Hold Fast 'Til the Dawn

by Mary Haskell

  As they lay in the big bed, just after the light had been extinguished, Larry said, "Great party, wasn't it?

  Everyone seemed very impressed with Ky. I'm sure she was grateful."

  "For what?"

  "For what? For the party of course, what else?"

  "How would I know?"

  Larry reached up and turned on the light. Hoisting himself up on one elbow, he scrutinized her face. "Jenny, what's the matter?"

  She turned sad eyes to him. "You real y don't know?"

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Larry lay back on the pil ow. "Yes, I suppose I do. It must have been a tough night for you. I'm sorry. Would it help to talk about it?"

  She felt pressed down, wiped out by an oppressive ennui, too tired to feel or even care, certainly too tired to try to explain her feelings.

  "Jenny?"

  "Larry, I'm so tired. Please turn off the light and let's go to sleep."

  With a last, unsure look, he extinguished the light. Eventual y they both drifted off to sleep, keeping to their own sides of the bed.

  Chapter Seven

  Practical y overnight, life changed for Jenny.

  Ky returned to Dal as the day after the Samuelsons' party. Jenny suspected that Larry had taken her to the airport, although the reason he gave for going into town on a Saturday afternoon was that he needed to catch up on some work. Jenny shied away from mentioning Ky's departure or anything else that could bring the dreaded subject to the fore. Every instinct insisted that nothing could come of a direct confrontation at this time but calamity.

  She spent the entire day weeding her garden, mowing the lawn—much to the amazement of her liberated son

  — and cleaning but the storage shed behind the garage. Throwing herself into a frenzy of physical activity offered the only sure road to survival, and she did it with a vengeance, barely stopping to acknowledge her husband's return.

  She passed Sunday by volunteering for every car pool required for the day and staying at the club for hours, watching her daughter practice her backhand with the club coach. She was wel aware that any marriage journal worth mention would advise her to face her husband with her concerns and talk it out, but the few words she spoke in Larry's direction were met with monosyllabic responses that left no opening for further communication.

  Blessedly, Monday morning final y arrived, holding the promise that life might become more normal. Larry arose very early and, mumbling something about a seven o'clock meeting, disappeared out the door. The kids, as usual, had their day packed with activity, and Jenny headed for the silent womb of the public library.

  She spent Monday evening deeply engrossed in work with Hal. She left the house early, taping a note to the refrigerator with food-preparation instructions in case Larry did break his habit of scheduling hard-to-see clients on Monday evenings and came home.

  When she returned home shortly after ten o'clock, Larry's car was not in its spot in the garage. Her reaction was a mixture of relief and anguish. At least Ky wasn't in town; she didn't have to worry about whether they were together. She opened the door, put one foot out, and stopped. How could she be sure that Ky wasn't in town? What if she had stayed to be near Larry and simply moved to a different hotel so Wil wouldn't know she was there? No! Her mind slammed the door shut on that possibility as she slammed shut the car door. If she started that kind of speculation, she'd go crazy.

  At what must have been close to midnight, she heard Larry sneaking quietly into the bedroom. She kept her breathing steady and her eyes closed as she listened to the sounds of bedtime preparations coming from the bathroom.

  There was a slight jostle of the mattress as he slid into bed. Ordinarily they would have gravitated to the middle, closing into the spoon grasp of comforting warmth, each sure of the other's receptiveness. But now neither invaded the other's territory. A new pattern was being formed, one that made Jenny shiver with loneliness.

  As Jenny turned the eggs the next morning she cal ed, "Rick! Christy! Are you almost ready? Your breakfast is on the table." With that she set two fil ed plates on brightly flowered placemats and set glasses of orange juice beside them. The kids dashed in and dropped into their chairs, glancing nervously at the clock. "Just slow down," Jenny counseled, "you have fifteen minutes." She stuck her head through the door and yel ed up the stairs. "Larry? Are you about ready? Do you want your eggs fried or scrambled?"

  "No eggs, Jenny," the voice came from the bedroom, "just juice and coffee."

  She started to give her usual admonitions about the necessity of a good breakfast, then turned sharply back into the kitchen without uttering a word. To hel with him. He was probably worn out from dreaming about Ky al night.

  As she listened to the chatter between Christy and Rick and watched Larry move absently into the room, pour himself a cup of coffee, then sit at the table, reaching for the morning paper, Jenny chided herself for her assumptions. She couldn't real y blame Larry for being overwhelmed by Ky; so was everyone else. He was probably handling it as wel as he could, and she wasn't helping by becoming glum and withdrawn.

  She walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Honey, are you sure I can't fix you something?"

  He jumped, his eyes shooting to hers in confusion. "What?" The foggy expression cleared just a bit. "Oh, ah, no thanks, Jenny. I'm real y not hungry, and I have an early appointment."

  "But you were so late last night. You shouldn't jam your time like that. You'll get worn out."

  He gave her a strained smile and stood, gulping the last of his coffee and folding the paper neatly before laying it next to his placemate. "Wel , things are getting a bit hectic at the office. I'll probably be late again tonight, so don't hold dinner."

  "But why, Larry? Summer is usual y your slow time."

  "How would I know why! I don't have any control over when the clients decide to start making demands!" His voice was harsh. Both Rick and Christy stared up at him in surprise.

  Jenny blinked, turning back to the sink. "Don't bite my head off. I was only asking."

  Rick stood, reaching to the floor to pick up the large canvas bag fil ed with swimsuit, towel, lunch, snorkeling gear, and a footbal . "Hey, Dad, did you real y used to date that Ky Kayle?"

  "Yes."

  "Wow, you must have been a big man on campus to get anyplace with her!"

  Christy's high-pitched voice chimed in, "I'll say! She's so beautiful! And she's so nice. Do you think I could bring some of my friends over to meet her the next time she's here? Could I?"

  Jenny grasped the edge of the sink, fighting the wave of anger that engulfed her. Et tu, Brutus? She went over and grabbed the plates off the table. "What time are you kids supposed to get home tonight?"

  Christy ran into the service porch at the side of the kitchen to fetch a beach towel. "Mrs. Blake says to expect us back about six or six-thirty and not to worry about dinner. We're going to stop at MacNee's hamburger stand on the way home from the beach."

  A car horn sounded outside, and Rick gave Christy a poke. "Here they are, dipless. Are you sure you have everything—your head, for instance?"

  She flicked him with the corner of her towel before shoving it into her own canvas bag. "You're the one who always forgets something, spacebrain. I'm prepared, as usual."

  They both brushed fast kisses on their parents' cheeks and dashed for the door. "Christy! Be sure you use the sunscreen on your face!" Jenny cal ed.

  "Bye, kids," Larry final y added.

  As Jenny turned back into the room, she saw him lift his briefcase from its position by the door and throw his suit jacket over his arm. "Feels like it'll be a scorcher today."

  Jenny nodded. "Yes. I may go for a late swim at the club pool and grab a sandwich there, since it sounds like no one is showing up for dinner."

  "Good idea." Larry edged toward the door. "Must feel good to have a little freedom from cooking now and then."

  She cracked a glass shoving it into the dishwasher. "It feels like ab
andonment."

  He stopped and real y looked at her for the first time. "Look, I'm sorry about the long hours. We're swamped at the office—and you're right, that's unusual during the summer—and it's a pain in the neck." He stared at her.

  "Jenny, are you okay?"

  She clicked a can of dog food into place on the electric opener and spoke over the whirring sound. "I'm al right." She scooped out the contents of the can, aware that Larry was stil watching her, and put the fil ed dish on the floor in front of the patiently waiting Dmitri.

  "Jenny, wil you forget the dog for a minute and talk to me?"

  "We dogs have to stick together."

  "Now just what does that mean?"

  She whirled on him. "It means that you might as wel have pushed me inside the front door along with Dmitri on Friday night, for al the attention you paid me. Then or since then, for that matter. And to see that even the kids prefer her—" She cut the sentence midway, appal ed at her lack of control and the growing feeling that she was about to break into tears.

  Larry stepped to her, pul ing her stiff, unyielding body into his arms. "Jenny, we don't prefer anyone to you.

  Honey, I didn't know you were so upset."

  "You would have known if you'd even looked at me for more than thirty seconds al weekend!"

  "Oh, Jen, I'm sorry."

  He held her awkwardly, and it didn't comfort Jenny one bit. "Honey, I know that this has been trying. It's been far from easy for me, too. I did care for Ky, you know, and I put her through a lot of pain. And even though that was a long time ago, it doesn't seem like something I should just brush aside. I feel responsible to help her as much as I can with this new endeavor. She hasn't had an easy time of it, you know. She's just now getting her feet under her, and she could use a little support. That's al it is, Jen; it's nothing for you to worry about." He stepped away from her. "I'll get home as early as I can. Maybe we can catch a late movie or something."

  Jenny stayed frozen by the sink, her eyes riveted on this man she was married to. She wanted him to go, to remove the strain of his presence, to take his responsible soul out the door and away from the house. She couldn't breathe through the tension she felt.

  "Oh, by the way,"—somehow her voice emerged sounding matter-of-fact, control ed—"Gina cal ed yesterday.

  They hadn't heard from us and wondered if we stil wanted to go sailing this weekend."

  Larry ran his fingers through his hair. "I guess. Sometimes it seems like such a hassle, racing off to the Cape so often and going through al the work of getting the boat out. But yeah, we invited them; we'd better go. See you later."

  She didn't move as the door banged shut, but stood, immobile, numb, through the sound of the opening of the overhead garage door, the roar of the motor, the closing of the door, the sound of tires crunching down the gravel driveway.

  She could never, ever recal Larry's referring to any part of the ritual of sailing as a hassle. She forced her feet to move, to carry her into the various rooms where she finished up morning chores. Responsible. For Ky. The words banged around in her head. Did he real y not see what this was doing to her, or had he stopped caring?

  Larry's responsibility had shifted to Ky. Jenny felt canceled out. She left the last of the dishes in the sink and hurriedly accumulated the material she needed for her day's work. Thank God for Hal Clemens and the absorbing project he had offered to her; otherwise... Jenny shut another mental door.

  Larry sat at his desk, trying to concentrate on the An win Corporation's profit-and-loss statement that was spread out in front of him. He pul ed a cigarette out of the pack on his desk and searched for the one ashtray in the room. He final y located it in the drawer of an end table in the corner.

  He hadn't smoked in fifteen years. In fact, he was known to sermonize on the subject to puffing friends. But Ky smoked. Sometime during the three-hour lunch they'd shared on Friday he had joined her, and he'd continued the companionable practice during the wait at the airport. On Monday he had stopped at the drugstore on the way to the office and bought a pack of cigarettes. It made him feel closer to Ky, this carryover indulgence. But he had an uncomfortable sensation of slowly slipping into moral decay.

  He got up and closed the door before lighting the cigarette. Esther had made a few comments on his new habit the day before, then coughed a couple of times to drive the point home. Larry believed everything she said. He also believed in marital fidelity and truthfulness and honor, and in the last few days he had lusted after another woman, lied to his wife, and tried to figure out how he could get away with seeing more of Ky. He was being torn to pieces, and he didn't know what to do about it.

  The phone rang on his private line. He knew who it was. His hand hesitated over the receiver for a brief instant before he picked it up. "Hel o."

  "Larry." The breathy tone crept through the wires, erasing the miles that separated him from his cal er.

  "Ky, how are you?"

  "Lonesome, melancholy, needing you."

  "That's quite an opening." He stubbed out the cigarette. "I'm sitting here smoking. You've taught me a bad habit."

  "I'd like to teach you a few more."

  "Ky, you're making it very hard for me."

  "I'd like to do that, too."

  Larry ran his hand over his forehead. It was damp. "Ky, listen..."

  "Al right, I'll be good. How are you today? Did you get through al those meetings last night?"

  She seemed to know the exact moment she was pressing too hard, pushing him to the point of saying, "This has to stop." Larry felt continual y off balance, between the devil and the deep blue sea. "I got through the meetings, yes, although it was after eleven when I left the office."

  "Bad boy, I told you to go home and get some sleep when you cal ed at ten. You'll wear yourself out."

  "That was the idea."

  "Ah yes, I know what you mean. And come to think of it, I'd just as soon you wear yourself out before you go home."

  "Ky, don't." He hated any reference to Jenny in their conversations. Somehow it seemed that if he could keep her name out of it, she wouldn't be involved. How stupid can you be? his conscience prodded.

  "Larry, I've been working like a little beaver on these clothes. The seamstresses are al screaming, but they're getting double time for their efforts, so I'll have the whole line ready to ship in two weeks, which means that I can be back there by the twentieth of August."

  Larry's heart rol ed over, accompanied by his stomach. He ached for Ky, thought about her every minute, got aroused simply remembering their good-bye kiss at the airport. By some dreadful practical joke of nature, a time crunch had taken place, wiping out nineteen years of space and catapulting him right back into the same pervasive web of desire that had engulfed him in the emerging sexual years of his youth. Much as he wanted to stay faithful to Jenny, he knew that the only thing keeping him away from Ky at this moment was the span of miles between Boston and Dal as. Now she was tel ing him that she planned to erase that safety feature. "I see."

  "Larry, couldn't you sound just a little more excited than that?"

  "The problem is that I am far more excited than that."

  The velvet purr stroked his responsive chords. "Stay excited, my love. I have such vividly erotic memories of you in that condition."

  Larry loosened his tie. "Ky, you're melting the cables. Ma Bel will be upset."

  The laugh tinkled through the wires, coiled up the receiver, blew into his ear. "Just to be sure that you don't get too complacent the moment I hang up, I thought you'd like to know that I just got out of the shower, and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, stark naked, sending extraordinarily lewd mind-pictures through the airwaves to you."

  "Lord, Ky, what are you trying to do to me?"

  "You know exactly what I'm trying to do to you."

  "You're not playing by the rules."

  "I can't afford to or I'd lose. And I can't bear to lose this time."

  There was a knock on his d
oor. "Ky, I have to hang up. Someone's at the door."

  "A likely excuse."

  "Nevertheless, a true one. Talk to you later, okay?"

  "Okay. I love you."

  Larry hung up, then straightened his tie and shirt col ar, as if the dishevelment of his mind might show in his appearance, and cal ed, "Come in."

  The door opened, and Wil 's head appeared, tentatively cocked around the edge. "Are you busy? I noticed that your door was closed and checked with Esther to see when you'd be free, but she said there was no one else in here."

  "She was right; I was just sneaking a smoke. Esther disapproves."

  Wil 's eyebrows went up as he came in and sat down. "You, smoking? Does my memory fail me, or are you not the same fel ow who made my life so miserable that I final y swore off the filthy habit myself?"

  "I must plead guilty."

  "So what's this?" Wil gestured toward the pack on the desk. "A sudden death-wish?"

  Larry glanced at him sharply, strangely shaken by his choice of words. "No, I think it's just a temporary regression into post-puberty."

  Wil 's face clouded. He frowned as he picked up the nearly ful pack and studied it. "That's what I was afraid of."

  Larry shifted uneasily in his chair. "What does that mean?"

  "Look, old buddy, I've seen quite a number of my friends stray from the straight and narrow, as that tired old saying goes, and I've closed my eyes and my mouth, which, believe me, I will certainly do if that's what it comes to with you. But as a close friend, I feel I should voice my concern. Ky Kayle seems to me to be a woman who plays for keeps."

  Larry put his elbows on the desk in front of him and sank his head into his hands. "Lord, Wil , is it that obvious?"

  "In a word, yes. I thought the two of you were going to set the house afire Friday night." He placed a hand on Larry's shoulder.

  "You and Jen have always had such a good thing going that watching you topple is sort of like watching Gibraltar fal . I have to admit Ky is a tempting morsel, but you have a lot to lose."

  Larry searched his friend's face. "Do you have any sage advice, Wil ? Have you heard of any new, foolproof tonic to cool the blood?"