Allison said, “He gives me the feeling that he's terribly sorry New England doesn't have a king and a flag. I think he'd like to fly the flag to announce that I am here.”
Lewis was still smiling at the sight of the three men backing out of the room. “New York is full of apparitions,” he said. “It's become the final resting place of the ghosts of half of Europe. Those three men, for example, died in Budapest in 1935. New York is the Paradise their souls migrated to.”
“The chef ’s ghost has done well by us tonight,” Allison said.
After the cold soup, there was filet mignon with sauce Béarnaise, artichokes vinaigrette and a small salad pungent with herbs. They finished the champagne with tiny wild strawberries that tasted of sun and summer fields.
Standing at the parapet with their coffee cups, they looked at New York, winking and flashing around them. That is what it's all for, Allison thought, not knowing quite what the words meant. Moments like this make the agony of success worth while. But immediately she asked herself, Is it true? Does this make up for the lies and the estrangement of friends?
She thought of David. It pained her to think of him, in his lonely room, only a few minutes away, bent over his work. Perhaps she had misjudged him. Perhaps his integrity was real and his anger with her was genuine, not envy of her success but outrage that success was what she wanted. He believed in her talent. She decided she would phone him, invite him and Stephanie to dinner the next night.
Below, Central Park looked wilted and tired after its three months’ struggle for survival against the city summer.
Lewis said, “We should ask the Parks Commissioner to send Central Park away for the summer. It's too old and careworn to spend any more summers in the city.”
“I'll draw up a petition in the morning,” Allison said. “We'll call it the Fund for Sending Central Park to the Catskills. School children will send in nickels and dimes. Our slogan will be: Central Park Needs Fresh Air.”
Lewis put his coffee cup on the top of the parapet and, leaning forward, kissed her mouth gently.
“And I need you,” he said. “It's as simple as that. You're my sun and air.”
Lewis stayed till after midnight. They talked of their love and, like newlyweds, came back again and again to their plans for being together, to Allison's taking an apartment in New York when she got back from Hollywood. She would be back in October, go to Peyton Place to see Mike and Constance, and then come to New York and they would take up their life together.
“It's pretty rare, you know,” Lewis said. “I mean, an arrangement like ours. It's pretty rare when it works. Very few of them last, I'm afraid.”
“Why do you tell me that?” Allison asked.
“Because we have to face up to all the dangers, all the pitfalls of our situation if we are to succeed.”
“I know what you are thinking, Lewis—that I will become dissatisfied, that I will want more. That I will begin to nag you and demand you get a divorce so we can get married. Darling, don't you think I've thought of all that? I've considered everything. You are what I want. This is what I want.”
“I pray it will always be like this, Allison. And I hope I will never become selfish. I have thought about it a great deal, too, while you were in Peyton Place. I hope I will never make demands on you… .”
“And I hope you will, darling.”
“—I don't mean lover's demands. I'm talking about the demands of—well, of a selfish partner, demands that have nothing to do with love but only with self.”
Lewis swirled the brandy around in his glass; for a moment, it caught the light and glowed with a deep flame, then died and subsided.
“I guess that what I mean, Allison, is this: when my age becomes burdensome to you, don't keep me around out of pity. Not even if I beg you to.”
“Oh, darling, darling,” Allison cried, and clasped Lewis in her arms. “Don't think of such things. Don't. You are not old. You aren't.”
Lewis smiled for a moment. “I'm not now. In fact, I haven't felt this young for twenty years. I suppose I am like most people—fearful of old age. I'd only admit it to you, darling. I have the crazy notion that someday I'll wake up and see my face in the mirror and have to tell myself, You are old, Lewis, you are old. Men are vain and they can fool themselves for a long time; but I imagine the day comes when even the vainest man has to give in to the truth because his bones will no longer permit him to lie.”
“I don't want to talk about it, Lewis. Please don't let's talk about it. We're living in the present, here and now. Let's leave the future to the ladies who write the horoscope columns. I'll just take life day by day; and that means you'll have to take it that way, too, because you are going to be with me. Every day.”
Lewis left after midnight, and Allison, tired from the day that had begun early in Peyton Place and ended late in New York, went to bed. She opened the windows wide to the cool night air; the traffic noises were diminished by distance, a stillness seemed to rise from the quiet, deserted park. It enveloped her, she drifted, she slept.
In the morning she had breakfast brought to her on the terrace. It was only eight o'clock. Country girl, she said to herself, making fun of herself for not having fallen into the New York way of sleeping late and then breakfasting on black coffee. She ate a country girl's breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, fruit and coffee with cream.
She was glad she had wakened early. Allison hated to hurry the first meal of the day, loved to linger over the breakfast cigarettes that tasted better than any other. She watched the city wake up. Standing at the parapet, she saw the water truck's white spray; it left the surface of the street a little darker, if not much cleaner.
Beginning at eight-thirty, more and more men and women left apartment buildings and were swallowed up by the omnivorous subway entrance at the corner. Allison smiled, amused to observe that as the hour approached closer to nine, the men and women walked ever more quickly.
At ten, dressed in a tweed suit with a jacket cut like an elegant cardigan, Allison stepped into a waiting taxi, the door closed behind by the hotel doorman.
The driver said, “You know something, lady? Doormen at good hotels are the only people who know how to close taxi doors. They don't slam ’em but they always get it closed on the first try. My taxis would last a lot longer if people knew how to close the doors.”
Allison spent the morning in paneled offices, putting into the hands of lawyers and investment men her now considerable earnings. She nodded as they explained things to her; but, no matter how closely she tried to listen, her mind drifted on to other things. But she knew they were honest and capable men; it did not matter that she didn't understand. Perhaps it was better, she thought; at least, I won't be an interfering amateur. Things like this are better left to the pros.
She went shopping in the afternoon and bought the kind of clothes and lingerie she had only looked at before. She ordered suits and dresses that bore the labels that meant money. The floor managers invariably recognized her; charge accounts were immediately arranged.
“I can give you a check,” Allison offered.
She laughed to herself at the thought that, now that she had money, she didn't need it.
She had only to give her address and it was sent; her name was the only currency she needed.
When she got back to her apartment, the boxes were unpacked and the contents hung in the closets by the maid. Allison kicked off her shoes and dropped down on the sofa. I'll never get used to this, she thought.
The phone rang. It was Stephanie. A television producer had just called. “It's a small part, Allison, but I have to take it. And rehearsals start tonight, I'm afraid. It's seven hours in a drafty theater for me. I'd much rather be having dinner with you.”
Stephanie was in a hurry. She'd call tomorrow, she said, and they'd make a date for lunch.
I adore Stephanie, Allison thought. She's practically the only one to whom my success hasn't made a bit of difference. Some people seemed to
feel that there was just so much success around and that if their friends won any part of it, that left less for them. It was an attitude Allison could not understand.
I could understand it, she thought, if I had just picked a winning number in the sweepstakes, or a rich uncle in Australia had died and left me everything he owned which included half of Australia. But I worked for everything I have. Nobody gave it to me. She remembered the bitter, vicious letters she had received, hundreds of them, from people who thought that her success made their success less possible of achieving.
She sighed, stirred herself to a sitting position and phoned Lewis. She told him about her day and that only David would be coming to dinner because Stephanie had got a part. “Won't you change your mind and come, darling?”
“I'll phone you at midnight. Perhaps if you're not too tired then, I'll come over. Have a pleasant evening with David, darling. He can give you a lot of information about Hollywood, you know. He was there for a while. I don't know how helpful it'll be, though. He has a pretty jaundiced view of it. But we'll talk about that later.”
After she had spoken to Lewis, she called Room Service and ordered dinner for two, to be served at eight o'clock.
Before David arrived, she drew a bath and sprinkled it with lavender scent. In the bottle, the drops were amber, but in the bath water they turned to a smoky purple. She was enclosed by the fragrance.
When David came, he found her wearing a simple black dress, its severity relieved only by the rich velvet piping around the cuffs. Her hair was pulled back.
She looked older, he thought, and more beautiful than ever before.
“I was surprised when you called this morning, Allison. And terribly pleased, of course. I want to thank you for ending this ridiculous situation. It was all my fault. That day we met in the coffeehouse— well, to put it bluntly, Allison—I was jealous. I gave myself all sorts of other reasons for what I was feeling, but it was plain, old-fashioned jealousy and nothing else. Forgive me, Allison.”
“There's nothing to forgive, David. Let's have a drink and a long evening of talk. We'll drown it all in talk.”
After dinner, over coffee on the terrace, the talk turned to Allison's coming trip to Hollywood. By that time, all constraint between them had been dissipated by the good food and the wine that had been chilled to just the right temperature. The hovering Hungarian ghosts had done their job well; and, at ten o'clock, they evaporated, taking their food cart with them, leaving David and Allison with their coffee and brandy.
“You'll hate it out there,” David said. “Hollywood is filled with haberdashers who made good, and men who call themselves writers though they've never had an original thought in their lives.”
“Nevertheless, I'm going,” said Allison. “Brad has already told them so.”
“Just what are you supposed to be going there for?” asked David.
“I'm to be technical adviser for the film. I'm going to give the script writer a few pointers and talk with the costume and set designers. Things like that.”
“Allison,” said David earnestly, “they're making a fool out of you. They don't need you to tell them anything. All they want is to make use of you, to exploit your publicity value for their own ends. They'll make you feel important, invite you to a few parties, flatter the hell out of you so that you can come back East and tell everyone who'll listen what a swell bunch of people they are out on the coast.”
Allison laughed. “Well, if that's all they want, they're certainly willing to pay a good price for it. Twenty-five hundred a week plus all my expenses.”
David shrugged. “You won't like it, Allison. I'm sure you won't.”
“Maybe not, David, but I've got to find out for myself. I want every experience that's offered me—or just about.”
“I'm only thinking of you,” David said. “Wait until they start ripping your book to pieces. You'll feel differently then. You won't be able to stand it. Nobody could.”
“I don't have your sensitive, artistic soul,” said Allison. “As far as I'm concerned, all I want for Samuel's Castle is another forty weeks on the lists. And after what they paid me for the picture rights, they can do anything they damn well please with it.”
“I just don't want you to be hurt,” said David quietly, and Allison was suddenly ashamed.
“I know it, David,” she said contritely. “But I have to find out for myself.”
“Let me hear from you,” said David.
“Yes,” said Allison. “I'll phone you. With the studio paying my hotel bills, I'll be able to do it with a clear conscience.”
David smiled. “You've changed a lot, Allison. But basically you're still the little girl from Peyton Place, still keeping your conscience clear. I don't think you could change that part of you if you submitted to surgery.”
2
THE HOTEL WAS A HUGE, ten-tiered semicircle made of white stone and glass and it sat in the middle of vast, manicured lawns that were dotted with symmetrical, evenly spaced flower beds.
Allison stood on the terrace outside her ninth-floor suite and thought, I wonder if anything ever gets dirty in Beverly Hills. It was ten o'clock in the morning and everything below, beyond and behind her sparkled as if the world had just been removed from a tissue-filled gift box.
In the room behind her, the telephone rang, and she stepped through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and went to answer it. The room itself was like a theatrical set, all modern furniture, white rugs and abstract paintings. The furniture was upholstered in a deep royal purple and the linen drapes over the sliding glass doors matched exactly.
“Hello,” said Allison into the white telephone receiver.
“Are you ready?” asked Bradley Holmes.
“As much as I'll ever be,” said Allison. “I've been standing here admiring my surroundings and I can't quite figure out whether I'm living inside a frosted wedding cake or a purple Easter basket.”
Brad laughed. “Wait until you see the studio,” he said. “That'll really give you something to think about.”
“I can't wait,” said Allison. “Are you on your way down?
“Right there,” replied Brad and hung up.
A few minutes later there was a knock at her door and he came into her room.
“This is indeed very plush,” said Brad, looking around. “The denizens of Glitterville have done right well by you. Naturally, my room is not anywhere near this fancy, but then, I'm paying for mine.”
Allison put on her hat and a fresh pair of white gloves.
“You don't like Hollywood much, do you?” she asked.
“Nobody from New York likes Hollywood,” replied Brad, as they walked down the hall toward the elevators. “Of course, half the time it's a pose. New Yorkers who'd give their eyes to be called to Hollywood are the ones who scream the loudest about prostitution and lack of artistry in the films. No, I don't like Hollywood, but I keep my mouth shut about it. They keep a great deal of money out here and I enjoy getting my share of it.”
“David hated it out here,” said Allison.
“Yes, he did,” replied Brad. “But, on the other hand, David is never going to get rich. It all comes down to what a person wants from life.”
A Cadillac limousine pulled up in front of the main entrance of the hotel and a uniformed chauffeur got out to hold the back door of the car open for Allison and Brad.
“You see,” said Brad, “the little niceties, such as being driven about in a car like this, cost money. If one wants things like this, one must sacrifice something. David was never willing to give an inch. I was out here with him a few years ago. He was impossible. Miracle Pictures had paid him a very decent price for his third book in spite of the fact that the hard-cover edition never went over three thousand copies. They wanted David to help on the script. Well, we came out here, David and I, and let me tell you, I never want to spend another such two weeks. David was unbending, unyielding and absolutely deaf to all suggestions made by the producer, the d
irector and the other writers. We were supposed to be here for eight weeks, but at the end of two David went out and got drunk and took a plane to New York. Believe me, it wasn't easy explaining that to the studio. But in the end, they decided that they were better off without him.”
“He thought I shouldn't come out here,” said Allison.
“I can imagine,” said Brad. “Listen, darling, I don't know why you bother with people like David. You're a success now. You don't need these somber, social worker types.”
“But David is a great writer,” said Allison. “Not just good, not just successful, but great. And you know it.”
“I know it,” admitted Brad, “but I also know that if David relaxed a little and listened to me a little more, his books would do a lot better on the market.”
“David hasn't a commercially minded cell in his body,” said Allison.
“One of the privileges of the chosen few,” said Brad as they rode past the gates.
Allison sat up and smoothed her gloves nervously. As always, when facing a new situation, she was wishing fervently that she had stayed safely at home. The car pulled up in front of a white stone house that looked as if it might belong in a New York suburb. On the front lawn there was a black lettered sign in a wrought-iron frame that read ARTHUR TISHMAN.
“For Heaven's sake,” said Allison, “is this Mr. Tishman's office?”
“Yes,” said Brad. “Fancy, isn't it?”
“A man with a wife and three children could move in here and live very comfortably,” said Allison.
In what would have been the foyer of the bungalow, had it been used as a home, were a desk and two filing cabinets, but these had been so artfully arranged and camouflaged that they did not seem at all out of place amidst the brocaded sofas and oil paintings. Behind the desk sat one of the most beautiful women Allison had ever seen. She was small but with an exquisitely molded figure and her hair was like a gold cap. She wore a severe black dress and silver bracelets on both arms, and her shoes were tiny scraps of black leather.
Return to Peyton Place Page 21
