The Best of Everything

by Rona Jaffe

  "As a matter of fact," April Morrison said, "I am free tonight. But just for cocktails. I could meet you in front of my office at half past five."

  He liked her voice, it had a breathless, sexy quality. It was a whis-pery voice. "All right," he said, trying not to stammer. "I'll have on a light gray suit."

  "So will I," April said. She laughed. "See you soon."

  He didn't have the faintest idea where to take a girl for cocktails before dinner in New York but he supposed she would know. She had sounded sophisticated. I'm free . . . just for cocktails. Well, all the better. His first night in New York he wanted to be with a girl who was as sophisticated and New Yorkish as anything in the world.

  He was already imagining what she would be like. Somehow, Ronnie had the feeling, this girl would not be a dog at all.

  He saw her, standing in front of the statue of Atlas, her hair blowing in the slight evening breeze that had come up. It was going to rain. Her hair was very golden in the lowering late day, with touches of red in it, short and blowing and bright. She did have a gray suit on, made of something silky and thin, so that he could see the curving outlines of her body. And she had a beautiful face. When she saw him approaching her she smiled at him.

  "April?" he said.

  "Hello, Ronnie Wood."

  "I'm glad to meet you," he said, beginning to stammer again. "I'm glad you could make it tonight."

  She put the tips of her fingers on his arm, lightly. "We'd better go somewhere quick before it rains. Do you have a favorite place?"

  "Me? No ... no. I thought ... I'd leave it to you."

  "We'll run and duck into the Barberry Room."

  They ran, and arrived breathless and smiling at each other. The first drops of rain were just starting to fall as Ronnie pushed open the glass door. They found a table in the back. "Wow," he said, "it's dark in here."

  "You'll get used to it."

  "What would you like to . . . drink?"

  "A vodka Martini. With an olive."

  "A vodka Martini. With an olive," Ronnie repeated carefully to the waiter. "Make it two."

  "Well," April said. "Have you been in New York long?"

  "Just since this morning."

  "And what have you seen?"

  "I walked about twenty miles," he said. "Or it's beginning to . . . feel that way."

  "My goodness," she said. "You're certainly ambitious."

  "Yes," he admitted.

  "I used to do that, when I first came to New York," April said. "I would walk for miles. I even got lost. Have you been lost yet?"

  "I don't think I'd know," he said. They both laughed.

  April lifted her cocktail glass. "Cheers," she said brightly.

  "Cheers."

  "And here's to a good vacation for you."

  "It's starting out that way already," Ronnie said.

  "Tell me something about yourself," she said. "What do you do?"

  "I'm going to go into business with my father back home. Real estate. I just got out of the Army."

  "In Korea?"

  "No. I was lucky. I was in Germany."

  "Really? I've never been to Europe."

  "One leave I had, I flew to Rome," he said. "It was beautiful. A beautiful city. I never did get to Paris, though."

  "Maybe you'll go back sometime."

  "I'd like that. It would be a great place for a honeymoon."

  Was it his imagination, or were her eyes filming over? She looked for an instant as if she were going to cry. Then she smiled at him. "Can I have another drink?" she asked brightly.

  "Sure . . . waiter! Two more . . . uh, vodka Martinis. Please."

  "I like them much better than regular Martinis," April said. "You can't taste that gin taste. I used to like gin, but then one morning I woke up with a dreadful hang-over and I never could bear the taste of gin again."

  "You shouldn't drink so much that you get a hang-over," he said. "You should be more careful."

  "My goodness, you sound like my father."

  "I'm sorry. . ."

  "It's all right," April said. She smiled at him. "Most girls like to have a man who worries about their health." She sipped at her Martini and looked at him over the rim of her glass. "I do. I don't care a bit about my health when I'm left to my own devices."

  "Well, you should," he said. Wlien he had seen her standing there in front of the statue of Atlas she had looked to him like everything a New York girl should be: sophisticated, leggy, beautiful and very poised. And now she had flashes when she seemed to him just like a reckless httle girl. Somehow he liked her better this way. "I won't let you drink too much tonight," he said. "I wish . . . you'd have dinner with me."

  "Maybe I can."

  "You tell me where you want to go. I'm the stranger."

  "That will be fun."

  "Do you want me to . . . tell you some more about myself?"

  "Yes," she said very interestedly, "do."

  "Well ... I wanted to be an actor for a while. In fact, I was going to go to dramatic school on the G.I. Bill, but I finally talked myself out of it. I guess you have to have a certain temperament for acting, a lot of confidence in yourself as the commodity you're trying to sell, and I figured I would do better selling real estate."

  "Isn't that funny! I wanted to be an actress for a while. That's why I came to New York."

  "Really?"

  "But after I'd been here for a while I gave it up. That's why I'm in publishing. At least it's in the arts."

  "It sounds fascinating."

  "Oh . . . it's fun."

  "I think that's the important thing," Ronnie said, "to do what you like."

  "Do you like selling real estate?"

  "I don't know yet. If I don't, or if I'm no good at it, I'll find something else."

  "You have a lot of courage," April said. "Most boys just get into a rut and stay with it for the rest of their Hves."

  "Well, I don't want to be a drifter. I certainly don't want to be that. But I'm still young enough so that I can try for a while to find what I'll do best."

  "How young?"

  "Twenty-four," he said.

  "That is young."

  "Why? How old are you?"

  "Twenty-three," April said.

  He laughed. "You sound like an old lady."

  "Sometimes I feel like one," she said lightly.

  "Please have dinner with me."

  "I'll have to break my date."

  "Could you? I mean . . , would you?"

  "Yes," she said.

  Ronnie reached into his pocket. "Here's a dime for the phone."

  "It's all right. The waiter will bring a phone to the table."

  My God, he thought, I thought tliey only did that in the movies. But the waiter came and plugged a telephone in next to their table and April picked up the receiver and started to dial. Then she put her hand over the phone and cut the call off.

  **Tell me something," she said abruptly.

  "What?"

  "Are you lonesome?"

  "Lonesome? Why?"

  "I just thought you might be," she said. **Your first night in New York and all."

  "I guess I am," Ronnie said slowly. "I hadn't really thought about it. But if you don't have dinner with me I will be lonely, I know that."

  "That's all I wanted to know," April said. She lifted the receiver again and started to dial, and while she was waiting for the number to ring she turned and smiled at him.

  Chapter 25

  On a night in mid-October, when the first frost came to the outlying suburbs and people began to remember how nice it was to stay indoors by their hearth or television set, cozy and warm, Gregg Adams was in David Wilder Savage's bedroom going through his bureau drawers. She worked at it furtively and quickly because he was in the shower, and as long as she could hear the sound of the water she knew she was safe. She had no inkling of what had prompted her to do such an outrageous thing, except that he was occupied and she was here, and suddenly a compulsion had overt
aken her to find out. What she was going to find out, she had no idea. But he had been a mystery to her for so long, with his self-contained and apparently self-sufficient life, that she felt if she could only find some secret thing of his, some letters, some photograph, anything, then she could understand him better. She had toyed with the idea that he was an ordinary person, that there really was no mystery about him except in her own mind, but then she had rejected it. There must be an answer hidden somewhere; life was not that simple.

  At the bottom of the middle drawer, under a pile of clean white shirts, Gregg found several envelopes. They looked as if they had

  been tossed there, not hidden, by someone who was untidy rather than secretive. She Hstened for a moment to the sound of the shower and then opened the envelopes. One contained a photostatic copy of David Wilder Savage's birth certificate and his passport. She looked at these, especially the passport picture, and she was sorry she had not known him then. Even those years that he had lived and worked and traveled and been in love without her made her jealous.

  Three of the other envelopes contained letters, and one held photographs. She looked at the photographs first. They were all of the same person, a young man whom she did not know but who looked definitely familiar, and then Gregg realized who it was. It was Gordon McKay, David's friend, who was dead. They were merely snapshots that could have been taken anywhere, two taken indoors and therefore hard to make out, one outdoors in the country, and one with a girl. Gregg wondered who the girl was and whether she had meant anything to David as well as Gordon, and why she was in the picture. That was the trouble with spying, you never could ask for an explanation of what you had found out.

  She turned to the letters. They were to David, and the signature was "Gordon." Her heart was pounding as she smoothed out the folded sheets of paper, and she resented Gordon McKay furiously for having such a tiny, illegible handwriting that she would hardly have time to make it out. The first letter was an account of a trip, and it was funny. She almost laughed aloud at some of the descriptions but caught herself in time. There wasn't anything odd in saving a letter like that, it was something you would want to save. She skipped over some of the obviously innocuous passages to the end. No closing salutation, no love, just "See you soon—Gordon." She opened the second letter and began to read.

  She had the sense that someone was standing behind her. She had no real reason, simply that sixth sense that makes a cat's fur rise and a human being feel a disturbing prickling at the back of his neck. She turned. David Wilder Savage, wet and naked except for a towel, was standing not five feet away from her with his arms folded and an expression on his face of inconsolable fury. He did not say a word, or move, he simply stood there and watched her. Behind him, from the other room, Gregg could still hear the sound of the shower turned on full force.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked stupidly.

  "Playing Gregg," he said. He walked over to her then and took the letters from her hand. They slipped from her cold fingers into his, and he glanced at them and put them back into her hand and closed her fingers around them. He still did not speak and she could not think of anything to say. She stood there and watched him, trying to think of some excuse, some joke to make it all right again, while he very methodically and grimly opened each drawer of the dresser and took out everything that was in them, in handfuls, and tossed clothes and papers and miscellaneous articles to the floor at her feet.

  "Are you crazy?" she asked finally, shakily.

  "Here," he said. "I'm making it easier for you. You can look at everything. Would you like me to clean out die top of the closet?"

  "Stop it," Gregg cried, frightened. "Stop it!"

  "I don't want you to miss anything," he said.

  She was knee-deep in a tangle of clothing—socks and shirts and underwear, and even his leather jewelry box, which he opened first so that the cuff links and tie clips that were inside spilled out. He finished emptying the bureau drawers and then he turned and walked back to the bathroom without a word and slammed the door. Gregg was so humiliated she did not know what to do, and she was filled with love for him. Poor man, he was completely innocent and hiding nothing. She shouldn't have gone through his things, it must have annoyed him terribly. She would put everything back neatly where it had been before and then he would forgive her. As she put back his clothes Gregg cheered up a little. She was rearranging everything so neatly, folding some things and making room for others, that he would be glad, after all, that this had happened. She could tell him she had been trying to do this in the first place, for a surprise, and that she had come upon the letters by accident and had been tempted by them. That was it! He'd believe her.

  The shower had stopped and a short while later David himself emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed in clean clothes. Gregg had just finished putting everything away. He ignored her, walking around her, and looked at his watch.

  "I'll give you five minutes to finish investigating and get out of here," he said calmly, "and if you're not out then, I'm going to throw you out."

  "Why?" she cried. "Why?"

  Tou don't know why?"

  *Nol I was just trying to clean out your dresser drawers for you, make them a httle neater. For ... a surprise," she finished lamely.

  "I have a maid for that," he said.

  "Well ... I just wanted to ... do something for you."

  "And did you find a lot of things? Did your sick little inquisitive mind find all kinds of secrets? Did you discover that I have twelve pairs of black socks and ten pairs of gray? Do you know that I keep my torn handkerchiefs at the bottom of the pile instead of throwing them out? Did you find my expired driver's licenses and some old letters and photographs that I forgot to put into an album? And are you satisfied?"

  There was nothing else to say. "Please forgive me," Gregg said.

  "Why do you have to do things like that?"

  "I don't know . . ."

  '1 don't know either," he said. "And I just don't care any more. I'm tired of the sight of your face. I can't stand to see it any more. I want you to go away."

  "You can't really mean that if you have to ask me to go," Gregg said. "If you really hated me you'd try to throw me out."

  "Hate you? I don't hate you."

  "Then forgive me. I'll never do it again."

  "I keep telling you, I don't want to have to forgive you. I've forgiven you for a thousand things—invasion of privacy, neurotic mistrust, insensitivity, selfishness. It isn't just this, tonight. This is only the very last thing. Why do you think I crept up on you? Because I'm getting to be like you, in a way; I'm beginning to have hallucinations about you. I want you to get out of this house, as a personal favor, like a big girl."

  "Don't be mad at me," Gregg said. "I'U go sit in the living room and then after a while you come in and we'll pretend the evening just started. We'll just start all over again."

  "Come on," he said, "like a big girl." Why, he actually sounded as if he were soothing someone who was deranged. "Come on," he repeated. He went to the closet and brought out her coat. "Here's your coat."

  "Are you throwing me out?"

  "Yes."

  Gregg felt so sick it seemed as if there was hot blood in her eardrums. "You can't throw me out," she said, "it's early."

  "Here's your purse." He looked at it as he held it out to her. "It's pretty," he murmured.

  "You've seen it before."

  "Did you have gloves?"

  "I don't want to go home!" Gregg said. Her voice rose in her fright at the utter lack of emotion on his face. Anger was something she could cope with, she would only have to soothe him, perhaps even cry, and he would be forgiving. But this complete calm and resolution was something she had never seen on David's face before. "I don't want to go home! Don't make me go home!"

  "I don't care where you go," he said.

  "I'll walk around the block and come back," she suggested.

  "I'm going to sleep now. It's late."


  She was afraid to touch him. "What time will I see you tomorrow?"

  "I'm busy tomorrow."

  "Well . . . when will I see you?"

  "I never want to see you again."

  "Why? What did I do?" Gregg cried. "What did I do?"

  "You don't know, do you?" he asked. He actually sounded sorry for her. "You really don't know."

  He stood there for a moment looking at her. There was pity on his face, as well as calm now, "Kiss me . . ." Gregg whispered.

  He leaned down without touching her with his hands and kissed her very lightly on the forehead. "Be a good girl," he said.

  "I'll call you tomorrow," Gregg said. She drew herself up to her full height and walked to the door. "Good night."

  "Good night, Gregg."

  She walked out into the hall and he shut the door behind her. She could hear the soft click of the lock. She turned. There was his door, closed, and he was behind it. Behind it, moving about, still awake, was the most precious thing in her world. She stood close to his door, listening. She could hear faint sounds through his door, footsteps, the sound of a record starting on the phonograph, and they reassured her. She could tell what he was doing from these sounds of his routine, and it was almost as good as being there with him. He was alone, all alone. After a long while Gregg grew tired

  from standing there in one place in her high-heeled shoes and she began to slip her feet out of her shoes one at a time and stand on only one, rubbing the aching toes of the other foot on her ankle. She looked about for a place to sit.

  The stairway that led to the upper floor was just outside David Wilder Savage's door, and the wall it ran along was the outside wall of his apartment. In her mind she could see the layout of the rooms, and Gregg knew this was his bedroom wall. She climbed the stairs to a step near the top, just under the halfway landing and a small closed window, and sat there. The light bulb which illuminated the hall was downstairs, on the main landing for this floor, and up here in the gloom it was shadowy and still. She leaned against the wall and heard nothing. She had a moment of disappointment, afraid that the wall was too thick for any sound to escape. But then she heard footsteps and a thud that was frighteningly close. It was as if he had thrown something to the floor. She realized that she had not heard anything before because he had not yet entered the room.