Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances

by Dorothy Fletcher

  She picked up her glass and took a quick swallow. “For a Chink place you do get good drinks here, this one’s no child’s piss. Good, huh? But yes, I thought I’d dropped a hint or two about my confrères in the business, God knows I’m always griping about it. Not just my agency, it’s all of them, the whole contingent, they’re really a breed apart. Backbiting, small-minded, avaricious, all of them fighting to get the best perks possible. They stay in the fray till they’re practically senile and they’re the worst vultures in any business you can name. The rag trade? Pretty grim, but travel can go it one better. At least I think so.”

  “Doesn’t it rub off on you? I don’t mean make you the same way, but isn’t it festering to work with people like that?”

  “I close my eyes to it. You don’t really work with them, you work around them. I have my own desk space, own phone; my own clients. I rub shoulders with them, that’s about it. Oh, and they’re all drunks, too. They must spend a fortune on booze alone. Anton and I met one of the women in my agency one evening when we were having dinner at Sea Fare of the Aegean.”

  She sipped again, laughed. “We passed by her table — she was with her husband, whom I happen to know is a first-class lecher — and she jumped up, almost spilling her drink, and fell all over me. Clover Martinson, hello dear, why’nt you join us, and somehow or other I was able to wrest her away from me, and him, he was feasting his eyes on my cleavage. Well. Next day at the agency I said politely, ‘Good morning, Martha, nice to run into you last night at the restaurant.’ She gave me this absolutely blank look, this long, vacant look, told me I must be mistaken, she was home last night with a migraine and skipped dinner completely.”

  Clover, chuckling, remarked that in Martha’s mind it was undoubtedly the truth, as she obviously didn’t remember one bit of the previous evening. She had probably blanked out after her one too many whatever-she-was-drinking. “Oh, they’re a great bunch, and every one of them dyed in the wool racists.”

  Then she half emptied her glass with a big gulp. “As they say, I needed that.” There was a hoot of laughter. “Here I am sounding off about lushes and I’m well on my way to a refill. With you just starting. But you know me, kiddo. I wouldn’t give up my schnapps, I make no secret of it, but two’s my limit on a working day. Take your time, Chris. How am I doing with my tan, do I look like a bushbaby?”

  “No, like St. Tropez. Where do you go?”

  “Well, I start, as soon as the weather indicates, on my terrace, you know there’s no parapet over it, and I begin with half an hour, gradually lengthen the time after the first week. When I get a real good base Anton and I go to the beach. He’s not a moneybags, you know, earns high but he’s got family obligations need I tell you, and I’m no Rockefeller. So we catch the subway at Eighty-sixth the Street, express to Nevins, then change over to a local that takes us to the last stop, Flatbush Avenue. Then we go up the stairs, into the sunlight again, and take a bus to Riis Park. The whole trip is about an hour and a half each way, but Riis Park is beautifully unspoiled, or at least the part we head for, which is called the family section, and it’s never crowded and noisy like Jones Beach.”

  “It’s a long trip, Clover. But it sounds like fun.”

  “It’s marvelous. I really can’t tell you how much we enjoy it. Just a shirt and jeans over your bathing suit, your towels, a little cash for fares and lunch, a frank and a can of beer. A blanket to lie on. We both look forward to it all week.”

  “How is Anton these days?”

  “A joy, an absolute joy. I don’t know what I ever did without him. It’s as if there never was anything else. Sounds like the title of an Albee play. Nothing before Anton.”

  “Clover, I’m very glad that man made an appearance in your life. I know things were always very pleasant for you before, but there’s nothing like that kind of, as you say, absolute joy.”

  “Yes. Yes, Chris. Funny how one day there’s just ordinary, doing this and doing that, no great shakes and then a day later, tantara tantara, everything’s like a rainbow, you want to strew flowers in his path. Well. A little lavender, that, but I tend to be Miss Ebullience these days.”

  “Ms. Ebullience”

  “Correction noted and point taken. I mean it, though, I’m sure it’s an unmitigated bore, this kind of stars in the eyes palaver.”

  “On the contrary. It’s lovely, so much more enjoyable than hearing about the deteriorating state of someone’s liver, or how you can’t get decent cleaning women anymore.”

  “They don’t do windows. Yeah, you do hear a lot of that shit.” She fiddled with her glass. “How’s Carl, Chris?”

  “Just fine. Busy. As usual.”

  “The kids? Nancy, Bruce?”

  “Nancy’s still in Mass. Brace’s summer job — I told you about that. As for me, it’s summer and that’s when I come completely alive.”

  “You should go to the beach with us. When’s vacation this year, Chris?”

  A pang. Vacation. Two and a half weeks parted from Jack. It was increasingly on her mind. It could very well be finis, Christine thought dejectedly. Almost three weeks for Jack to take stock of the situation, find it insupportable. It was beginning to disturb her sleep at night. “We’re leaving on the 20th of September.”

  “Your birthday’s on the 27th, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, must you remind me?”

  If it makes you feel any better, I just turned forty. I never thought you were one to tear your hair out over things like that, Chris.”

  “I’d just as soon stop celebrating it. Carl will make a big production, some fancy restaurant, flowers, about twelve birthday cards.”

  “Good for Carl. Where are you going?”

  “Italy again. A medical tour, as usual. That is for the flight, anyway. Carl likes to hobnob with other men of med’cin? I don’t mind. The rest of the time we’re on our own. I’d rather have you plan an itinerary for us.”

  “Don’t give it a thought, we’ve been all through this before. We women are friends, the guys and gals haven’t ever socialized. I for one have always preferred it that way. What we have belongs to us, not to them. I like to keep my business separate. I really wouldn’t like to dicker with friends, you must realize that. I’ve got my own regular group tours, faithful clients, a nice bit of change accruing therefrom. Oh, I’m off to Israel and Egypt in the autumn. Egypt, I’ve never been there. Giza, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, camel rides on licey blankets. Damn, I’m out of cigarettes. This pack’s empty, I don’t have a fresh one in my bag. Look, I’ll be right back, I’ll get some from the front desk.”

  “Don’t be silly, Clover, help yourself to mine. I have another pack with me.”

  “I hate to sponge.”

  “What’s mine is yours. What’s got into you? Take these and I’ll get the new pack out.”

  “Bring you some next time. Thanks, Chris. So, Egypt. Yes, the camel rides, I can just imagine the mangy state of those camel blankets. Wow. Plus sanitary conditions in general. My doctor’s going to dose me up before I leave, with gamma globulin. And God knows there’ll be any number of shots, anti everything you can think of. I suppose I’ll be a mass of lumps. Then there’s that horrid Nile worm.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Some ghastly crud. A worm, I guess, they call it the Nile worm. Dr. Enfield said, looking me straight in the eye to be sure I understood he meant business, that if I so as much dipped a toe into Nile waters I’d be sorry, that it would mean slow and irrevocable deterioration, a sure threat to my mental capacities as well, that I’d end up a mindless wreck.”

  “Well, happy vacation,” Christine said, laughing. “Are you going alone or with Anton?”

  “This year alone. Last year it was with Anton. Remember, we went to Spain and Portugal? We take turns, Madame and I — I should say the Frau and I. So you see it’s all very fair and equitable.”

  “It doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “It doesn’t bother me.”

  Was
that said rather curtly, Christine wondered, tapping ashes into the tray. “That’s fine,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to sound inquisitive.”

  Clover raised astonished eyes. “Inquisitive? Hell, I don’t think that! Why should I?”

  “I guess I’m ready for that second drink now. Can you get his attention, honey?”

  An arm up again, the waiter responding. “Two more of the same, please, and the menu, okay?”

  When he padded away Christine said she didn’t really think she’d ever get to Egypt, but that she’d very much like to go to Israel. “Yes, you should,” Clover assured her. “All the Bible places, aside from anything else. And of course Israel’s — to all intents and purposes — the end of the Diaspora. Anton nitpicks about it, he’s not a Zionist, he says Herzl would turn over in his grave if he knew how the homeland turned out. Well, you don’t want to hear about that, I know I talk about Anton too much. Me, I’ve been there before, I find much of it blatantly materialistic, but I’m kinda sentimental about it.” She shrugged, “I guess I’m very sentimental about it.”

  “Because Anton’s Jewish?”

  “No, I was before. Rooting with my pompoms. Good for you, tiny country, you show them. Well, maybe more so because of Anton, yes, I suppose. I feel the weight of the infamy in a more personal way.”

  The waiter returned with their fresh drinks, the menus. “Let’s order, shall we, Chris? It will take a while for the stuff to be ready.”

  They selected an assortment of dishes, Clover saying yes, chopsticks for her, Christine declining. She should learn, Clover told her, but Christine said she wasn’t the most avid fan of Oriental cuisine, so why bother to take up an indoor sport that she would rarely use? “Oh, I’m sorry,” Clover said apologetically. “I should have left it up to you.”

  “No, I have nothing against Chinese, don’t be silly, it’s fun once in a while and I particularly like this place.”

  “It’s so pretty at Christmastime, lovely decorations, it’s like fairyland.”

  “Years ago Luchow’s was the place to go during the year-end holidays. I haven’t been there for ages.”

  “It went down so. I understand new people have taken it over and it’s good again.”

  “Let’s all troop down there sometime for lunch.”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  It was when their plates were set before them and they were dividing the steaming fare that Christine decided to come to the point. She simply didn’t want to settle for discussing the merits of various eating places, or make small talk about vacations and then go on to clothes or the latest art films. After two hearty drinks she now felt up to advancing the conversation. After all, it was what she had come here for.

  Mentally clearing her throat, she said, “This isn’t idle curiosity, Clover, but — well, Anton. It’s going on five years since you met, and you established a — a relationship almost right away. I was wondering if-”

  She was conscious of her friend’s upturned look, then her steady regard, Clover’s eyes on her, speculative and inquiring. She rushed on. “It’s just that-”

  And then came to a halt.

  “It’s just what?” Clover asked. “You don’t have to pussyfoot with me. Don’t you know that? What’s this all about, huh?”

  “Clover, I don’t want you to think I’m prying — ”

  “You’re not the prying kind,” Clover said, picking up her chopsticks. “You never were.”

  “I guess I have a particular reason for asking about you and Anton. If you object, I’ll retreat. Fools rush in …”

  A warm smile from Clover when their eyes met. “I never thought of you as a fool either. Nor do I think you’re concerned about my rashness, that you’re going to advise me to think twice before I go on with this, this relationship, as you called it.”

  She popped a morsel of crisped pork in her mouth. “What’s beginning to occur to me,” she went on, “is that you’re stewing about something. Something outside of me but in some way bearing on me and Anton. So it seems to be my turn now. Is Carl involved with someone else, Chris?”

  She put up a quick hand. “You don’t have to answer that. I only asked it because it seemed a possible reason for you to bring Anton into the conversation so persistently.”

  “No reason you shouldn’t ask. And no, Carl’s not up to any hankypanky. At least I see no indication of it.”

  “Oh, well, then. Let me take my foot out of my mouth.”

  That tactful look on Clover’s face. She doesn’t believe me, Christine thought. Or at best there’s a doubt in her mind. “Don’t you adore these roasted walnuts?” Clover murmured. “I could eat them till they came out of my ears.”

  “Yes, they’re great,” Christine agreed, and took the plunge. “It’s I who’s involved with someone,” she said, out of a need to exempt Carl from censure. There, she had spilled the beans, and was neither glad nor sorry she had. Clover didn’t turn a hair, she was pleased to see. Her friend just looked back at her, no change of expression: she might have been informing Clover that she had bought new dining room pieces.

  “I didn’t mean to tell anyone,” she said quickly. “Or maybe I did. Maybe that’s the reason I wanted to be with you today.”

  Clover’s chopsticks were arrested in midair. “Oh?” she finally said. “But why me, Chris? You’ve always been closer to Ruth.”

  “That’s a question of neighborhoods, Ruth and I live practically on each other’s doorsteps. Anyway, I wouldn’t tell Ruth. I’ve only told you because I feel I might learn something from you. About — well, to put it bluntly, an unorthodox — ”

  She forked up some sweet and sour pork, put it in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Oh, God, this isn’t working.”

  “Now, come on,” Clover said, in the tones of a patient piano teacher. “Take your time, feel your way. We’re old friends, let’s rap without confusion or embarrassment. Tell me anything or ask me anything. What are friends for? My life is the proverbial open book. I’ve never been one to conceal things. Go ahead and say whatever you’ve a mind to say.”

  She snickered. “We never used to be this reticent, did we? Staggering into work, discussing abortive love affairs. Gee, you’re white as a sheet, what’s wrong? I’ve got the curse, these cramps are killing me. Or jamming into the John to plot mayhem against the boss. Remember that bastard Tully? We all hated his guts, he was really a rotten man, and then he got Julie Johns knocked up and he was canned. Oh, joy in the morning! We all went out to lunch at Reidy’s and came back bombed.”

  “Ah yes, I remember it well. He always had it in for us because we never gave him a tumble. He had this insane impression he was God’s gift to girls.”

  “Then continuez, as my French teacher at P.S. whatever-it-was used to say. So you’re getting it on with someone else, Chris. I say that flippantly because, well — ”

  “The trouble is it’s not that. Getting it on. That’s the catch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s more than that. I could handle it if it were just that.”

  “Oh. I suppose I understand.”

  “It’s more like something I didn’t bargain for. Not that I bargained for any of it. I never went looking. I never wanted to go looking. I wasn’t missing anything. Or at least so I thought. Anyway, it’s not what I want to talk about. I don’t want to be shriven. I’m in something deeper than I should be and I can’t just say from one day to the next, cut it out, Christine, you’re a naughty girl. I’ve presented myself with a problem and I’ve presented someone else with a problem. It’s there and it’s not going to go away.”

  She leaned forward. “I wanted, you know, to hear how it is with Anton and you. You’ve so often said, and without bile, that he’ll never leave his wife.”

  “I don’t want him to. If he did that might mean he’d leave me some day. Or no, that isn’t really what I mean. It would make him not the man he is, the man I love and honor. I’d like it if she died, but it isn’t a
ll that important. I’m just as happy with the way things are. I love him, he loves me, who’d want better?”

  “I used to think getting married was the answer to everything. Yes, I did. I didn’t break my neck trying to land someone, but I did think it was what you were supposed to do. A husband and children. A normal life. Sometimes — well lately, I’ve thought it was exactly the trap the feminists say it is. It doesn’t seem to be the answer.”

  “The answer? Answer to what?” Clover cried. “Like the old joke. Religion’s the answer, but what’s the question? There are answers to arithmetical questions, I grant you. Otherwise it’s feeling around in the dark. What did I find this time? A treasure hunt. Maybe you come up with a guy who says let’s get married and you get married. The altar, a husband, then cloning yourself. Okay, but what question is that an answer to? You’re in this alone, why kid yourself. Who’s going to stop the pain when you have pain? Maybe the doctor, or at least he has some means to make an attempt, but hell, you’re the one with the pain, and if you’re terminal you’re terminal all by yourself, loved ones notwithstanding, they can’t will good health to come to you. You’ve got children and I don’t, but that’s of relatively short duration because one of these days there ain’t no children anymore, they’re out and away and you’re a little bit older, with no one to make chicken soup for anymore.”

  “Don’t rub it in,” Christine said wryly. “I’ve been through all that in my mind. You’re doing it differently. I’m interested to hear how it works out that way.”

  “Okay,” Clover said briskly. “Okay, maybe I’m a mutation from some women, though I do seem to be in fashion these days with my single-status shenanigans. I don’t know how to say it in any other way, Chris, but I’m very, very fulfilled and very, very content. That’s putting it, deliberately, in an unromanticized way, even clinically, no hyperbole. I don’t consider, however, that doing it my way means an answer to anything.”

  She pulled out another cigarette, lit it. “It just so happened, Chris, that a fortunate thing happened on the way to my fortieth birthday. I met Anton. Nothing wrong before, I had no bones to pick with my lot. But then I did meet Anton, a man I love so much that I’d do anything, short of inflicting pain or torture on another person, to keep what I have and keep it until I die. Unfortunately Anton is quite a bit older, so it seems a vain hope. But I don’t want anything to change and I didn’t really mean it when I said I’d like for her to die. Even that isn’t so, because she’s such a big part of him, he’d be losing a hell of lot if she died; it would mean suffering for him and I don’t want him to suffer. He had his share of suffering, I’ve told you about that, the Third Reich and the way it touched him. Why should he lose her too?”