by Rona Jaffe
happy, and if you live the wrong way you're miserable. If you get married it doesn't mean positively you're going to be happy, but if you get married and walk out on it then you cant be happy. You'll always know you gave up on a responsibility."
"What if the other person walks out on you?"
"Mr. Rice should have tried harder."
"How do you know he didn't?"
"Well, that's a funny thing to think," Mary Agnes said. "You don't even loiow him."
"I know it," Caroline said. "Maybe he was a beast. I'm only saying I know about being walked out on. Sometimes trying doesn't make the least bit of difference. It's almost as if there aren't two people involved at all."
Mary Agnes looked at her, her eyes widening. "Were you married?"
"No. Engaged."
Mary Agnes glanced at Caroline's left hand. "Oh, how terrible. How terrible."
"Well, don't you get upset about it," Caroline said, smiling.
"You poor thing," Mary Agnes said. "I'll never talk about it again, unless you bring it up. If you ever want to talk about it, you just tell me."
And you'll tell everyone else on the thirty-fifth floor, Caroline thought, amused. Mary Agnes' air of tragedy made her begin to feel that her problems really weren't so pitiable after all. There is something to be said for someone else's exaggerated sympathy. If it happens to fall a little far afield it makes the original problem seem a bit remote and not quite worth it. Or maybe that's the first sign of health, she thought. If you get hit in the stomach it has to heal, and if you have a concussion that takes time too, but at least you can watch the progress. It's very hard to watch the imperceptible mending of a broken heart. Maybe this is the first sign of mending: the fact that Mary Agnes' pained solicitude for me this morning happens to strike me as amusing.
It was a relaxing day, because Miss Farrow disappeared directly after lunch and did not come back for the rest of the afternoon, but Caroline kept glancing nervously at Mr. Shalimar's closed door, half expecting him to come roaring out of it like a bull into a ring, waving her comment sheet in fury. It was odd that she had thought of a buU,
she mused, but perhaps it was because Mr. Shalimar, from the few ghmpses she had had of him, looked to her like an aging matador. The stiff posture, shoulders straight, the dark skin, and oddest of all that air he had of someone who has been through a great deal and still has some inner feehng urging him on but knows that he cannot answer it any longer. He struck her as a troubled man, and not just because of his responsibilities at the office, which would make anyone in charge look bemused at times. It was funny, she thought, that before she had ever had a job she had always thought of an office as a place where people came to work, but now it seemed as if it was a place where they also brought their private lives for everyone else to look at, paw over, comment on and enjoy. The typing pool in the center of the thirty-fifth floor at Fabian was like the village square, and the offices that surrounded it were like people's homes. Late in the afternoon she saw something that astonished her. Walking past one of the offices she noticed through its nearly closed door a girl leaning against the wall of the adjoining office with a water glass pressed against the wall and her ear to the other end of the water glass. On her face was a rapt and gloating expression, of an eavesdropper who is hearing what he expected he would hear. Then Caroline realized that the girl was in the office next to Mr. Shalimar's. The girl evidently didn't care who noticed her, since she had not bothered to lock her door, which was probably because she intended to educate everyone in the office later in the day. Caroline wondered whether it was office politics, secrets about the work, or Mr. Shalimar's private life that held her so.
At five o'clock April came out of Mr. Shalimar's office and began to put her things together. "Where do you want to eat?" she asked Caroline.
"Where do you?"
"You know, I'd like to go to Sardi's," April said. "I've heard a lot about it."
Caroline looked at April. She was wearing that shiny baby-blue gabardine suit again, and tonight because she was going out she was even wearing a hat, a dreadful Httle white felt hat that made her look like Sunday Morning in East Cozyville. Caroline felt a pang of self-consciousness at the thought of being seen with her at a good restamrant. It was bad enough to have to go there without dates, but
with April in that outfit, with that hair . . . "Hey," CaroKne said, "I'll bet you've never been to the Automat."
"Wouldn't you rather go to Sardi's?" April said, sounding disappointed.
"Well, it's a little too expensive for me," Caroline lied.
"Oh, of course." April's face lighted up with instant sympathy. "I know just what you mean. I shouldn't even go there myself, I have about four dollars to last me till payday. I'm so impractical, I guess I'd starve if people like you didn't look out for me."
"You'll love the Automat," Caroline said encouragingly.
Mr. Shalimar came out of his office with his arm thrown around Mr. Rice's shoulder. They were laughing together. As they passed Caroline's and April's desks they paused, "Want to stop downstairs for a short drink, April?" Mr. Shalimar said. He glanced at Caroline. "You too."
April immediately began to blush. "Oh, we'd love to," she said very softly. "Wouldn't we, Caroline?"
"See you downstairs at the Unfriendly Irishman," Mr. Rice said. "Step fast, girls." The two men went ofiF together to the elevator and April began stuffing her make-up back into her pocketbook, dropping some of it on the floor in her hmrry.
"The Unfriendly Irishman," April said. "That's what he calls the bar in this building. Isn't he a cJmracterF'
It was the first time Caroline had ever been in the bar, and she peered through the gloom looking to see whom she could recognize. The room was about two thirds full, all with people she had noticed in the elevators and halls of the building. This seemed to be the unofficial Fabian Publications bar, refuge, gathering place and five-o'clock social club. Mr. Shalimar and Mr. Rice were seated at a corner table, with drinks in front of them, and they had pulled up two extra chairs for Caroline and April.
"What'll you have, girls?" Mr. Shalimar said.
"Scotch," said Caroline. It was the first tiling she could think of.
April looked as though she was going through a mental battle. "Me too," she said then, very quickly and softly. She nibbled on a pretzel and began to blush again.
"Well, what do you do around here?" Mr. Rice said to Caroline.
"I'm working for Miss Farrow this week," she said.
He rolled his eyes in mock horror. He had a perfectly deadpan
face with a light touch of cynicism on it. "That's hell week for the sorority," he said. "We only save it for specially lucky girls."
How funny! Caroline thought. That's exactly the phrase I used when I was telling Mary Agnes about it.
"So you're Caroline Bender," said Mr. Shalimar.
"Yes." Suddenly her mouth was dry.
"I found a little report of yours on my desk," he said.
"I know." Why did her voice sound like a croak? She took a sip of her drink.
"I read the manuscript this afternoon," he said. He paused and looked at her. "You know something, Miss Bender?"
"What . . . ?"
"I happen to agree with you."
"Oh, my goodness," Caroline said, weak with relief.
"I don't think I'll buy that book," he said.
"My goodness," she said again.
His eyes narrowed. "Make no mistake. I am the editor here, and I buy what I like and reject what I don't like, regardless of what any of my editors say. But I like having a bright, young reader who agrees with me, it makes me feel a little better."
"I hope someday to be a reader," Caroline said.
"All right. For the next week or two I'll give you a manuscript every night to take home and read. You give me a report on each one. After I see what you can do, maybe I'll let you be a reader."
"Oh, that would be marvelous!"
Mr. Rice s
miled wryly. Even with the smile his face did not change much. 'The enthusiasm of youth," he said. "If old man Fabian had only known, he wouldn't have bothered to pay these kids for working here. He would have charged 'em."
Mr. Shalimar was looking piercingly at Caroline across the table. "The most valuable commodity in business today, if people would only recognize it, is enthusiasm, I'm not interested in deadheads. You get the same old trite comments from the deadheads, they don't even care any more. I want editors who think that every book we put out is an important book. I don't care if it's the worst piece of crap in the world; if the author who wrote it believes in it, and the editors who help him revise it believe in it, then the people who buy it will care about it. The thing that was wrong with the manuscript you read last night was that it was phony. The author thought he
was fooling his readers. Well, they never fool me. And he didn't fool you. Do you want experience?"
"Yes," she said.
"I'll give you experience. I'll teach you. I've been forty years an editor, I've taught some of the best writers in the business. I knew Eugene O'Neill years ago, and I gave him advice."
There was an almost inaudible sigh from April, as if at last she had achieved a moment of delight she had been waiting for for a long time. Mr. Shalimar turned to include her too in his revelations. April was looking at him with her eyes shining. Mr. Rice turned his glass of whisky nearly directly upside down as his throat moved rhythmically, swallowing. His eyes were closed and he did not seem to be listening to Mr. Shalimar at all.
It was nine o'clock before Caroline realized that none of them had eaten anything but pretzels, and Mr. Rice not even those. April seemed in a trance, leaning toward Mr. Shalimar as a young plant leans toward the sun in a window, listening to every story he told with little gasps and laughs. Caroline was more interested in Mr. Rice—or Mike, as she was now calling him. His attention to Mr. Shalimar was obviously more loyalty than interest, and she began to suspect that Mike Rice, at least, had heard all Mr. Shalimar's stories quite a few times before. He drank quietly, steadily and pleasantly, the way one plays solitaire or knits a sweater, drink after drink after drink, with no sign of getting drunk. Once in a while he would look over at her and give a faint smile and nod his head, a serious drinker giving indication that there still is communication between himself and his table partner, but without breaking his rhythm. It was Mr. Shalimar who was finding the liquor hard to take.
The first indication Caroline had was a furtive bony hand touching her knee. The face and voice of Mr. Shalimar, above the table, were so self-assured and so much The Boss that for a moment she had the wild thought that the hand investigating her leg belonged to someone under the table. It hardly even seemed to be connected to Mr. Shalimar's arm and shoulder. Then she caught the thickening of his speech, and he leaned toward her, looking into her face.
"Mike, did you ever notice what a beautiful girl this is?" he said.
His husky voice terrified her. She moved away from his hand, upsetting her glass in the process.
"Oops," Mike said pleasantly. He righted the glass and began to
mop oflF Caroline's skirt with his handkerchief. There was nothing personal in his touch, for which she was grateful. "Miss!" He beckoned to the waitress. "Miss!"
The waitress hurried over with a handful of cloth napkins. Mr. Shalimar seemed oblivious of the entire crisis; he continued to talk, more mistily now, about how lovely Caroline's face was. April began to look confused. She looked up suddenly at Mr. Shalimar with a glance that carried mingled horror and delight. He must have decided to try her knee, Caroline thought, and instantly was taken with a fit of the giggles. She excused herself hurriedly and ran to the ladies' room.
April came in a moment after she had achieved her refuge. "Oh, Caroline, are you all right?"
"Are you all right?" Caroline was doubled over, laughing until tears came into her eyes. It wasn't that anything that had happened was so funny, really, it was just that she was so glad to be able to laugh at it all when for nearly four hours she had been tense and nervous.
"I thought you were sick," April said worriedly.
"No, I'm fine. Do you think we can get away now and eat dinner?"
"I was thinking . . . maybe they would buy us dinner? Do you think they might?"
"You want to eat with them?"
"Well, neither of us has any money to speak of. It would certainly help for the rest of the week if they bought our dinner tonight."
*^e could go back and say we're hungry, and see what develops."
"Would you mind?" April asked.
"No ... I don't mind." She powdered her nose and put on fresh lipstick. "I can stand it if you can."
April turned around to look at her, smprised. "You're laughing at him, aren't you!"
"Well, you must admit he was funny."
"Funny? What was fimny? I think he's the most fascinating person I ever met."
"You do?" Caroline said dubiously.
"But the life he's led . . . the people he knows! I could listen to him talk all night."
Caroline couldn't resist saying it. "And he'll let you, too, as long as your leg holds out"
April's face turned a deep pink. "Oh, my heavens . . ." she said. She covered her face with her hands.
Caroline put her arm around April. "He's a little plastered, that's all. Just you never mention it and he'll never mention it."
April smiled, a bit ruefully. "I was hoping you and I could have dinner alone together. There are so many things I'd like to talk to you about. I was hoping we could get to know each other better."
"We will."
"Do you have to go back to the country tonight? Maybe you could stay over at my house."
With the Scotch she had drunk Caroline felt warm and happy and fond of the whole world. "I think that would be fun," she said. She had never seen the apartment of a working girl who lived alone in New York, but from the fashion magazines she had read she had her own ideas of it, and already the image arose of herself and April chatting cozily until four in the morning in a small, austere but romantically chic apartment, the kind she would like to have someday soon.
"It's kind of a dump," April said, "but I love it."
"I'd love to see it. Come on, out to the wolves." They left the ladies' room and found their way back to their corner table. Mike Rice was sitting there alone.
"Mr. Shalimar had to go home," he said.
"Oh, what a shame," said April. "We didn't even get a chance to tliank him."
Caroline glanced at Mike and for an instant their eyes met. She expected to find a look of amusement there, or at the least his habitual cynicism, but instead to her surprise she found a look of caution.
"You can tell him tomorrow," he said.
"Of course," April murmured. She sat down at her place at the table again and began to toy with her gloves, not quite sure if they were expected to leave now or stay.
Mike beckoned to the waitress and pointed at their glasses. Caroline sat down too. For a minute none of them could think of anything to say. "You have to understand Mr. Shalimar," Mike said finally.
There was something about Mike Rice that Caroline liked; she felt she could say anything to him and he would never be shocked or think she was getting out of her place. "Maybe I'm way out of
line," she said, "but I had the feeling he's had a comedown and he's ashamed of it. The way he talks about the past all the time and about what he was."
"You might as well know it," Mike said, "I suspect you're going to be around a long time. It isn't as if he's had a comedown from anything. He's never been anywhere."
"But all the people he's known . . ." Caroline said. "The stories he tells . . . Why, he never stops talking about Eugene O'Neill."
There was not a trace of a smile on Mike's face, only a look of great pity. It was odd, Caroline thought, that a man in the shape he was in should feel sorry for someone like Mr. Shalimar. 'Tou know how it is when people talk all t
he time about some celebrity," he said. "Mr. Shalimar knows Eugene O'Neill, but Eugene O'Neill doesn't know him."
"My gosh!" April said, biting her thumb.
"Be nice girls," Mike said. "Forget I ever opened my mouth. But treat Mr. Shalimar with all the respect you have at your command. He's a very bitter man, but he has cause. It's a dreadful thing to know you're fifty-five years old and you have to worry all the time about losing a job that isn't even good enough for you."
"Why should he lose his job?" Caroline asked.
"Bright young people. People like you, for instance. Kids with ambition, who write brilliant reports out of sheer instinct. A man who has to live in a past that never really was is afraid of a lot of things."
"But not of me?" Caroline said incredulously.
"Not you now, no. Right now you're nothing to him. But you in another two years—ah, that's a different story. Listen to him. Pay attention and respect him when he teaches you anything about the business you're in. Don't think you're smart. Just listen, and remember."
He had begun to slur his words, and Caroline realized that he was, finally, very drunk. He pulled a handful of crumpled bills out of his pocket and dropped them on to the table. "This'll pay for the drinks and probably a sandwich for you two kids," he said. He put his hands flat on the table and assisted himself to his feet. "See you tomorrow."
"Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Rice," April said.
"Yes, thank you," Caroline murmured. She was troubled, and
thinking. She didn't want to be a success if that meant watching out for people with dark Hves who were afraid of you for no reason you could fathom. This morning she had been afraid even to speak to Mr. Shalimar, this evening he was fondling her leg and she was being told that someday he would be afraid of her. She was thinking that she didn't like the working world at all, and yet, underneath, she was exhilarated. It was all like a dream in which you could have anything you wanted, if you were very very careful.
Mike Rice leaned over and touched her eyebrows where they were drawn together. His fingers were very gentle. "Did I say, 'Don't think you're smart'?" he said. "I'll tell you something: I'll amend it. Don't let anyone know you think you're smart. Because you know something? You're damn smart." He patted her cheek and walked off swiftly, making an obvious effort to walk straight, his camel's-hair coat tossed askew over one shoulder like a cape,
