The Girl With the Glass Heart: A Novel (17 page)

Hello—how are you?—I love you.

Alec crushed his cigarette angrily in a shower of sparks. “How do we know?” he almost shouted. “If I’d have come when you asked me and if I was on the train with the two of you, she might have hopped off and gone somewhere else. How do we know?” Alec knew he didn’t sound convincing and he knew Elly had come to him, to her Uncle Alec, and if he had been there as Max had asked him, she wouldn’t have run away.

Elly was thinking: Could I have written this there, in that stinking little apartment, in that lousy little room? Standing there with the night sounds of wind and water ruffling the curtains and her hair she tried to recapture that time and place. She remembered the texture of the bricks, the dark dingy yellow of the apartment walls. Returning now to a glass house, that old apartment and its life seemed opaque and she transferred the longings in this diary to the present time instantly and made them her own again.

“Hold the wire. I’ll see.” Alec turned to Elly and covered the mouthpiece of the receiver with his hand. “Do you want to talk to him now?”

She had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she had hardly taken notice of the conversation.

“Who?”

“Stop kidding around. Your father.”

“What did he say about New York?”

“He doesn’t want you to go.”

“Then I won’t talk to him. And tell him I’ll tell Mom.”

“Hello, Max. She’s pretty upset and she really wants this trip to New York. Why don’t you send Charlotte to meet her there? Then she wouldn’t be alone in the city.”

Elly grimaced at the mention of Charlotte but said nothing.

“Yeah, I’ll make the arrangements. You have my address. You can send the money here for Elly. Okay, hold the wire.” He motioned Elly to the phone.

“Hello, Dad. How are you?” she said blithely. “Thanks a lot and I’m sorry, but I don’t know why I did it. The thought of being cooped up in Crofts scared me. And besides I was afraid to face Mom…. Yes, I know you’re not going to tell her. I’ll come home after Christmas in New York. Okay, I’ll tell him. Yes, I know she loves me…. Who? … Yes, I’ll tell you all about her. Send me some money here. ’By.”

Alec reached for the phone but she had already hung up.

“He wants to know about your girl, Alec. Imagine at a time like this he wanted me to report on what she was like and so forth. Oh, I’m going to New York. I won that, didn’t I?”

“You sure did, baby,” Alec replied as the door swung open and Annette was smiling in the doorway.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Fine.” Elly threw out a laugh. “We’ve just been talking to Indiana and we got me a trip to New York. You’re Annette. We didn’t get a chance to talk before, what with the excitement and all. I’m Elly Kaufman.”

“You sure are.” Annette smiled.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just that you’re exactly like Alec described you. And showing up in the middle of the night like this. Well, we’re glad to have you.”

Elly was surprised, irrationally enough, that she said “we’re.” She thought of Alec as being singular, alone in spite of all attachments and entanglements.

“Thanks,” she said, “I won’t be staying long. I’m going to New York. Oh, I told you that already.”

“How about some sleep, honey?” Alec said.

Annette was thinking, So this is the fabulous Elly Alec loves so. Well, she lives up to advance reports all right. There was a vague awareness somehow that she could learn a great deal about Alec by watching this wild young thing. She was sorry in a way that the girl wasn’t staying longer.

“Oh, no,” Elly complained, “I don’t want to sleep now. There’s a party outside. Do you know how long since I’ve been at a party? I’ve been working on my dance all semester. O-o-h, of course, Anny—” if she was so familiar in five minutes, Annette thought, what would she be like on longer acquaintance, and then she remembered that Alec was the only man she’d ever slept with on the first night—“you’re a dancer, too. I mean you’re a real dancer. That’s what kills me about not going back to school. They emphasize dance a lot.”

“I’d love to see you dance sometime, Elly,” Annette said, looking at the long brown legs and the slim torso, thinking, You’ve been doing the dance of life too much and that’s why you’re here. Only seventeen. Amazing!

“Thanks,” said Elly. “Let’s join the party I interrupted.”

Alec shrugged. “If you’re sure you don’t want to sleep. No, I never slept when I was your age. Oh, Christ, I sound old!” He slipped his arm around Annette’s waist, conscious of it as a gesture of loyalty in some as yet undefined conflict and said, “Tell me I’m not old, baby.”

“You’re young and so’s the party. Come on. We’re all going to the beach. That’s what I came in to tell you. Wally and a few others have their cars here.”

“I’ll be right with you,” Elly said. “You go on.”

When the door closed behind them she took the diary and replaced it carefully in the drawer. Then she followed them. The room was more crowded than she had imagined. Annette was gathering glasses and ash trays. Elly looked away quickly so she wouldn’t feel obligated to help. There was one figure, at the far corner of the room, whose glance seemed as speculative as her own and whose air of detachment seemed to make him a little taller than those around him, when actually his height was average. Elly walked to the bridge table and mixed herself a rye and water, feeling a great sense of relief when she remembered that no one would caution her about drinking.

Someone called out, “Hey, Jay, play us some Debussy before we take off. Come on, Jay.” The aloof man whom Elly had noticed smiled and, shaking his head, concentrated on his drink.

“Oh, how about it, Jay, a Bach fugue.”

“No, some Debussy.”

“Leave him alone,” Alec called. “He works every night. This is his night off.”

A young man was at her side. “
Hel
lo!” he exclaimed. “What have we here?”

“Just me.” Elly smiled.

“That’s enough. Do you dance?” He held out his arms.

Elly found the question amusing. “Yes, I do, but not right now, thanks. What’s your name?”

“Phil. Phil Rich. Rich in name only.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Elly said. “Excuse me.” She was relieved to find that she didn’t like every man she met out here just because she was free for a while. This one was definitely not for her. She was also pleased to notice that a noticeably pregnant young woman was helping Annette clear up. She pressed her flat stomach with one hand and thought, If they knew! If any of them knew.

The poor little Rich boy was back. “I’m a singer,” he volunteered. “What are you?”

“I’m Elly,” she said, and moved on again dropping a smile behind her like a rope for him to trip on. She sipped her drink and walked up to the man they’d called Jay and said, “You’re not going to play, are you?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “But there are other diversions.”

“Jay who?”

“Gordon.”

“Hello, Jay Gordon. I’m Elly Kaufman.”

“Oh, yes. Alec’s niece from Indiana.”

“What a horrible thing to say to anyone! Why won’t you play?”

Jay looked at her. What is this? he thought. I haven’t seen them like this for a long time. Her face was flushed, her skirt was a little grimy at the corners. She seemed a temporary visitation. The people around her belonged where they were so apparently, while she was quite transient.

“I don’t play in public any more.”

“I’ll pay you.” She laughed.

“Not even for pay. But you’re very generous. How long are you here for? Alec didn’t mention that you were coming.”

“That’s a long story. Who are all these people? Actors like Alec?”

“Mostly, but not all. I think we’re all going to the beach.”

“Then play something for me before we go.”

Jay realized, as if he were observing someone else, that he had been considering, for an instant, complying with her request. Seeing this, he immediately decided to play. What the hell, he thought, if I hesitated, I must have wanted to play for this little beauty.

“What shall I play?” Jay asked, seating himself at the piano and automatically fluffing out the nonexistent coattails of a suit of tails which had its existence only in the past.

“Oh, play something with thick textures. Something with lots of levels, plenty of big chords. Brahms, I guess.”

He began to play the Brahms intermezzo that Annette had asked for earlier that evening. He played the dynamics a shade softer, hoping no one would listen but her, and that no crowd would gather around the piano, making him live a lie, play a part himself, a ghost of Jay Gordon, acting like the pianist he had been. They did, though, come to listen.

In the kitchen Alec was surprised to hear the music and, poking his head through the doorway, he saw Elly standing near the piano and thought, I wonder if she asked him to play. He noticed that her clothes were pretty rumpled and not too clean.

“Ann,” he called, “could you let Elly have a dress to wear to the beach?”

“Okay. Although she might rather wear a skirt and one of your shirts. After all she is a college girl.”

“Would you ask her?”

“All right.”

While listening to the music, Elly glanced over the piano and saw there the painting of a girl in a forest. She liked it. It had a poignant quality, she thought, the feeling of the girl deep sunken in the forest, almost imprisoned. It would have been even more touching had it been a small boy, she thought.

When the music was over there was a ripple of applause which Jay did not acknowledge. He stared at his hands which rested on the keys like two dead things which had so lately been alive.

Annette touched Elly. “How about changing clothes before we go to the beach?”

“Good,” Elly replied. “People are always asking me when I’m going to change.” She glanced at Jay to see if he had heard this last but he gave no indication.

Annette had lovely clothes and Elly enjoyed choosing among them. They were not Elly’s usual kind of clothes. She was not, in spite of being a “college girl,” the shirt-wearing kind. She liked flimsy, light stuffs, even in the winter. This closet was full of dark brown or rust-colored skirts of heavy, rough material and of dresses which clung to the figure or fell straight down. Elly loved wide quilted skirts that would leave her legs at a moment’s notice to act as a flag behind her.

On an impulse she donned one of Annette’s leotards and then, losing her nerve, put on a long brown dress which tied at the waist. She rode in the car with Alec, Annette, the Rich boy and Jay Gordon. Annette and Jay sang a few folk songs but Elly and Alec were silent. She looked up at the sky and saw that it was mainly a moon evening with dots of stars at the outer edges of the sky.

At the beach Elly carried the bags of marshmallows, marveling at the fact that she had left snow behind her just a day ago and here the breeze seemed almost tropical. When they were close to the water Elly dropped the bags to the sand and stood by the shore. The moon was behind a cloud and at first she was rather disappointed by her first glimpse of the sea. It seemed only like a vast turmoil, indefinite, possessing only a hint of the excitement she had expected. But then the moon reappeared and the wind-crested sea was lighted so that she could see the whitecaps roll in the surf and far out beyond the last buoy, a presence, the sea itself, always moving. She held her breath and thought, Doesn’t it ever stop? Is this the final pulse that keeps us moving?

They had a fire going and bundles of little sticks were broken open and the marshmallows impaled upon them. Elly ran back and pitched in with the others. She watched Alec organize the operation with smooth efficiency and thought about how wonderful he was and how glad she was she had come. Jay, standing next to her, dropped his marshmallow and she swooped down and scooped it up, laughing.

“Clumsy!”

He smiled, more friendly than he had yet been and said, “I am.”

“I meant to thank you for the Brahms. It was lovely.” Thinking she had never met a man who seemed to need reassurance so much.

“That’s all right. I’m glad somebody liked it. I’m out of condition. That was the first time I’d played that particular intermezzo in a year.”

She shoved a hot, sticky marshmallow into her mouth and said, “People like you never get really out of condition, do they?”

He yawned and looked at the blue-black sky touched with orange by the fire. “If we don’t we certainly seem to.”

He had a smear of blackened marshmallow at the corner of his mouth and he looked, to Elly, much more human and approachable. They strolled away from the uncomfortable closeness of the fire’s heat. Elly stopped and removed her shoes, shaking sand from them. She remained barefoot.

“People in trouble ought to come to the beach, always,” she said and, turning to him, added, “I’ve been in trouble.”

“How many people here do you think there are that haven’t?” Jay asked.

“Oh, but I mean lately. Still, practically.” She was listening to the far-off
whoosh
of the waves, listening a little too carefully, as if they might have something to tell her. Some of the people were going swimming; Elly could see their heads washed by moonlight, bobbing in the suds of the breaking wavelets. Here near the end of land, she could almost feel the earth spinning beneath her feet, as if her feet were spurs and the sandy earth a great horse, responsive to her steps. Behind her, in a blur of dark-voices, she heard Alec’s rasping speech, but could decipher no words. It was as if when he spoke to others she could not understand.

“Cigarette?” Jay offered. “What kind of trouble? Bad trouble?”

She nodded. “Bad enough. I’m supposed to be out of the trouble now, but I know better.”

Rich and his pregnant wife strolled past them and he waved at Elly and called something. Elly waved back and said softly, “Screw you!”

Jay grinned. “Has he been giving you a hard time?”

She nodded. “He’s a drag. There’s something about the
way
he wanted to make me that turned my stomach.”

“Maybe the pregnant wife?”

“I didn’t know about that until just now.” There it was again, the long
whoooosh
. In the wetness of the sound, there was some message for her. This had never happened before—this promise of messages, of information from something like the sea. Of course she’d never seen nor heard the sea before, except in movies. She wondered for a moment if she should mention it to this so-much-taller-than-her stranger at her side. She did not.