Promises (6 page)

“I’ve been working on the most wonderful library,” Nina said, “paneled from floor to ceiling in dark blond wood, honey colored. And moss-green silk curtains on the windows, very tall windows with a view of Central Park. Can you imagine? But the funny thing is the books! They’re all matched sets, Dickens, Balzac, and whatnot, bound in leather to match the curtains. You could die laughing.”

“Books that have never been read and will never be,” said Adam.

“True, yet they’re not stupid people by any means. You’d be surprised. He’s somebody on Wall Street, and she’s very interesting, very quick witted.”

“It’s the fast lane,” said Adam.

Nina shrugged. It must be a new habit, he thought, not having seen it before.

“I’m meeting people I never knew existed. I hear them talk about restaurants and theater and resorts and business deals. So very amusing.” She laughed. “Educational.”

“Oh, I miss you,” Margaret said. “We all do, especially
Megan. She’s getting so grown-up for a twelve-year-old.”

“Don’t you think I miss all of you? Here you are, going away again, and I haven’t said half the things I want to say.”

“There’s always the telephone,” Margaret reminded her as they stood up to leave. “Sundays and after eight. Remember us, Adam, when I was in college and you at engineering school? What phone bills we had!”

“Yes,” Adam said when they were out on the street, “she’s in the fast lane, all right.”

“Fast? You have to be more precise than that.”

“I can’t be precise when I’m feeling vague about it myself. It’s just something—the kind of people, the grabbing for goodies and sensations, cravings for every kind of sex, always something new—oh, you know the weaknesses I’m trying to describe. You heard her. You know the type.”

Margaret laughed. “And you think Nina’s about to drown in a sea of wickedness?”

“Not on purpose. But look at her, twenty-one, beautiful, and all alone here. She’s a prime candidate for trouble.”

“She’s twenty-two, adorable, and smart. She’ll take care of herself.” And Margaret laughed again. “You old Puritan! Wait till our girls are turned loose into the world. I’m afraid that nice dirty-blond hair of yours will turn gray. But if it does, never mind. You’ll still be the handsomest man in the world.”

Adam had looked forward to his trip with as much pleasure as if they had been going abroad. Packing the suitcase and boarding the plane with the list in his
pocket—
Philharmonic on Friday. Impressionist exhibit Saturday
—he had felt a glow. Margaret was physically glowing; her very white skin could turn pink with emotion of any kind. Now, as they walked downtown and he caught in plate-glass windows the reflection of her healthy stride and happy face, he could not help but think how pretty she was and how well they looked together.

The cold was severe, and coming out of a shop on Fifth Avenue near their hotel, he lowered his head against a sudden blast of autumn wind. When he raised it, there stood Randi.

Afterward, when he went over what happened, and he was to go over it hundreds of times, he could think only of the word
materialized
to describe it. There had been no sense of approach, no moment or two during which he felt uncertain of recognition, no time to take a second or third look, to prepare his mind or arrange the expression on his face. It was simply that, out of the moving colors on the street, the kaleidoscope of anonymous faces, the flash of light on metal and plate glass, in the middle of all the moving glitter, she was there. Just there, in front of him. Randi.

Her cry was a trickle of musical notes. “Why, Adam! It is you, isn’t it?”

Adam’s glance flicked over her, barely touching, as it might have flicked over a lamppost, and went northward above her head, where a gray sky floated and a green awning flapped.

“Yes,” he said. “How are you? This is my wife, Margaret. This is—”

“Randi Bunting, that’s my name now. Adam, I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years, can you?”

“No,” he said.

“You haven’t changed,” she said.

Now he had to look at her, to pay the same banal, anticipated compliment. “Nor have you.”

But she had. She looked fashionable. He had learned enough over the years, although not from Margaret, more probably from young Nina, to recognize the alteration, even to recognize a detail like the expensive handbag with its straps and brass buckles. Someone had taught her, and someone was paying. All this went through his mind in an instant, along with a streak of anger that he would, a minute ago, have sworn was impossible to him.

“I’m just in from California, looking around the city. Where are you staying?”

“Over there,” Adam said. “Across the street.”

“Why, so am I. Listen, let’s get out of this wind and have a cup of tea together. The light’s green. Let’s go.”

How stupid of him! He should have thought quickly, should have said that they had an appointment. But he had not done so, and in two minutes they were across the street in the hotel. She had always known how to get her way. And silently, his anger entrenched itself as, in his sudden awkwardness, he was led to the tea table.

Margaret made polite remarks. “Were you in school with Adam?”

“I? Heavens, no. I was lucky to get through high school.” Randi’s laugh, at least, had not changed; it chuckled up from the throat. “Seriously, I worked in town and lived near the university, close to the school of engineering. I went to all the parties and had a wonderful time.”

Discreetly, the two women were examining each
other as women did. It pleased Adam that Margaret was so impressive in her simplicity. Her refinement was unmistakable, and Randi would not mistake it. But, good God, why should he care whether Randi did or did not know how well his life had turned out without her? Had he been so humiliated that her opinion should still matter to him?

“Yes,” she was saying, “once you’re past your twenties, the fun is never the same. The things I remember! Do you hear of Smithy? Or Tommy Barnes? He was a nice guy when he was sober, which wasn’t often.”

“I don’t see or hear of anybody,” Adam said. Then, because there seemed to be a need to add something that would soften this curt reply, or perhaps only because he was so ill at ease, he added, “We live pretty much to ourselves. We’re both busy. Margaret teaches biology and chemistry in the Elmsford high school.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. In another life I would have liked to do something important too. I always loved the atmosphere of learning.” Randi laughed again. “I guess that’s why I kept having crushes on students, including you, Adam. Oh, I had such a big crush on your husband,” she told Margaret.

Margaret smiled appropriately, and Adam read her scornful thought:
Stupid. Crude.

But Randi was neither stupid, nor often crude. She was simply blunt and apt to say without forethought whatever might come into her head. Inwardly, he squirmed and tried to avoid Margaret’s eyes, which he thought were seeking his.

Seeming not to notice that Margaret and Adam were so quiet, Randi prattled sociably about last night’s play, and California. Her silvery voice was agreeable, and her
remarks were amusing. Yet it would be unbearable for him, he thought, after ten minutes had passed, to live with such a flow of words.

“I’m in a rather unsettled state of mind just now,” she confided. “Certain circumstances—but no need to go into them. Anyway, I’m trying to make up my mind whether I want to stay in California or pull up stakes. So I’ve been touring the country to find a place that talks to me, that says, ‘Stay here.’ I have an idea it may be New York.”

What had she meant by “certain circumstances”? Then she must have left the man. And what about the child? The most astounding thing was, Adam thought as, in acute discomfort, he shifted in the chair, that he had been able to bury the fact of its existence. No matter that it had been merely an embryo, and been aborted, it had been alive and it had been his. Yet for him it had ceased, even in memory and until this moment, to exist.

The women talked about unimportant things, another fifteen minutes passed, and the end came as Randi said brightly, “Well, this certainly was an unexpected meeting, wasn’t it? Who would imagine it, right in the center of New York?” It was agreed that no one could have imagined it. “If you people ever get to L.A., look me up. I’m still living there, I’ll be in the phone book.”

And does she really think we would? Adam wondered.

Margaret said politely, “Thank you. Perhaps someday.”

“Well, I guess I’ll run along. I’ve had a long day. Do you happen to know whether there’s a bookstore around here? I need a couple of paperbacks.”

The question had been directed to Margaret, who answered that there was one a few blocks distant and that it was open all evening.

“Good. That’s what I’ll do, then. It was good seeing you. Enjoy the rest of your stay.”

“Randi,” Margaret said. “And she had a crush on you.”

“The way Fred had on you.” He thought he understood that Randi’s mention of a crush was an absurdity in Margaret’s eyes. Her tone had had a faintly scornful ring, as if it were inconceivable to match him with someone so different from himself. And in fact, from the distance of fifteen years, it did seem inconceivable.

“She’s striking, in a way, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. It’s probably the clothes.”

“I thought you never noticed women’s clothes.”

Irritated, he cried, “For Pete’s sake, Margaret, what is this?”

“I’m only curious to know why she is upsetting you so much.”

“Upsetting me? What are you talking about? Upsetting me!”

“You were acting so stiff and uncomfortable, shifting around in your chair. It was noticeable.”

“I was shifting because it was a damned uncomfortable chair, and I wanted to go have some dinner.”

After dinner they strolled. The wind had died, the city flashed its lights, and there were chrysanthemums in shop windows.

“A nice evening, cold or not,” Margaret said, “but I’m suddenly sleepy. Shall we go in?”

“It’s too early for me, but you go. I’ll just walk up as far as the park and come right back.”

He walked slowly, missing nothing as he went. Here was probably the liveliest bazaar in the world; all the glittering arts were concentrated in this city. He wouldn’t want to live here, for he was comfortable in Elmsford. Nevertheless, he was enjoying the change of scene. It had been a good day, up to a point, up to the shock of seeing Randi. Out of all the millions in New York, he’d had to encounter her!

He walked on toward the bookshop. It was brightly lit and fairly crowded. In the window there was a display of a new biography that he had planned to read, so he decided to go in and buy it to read tonight. There was something homelike about having your own book with you when you were staying in a hotel.

Then he remembered that Randi might be in the shop, although there was little likelihood that they would each have chosen the same few minutes out of a long evening. Yet it was possible. Undecided, he stood in front of the window staring at the biography. It had a red jacket with embossed gold lettering and the author’s name in a running script. A man came out of the shop lighting a cigarette. He was wearing a camel-hair coat and weighed close to three hundred pounds. A taxi stopped with squealing brakes. Shall I or shall I not go in? he asked himself. It might be interesting to know what has been happening to her in all these years. Not that it’s any business of mine. I’m only curious. It’s natural to be curious in the circumstances, isn’t it? Anyway, she isn’t there.

He went in. Randi was standing at the first counter facing the door.

“I had an idea you’d come,” she said. “I’ve been here almost an hour, waiting.”

“You actually thought I wanted to see you?” he retorted.

“Well, didn’t you? Don’t tell me you aren’t the least bit curious.”

“For your information I came here to buy that book”—and he pointed to the pile on the counter.

“Buy it, then.”

While he handed his credit card to the clerk, Randi waited. When he started toward the door, she went with him.

“I’ll walk back with you,” she said. “I waited in there so long that they must have thought I was planning to shoplift.”

“I don’t know why you did. We have nothing special to say to each other.”

She was almost running, her heels clacking on the sidewalk, to keep up with his purposely long, rapid strides.

“You could slow up a little,” she said nicely, “even if you do hate me.”

He looked down at her. She was such a little thing! He was used to walking with Margaret, whose face was almost on a level with his own. It occurred to him that he was behaving badly, and so he said, “I don’t hate you. I’m long past all that. I just don’t want to talk about anything.”

“About what happened, you mean?”

“Yes,” he said, and would have sprinted the remaining few yards to the hotel if it had been seemly.

“All right, we won’t. You won’t mind if I tell you that
I hear how well you’re doing? One of those people you said you never hear from or see told me about you.”

Adam said shortly, “Very kind of him, whoever he was.”

“It was Tommy Barnes.”

“I met him in an airport about five years ago. He doesn’t know the first thing about me.”

Three thousand miles across and two hundred sixty million population in this country, he thought, and still a person can’t keep himself to himself.

“He said you have a pretty wife, and so she is.”

“Thank you.”

By now they were in the hotel lobby, approaching the elevator.

“Well,” he said, “good night. I’m going up.”

She caught his arm. “Can you wait a minute?”

“What for?”

“I need to talk to you. I won’t take long”—and she looked at him appealingly.

“Randi, you don’t need to talk to me.” He spoke not unkindly. “I don’t understand what you’re doing, waiting for me in that shop, and now—what do you expect?”

“I don’t expect anything. I only want to tell you something.”

“Then tell me.” They were in the way, and people had to brush past them impatiently. “Then tell me.”