The Best of Everything (8 page)

There was an almost inaudible sigh from April, as if at last she had achieved a moment of delight she had been waiting for for a long time. Mr. Shalimar turned to include her too in his revelations. April was looking at him with her eyes shining. Mr. Rice turned his glass of whisky nearly directly upside down as his throat moved rhythmically, swallowing. His eyes were closed and he did not seem to be listening to Mr. Shalimar at all.

It was nine o'clock before Caroline realized that none of them had eaten anything but pretzels, and Mr. Rice not even those. April seemed in a trance, leaning toward Mr. Shalimar as a young plant leans toward the sun in a window, listening to every story he told with little gasps and laughs. Caroline was more interested in Mr. Rice—or Mike, as she was now calling him. His attention to Mr. Shalimar was obviously more loyalty than interest, and she began to suspect that Mike Rice, at least, had heard all Mr. Shalimar's stories quite a few times before. He drank quietly, steadily and pleasantly, the way one plays solitaire or knits a sweater, drink after drink after drink, with no sign of getting drunk. Once in a while he would look over at her and give a faint smile and nod his head, a serious drinker giving indication that there still is communication between himself and his table partner, but without breaking his rhythm. It was Mr. Shalimar who was finding the liquor hard to take.

The first indication Caroline had was a furtive bony hand touching her knee. The face and voice of Mr. Shalimar, above the table, were so self-assured and so much The Boss that for a moment she had the wild thought that the hand investigating her leg belonged to someone under the table. It hardly even seemed to be connected to Mr. Shalimar's arm and shoulder. Then she caught the thickening of his speech, and he leaned toward her, looking into her face.

"Mike, did you ever notice what a beautiful girl this is?" he said.

His husky voice terrified her. She moved away from his hand, upsetting her glass in the process.

"Oops," Mike said pleasantly. He righted the glass and began to

mop oflF Caroline's skirt with his handkerchief. There was nothing personal in his touch, for which she was grateful. "Miss!" He beckoned to the waitress. "Miss!"

The waitress hurried over with a handful of cloth napkins. Mr. Shalimar seemed oblivious of the entire crisis; he continued to talk, more mistily now, about how lovely Caroline's face was. April began to look confused. She looked up suddenly at Mr. Shalimar with a glance that carried mingled horror and delight. He must have decided to try her knee, Caroline thought, and instantly was taken with a fit of the giggles. She excused herself hurriedly and ran to the ladies' room.

April came in a moment after she had achieved her refuge. "Oh, Caroline, are you all right?"

"Are you all right?" Caroline was doubled over, laughing until tears came into her eyes. It wasn't that anything that had happened was so funny, really, it was just that she was so glad to be able to laugh at it all when for nearly four hours she had been tense and nervous.

"I thought you were sick," April said worriedly.

"No, I'm fine. Do you think we can get away now and eat dinner?"

"I was thinking . . . maybe they would buy us dinner? Do you think they might?"

"You want to eat with them?"

"Well, neither of us has any money to speak of. It would certainly help for the rest of the week if they bought our dinner tonight."

*^e could go back and say we're hungry, and see what develops."

"Would you mind?" April asked.

"No ... I don't mind." She powdered her nose and put on fresh lipstick. "I can stand it if you can."

April turned around to look at her, smprised. "You're laughing at him, aren't you!"

"Well, you must admit he was funny."

"Funny? What was fimny? I think he's the most fascinating person I ever met."

"You do?" Caroline said dubiously.

"But the life he's led . . . the people he knows! I could listen to him talk all night."

Caroline couldn't resist saying it. "And he'll let you, too, as long as your leg holds out"

April's face turned a deep pink. "Oh, my heavens . . ." she said. She covered her face with her hands.

Caroline put her arm around April. "He's a little plastered, that's all. Just you never mention it and he'll never mention it."

April smiled, a bit ruefully. "I was hoping you and I could have dinner alone together. There are so many things I'd like to talk to you about. I was hoping we could get to know each other better."

"We will."

"Do you have to go back to the country tonight? Maybe you could stay over at my house."

With the Scotch she had drunk Caroline felt warm and happy and fond of the whole world. "I think that would be fun," she said. She had never seen the apartment of a working girl who lived alone in New York, but from the fashion magazines she had read she had her own ideas of it, and already the image arose of herself and April chatting cozily until four in the morning in a small, austere but romantically chic apartment, the kind she would like to have someday soon.

"It's kind of a dump," April said, "but I love it."

"I'd love to see it. Come on, out to the wolves." They left the ladies' room and found their way back to their corner table. Mike Rice was sitting there alone.

"Mr. Shalimar had to go home," he said.

"Oh, what a shame," said April. "We didn't even get a chance to tliank him."

Caroline glanced at Mike and for an instant their eyes met. She expected to find a look of amusement there, or at the least his habitual cynicism, but instead to her surprise she found a look of caution.

"You can tell him tomorrow," he said.

"Of course," April murmured. She sat down at her place at the table again and began to toy with her gloves, not quite sure if they were expected to leave now or stay.

Mike beckoned to the waitress and pointed at their glasses. Caroline sat down too. For a minute none of them could think of anything to say. "You have to understand Mr. Shalimar," Mike said finally.

There was something about Mike Rice that Caroline liked; she felt she could say anything to him and he would never be shocked or think she was getting out of her place. "Maybe I'm way out of

line," she said, "but I had the feeling he's had a comedown and he's ashamed of it. The way he talks about the past all the time and about what he was."

"You might as well know it," Mike said, "I suspect you're going to be around a long time. It isn't as if he's had a comedown from anything. He's never been anywhere."

"But all the people he's known . . ." Caroline said. "The stories he tells . . . Why, he never stops talking about Eugene O'Neill."

There was not a trace of a smile on Mike's face, only a look of great pity. It was odd, Caroline thought, that a man in the shape he was in should feel sorry for someone like Mr. Shalimar. 'Tou know how it is when people talk all the time about some celebrity," he said. "Mr. Shalimar knows Eugene O'Neill, but Eugene O'Neill doesn't know him."

"My gosh!" April said, biting her thumb.

"Be nice girls," Mike said. "Forget I ever opened my mouth. But treat Mr. Shalimar with all the respect you have at your command. He's a very bitter man, but he has cause. It's a dreadful thing to know you're fifty-five years old and you have to worry all the time about losing a job that isn't even good enough for you."

"Why should he lose his job?" Caroline asked.

"Bright young people. People like you, for instance. Kids with ambition, who write brilliant reports out of sheer instinct. A man who has to live in a past that never really was is afraid of a lot of things."

"But not of me?" Caroline said incredulously.

"Not you now, no. Right now you're nothing to him. But you in another two years—ah, that's a different story. Listen to him. Pay attention and respect him when he teaches you anything about the business you're in. Don't think you're smart. Just listen, and remember."

He had begun to slur his words, and Caroline realized that he was, finally, very drunk. He pulled a handful of crumpled bills out of his pocket and dropped them on to the table. "This'll pay for the drinks and probably a sandwich for you two kids," he said. He put his hands flat on the table and assisted himself to his feet. "See you tomorrow."

"Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Rice," April said.

"Yes, thank you," Caroline murmured. She was troubled, and

thinking. She didn't want to be a success if that meant watching out for people with dark Hves who were afraid of you for no reason you could fathom. This morning she had been afraid even to speak to Mr. Shalimar, this evening he was fondling her leg and she was being told that someday he would be afraid of her. She was thinking that she didn't like the working world at all, and yet, underneath, she was exhilarated. It was all like a dream in which you could have anything you wanted, if you were very very careful.

Mike Rice leaned over and touched her eyebrows where they were drawn together. His fingers were very gentle. "Did I say, 'Don't think you're smart'?" he said. "I'll tell you something: I'll amend it. Don't let anyone know you think you're smart. Because you know something? You're damn smart." He patted her cheek and walked off swiftly, making an obvious effort to walk straight, his camel's-hair coat tossed askew over one shoulder like a cape,

"What's he talking about?" April asked, looking after him.

"1 don't know . . ." Caroline said. "Yet."

They ate at the same bar, and then Caroline telephoned her mother and bought a toothbrush and went with April to April's apartment. There was a baby carriage in the downstairs hallway, and two garbage cans, and a row of mailboxes on one wall. As tliey chmbed the stairs Caroline heard the sound of a television set from one apartment and shrieks from another where a party was going on. The door was ajar at the party apartment. "Look." April nudged Caroline. "Everyone's so friendly in this house. You could walk right in. It's so smoky in there they probably wouldn't know the difference."

April's apartment was dark. She switched on the light and ran to the window. "Look at my garden, Caroline!"

Caroline was looking at the room. It was tiny, and April's clothes were scattered here and there. There was a coffee cup with some cold coffee in it standing on the bridge table next to a pile of all the latest fashion magazines. There were two doors, one of which might have led off to another room, since there was no bed in sight. In fact, there was almost no furniture, and no rug. It was seedy, you had to admit that, but Caroline felt her heart begin to pound. It could be fixed up so easily, and it could be enchanting. How wonderful to have an apartment of one's own—one's own things around, one's own taste everywhere.

"The bed is in the wall," April said. "I'll sleep on the boxspring and you can have the mattress. Here's my bathroom, and this is the closet. This closet is the kitchen. Come see my garden, Caroline!"

Caroline looked out the window, down three floors, and saw dimly the outline of trees. They were spindly city trees, it was true, and it was hardly "April's garden" except to look at, but as soon as she saw it Caroline was sold.

"1 love your apartment. You're so lucky."

"Do you think so?" April's face lighted up with delight. "I was afraid you'd think it was a dirty old tenement."

"I didn't expect you to Hve in a penthouse on fifty dollars a week."

"Oh, I know. It's just terrible not to have enough money. I can't even go to the movies at night after I get finished paying for my rent and phone and food. I have to sit here every night and read magazines. I met a girl who Uves in this house and works at Fabian. Her name is Barbara Lemont. She's secretary to the beauty editor of Americas Woman and she's going to give me all the fashion magazines when she gets through reading them. They get aU the magazines free over there. I've started to read some already." April smiled self-consciously, like a child. "You know what? I'm getting an education. Do you want some cocoa?"

"Love some."

April began to putter around in her closet kitchen, making cocoa. "I would never have met Barbara at Fabian because she works on a different floor. It's like a different world down there. My heavens, they have a regular kitchen on the thirty-first floor where they make all the recipes they take pictures of. Most of the food they can't even eat afterward because they put coloring on it to photograph better. Isn't that a terrible waste? But sometimes they let the girls take home something wonderful, like a roast turkey. I think I ought to ask for a transfer. If I sound like I'm drooling, it's because I am. I'm aluxiys hungry lately. I'm not used to eating just a box of fig newtons for supper. Back home we used to have enormous meals." She put the two cups of cocoa on the bridge table, swept a pile of clothes off one of the bridge chairs, kicked off her shoes and sat down. Caroline took the other chair.

"I wish," April went on, "that I would meet a boy who would take me out to dinner and be good to me. Who am I kidding? I wouldn't care if he never took me out to dinner, just as long as we liked each

other a lot. Do you know that Barbara Lemont is only twenty years old—our age—and she's already been married and divorced and has a baby one year old? Did you see that baby carriage downstairs? That's hers. She's trying to sell it. She doesn't have any money either. Nobody I know has any money."

"That's kind of sad about the baby carriage," Caroline said. "Most people save baby carriages for the next baby. It's a little as if she doesn't expect to get married again."

"It is, isn't it," April said. "But I guess she doesn't have room for it. None of the apartments in this house are very big. She lives with her mother and the baby—her father's dead. I bet she has a hard time on dates. Being married before, you know?"

"I know," Caroline said. She was curled up cozily in the chair with her arms around her knees, and she hadn't had cocoa since she was a little girl. She was beginning to have that feeling that comes after midnight, of one's thoughts opening out, flowering, groping out loud for some new discovery, some new truth tliat is really as old as all the hundreds of years girls have been confiding to one another in the relaxing intimacy of the night. "Boys are funny. They seem to think that girls who have been married before can't live without sex. I wonder if it's true. Do you think so?"