The Best of Everything

by Rona Jaffe

  "What will?" Caroline asked. "What loill become of me?"

  "Do you think I'm a prophet?" he asked with a little smile.

  "Sometimes I nearly do."

  "I think you'll be very successful," he said thoughtfully. "I think you could love some man very much. I wish he could have been me."

  "Maybe he will be you," Caroline said. "Would that frighten you?"

  "Only for a minute. Then I'm afraid I'd be selfish enough to be delighted."

  Spontaneously she leaned down in the darkness and kissed his hand.

  "Caroline, I love you. I wish it were nineteen thirty-two."

  "Then I wouldn't be here," she said, smiling.

  "You see? We're lost."

  "Why couldn't we love each other anyway? I know a wddow in Port Blair who married a man twenty years older than she is and they're very happy together."

  "And when she's sixty and he's eighty she'll be holding him up getting into taxicabs and warming his glass of milk at night and telling him the same story over and over because he forgets it as soon as she tells it."

  "Eightyl" Caroline said. "The way you live, you'll never live to be eighty."

  *1 hope not," he said cheerfully, and swallowed his drink and what was left of hers.

  "You know," she said, "I have changed. I can notice it in little reactions I have to things, a kind of acceptance of ideas that are different from mine, and of people who used to awe me. And all that in the six months we've been friends."

  "Five of those six months we would have been married to each other," he said, "if we had been luckier. . . ."

  It was the first time he had actually spoken of marriage, and Caroline was starded. He loved me long before I loved him, she thought in surprise. Longer than I ever suspected. She wondered what it might have been like to be married to Mike Rice. She could do things for him, make him drink less, give him a real home. . . . Look, she thought to herself, here I am again, being the little girl on the rock, dreaming of domesticating this renegade. And yet, he appeals to me so because he knows so much of life. I can just see him in my hving room at Port Blair; Sunday dinner with the in-laws.

  "What are you laughing at?" Mike asked.

  "Myself, I guess," she admitted. "For daydreaming."

  The last weekend in June all the employees at Fabian from the vice-presidents down to the shipping clerks were driven out to the country in chartered busses for the summer oflBce party. It had been a tradition of old Clyde Fabian's to have the party at his golf club on the Hudson, and even though he was ill and incapacitated he insisted that the tradition be continued. The party was held on a Friday, starting at ten in the morning—the last workday of the week so they all could have their hang-overs on their own time the next day. There was softbaU, swimming, golf, a huge outdoor buffet lunch, liquor, dancing and a return trip to the city at six o'clock in the evening. Caroline went with Gregg, April and Mary Agnes.

  "You know," Mary Agnes said, "At my girl friend's office they have the nicest thing. They invite all the husbands and wives and children to the office party, so they can all be together."

  "What?" said Gregg. "And cramp everyone's style?"

  The girls laughed, except for Mary Agnes. "I think it would be more fun," she protested. "Last year when I was wearing my bathing suit Mr. Shalimar kept making remarks about what nice legs I had,

  until I thought I would die of embarrassment. This year I almost didn't bring a bathing suit."

  "Just think," April said. "This is my first office party."

  "All of ours," Caroline said.

  "I'm dying to see a real Eastern country club," said April.

  "Are the drinks free or do we have to pay?" Gregg asked.

  "Free," said Mary Agnes. "And everybody gets so drunk it's terrible."

  "I can't wait," said Gregg. "This party is my swan song. I'm going to take the three days' vacation I have coming to me and then quit."

  "Quitl"

  "David is getting me a job in summer stock. I'll be the ingenue in at least four plays. Not only is it real, genuine United States money, but I'll only be in Connecticut so I'll be able to see him."

  "That's wonderful," Mary Agnes said.

  "I never would have asked him for a favor," Gregg said. "But he suggested it. Isn't he a darling?"

  "Imagine David Wilder Savage opening doors for you that way," April breathed. "You're so lucky. It's marvelous." There was not a trace of envy in her tone, but only awe and pleasure at Gregg's good fortune. If there was any girl who was completely without jealousy or rancor, Caroline thought, it was April.

  As the bus drew up in the wide white gravel driveway of the club there were varied ecstatic exclamations from the occupants. Caroline and Gregg were sitting at the back of the bus and so were the last to leave. Directly ahead of them April and Mary Agnes hurried oflF to join the throng. Gregg looked at Caroline.

  "I don't know why we ever came," Gregg said.

  "I know. I hate a brawl. All these strangers, and Shalimar wiU doubtless want to act out one of the sex scenes from our latest manuscript."

  "Do you think he canF' Gregg asked.

  "I wish they'd just give us the money instead of spending it on a party," Caroline said.

  "Me too."

  They walked slowly over to a long table which was set under a group of leafy trees and foliage, and which was obviously the bar because it was clustered four deep with Fabian employees, like ants on a wedge of cheese.

  At the edge of the crowd Caroline saw Mike standing with a glass in his hand, talking with two editors from other magazines whom she had never met. He looked so adult and businesslike that for a moment she had the odd thought that she did not know him at aU. Three men, probably talking business or telling the kind of jokes they did not like women to listen to. She felt very young and self-conscious, and she took hold of Gregg's arm.

  "Maybe your friend has pull," Gregg said, nodding toward Mike. "The only place I'll get a drink in this mob is down the front of my dress."

  "I don't really want one."

  "Of course you do," Gregg said. "How are you going to play touch football with the mailroom boys if vou don't fortify yourself first?"

  Caroline laughed, but her hands were cold. It was a hot summer day with a touch of breeze that brought the smell of freshly cut grass, perfume, cigarette smoke and hickory smoke from the outdoor barbecue pit which had just been lighted. The breeze made her shiver and she didn't know why. She looked toward the periphery of the crowd of merrymakers and saw Mike looking at her, his face botli solemn and a trifle amused, as if he had wandered into the wrong

  o party. His gaze seemed to join him with her; she felt as if it were a

  bridge that she could climb across until she was safely by his side. She moved around the crowd, hardly feeling a heel dug into her instep and a fat arm grazing her breast, and moved breathlessly into his circle under the tree.

  He introduced her and Gregg to the others. One of the men gave Gregg the drink he was holding in his hand and she beamed with delight. "Are you having fun?" Mike asked Caroline. He took her arm and turned her deftly away from the group. "I'm so glad to see you."

  "I don't know why I come to these things," he said. 'It's harmless, I suppose ... a little fresh air . . ." He breathed deeply. "You like the country, don't you?" Caroline said. "I love it. I grew up on a farm." "My heavens! One would never know." "Why? Is there a way to look if you come from a farm?" She shrugged, "That's just me being provincial again, I guess." "You should have seen the farm," he said. "It was for boys from four to fourteen who didn't have a home or were too ornery for their

  relatives to keep them. The old bastard who ran it used to beat us each with a strap on Saturday night so we'd have something to cry about in church on Sunday."

  "My Godl"

  "One time when I was ten years old I jumped out of the hayloft hoping I would break my neck and die, but unfortunately all I did was sprain my ankle. It didn't even incapacitate me enough to g
et me out of the extra chores I had to do for being so careless."

  "Why didn't you write to your family?" Caroline cried.

  "Kids are funny," he said. "My father was dead and my mother had four younger kids at home to take care of. I was the oldest so I was the one who got sent away to that nice healthful farm in the country. I guess I felt that she didn't give a damn about me or else she would have let me stay home."

  "I think that's terrible," Caroline said.

  They were walking away by themselves now and had left the others far beliind. Mike sat down cross-legged on the grass and pushed a little space in the earth for his whisky glass. Caroline sat down beside him and tucked her skirt around her legs.

  "I guess it's ironic," he said, "that now I'm the editor of a religious magazine. The main thing I remember about my Sundays in church is that every morning before I would go there I would have elaborate fantasies about running down the aisle in the middle of the service and pulling off my clothes to show the whole congregation the welts that bastard had put there the night before. In my fantasies the minister was always saving me, he was being very fatherly and saying, This boy need never go back to the farm again. But, of course, I never had the courage to do anything of the sort."

  "I think that's just terrible," Caroline said. "How did you ever get out?"

  "When I was fourteen I was graduated," he said cheerfully. "I went to work as water boy on a newspaper and that was it. Would you believe it—some of the graduates actually stayed on the farm, working as dishwashers or field hands, bullying the younger kids. It's amazing how kids can be brutalized into a mold in which they give it right back to the weaker ones and never tliink of escaping from the whole filthy mess,"

  "I wish you hadn't told me," Caroline said softly. "I can just see

  you as a little boy and it makes me want to cry. I hate and despise people who are mean to children,"

  "So do I. I never slapped my little girl, I never even raised my voice to her. I didn't even want to. That was one of the things my wife and I used to battle about; she wanted to crack the baby a lick or two and I wouldn't let her. So now she has full custody and Vm the unfit drunken father." There was no bitterness in his tone and no self-pity, only that same perceptive matter-of-factness he had when he spoke of any of the things that were so important to himself or to Caroline.

  The calmness in his voice moved Caroline more than any emotion could have. She was filled with feelings toward him: pity, love, tenderness, remorse. For the fibrst time she felt the loneliness in this man and, even more, the softness. He had always been gentle, but he had been gentle and strong, the leader and instructor. Suddenly there was only one thing she wanted to say to him.

  "I'll get you a drink," he said. "Don't you want one? In any case, I do." He rose to his knees, starting to stand up, and Caroline was instantly on her knees in front of him, facing him with her hands touching his shoulders.

  "Please, please sleep with me," she said.

  He covered her hands with his own and tenderly took them down from where they were holding his shoulders. "No, darling."

  "I'm asking you, you're not asking me."

  Tou're a virgin. Stay that way."

  "I always wanted my first love aflFair to happen spontaneously," Caroline said. "If you're going to argue with me, then it won't be spontaneous and you'll ruin it."

  He looked at her for a long time without speaking. "If someone has to be the first," he said finally, "then at least it will be someone who loves you. Come on." He took her hand and lifted her to her feet.

  They ran down the hill toward the clubhouse, holding hands, not speaking but looking at each other every now and then and smiling. He squeezed her hand reassuringly and she could feel the blood pounding in her ears. "I'U call a cab from the clubhouse," he said. "I don't have a car, do you?"

  "No."

  They skirted a group of softball players, and Caroline recognized

  Brenda in a too-tight white jersey and a baseball player's cap tilted over one eye. She was playing second base and she looked very tough. The boy who dehvered Caroline's mail in the morning was up at bat. In the group that was gathered around to cheer, Caroline saw Mary Agnes and April's friend, Barbara Lemont. The happy cries and noises of the watchers and the players seemed very far away, like voices heard through a glass window. She felt completely out of it, a part of her own httle world and this thing that was about to happen to her, and for once she was glad to be separated from the people she knew and the things that mattered to them, things which at this moment did not seem to matter at all.

  Mike went to the telephone booth behind the bar in the clubhouse, and Caroline waited for him in the cool, darkened room. Chairs were pushed against the tables and a clock ticked loudly. The club was almost deserted by its members today because of the onslaught of Fabian employees. In the gloom at the far end of the room Caroline heard the murmur of voices and saw a tall shape dressed in white and a smaller shape behind it. She recognized April, with a young man Caroline had never seen before. It seemed very important that April not turn around and notice her. Caroline tapped on the glass of the telephone booth and Mike opened the door.

  She squeezed into the booth beside him. He replaced the receiver. "He'll be here in five minutes," he said, and kissed her on the temple. "We'll go to your apartment. If you change your mind along the way I'll take you to a bar."

  She put her arms around his neck and he kissed her, this time really, for the first time. He stroked her shoulder blades and back and kissed her again. She loved him for saying that to her, for giving her the last-minute power of choice, and because he had she knew she would not change her mind.

  On their way back to New York in the taxi neither of them spoke. They held hands and looked at each other, each in his own thoughts and finding no need for words. Now that she had decided, Caroline felt very close to him. She had a sense of unreality, and the countryside going past the taxi seemed a mass of green streaks. She was scarcely aware of the breeze blowing on her face from the open windows or of the bumps and jolts. When they reached her house she stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs while Mike paid the cab driver. Her house looked different to her, perhaps because she had

  never been outside it on a weekday noon. The Chinese laundiy was closed for a two-week summer vacation and it was very quiet without the steam and the noise. There were two women sitting on the bottom step with baby carriages drawn up in front of them. She glanced at them and for an instant she felt a pang of unhappiness, for no reason she could mention. Then Mike walked quickly up behind her and took her arm and they climbed the stairs.

  The apartment was dark and cool, with the shades drawn against the sun. He did not grab for her or kiss her immediately, for which she was grateful, but instead looked around the apartment, which he had never seen before.

  ^t's a nice apartment," he said.

  "Would you like a drink?"

  Til make you one." He went to the little metal bar in the comer and poured whisky into two glasses, and carried them into the kitchen. She could hear him taking ice cubes out of the ice tray in the refrigerator.

  He came out of the kitchen and they sat together on the edge of one of the studio couches sipping at their drinks. "Is this one your bed?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  'I've tried to picture it many times."

  "Now you know."

  "A httle, narrow single bed." He smiled. "It's just as I imagined it."

  "I ought to change the sheets. I hadn't planned on this. . . ."

  "Don't. Do you think I'd mind the sheets you've slept in?"

  They finished their drinks and put the glasses on the floor beside the studio couch. She was suddenly taken with fright, a last-minute resistance to the giving of self, a desire for one moment of privacy and self-communication. "I'm going to the ladies' room," she murmured, standing.

  She went into the bathroom and shut the door but did not lock it, afraid that he would hear the cHck of th
e lock and know that she was frightened. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and put her forehead against the cool white porcelain of the sink. Would he be disappointed when he saw her naked, would he think she was flat chested, would he think she was too thin? Her hands and her thighs were trembling, and yet she had never felt less in her life like making love. She felt as though she had made a bargain, and there was

  no backing out, not because he would not forgive her but because she would not forgive herself.

  Oh, my God, she thought. I wish I had married Eddie. Why am I here instead of married to Eddie? It's unfair. And then she thought. You fool. You love Mike and you want him. Grow up.

  She stood up and opened the door and went slowly into the living room where Mike was waiting for her. He had taken ofiF the bedspread and folded it neatly at the foot of the other studio couch. When she saw the white sheets she felt more natural about the whole thing. He had taken off his jacket and tie but was otherwise fully dressed. He was standing with his back to the window, silhouetted against the dimness, and her heart was beating so violently she could scarcely see him.

  "Do you have a suntan yet, darling?" he said in a pleasant, conversational tone.

  She nodded.

  "Show me your suntan."

  Slightly deployed, she slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders. He put his arms around her and kissed the white marks where the straps had been, and then his lips moved to her throat and then to her lips. She stood for a moment rigidly in his arms, and then passion moved her and she felt warmed and pliable and full of feeling. She wound her arms around his neck like some sinuous plant and opened her mouth for his kisses, feeling as though she would like to be welded to him forever.

  He moved away from her then and she heard the faint rustle of cloth as he dropped his clothes on the floor. She was afraid to open her eyes for a second and then she did and she was not disappointed. She closed her eyes again, as if tliat would somehow make her invisible, and slipped out of her dress and crinoline and underpants and kicked off her shoes, standing tliere in front of him with nothing on at all and clenching her fists so that she would not do something stupid like hold her hands in front of herself.