there’s plenty of that. I can give you both a real home. She can live with her real father.”

He was sincere now; this wasn’t a salesman’s spiel. He meant this.

“We’ll move out of the city, to a house where she’ll have trees and grass,” he said, and his eyes were shining. “What kind of life does she have running around the country with you and Joe? What will you do in a couple of years when she’s ready for school? Teach her yourself like all the other mothers do on the road? Stick her in a boarding school somewhere when she gets older? That’s not what you want for her—it can’t be.”

It wasn’t. Not when she really thought about it. She tried to imagine Benny’s big house with the grass and the trees. Then she thought about her little girl living in cramped hotel rooms, where she had to keep her voice down and couldn’t run. Baby thought the upper bunk of a railroad sleeper was a proper bedroom. Ellie looked up and saw that Benny was watching her.

He seemed to read her mind, but then he always had. “We’ll have the white picket fence and the dog and cat, all for her. And you and I—think about being together again. Think about the good times we’ll have. I’ve never had as much fun with anyone else as I’ve had with you, Ellie. You’re the only girl I know who knows that you can fix anything that’s gone wrong with a hot fudge sundae.”

But could you? Didn’t it take more than hot fudge and roses to fix things that had gone wrong?

“I love you, Ellie.”

“I’m married,” she said.

“You’re not in love with Joe. You never were. He was in love with you from the beginning, but it was never a two-way street.”

When she heard Benny say it, she knew it was true. She’d suspected that Joe was in love with her, and she’d worried about it, but she’d put it out of her mind because she had to. And then so many other things had happened. “Yes,” she said. “Joe was always in love with me.”

“Of course he was! He married you to get you out of a jam. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t love you.”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

“And you’re grateful to him. He helped you when you needed him, and you’ll never forget that. I understand. But that’s not love, Ellie. That’s not what you and I had.”

He was right, it wasn’t.

“Joe should have a woman who loves him for real. He deserves that. And we can have it again too, because it’s still there between us. That feeling doesn’t go away. You know that.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You and I deserve a chance to be happy. At least, you do. And I’ll make sure you are.”

“So everything will work out for the best for everyone?”

He took her hands in his. “Why not?”

She looked down at the hands that had held hers as they walked down the streets of the pretty little towns four years ago. She looked at the slender fingers that had caressed her when they made love. Then she looked up at his confident smile. “You’re right, Benny,” she said. “I’ll always be a little in love with you. But I don’t like you. You’ll never be my friend.”

The smile disappeared, and he jerked back his hands. But she didn’t care about Benny anymore, because the confusion she’d been feeling for so long was finally over. She felt like she was watching a mist lift and float away, leaving a clear, sharp-edged world.

“You see, I’ve been very lucky,” she said. “I’m married to my friend. I didn’t intend to do it that way, but it happened, and now … I love him.”

He pushed away from the table and turned away from her. When he turned back his face was red with anger. This temper was something different. He’d always wanted to get his own way, but now he expected to; that was new. And maybe a little frightening.

“She’s my child,” he said. “Do you think I’m going to stand by and let a nothing like Joe raise her?”

“I don’t see how you can stop it,” she said, as steadily as she could.

“Do you have any idea of what I can do to you and Joe? All I have to do is put out the word, and he’ll never work again.”

“Joe has a great act—”

“Great acts are a dime a dozen. I’m one of the biggest bookers in the business. I have friends, Ellie. People who want to do me favors because I can do them favors. You don’t want to go against me.”

“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” she asked, and hoped he wouldn’t see that suddenly she was. “Do you think Joe will be afraid?”

“I think Joe loves show business. I think all he’s ever wanted was to be a headliner. And he knows how the business works. So you go back and tell him what I said. He’s no fool. He’ll understand.”

AND SHE DID
tell Joe. After she’d left Benny sitting at the table in the pretty restaurant with his bottle of champagne that no one was going to drink and his lobster lunch that no one was going to eat. She went back to the boardinghouse and she told Joe what Benny had said.

CHAPTER 32

“You told him I was your friend?” Joe said.