by Joan Ellis
How different life might be today if her mother hadn't popped to Paris for a surprise visit, and walked unannounced into that attic studio. Elaine's teeth clenched, pain shooting through her, reliving that awful moment. Alex had been posing for her in the nude, and the portrait was going so well. It was a hot day—they'd stopped for a glass of wine. They'd lain across the couch together, and then Alex had crept into her arms and began her gentle lovemaking, until neither of them remembered to be gentle. Caught up in the fury of passion, neither heard the door open. Then her mother's voice lashing at them, cold with outrage.
"You fiends! You rotten, degenerate fiends!".
Elaine fought to blank out her mind, not to remember the terrible scene. Her mother's threats to expose her to her father and Eric unless she returned to Chicago with her immediately. Elaine couldn't have borne exposure—she went back with her mother.
"Hey, Elaine, stop daydreaming," Eric's voice brought her back to reality. "Is this what champagne does to you these days? I still say, you ought to get married—that'd fix you up."
"I have to leave." Elaine arose abruptly. "I forgot completely about an appointment this evening."
"Eric, you're driving her away," Kathy rebuked him with a hopeless smile. "It's supposed to be the bride who's always trying to marry off the eligible gals among her acquaintance."
"I'm sorry," Elaine gathered her things together, knowing her sense of urgency was carrying across to the other two, but she couldn't help it. "I really do have to leave now."
She walked out of the apartment as though it were suddenly a gas chamber smothering out her life. Why couldn't you keep things locked away in those secret vaults in the back of your mind? Why did somebody have to come along to fling the doors open again?
Elaine walked, not knowing where, not knowing how long, until a corner clock struck reality into her. It was almost midnight and she hadn't phoned Terry! She hastened inside the nearest drugstore, dropping the coin into the change holder of the phone with nervous fingers. She'd promised to call early.
The phone rang, continually, with no answer. Perhaps she'd dialed incorrectly. Where was Terry? All at once it was urgent to know that this much, at least, remained unchanged, accessible to her. Elaine dialed again, her breath hurried and anxious. Again, the regular monotonous buzzing of an unanswered phone.
"Damn," she swore softly as her change purse skidded to the floor of the narrow phone booth.
Out on the sidewalk, she hailed a cab, impatient to reassure herself again with Terry. Out of the cab, up the stairs of the brownstone, ringing the bell with clamorous urgency. The windows were dark, she'd noticed from the street, but if Terry were asleep, she'd hear—she was such a light sleeper. Taking out her key, Elaine unlocked the door and walked inside. The bed was empty. The apartment was empty. Terry was nowhere around…
* * *
Elaine stood there in the middle of the empty apartment, as though her world had suddenly dissolved into a shambles. At least, she could run to Terry, she'd thought. Terry who understood and sympathized and loved with such tenderness. She must have dressed in a rush, Elaine decided with the first faint stirrings of suspicion. For whom? Her make-up lay scattered about the mirrored dressing table with the reckless abandon of a temperamental Broadway star almost late for an entrance.
Elaine reached out to touch the spilled dusting powder, closed the bottle of perfume Terry had overlooked, as though somehow this would bring her close. She glanced at her watch again. What was so urgent that Terry would dress to the teeth and run out this way? Elaine had said she'd call! But she hadn't, Elaine reminded herself, determined to be fair. Terry, volatile and emotional, must have been furious with her.
Elaine lowered herself into a chair, reached for a cigarette and lit it. Maybe she'd stay here a while, wait to see if Terry would show up.
"Damn!" She leapt to her feet in a fit of impatience, after only a minute of repose. How could she sit, with this insistent doubt eating away at her? Why had Terry dashed out like that? Couldn't she wait even a while? That was one of the small things in Terry that plagued at her—that faint streak of vindictiveness that showed itself at the slightest provocation. Terry was angry because Elaine hadn't called, Elaine improvised, so she'd cooked up this stunt to get even with her. She'd probably gone tearing off to Maria's, Elaine told herself—because she knew Elaine loathed the place.
Or had she gone to some man? Some hidden corner of the days before they'd met, like the life that included Maria's and that posturing character Stephie, had returned to lay claim to Terry, Elaine thought, perspiring with alarm. She needed one certain thing in her life, one thing with roots, to know. That was supposed to be Terry, who'd come into her world and changed it to glorious hues. Where was she—and with whom?
No sense in staying here, torturing herself, conjuring up nasty mental pictures. Elaine reached for her purse, tossed her jacket over her arm and hurried out of the oddly-haunted apartment into the quiet midnight of the west seventies. She reached the sidewalk with a sigh of relief, then uncertainty caught hold of her again. The prospect of returning to her own apartment was suddenly repugnant. Tonight's encounter with Eric had punctured sealed-off memories that threatened to destroy utterly the peace of mind she'd labored so long, so hard, to attain for herself. A peace of mind that was admittedly a fragile tenuous thing, but it had been something. On top of that, Terry's desertion.
Of course she was being melodramatic, Elaine taunted herself. What was the matter with her, that she could become such an emotional mess because Terry hadn't been there when she expected her to be? Kathy was different, an insidious voice whispered. Eric's wife would never be vindictive, shallow. There was a fine, wonderful quality in that girl Eric had found for himself. She almost envied him, Elaine admitted. But enough of such dangerous mental meanderings, she tried to take herself in hand. She was Elaine Ransome, successful, highly-respected in her field, with an exciting career to pursue. Think about that Truly Yours account, for instance, she commanded herself sternly. What a feather in her cap to land it! And if she were smart, she would.
Elaine hesitated as she turned onto Broadway, still loath to go back to her own place. The bar at the corner appeared quiet and relaxing. So she wasn't the type to wander into a bar alone! This wasn't the routine night in her existence. She'd go in, sit quietly alone over one drink, take hold of herself again—and then a cool cab ride across Central Park to her apartment. When she got there, she'd phone Terry—and Terry'd be home, she promised herself with soaring optimism. And Terry would have a marvelously simple excuse.
"Yes ma'am?" The bartender strolled over leisurely inspecting Elaine and obviously coming up with a complimentary appraisal.
"Gin and tonic," Elaine ordered with an impersonal smile, to let him know she was friendly but not there for a pick-up.
She glanced about at her surroundings. It was a small place, intimate and cozy, not over-populated at the moment. She could feel herself beginning to relax. This was good—being among people without being with them. It took the edge off the horrible loneliness that sometimes threatened to smother her.
The bartender brought her drink, offered a moment's small talk, and discreetly took himself off. Elaine almost wished he'd remained. That way her mind couldn't probe its uneasy secretive caverns.
With a start she realized the man at the extreme end of the bar was casually making his way over to her. She stiffened coldly as he straddled the seat next to hers.
"I could ask for a light," he said in low, interested tones, "but that's such a trite approach, don't you think?"
"It fits a trite situation." She returned his inspection with disdainful iciness. "I suggest you extend your search to a more fruitful area."
"It's a shame," he murmured regretfully. "We could make it a fascinating evening, with some cooperation on your part."
Elaine forced herself to regard him calmly. He was quite attractive, actually—the average woman would have considered him a real c
atch. But then, she wasn't the average woman. She was only half-woman—only this outer deceiving shell. In a way, it was a compliment to her efforts at camouflage that so many men found her attractive physically. They didn't know!
"You’ll have to find yourself another playmate," she brushed him off, outwardly casually, hiding the insistent urge to bash in that handsome male face of his. Was Terry off with somebody like that? A cold, sick chill encased her as she envisioned Terry in the arms of some hulk of a man set on satisfying himself with that soft pliant body that had stretched beside hers.
Elaine concentrated on finishing her drink, allowing him time to retreat gracefully, then she paid the tab and hurried out of the bar as though her life depended upon breathing fresh air again. She walked to the subway, poised uncertainly at the head of the stairs, then swerved and walked swiftly in the opposite direction. An all-night coffee shop, bright and cheerful, captured her attention, and she walked inside. She took a small booth near the front, where she could watch the door as though expecting someone, in case anybody got ideas about joining her.
She was working on her second cup of coffee when something about the tensely erect shoulders of the man coming through the revolving door drew her glance. At the same instant he spied her. Paul Hennessy.
"Hi!" He wandered over, frankly delighted. "What are you doing on this un-smart side of town?"
"My brother and his wife just moved into town. They're staying at a hotel in this section until their apartment is ready for them," Elaine lied skillfully. "And don't be a snob about your neighborhood."
"I can't picture you in anything but Sutton Place or East End Avenue," he kidded, enjoying this unexpected encounter. He waved to a waitress and gestured his wants. Plainly Paul was a regular here.
"You don't really know me at all," she said intensely, then gasped in dismay at her inadvertent admission.
"I've tried to remedy that situation, regularly." His eyes held hers, and something there must have warned him to veer away from the romantic track. "How many people actually do know one another? We work together, spend hours each day practically side by side, but who has time in our crazy world to bother with learning the real things?"
"They know you here, don't they?" Elaine noticed the warm curiosity of their waitress, the counterman, watching their table.
"Practically my second home." Paul smiled whimsically, "I belong to the night people—I can't fall asleep before three or four in the morning. I get sick of TV and reading after a while. I come here."
"There's a whole world of drugstore and cafeteria people," Elaine said softly. "I remember when I first came to New York to live. I knew practically no one, except the familiar faces I saw every day in the cafeteria where I had breakfast and a late snack before bed time. Somehow, I felt as though I wasn't entirely alone."
"Been a long time since you thought about those cafeteria days," Paul challenged.
"That's right," Elaine conceded. The horrible, frightening aloneness she'd suffered through before Terry hadn't been assuaged by such innocuous diversion. But then people like Elaine Ransome didn't sit around in such places. She studied Paul's face with fresh respect. "Why does someone like you prowl around through the night? You with your feminine fan club!" It was true enough; women in droves plagued Paul with phone calls at the office. She'd heard the awed comments of the receptionists and switchboard operators.
"What about you?" he countered. "What ghosts are you chasing?"
Elaine caught her breath sharply. She was almost giving herself away! "I don't make a practice of this," she reminded. "I was visiting my brother and his wife, then suddenly got this urge for a bite to eat. So, here I am." She spread her hands eloquently, a thoroughly un-Elaine gesture.
"What brought your brother to New York?" He was watching her quizzically. "Trying to emulate his sister's success?"
"Eric's brilliant," she said calmly. "His firm made him a fabulous offer to come to New York, so he grabbed at it."
"Like his job?"
"I think so." The question caught her unawares. "As much as most people do."
"What about you?" Paul probed. "Where you always bent on designing lipstick containers and deodorant packages?"
"I had the usual adolescent ideas," Elaine conceded, frowning. Why must everything tonight drag out the Paris year?
"Too bad we can't hang on to the adolescent ideas —we'd be a damn lot happier, most of us." Paul stared at his cigarette. "I was nuts to study seriously in Paris or Rome. The old evil, money, got in my way. Now I do fool things, like buying weird paintings by artists I think are going to be great fifty years from now. I've been collecting this one French guy. Not expensive, to a man who can afford to collect, but on my salary it's kind of nuts. Anyhow, I went chasing over to the gallery tonight to plunk down another hundred on a painting they're holding for me. I got there too late—the gallery had closed already." He peered moodily into space.
"They'll be open tomorrow." Elaine watched him now, her interest caught by this unexpected side of Paul Hennessy. At the office it was always the gay, flippant side she encountered.
"There was this couple standing before the window. Inspecting my painting—the one the old boy was holding for me. Know what they said? This guy is good, yes—my painter, I mean. But they claim he has his top students execute paintings in his style, he signs them, and then they split the loot."
"Sounds pretty rotten."
"That's the way I figured it. But I started to think. There's an awful lot of his work around town right now. How do I know I'm getting the McCoy? It's been so long since I've been around anything that wasn't phoney!" He jabbed his cigarette butt in the ashtray.
"You'd know," Elaine consoled, then curiosity compelled her to question him. "The fellow really is that good?"
"I told you!" Excitement kindled in Paul's eyes, creating a feeling of kinship in Elaine. "I'd swear he'll be considered one of the great ones." He toyed with the idea for a moment, while Elaine watched him. "Say, my place is just five minutes from here. Why don't you run up with me and give me your opinion? I'd feel lots better."
"If I agree," she kidded, but it was a good-natured, almost intimate kind of thing. The sort of intimacy shared by two people, regardless of sex, because of a closeness in the things nearest to their hearts.
"I'll chance it. Come on." His eyes held hers, urging her to agree.
"All right." Her acquiescence was compulsory. She was fidgeting to see these paintings that had aroused such unbridled enthusiasm in Paul Hennessy. Perhaps, she told herself wryly, it was no more than envy.
They walked across to Riverside Drive, enjoying the quiet crispness of the autumn night, and Elaine thought it might be good to have this man for a friend. Such friendships did grow and become cherished segments of one's life. Perhaps Paul Hennessy could be a real friend, the land she'd never honestly known, because she was so starkly afraid of getting close to people. Paul Hennessy, friend—not lover.
Paul stopped in front of a narrow greystone along the Drive, led her up the sedately carpeted stairs to the third floor. When he unlocked the door and switched on the lights, Elaine caught her breath in amazement. She'd expected a typical bachelor efficiency apartment. Paul Hennessy occupied a high-ceilinged duplex.
"It's absolutely lovely, Paul." Her eyes swept the large, comfortably-furnished living room with its wood-burning fireplace and the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson, the winding stairway that led to the second floor. "I never expected something like this."
"You figured I'd live in one of those starkly-modern atrocities with the kind of furnishings you'd read about in Esquire or Playboy," Paul interpreted. "When I leave the office, I leave Madison Avenue behind me."
"People with something like this don't know how lucky they are," Elaine told him warmly. "You're living here—not existing in a luxury vacuum."
"Don't get wild ideas," Paul teased lazily, lighting a cigarette and giving one to her. "I inherited this place from a
college buddy. The rent's frozen. Probably only peanuts more than you pay for your place. And it's my one extravagance. After all, I don't have to buy my wardrobe at Bendel's or Bergdorf Goodman's."
Something about the way Paul looked at her now was disturbing. His eyes were destroying that wonderful friendship idea she'd been nurturing.
"What about those paintings?" she prodded, a growing self-consciousness taking over. Had this been a stupidly impulsive move on her part? Paul kidded regularly in the office, but basically she'd taken it for the routine phoney verbal lovemaking that was part of their daily chatter.
"Upstairs." He pointed "In the bedroom." His eyes trailed the length of her, passion showing itself in the vein pounding away in his forehead, in the quickened breathing.
"Odd place for paintings," she said levelly.
"I'm an odd character." He stood still, like a panther watching for the propitious moment to spring.
"Are there pictures, Paul?" Her voice was laced with iciness now. Damn him for leading her on this way. "Or is this the slightly dressed-up etching routine?"
"Sweetie, are you calling me a liar?" he chided lightly, but there was nothing light about the way his eyes lingered on the boyish slenderness of her lean, firmly-built body, down to the adolescent-slim legs. Paul Hennessy obviously wanted no part of the voluptuous Hollywood type beauties.
"Are there pictures?" she repeated calmly, without moving, fighting to conceal the tornado of anger whirling within her.
