She paused and drank deeply and refilled the glass. “I don't know what sets anybody else off,” she said. “But I know what it was with me. We had a teacher at school who was a real old bag. She didn't have any more business teaching than I'd have, but with her shape and face I guess she couldn't do anything else. She reminded me of a wrinkled-up old prune, but she taught us geography. One day she was telling us about Paris, and she got a kind of look on her face that made her almost good looking for a minute. She showed us pictures, too. The most beautiful pictures I'd ever seen in my life, and she told us about the trip in a ship that got you there.”
She leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling, as if to look back into the past more comfortably. “Right then and there I made up my mind that I was going to Paris, but I was still a kid and too dumb to keep my mouth shut about it. I told her and she laughed at me. She told me that sharecroppers’ kids never got out of Georgia, let alone make trips to Europe. But I knew better. I was going to Paris. And I did, too. Five years ago. With four trunks and sixteen suitcases and two maids and a poodle. I stood under the Arc de Triomphe and thought of that old bitch back in Georgia and thumbed my nose at her. I'd made it and I'd come first class all the way. I was with my third husband then. Jay Keating. You've heard of him, I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Allison. “I've heard of him. He's an English actor.”
“English my foot,” said Rita. “He was born in South Dakota. He was a pansy on top of everything else.”
“A what?” asked Allison.
“Pansy,” said Rita. “A real fruit. I caught him in my stateroom with the ship's purser on the trip home. But you never would have read that in any fan magazine. We called it incompatibility and I went to Reno for a divorce. Heigh-ho, and so much for number three.” She raised her glass. “Here's to success. It's what you tell yourself you have when it dawns on you that you haven't got anything else.”
“It doesn't have to be like that,” said Allison. “I've heard of plenty of people who are successful and happily married besides.”
“Maybe,” said Rita. “If the man is as successful as the woman. It doesn't work if the woman is the big name. Not once in a million times! It didn't work with me, and I guess I knew it wouldn't right from the beginning. I was married when I first began to be somebody. My first husband. Alan. A real, sweet kid. He worked for the Los Angeles Telephone Company and I married him because I kidded myself into believing I really loved him. What I was was hungry. And lonely. So Alan fed me and kept me company. When I was around. But I was going to make it and make it big and I didn't want a husband around who was going to make the road up any rockier than it was to begin with. I had a shape back then, too, and I wasn't particular who I showed it to as long as there was something in it for me. Alan didn't like the pictures he saw of me wearing a little more than a G-string and two sequins, but not much more. He crabbed when I went out with my agent and he couldn't understand that I had to be seen in the right places. He wanted me home and I wanted out. So that was the end of that.”
Rita smiled her mirthless smile. “I felt rotten that time. I cried for almost the whole six weeks I had to stay in Nevada, but my agent, Charlie Bloom, told me what the score was. Charlie said that I could either have a diamond necklace around my neck or a husband. Naturally, I chose the diamonds. Do you know Charlie?”
“No,” said Allison.
“He's the biggest agent in Hollywood,” said Rita. “Charlie has all the big names in his stable now, but when he started out with me he was nobody. Just a smart, sharp little guy who knew all the answers and had more nerve than a brass monkey. Charlie dressed me in a tight sweater and an even tighter skirt and he taught me how to walk with a sexy jounce and how to pinch my nipples so that they'd show under the sweater. He changed my name, too. From Alice Johnson to Rita Moore. And there was a time when a man could get fired at Century if he slipped and called me Alice. Alice Johnson was a name without class. It took Hollywood ten years to find out that I could do more than stick my chest out and wiggle my backside. That's when I became An Actress. Anyway, three years ago I married John Gresham. John was a real smoothie. He played the piano and told me I had eyes that he could drown in and that my body was like a flame. So what the hell. I married him.”
“Just because he was a good talker?” asked Allison.
Rita shrugged. “No. He pressured me into it.”
“Oh, come now,” Allison objected. “Women don't allow themselves to be pressured into a marriage they don't want.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” demanded Rita. “John was an artist, let me tell you. He knew what he was doing. The son-of-abitch used to make love to me for hours before we were married. He'd stroke and kiss and handle me until I thought I'd go out of my mind, but he never finished anything. He'd tell me he wanted to wait until after we were married because I was so pure and he didn't want to dishonor me by taking me without a ceremony. So I married him.”
She stopped to light a cigarette. Allison could not take her eyes from her. “He was good in bed, I'll say that for him. And for a while it was great. We'd spend all day in bed. John was an expert. He knew every trick in the book and when I thought I couldn't do anything else, he'd come up with something new. But there came a day when I had to go back to work and that left John without a job. Still, he was nice to come home to. I'd walk in the door and he'd undress me and make me a drink and play with me while I drank it, and it was fun. I guess he got bored after a while, though, because last year he stopped playing with me and began to play with my money. He got away with over fifty thousand before I put a stop to it. As usual, I put the stop to it all by going to Nevada.”
She turned her green eyes, searching and sad, to Allison. “So now you can go back to New York and tell your friend Paul what success is really like. You go along for years kidding yourself that if you're successful you can have everything you want, but all the time you know that the only way you can make it is alone.”
Rita fixed herself another drink, and when she had done so she held the glass up to the light and squinted through the dark fluid.
“Alone,” she said. “I guess that's the saddest word in the world. You stay at a hotel and order your own coffee in the morning and you hire a masseuse to rub your back and at night your bed is as big as Texas and as cold as Alaska. But you're successful.” She swallowed her drink and looked at Allison. “Don't forget that, Allison. You're a success! You're a goddamned big success! And just see what it'll get you. Just you bloody well see!”
When Allison entered her hotel room, much later that night, its expensive splendor suddenly seemed tasteless and repellent. She threw her purse across the room. It struck the wall above her dressing table and fell with a crash among the bottles of perfume and jars of cream. Allison wanted to break every window and rip to shreds the royal purple curtains. She wanted to do something so wild and destructive that it would shake her back into sanity, into a realization of her true self which she now felt was lost.
She had success, more than she had ever dreamed of. But never in her life had she been so fearful of the future, so frightened of the present, as she was now.
She sank down into a chair and cried bitterly. What is to become of me? she asked herself. Will I, ten years from now, be another Rita Moore, working on my fourth divorce or my fifth husband? Oh, Lewis, Lewis, take care of me. Never let me go.
PART FOUR
1
ALLISON RETURNED TO PEYTON PLACE in late October, having spent a week in New York with Lewis. She had had to tell Constance that the stopover in New York was necessary for business reasons. As the train pulled into Peyton Place, she thought, Lewis has become a guilty secret. She did not want to have secrets from her mother, but she knew that Constance would be worried and terribly upset to learn that she was involved with a married man. She wanted desperately to be able to sit down with Constance and discuss it with her, but she knew that for Constance's sake she could not.
She was hardly off the train before Mike and Constance threw their arms around her, welcoming her home. Tears sprang to her eyes; she felt guilty, felt she had betrayed them by staying with Lewis for a week. Constance carried her off to the waiting car while Mike followed, carrying her suitcases.
Constance and Allison sat in the back seat, and Constance held her hand and looked into her face as if to see if those weeks in Hollywood had changed or altered her in some way. Mike took a look at them in the rear-view mirror and laughed.
“Be careful, Allison,” he said, “any minute now she's going to whip out a microscope and put you under it.”
“You go to hell, Mike,” said Constance, and smiled at him in the mirror.
Mike went on. “She was certain you had ‘gone Hollywood’ and that you'd come back with platinum-blond hair and at least three Mexican divorces.”
Allison turned to Constance. “I was working too hard to become tainted,” Allison said.
“Tell me all about Rita Moore,” Mike demanded.
“That's all he's interested in,” Constance said. “That old man of mine has hot pants for Rita Moore. Every time I open the bedroom door I expect to find that he's got pin-ups of her over our bed.”
“I may be old but I'm not a fool,” Mike said. “I know what side my bread is buttered on.”
“Mike!” Allison said. “Honestly, I never heard people talk like you two, not even in Hollywood.”
Mike and Constance roared with laughter. Constance squeezed Allison's hand. “I'm so glad to have you home, baby,” she said.
The car drew up to the house. Allison looked at it with loving eyes. If only Lewis could see it, she thought, if only he were here with me now.
They went into the kitchen. It was, Allison thought, the warmest, kindest room she had ever seen anywhere.
“I'll unpack later,” she said. “Right now I want a cup of Mother's coffee.”
Mike said, “I'll carry your luggage upstairs, and then I've got to drive downtown and pick up some things for your mother.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “Welcome home, Allison,” he said.
Why is it always such a relief to me when I come back? wondered Allison. Peyton Place is small-town America at its worst. Narrow, provincial, gossipy. Yet, I never feel really safe anywhere else, nor contented. And why is it that I love the winter best? Is it because I can stay safe and warm in my mother's house while the storm rages outside?
Allison yawned and stretched and turned away from the bleak, wintry view outside the kitchen window.
“Tired, darling?” asked Constance, setting down a coffeepot and two cups on the table.
“No,” said Allison. “Just lazy. I was wondering why I always feel better when I'm in Peyton Place than when I'm anywhere else.” She shrugged. “I guess it must be immaturity. But I love to snuggle down into the cocoon of this house while life raises hell outside my protective shell. How's that? Deep and psychological, huh?”
Connie laughed. “I don't know much about psychology. I only know that I'm happy when you are, and wretched when you're not. Maybe I have an apron string complex or something.”
Allison squeezed her mother's shoulder and picked up a coffee cup.
Constance said, “I didn't think you'd want to see anybody today, so I invited Selena and Joey and Peter Drake for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Oh? I didn't know that Peter was still on the scene.”
“Very much so,” said Connie. “Selena never told me what happened between her and Tim Randlett, but when it was over, there was Peter, ready and willing to pick up the pieces.”
“I wish Selena would get married,” remarked Allison. “Either that or leave town. She's in a dreadful rut here. What is there in Peyton Place for a girl with her looks and intelligence? Nothing.”
Connie smiled. “Maybe she feels the same way about Peyton Place as you do,” she said. “Perhaps there is a degree of security here for her that she's afraid would be missing everywhere else.”
“What security?” asked Allison. “She not only has to look after herself, but Joey, too. And all she has to depend on is her job at the store.”
“And Peter Drake,” Connie added.
“Perhaps it's just as well that it ended with Tim the way it did. I guess Mike was right about him all along.”
Connie shrugged. “I don't know. I always liked Tim well enough. At any rate, he was Selena's last chance to get out of her rut. I don't imagine that she'll be too eager to fall in love with another stranger.” Connie paused and looked searchingly at Allison. “And, speaking of love,” she said at last, “what about David Noyes?”
Allison looked down into her empty coffee cup. “I don't know,” she said.
She longed to tell Constance it was not David she cared about but Lewis Jackman. David, however, provided a perfect smoke screen, so she went on discussing him with Constance.
“He's in love with you, you know.”
“It's not David that I don't know about,” said Allison. “I'm not sure of myself.”
Connie sighed. “I guess every mother wants to see her daughter safely and happily married,” she said. “And I'm no different.”
“David has been everywhere and has done just about everything,” said Allison. “He's been on a safari in Africa and skiing in Switzerland and he's even had himself put in prison so that he could write a book about it. I've never been anywhere or done anything. David would be perfectly willing to get married, buy a house right here in Peyton Place and settle down to writing his books.”
“But you've just been telling me that you're never happier than when you're right here,” objected Connie.
“I am,” agreed Allison. “But it's a selfish sort of thing. I want to be able to come home anytime I want to. But I want to be able to leave, too. At any time for any place. I wouldn't be able to do that if I were married to David. He has this thing where he always wants to shield me from everything.”
“What's wrong with that?” asked Connie. “You'd be much worse off if you got stuck with a man who didn't give a damn what happened to you.”
Allison sighed. “I know it,” she said. “But I can't live through David's experience, either.” She stopped and grinned at her mother. “You know what's the matter with me?” she asked. “I want everything. Every experience, every sight and smell and taste and feeling. But I don't want anything to hurt me.” She stood up and went to the window. “So you see how impossible it is,” she said. “Nobody can have both, can they?”
Connie refilled the cups. She thought, Allison has grown a lot in the past year, but in many ways she's still a romantic little girl. “I can see why you want to wait,” she said. “But I do wish that David were coming for the holiday.”
“He's working on a book,” said Allison. “And when David is working, all the furies of hell couldn't tear him away from his typewriter. Perhaps he'll be up for Christmas. Stevie is coming for Thanksgiving, though. And if it's all right with you, Mother, I'd like to ask my publisher to come too,” she added hurriedly.
Constance turned and looked at Allison. “You mean Lewis Jackman?”
“Yes,” said Allison. “I'd like him to see Peyton Place.”
“Well, of course, dear. You know you can invite anyone you like.”
Constance paused to light a cigarette and glanced at Allison over the wavering flame of the match. “He's married, isn't he?”
“Lewis Jackman? Yes, he is. And he's in his forties, too.”
“Well,” Constance said, “that doesn't matter. Some men are younger at that age than others are when they're twenty.”
Allison laughed. “Where did yo
u learn all that, Mother?”
Constance said, “Darling, there are some things you learn just by living and keeping your eyes open. You don't have to personally experience all sorts of men to know that there are some who are born old and there are others who are still young when they're sixty.”
“Well,” Allison said, “all this has got nothing to do with Lewis Jackman. He's just my publisher and a very charming man. It doesn't matter to me whether he's eighty, married, or unmarried.”
Constance said, “What about his wife? Will she be coming, too?”
“I don't think so,” Allison said, looking down into her cup. “From what I hear, she's quite sick. She doesn't see anyone but her psychiatrist.”
“Oh, I see,” Constance said. “Too bad.”
Surreptitiously she watched Allison's face. She wondered why talking about Lewis Jackman had made her so nervous, and why Allison did not look at her when she spoke of Jackman's wife. There were a hundred questions Constance wanted to ask her daughter, and it was only with a conscious effort that she kept her mouth shut. You must not pry, she warned herself. When Allison is ready to tell you about this, she will tell you.
Constance was certain something was going on. A young girl's infatuation with an older man, she thought, can sometimes be a very strong thing. She wondered if the fact that Allison had never known her own father might not have something to do with it. Perhaps Lewis Jackman was providing Allison with the father image she had always lacked.
Mike returned. He burst into the kitchen carrying two large bags of groceries. Then he sat down at the table with them, held up the empty cup and said to Constance, “Reward me. I have been a good boy.”
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