“I see,” said Matt. “What's he going to be doing this fall?”
“Matt, I told you. Acting isn't a part-time thing with Tim. He'll be acting in the fall in New York.”
Matthew Swain took a deep breath. “Are you going with him?” he asked.
Selena looked down into her coffee cup. “I don't know,” she said. “He hasn't asked me.”
“Will you go if he does ask?”
Selena raised her head and looked the doctor straight in the eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “And if he doesn't ask me, I'll ask him.”
“What about Joey?”
“Joey stays with me, no matter where I go.”
“And what does Joey say about all this?”
Selena laughed. “Stop being such a worry wart, Matt,” she said. “Joey's crazy about Tim. They get along beautifully together.”
“Have you told Peter Drake?” asked Matt.
For a moment, some of the glow left Selena's face.
“No,” she said. “But I will.”
“He'll take it hard,” said Matt.
“Matt, I can't help it,” said Selena a little impatiently. “I never meant to hurt Peter, but he's known for a long time that I'm not in love with him and never have been.”
“Peter's in love with you,” said the doctor.
“Matt, what are you trying to say?” demanded Selena. “For Heaven's sake, spit it out and get it over with.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “We've known each other for a long time, Selena,” he said at last. “I'm just trying to make sure that you're not going to get hurt. That's all I care about. After all, none of us knows anything about this Tim Randlett, so bear with an old man's concern for a minute.”
Selena was suddenly in a raging anger. “No, you don't know anything about him,” she cried. “He's not from Peyton Place so therefore he's suspect. Well, how come no one ever suspected a nice Peyton Place resident like Lucas? Tell me that.”
“Selena,” said Matt, putting out a restraining hand, “I never meant anything like that, I only wondered—”
“I know goddamn well what you were wondering,” said Selena furiously. “You're wondering if I'm sleeping with him, aren't you? You and everybody else in Peyton Place. Well, yes I am, Matt. Every single chance I get and even that isn't often enough!”
“Selena,” said the doctor calmly, “we've known each other too long. Don't try to shock me.”
Selena wilted. “I'm sorry, Doc,” she said, reverting to the name she had always used. “I love him. I can't help myself. If he doesn't ask me to marry him, I think I'll die.”
Matthew Swain reached out and patted her arm.
“If he doesn't ask you, you send him along to me. It'll be because he’ s sick.”
At the end of the first week in August so many things happened at once that, as Connie Rossi put it, she was hard put to remember which end was up. Mike was offered and accepted a position to teach history at the high school at White River. Allison was invited to go to Hollywood as a “technical adviser” for the making of the motion picture based on Samuel's Castle, and Betty Anderson came home. As Selena Cross said to Tim Randlett, “Thank heavens! When they're talking about someone else, they're giving us a rest.”
So August passed in a series of heavy, heat-laden days, and the farmers looked with stunned eyes at the earth which seemed ready to explode with its load of fruitfulness. They began to harvest their second crops of hay while in sheds and barns all over northern New England women nailed apple crates together for the outsized crop to come. Potato plants wilted and died as the vegetables below the ground sucked life from them and grew fat with solid, white meat, and everywhere flower gardens struck the eye almost hurtfully with their overloads of bloom and color.
Those grown old resisted hope and promise with a suspicion older than outcroppings of granite.
“’Twon't last,” they said. “There'll be the day of reckoning.”
But the young stared at the magnificent summer as if each of them had received an overwhelming, unexpected gift. They forgot the summers of drought and the summers of wet cold, and after a while they ridiculously began to assume that all summers to come would be just like this one.
“Well, thank God we won't have to put the house up for sale,” said Connie Rossi to her husband. “With White River only nine miles away, you can commute very nicely.”
“Before anything,” said Mike, “I'd better start reading a few books. It's been a long time since I thought of teaching history to a bunch of kids who don't give a damn about the War of 1812 and are bored glassy-eyed with the Declaration of Independence.”
Connie and Allison made several all-day trips to Boston, choosing a new wardrobe for Allison to take to Hollywood, and all of Peyton Place buzzed with the news of Betty Anderson's return and waited to see what Leslie Harrington would do.
No one had the time nor the inclination to think about Selena Cross, and as the end of August drew near no one but Joey and Peter Drake noticed the change in her. The shine of happiness that had marked her and set her apart had faded and her figure grew almost gaunt with an unbecoming thinness. Her eyes were circled with dark shadows and even the electric darkness of her hair seemed faded and lifeless.
“For God's sake, Selena,” said Peter Drake. “What's the matter with you? Are you ill?”
“No,” she replied shortly. “It's nothing.”
And Joey was frightened. He remembered the way Selena had looked all during the months Lucas’ body had been decaying under the ground almost at her feet, and she looked the same way now.
“Please,” said Joey. “Let's go see Doc Swain.”
“It's nothing,” Selena insisted. “It's just the heat.”
But to Peter Drake, Joey confessed his suspicions.
“It must be Tim Randlett,” he said. “He's doing something to her. Something awful, and she won't stop seeing him.”
“It can't be Randlett,” said Peter. “She claims she loves him.”
“I don't care,” said Joey, and his voice shook with anger at Tim and worry for Selena. “It must be something he's doing.”
“He's asked her to marry him.”
“I know it,” replied Joey. “And she said yes, but now I don't want her to. In the beginning I thought he was all right. But not now.”
Peter Drake closed his eyes for a moment, as if by doing so he could stop the pain that Selena's actions had cost him.
“There's nothing we can do, Joey. There's nothing to do but wait.”
10
IT WAS RAINING HARD the way it will only in August, with plump, heavy drops that splattered out on the roads and sidewalks like silver pennies. Betty Anderson held her son, Roddy, tightly by the hand as the train pulled into Peyton Place. The conductor held a black umbrella which he opened when the train stopped and Betty stepped down onto the platform. The conductor reached up one arm to swing Roddy down, but Betty pushed his arm aside.
“I'll do it,” she said, and then, as the conductor stepped back, she added more gently, “He doesn't like to be handled by strangers.”
“Lots of ’em don't at that age,” said the conductor cheerfully. “What is he? About five?”
“He'll be five years old next month,” said Betty.
“I'm more than four and a half,” said Roddy proudly. “I used to be four and a half, but now I'm more.”
The conductor grinned. “Well, then,” he said. “You must be strong enough to carry your mother's suitcases.”
“No,” said Roddy seriously. “I don't have to carry anything but Wendel.”
“And is this Wendel?” the conductor asked, extending a hand toward the rather grubby giraffe that the child held.
“Yes,” said Roddy. “That's Wendel, and he is very tired from his long trip. When my grandfather gets here, Wendel is going to ride in a car. He likes to ride in cars.”
“And do you like to ride in your grandfather's car?” asked the conductor.
“Come on, darling,” said Betty. “It's damp out here. Let's go inside.”
“Good-by,” said Roddy.
The conductor waved as he boarded the train and Betty and Roddy started toward the station. She did not look back as the train pulled away, but she felt her back stiffen.
I should get right back on, she thought, and keep going, right the hell out of here. I never should have come in the first place. I must have a screw loose or something.
The station hadn't changed any, she noticed. It was still the same shabby structure it had been when she had left Peyton Place five years before.
A little older, she thought, looking at the buildings. A little more weathered and beat up, perhaps, but substantially the same. Like me, I guess.
Roddy was looking up at the high-ceilinged waiting room.
“Is this where my grandfather lives?” he asked.
“No,” said Betty. “This is a railroad station where people buy their tickets so that they can ride on the train. Your grandfather lives in a house. A great, big, fine house. The biggest house on Chestnut Street.”
“Are we going to sleep there?” asked Roddy, beginning to rub his eyes with the knuckles of one hand. “Wendel is tired.”
“I don't know yet,” said Betty, and she spoke with an effort, for she had just looked up and seen Leslie Harrington coming toward her. He had Charles Partridge with him.
He must be worried, thought Betty wryly, to bring his lawyer with him. The son-of-a-bitch.
It was Charles who said hello and extended his hand to Betty first. Leslie was staring at Roddy. I knew it, he thought. The boy was the image of his father.
It was true. Roddy had the same dark good looks, the same sturdy body that had been Rodney Harrington's.
“Hello, Betty,” said Leslie at last. “Welcome home.”
“This isn't home,” said Roddy. “This is where we came to visit.”
Leslie hesitated, and although he spoke to the child his eyes were on Betty.
“Well, maybe after you visit for a while, you'll like it here so much that you'll want to stay,” he said.
Betty looked Leslie straight in the eye.
“Don't count on it, Leslie,” she said.
“Are you my grandfather?” asked Roddy.
Leslie felt as if he had been struck a hard blow in the pit of his stomach.
Goddamn old fool, he chided himself. Getting all soggy at the sound of a word.
“Yes,” he said, when he could speak. “I am your grandfather.”
“Are we going to sleep in your great, big, fine house?” asked Roddy.
Leslie looked at Betty, who stood still and merely looked right back at him. “Yes,” he said. “There is a very special room all ready for you at my house.”
“Wendel is tired,” said Roddy.
Wendel is a very fine-looking giraffe,” said Leslie. “And you're right. He does look tired.” He looked down at his grandson. “Come on,” he said, extending his arms, “I'll carry you and Wendel both right out to my car and we'll hurry home and put him to bed.”
“Don't,” said Betty quickly, putting a hand on one of Leslie's arms. “Roddy doesn't like to be handled by people he doesn't know.”
But Roddy went at once to his grandfather. “It's all right,” he said. “Wendel wants to be carried.”
“Of course he does,” said Leslie as he swung the child up into his arms.
Betty followed Leslie out of the station, and it was only Charles Partridge who noticed the tightening around Betty's jaw.
Same old Betty, thought Charles; and then as he watched Leslie, he thought, And the same old Leslie. Getting exactly what he wants every time. But he'd better not try to put anything over on this girl. She may have let him get away with it once, but she's older and smarter now, and she's still got that stubborn streak.
“You drive, Charlie,” said Leslie, as they got into the car. “I have to sit here and hold Wendel.”
He'd better not try any tricks on me this time, thought Betty as she slammed the car door. I was dumb once, but I'm not any more. Five years in the city toughens you up real good.
The past few years had not been easy ones for Betty Anderson, but then, she hadn't expected them to be. In the beginning, when she finally knew that Rodney was not going to marry her and that all the money she was going to get from Leslie was two hundred and fifty dollars, she had been almost desperate. Her own family would not help her, she knew. She was on her own and there was nothing to do but make the best of it.
Thank God, I've never been a weeper, thought Betty as she boarded the train for New York. If I were, I'd sure as hell be bawling all over the place now.
She was grateful, too, that her figure still retained its slimness and that she was not plagued with the morning sickness or fainting spells that would have made working an impossibility.
When she got to New York, she found a job before she found a place to stay; then, with her immediate future momentarily secured, she looked for a room. She found one, and although it was a dark, depressing place she was pleased with the rent and, she told herself cheerfully, it wasn't as if she were going to be stuck there forever. Once she got the foolishness of having the baby out of the way and the business of placing it for adoption, she would be free to look for a better job, to look around for a man with money and, finally, to get married. She had not counted on the fact that she might love her child and that, in fact, she might begin to love him even before he was born.
She was working in a restaurant where the tips were fairly good and the customers easily satisfied.
Which, Betty thought ruefully, was a lucky thing for her because she had never been cut out to be a waitress.
She was constantly forgetting things, a napkin, glasses of water, filled sugar bowls, but Betty had always had a warm smile and the customers were mostly men. Betty smiled and laughed out loud at herself and twitched her hips, and the men laughed along with her and watched her behind appreciatively and tipped generously.
They asked her for dates, too, but Betty always flashed her left hand with its dime-store wedding band and told them that her husband was six feet tall with shoulders like a brick wall and that he'd kill any man who tried to date her up while he was away in the Army. But she smiled when she said it and she spoke in such a way that every man thought that if things had been different, if she were the kind to run around he would be the one man she would choose.
If I ever get rid of this goddamn bundle, thought Betty savagely, then I'll really cut loose.
But one afternoon, when she was changing from her uniform to her street clothes, she felt a twinge in her belly that left her weak, not with pain but with surprise.
Well, I'll be damned! she thought.
She walked all the way to her room and, as soon as she got there, she undressed and lay down on her bed. She put her hands flat against her abdomen and waited, and then it happened again. She could actually see the movement under her skin.
Well, I'll be damned, she thought again and grinned. Well, I'll be damned. It's alive!
She did not know exactly when the determination to keep her baby had formed in her. Later, when she thought about it, she supposed that it must have been when she felt that first twinge of life within her body. The new thought caused radical changes in her plans and Betty, who had never been one to put things off, sat down at once and began to plan.
Within a week she found an obstetrician who promised to deliver her baby for seventy-five dollars. He reserved a room for her in a hospital and told her exactly what it would cost her to stay there for five days.
“Will you have someone to look after you and the baby when you return home, Mrs. Harrington?” asked the doctor, using the name she had given him.
“Yes,” said Betty, hiding the rather wry smile on her lips. “I have a family.”
She spent the next months learning everything she could about baby care. She bought d
iapers and nightgowns and safety pins and decided that she would need neither blankets nor bottles. The baby would sleep in the same bed with her and she would nurse him herself. Now, she gorged herself on the one meal a day she was allowed at the restaurant and she hid cake and bread and cheese in her handbag so that she could eat in her room without using any money.
Instead of taking a drink of water at the restaurant, she drank milk. Water she drank at home. And every cent she could keep from spending went into a bank account to pay for the hospital and to support her during the weeks after the baby was born when she would have to stay with him.
Rodney Harrington, Junior, she thought. That's what I'll name him. He has a right to the name, and he's going to have it. To hell with Peyton Place and everybody in it.
Luckily for her, the owner of the restaurant where she worked was an Italian with six children of his own. His wife had worked right up to the last minute and it hadn't hurt her a bit. So he kept Betty on as she grew larger and larger, cautioning her against lifting heavy trays and to watch out for wet places on the kitchen floor.
“You need something lifted, you call me,” he told her. “And don't worry about a thing. It's good for a woman to stay on her feet when she's that way. Makes it easier when her time comes.”
The Italian's wife said, “Don't worry about nothin’. Your husband's away, I'll come visit in the hospital. After, I come help you with the baby. Don't worry about nothin’!”
“These days,” said the Italian, snapping his fingers, “it's nothin’ for a woman to have a baby. Bing, in the hospital. Bing, with the ether. Bing, the baby. All over.”
The baby was born at the end of October and things worked out just as Betty had planned. Her delivery was an easy one in spite of Roddy's husky nine and a half pounds, and Betty's breasts overflowed with milk to feed him. From the first, he was a contented baby who never cried except when he was hungry or wet; and, as the weeks went by, he seemed to grow right in front of Betty's eyes. When he was three months old, she knew that it was time for her to go back to work. There were twenty-one dollars and sixty-seven cents left in the bank.
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