Ten North Frederick

by John O'Hara

  The girl who lived with her in the East 64th Street walkup was from Buffalo, New York, and always said “Buffalo, New York.” Her background was the same as Ann’s, in that her father was a lawyer, quietly rich, and a class behind Joe Chapin’s at New Haven. She was likewise an only daughter and a non-college girl who had gone to Farmington and an American school in Florence, Italy. The apartment arrangement was more or less inevitable after they compared backgrounds over many cups of coffee in the Barbizon drug store, where they both were living during their early New York days. They might also have taken the apartment together without the common backgrounds, since they had liked each other from the beginning. They never were introduced. They introduced themselves in the drug store, and after they began sharing the apartment one of them would occasionally say to the other, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Kate Drummond was a cool, self-sufficient beauty, whose hair was black and whose skin was creamy. She was half an inch shorter than Ann, who was five feet, five inches tall, but Kate, with her slender nose and narrow shoulders, seemed taller than Ann. She was one of the girls who had made good her announcement to do some modeling, but the work bored her and exhausted her and she took her name off the lists, even before giving up the room in the Barbizon. It was not until they had lived in the apartment for a month that Ann realized that she really knew nothing about Kate, nothing that could not have been guessed by any observant person.

  Ann had not known, for instance, that Kate did not have a job. She had known about the modeling work, and assumed that that was what she did in the daytime. But after they began living together, Kate remarked that she was looking for an easy but entertaining and not confining job. She would get up and have a morning cup of coffee with Ann, wash the breakfast dishes, make the beds, and “putter” until it was time to go out for lunch. She kept the household accounts, sent out the laundry, bought the magazines, the phonograph records, the gin and vermouth, and ordered the food for their evening meal.

  Ann’s protests that all the work was being done by Kate were answered by Kate’s insistence that it all gave her something to do. And then they had their first confidential conversation.

  They had had their cocktails and lamb chops and ice cream, and they were having their cigarettes and coffee. “Tonight I insist on doing the dishes,” said Ann.

  “All right.”

  “Why, Kate? No argument?”

  “No. There may be an argument, but not about that. Ann, have you ever wondered why I never seem to go out with men?”

  “Yes, but I thought you probably had a beau in Buffalo.”

  “I have a beau, but not in Buffalo. And he’s not a beau. I have a lover, or I’m his mistress, as you prefer. He doesn’t keep me, and I certainly don’t keep him. But there is a man that I’m having an affair with, and I’ve got to tell you about it because I took the apartment with you under false pretenses. I wasn’t completely frank with you.”

  “Well, you didn’t ask me anything like that, either.”

  “No, but there’s more to it than that. This man is married and I’m in love with him, which is why I haven’t taken a job. He comes here in the afternoon.”

  “Oh,” said Ann.

  “We very seldom have any nights together, but he’s been here—at least once a week. I know you’re not a virgin, without your ever coming out and saying so. But if you consider it messy to have me meet my—lover—here, I’ll stop until you can find another girl to share the apartment. Or, if you feel very strongly about it, I’ll give you my half of next month’s rent and leave right away.”

  Ann took a deep drag of her cigarette. “So you knew I wasn’t a virgin,” she said. She smiled.

  “Right away,” said Kate. “I wouldn’t have liked you if you’d had that lingering virgin look.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something that will make you and your lover look very inexperienced.” She then told Kate the story of her marriage to Charley Bongiorno, all of it. As she finished, she looked at Kate and saw that there were tears in her eyes. Kate got up and put her arms around Ann, who now wept for the first time in years.

  “What I meant when I said I knew you weren’t a virgin, I put it badly. What I meant was I could tell you’d been in love. It left a mark on you, Ann, but it isn’t a scar. It’s beautiful.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m all right.”

  “You started to tell it flippantly, didn’t you? But halfway through I almost wanted you to stop, because I knew the ending. I could guess.”

  “Well, I’m glad you let me finish. I feel better, I really do. And I guess you know the answer to your question about moving out.”

  “I think I knew anyway,” said Kate. “Do you want to have men here, I mean spending the night? Is there anyone you would like to have spend the night?”

  “No, but I won’t say there never will be.”

  “The best way is for us to be completely honest about it. And if you bring somebody home and I’m still up, you come in first and I’ll go to my room. We ought to avoid seeing the other’s gentleman friend as much as possible. My activities are pretty much restricted to the afternoon, but you go out in the evening and you may want to finish the evening with breakfast, here. We’ll make up some house rules.”

  “Well, I was wondering about that, because I have somebody that I’ve liked well enough to spend several nights at his apartment. But we can’t always go there because he lets a suburban friend sleep on the davenport.”

  Kate smiled.

  “What’s the big smile for?” said Ann.

  “When you really come down to it, isn’t this what we left Gibbsville and Buffalo for?”

  “Well, partly,” said Ann.

  In her first year in New York, Ann had slept with four, and possibly five—she was not sure—men. She had not slept twice with the same man, or even gone out with a man after she had slept with him. In every case, she had deliberately taken more to drink than mere party spirit required, and one morning she awoke in a man’s apartment, nude, and in the single large bed, with no idea of the man’s name or what he looked like. She found enough letters and bills in his desk, addressed to the same person, to convince her that that was the name of her departed lover. She searched for a picture that might recall what he looked like, and on a sudden inspiration she looked up the name in a college yearbook in his bookshelf. His name was there, and a distinct photograph, but she remembered nothing about him. Her dress, her hat, her underclothes, her stockings, and her shoes were scattered in various parts of the apartment. She looked up the man’s name in the telephone book and from it learned where she was. She found her handbag with more than forty dollars in it, and she remembered having cashed a check for fifty dollars before going to a cocktail party the day before. She now knew the man’s name and age and college and home town and parents’ names and fraternity and college record and nickname and apartment address. But she did not know his height. Then on another inspiration, she tried on his dinner jacket and made a guess that he was fairly tall. But she could not be sure she would know him if she saw him again, and when she began to realize that at least he was not a thief, that he had gone to a good school and college—she also began to realize that she had been lucky not to have spent the night with a gangster or some such. There was evidence that they had had an affair, but the details of her behavior, and of his, were known to him alone. But how much or how long they would be his alone depended entirely on his personal code and discretion, and she had no reason to have confidence in their existence. And she would have to wait out the possibility of a pregnancy.

  She did not become pregnant, and in thanksgiving, she discontinued the practice of casual promiscuity. To make it worse, although making it better, he telephoned her at the Barbizon.

  “Ann, I’m sorry I was such a bastard that night. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.”

&
nbsp; “In other words, not pregnant? You told me you got pregnant easily.”

  “No, I’m okay, thanks.”

  “Would you like to have dinner Friday night?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Would you ever like to have dinner, or go out with me?”

  “Don’t you think it’d be better if we didn’t? You’re nice to call, but I think we’d better not.”

  “I meant to write you from Toronto, but I didn’t have your address.”

  “Well, thank you for calling.”

  “I like you, Ann. It isn’t just—you know. I’ve thought about you all the time I was in Canada. But I understand.”

  She kept seeing young men who looked like the fast receding likeness of the college yearbook, and then one night, she did see him and knew it was he. He was dining with a girl. He saw her; he bowed; she bowed; and he was forever out of her life.

  After that, there were dates for dinner and the theatre with young lawyers and friends of young lawyers; and one young lawyer whom she liked well enough to spend several nights at his apartment. The young lawyer’s suburban friend was an actual person. But Ann sometimes suspected that he did not stay in town every time the young lawyer said he was staying in town. It was a give-and-take relationship between Ann and the lawyer, who was a Harvard College, Harvard Law man named Howard Rundel. He was a conventional-looking young man, unsmilingly handsome and recently taking to wearing spectacles. He dressed well; in the manner, but tailor-made, and always wore a starched collar. He was self-centered and impatiently snobbish, but he had a surprising streak of sensuality that was the last thing Ann suspected in her office contacts with him. She knew he was using her, but to the same degree she was using him. And she also knew that part of his long-term plan was to go back to Chicago after three years with Stackhouse, Robbins, and marry into the family of a girl he was engaged to, and to whom he represented the ultimate in Atlantic Seaboard suavity. Sometimes Ann would look at him and imagine his small face half hidden behind the wedding Ascot, but he could excite her in many ways, and he had been successful with an astonishing number of women of all ages. He was not a gentleman, but she admitted to herself that she would have a hard time telling anyone just why she thought so. No single thing was wrong, but the total effect was of incompleteness. Her father would know; but she was not likely ever to ask him.

  • • •

  “Do you mind if Yale spends the night next Saturday?” said Ann.

  “Isn’t Yale a little young for you?” said Kate.

  “It’s my brother.”

  “Oh, Joby. I want to meet Joby,” said Kate.

  “I hope I haven’t given him too much of a build-up,” said Ann. “Are you sure you won’t mind? It won’t become a habit, because I have a feeling he won’t be there much longer. He’s a sophomore, but barely. He says he’s taking a private course in Afro-American music at a place called the Famous Door. And extra work at the Onyx Club. It’s all he cares about.”

  “Jazz.”

  “Jazz. And I don’t know one orchestra from another, except Guy Lombardo. But I hope you like Joby, so don’t mention Guy Lombardo or he’ll bare his fangs, show his unsocial side.”

  Joby turned up in a Chesterfield and a tan hat with a stitched brim and a gabardine jacket and flannel slacks. To that extent he was indistinguishable from the great mass of Yale-Harvard-Princeton undergraduates of the period. He was introduced to Kate Drummond, and he continued to conform to the undergraduate pattern by uttering the polite greetings, and then seating himself, still in his Chesterfield and fingering his hat, in the most comfortable chair in the room.

  “Where’s your bag?” said Ann.

  “No bag,” he said. “All I’ll need is a razor and a toothbrush. You must have a razor you shave your legs with.”

  “You’re so sophisticated, and so vulgar,” said Ann.

  “And so wrong,” added Kate.

  “All right, I’ll buy a razor. Kate’ll let me borrow her toothbrush, I’m sure.”

  “Sure, you can borrow it. That’s not saying I’ll use it again.”

  He laughed for the first time. “Kate, if you weren’t such an ugly old hag I could go for you.”

  “Joby!” said Ann.

  “I might. I really might. Why don’t you ditch the guy you’re going out with and go out with me instead? You must have thirty or forty dollars I can spend on you. By the way, Anna Banana?”

  “I’m prepared. Ten dollars,” said Ann.

  “Always ten dollars. Couldn’t you make it twenty, just once?”

  “No, and if it’s getting monotonous I’ll make it five.”

  “Well, I have to go,” said Kate.

  “Isn’t he picking you up? I’d like to have a look at the guy that’s getting the benefit of all this,” said Joby. “Is he old, is he young? Blind? Paresis? Fag? Why won’t he show himself?”

  “I’m not sure who he is,” said Kate. “I’m going to a dinner party.”

  “But you’re going alone,” said Joby. “Still, that doesn’t say you’ll be coming home alone, and I guess that’s what counts. I’ll look in on you when I get home.”

  “No you won’t,” said Ann.

  “What are the sleeping arrangements, by the way?” said Joby.

  “You can have my room, and I’m going in with Kate.”

  “Oh, let’s do something original,” said Joby. “I’ll go in with Kate.”

  “Do you think that would be so original?” said Kate.

  “Well now if I answered that truthfully—are you sure you don’t have an old razor lying around somewhere, Kate?”

  “All my men grow beards,” said Kate. “Good night, my prince.”

  “Sweet prince,” said Joby.

  “On your feet,” said Ann.

  He got up and bowed to Kate, who left smiling and regal.

  “How old is she?” said Joby.

  “Twenty-four.”

  “She seems older. At least she seems older than you.”

  “Oh, but I’m a very young twenty-four,” said Ann.

  “Are you going out, too?” said Joby.

  “I’m going out to dinner and the polo matches.”

  “The polo matches? What’s that a new name for?” said Joby. “I’ve heard of riding academies.”

  “A polo match is where three men on horses play against three other men on horses.”

  “Are you serious?” said Joby.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of Squadron A?”

  “Oh, yes. And who are you going out with?”

  “A lawyer named Howard Rundel. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “That means I don’t get any dinner here, eh?” said Joby.

  “That’s what it means.”

  “Is it all right if I fix myself something?” said Joby.

  “There’s a steak, but I’m saving that for tomorrow. Help yourself to anything else,” said Ann. “How are things at Yale?”

  “Oh, I guess I’m flunking out,” said Joby.

  “That’ll be a nice Christmas present for Father,” said Ann.

  “It’s a damned sight better than hanging around for another year and not making Wolf’s Head.”

  “How do you know you’re not going to make Wolf’s Head?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Joby.

  “Father’s had an awfully tough time the last few years, and we haven’t been much help. Me. And that political thing. And his leg.”

  “Go ahead, say it. And me and St. Paul’s School. And getting ready to flunk out of dear old Yale.”

  “Well, I didn’t have to say it. You did.”

  “But it was on the tip of your tongue. All right, I haven’t been what every father wants his son to be. But don’t forget, Ann. I haven’t been what I want to be.”

&nb
sp; “A piano-player in a jazz band.”

  “I never wanted to be that, and what’s so had about that? You married one.”

  “I knew the minute I said it,” said Ann. “What are you planning to do after you’ve so carefully flunked out?”

  “I’m going abroad. I’m going to live in Paris for a couple of years. I play good enough piano to get by. I can get a job on a boat for my passage, and jump ship at one of the French ports, and then play for my room and board.”

  “Something you overlook. The French have some kind of labor laws against foreigners. You won’t be able to get a job because they won’t give you a work permit.”

  “Well, there goes that brilliant idea. Christ, I don’t know what I’ll do. Go home and marry Miss Laubach.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It could be arranged,” said Joby.

  “Have you got a girl?”

  “Several,” said Joby.

  “Tonight, for instance.”

  “Well, tonight it depends. There’s a staff musician at NBC, a trombone player, and if he decides to put on a package, I have a girl. If he stays sober, no girl. I won’t know till half past eleven.”

  “Is this one married?”

  “Not quite,” said Joby. “There’s one guy she can’t find to serve papers on to get a divorce, and the trombone player is going to be next, but meanwhile she isn’t quite sure of the trombone player, so there am I.”

  “At half past eleven,” said Ann.

  “How’s Madam?” said Joby.

  “Don’t you know. Don’t you write to her? I’m sure she writes you.”

  “Oh, she’s got a letter that she writes every couple of weeks. ‘Joby dear—love, Mother.’ You could fill in what she writes in between. She’d love to give me hell, but she knows I’m wise to her.”

  “Wise to her? What ever are you talking about?”