by Ira Levin
“Don’t you think we ought to talk about it?” she said the next morning at breakfast.
“About what?”
She looked at him; he seemed genuinely unknowing. “The conversations we’ve been making,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The way you haven’t been looking at me.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been looking at you.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I have so. Honey, what is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, don’t say that. What is it? What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah look, honey, I know I’ve been kind of preoccupied, with the part and the crutches and all; is that it? Well gee whiz, Ro, it’s important, you know? But it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, just because I’m not riveting you with a passionate gaze all the time. I’ve got to think about practical matters too.” It was awkward and charming and sincere, like his playing of the cowboy in Bus Stop.
“All right,” Rosemary said. “I’m sorry I’m being pesty.”
“You? You couldn’t be pesty if you tried.”
He leaned across the table and kissed her.
Hutch had a cabin near Brewster where he spent occasional weekends. Rosemary called him and asked if she might use it for three or four days, possibly a week. “Guy’s getting into his new part,” she explained, “and I really think it’ll be easier for him with me out of the way.”
“It’s yours,” Hutch said, and Rosemary went down to his apartment on Lexington Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street to pick up the key.
She looked in first at a delicatessen where the clerks were friends from her own days in the neighborhood, and then she went up to Hutch’s apartment, which was small and dark and neat as a pin, with an inscribed photo of Winston Churchill and a sofa that had belonged to Madame Pompadour. Hutch was sitting barefoot between two bridge tables, each with its typewriter and piles of paper. His practice was to write two books at once, turning to the second when he struck a snag on the first, and back to the first when he struck a snag on the second.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Rosemary said, sitting on Madame Pompadour’s sofa. “I suddenly realized the other day that I’ve never been alone in my whole life—not for more than a few hours, that is. The idea of three or four days is heaven.”
“A chance to sit quietly and find out who you are; where you’ve been and where you’re going.”
“Exactly.”
“All right, you can stop forcing that smile,” Hutch said. “Did he hit you with a lamp?”
“He didn’t hit me with anything,” Rosemary said. “It’s a very difficult part, a crippled boy who pretends that he’s adjusted to his crippled-ness. He’s got to work with crutches and leg-braces, and naturally he’s preoccupied and—and, well, preoccupied.”
“I see,” Hutch said. “We’ll change the subject. The News had a lovely rundown the other day of all the gore we missed during the strike. Why didn’t you tell me you’d had another suicide up there at Happy House?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Rosemary asked.
“No, you didn’t,” Hutch said.
“It was someone we knew. The girl I told you about; the one who’d been a drug addict and was rehabilitated by the Castevets, these people who live on our floor. I’m sure I told you that.”
“The girl who was going to the basement with you.”
“That’s right.”
“They didn’t rehabilitate her very successfully, it would seem. Was she living with them?”
“Yes,” Rosemary said. “We’ve gotten to know them fairly well since it happened. Guy goes over there once in a while to hear stories about the theater. Mr. Castevet’s father was a producer around the turn of the century.”
“I shouldn’t have thought Guy would be interested,” Hutch said. “An elderly couple, I take it?”
“He’s seventy-nine; she’s seventy or so.”
“It’s an odd name,” Hutch said. “How is it spelled?”
Rosemary spelled it for him.
“I’ve never heard it before,” he said. “French, I suppose.”
“The name may be but they aren’t,” Rosemary said. “He’s from right here and she’s from a place called—believe it or not—Bushyhead, Oklahoma.”
“My God,” Hutch said. “I’m going to use that in a book. That one. I know just where to put it. Tell me, how are you planning to get to the cabin? You’ll need a car, you know.”
“I’m going to rent one.”
“Take mine.”
“Oh no, Hutch, I couldn’t.”
“Do, please,” Hutch said. “All I do is move it from one side of the street to the other. Please. You’ll save me a great deal of bother.”
Rosemary smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do you a favor and take your car.”
Hutch gave her the keys to the car and the cabin, a sketch-map of the route, and a typed list of instructions concerning the pump, the refrigerator, and a variety of possible emergencies. Then he put on shoes and a coat and walked her down to where the car, an old light-blue Oldsmobile, was parked. “The registration papers are in the glove compartment,” he said. “Please feel free to stay as long as you like. I have no immediate plans for either the car or the cabin.”
“I’m sure I won’t stay more than a week,” Rosemary said. “Guy might not even want me to stay that long.”
When she was settled in the car, Hutch leaned in at the window and said, “I have all kinds of good advice to give you but I’m going to mind my own business if it kills me.”
Rosemary kissed him. “Thank you,” she said. “For that and for this and for everything.”
She left on the morning of Saturday, October 16th, and stayed five days at the cabin. The first two days she never once thought about Guy—a fitting revenge for the cheerfulness with which he had agreed to her going. Did she look as if she needed a good rest? Very well, she would have one, a long one, never once thinking about him. She took walks through dazzling yellow-and-orange woods, went to sleep early and slept late, read Flight of The Falcon by Daphne du Maurier, and made glutton’s meals on the bottled-gas stove. Never once thinking about him.
On the third day she thought about him. He was vain, self-centered, shallow, and deceitful. He had married her to have an audience, not a mate. (Little Miss Just-out-of-Omaha, what a goop she had been! “Oh, I’m used to actors; I’ve been here almost a year now.” And she had all but followed him around the studio carrying his newspaper in her mouth.) She would give him a year to shape up and become a good husband; if he didn’t make it she would pull out, and with no religious qualms whatever. And meanwhile she would go back to work and get again that sense of independence and self-sufficiency she had been so eager to get rid of. She would be strong and proud and ready to go if he failed to meet her standards.
Those glutton’s meals—man-size cans of beef stew and chili con carne—began to disagree with her, and on that third day she was mildly nauseated and could eat only soup and crackers.
On the fourth day she awoke missing him and cried. What was she doing there, alone in that cold crummy cabin? What had he done that was so terrible? He had gotten drunk and had grabbed her without saying may I. Well that was really an earth-shaking offense, now wasn’t it? There he was, facing the biggest challenge of his career, and she—instead of being there to help him, to cue and encourage him—was off in the middle of nowhere, eating herself sick and feeling sorry for herself. Sure he was vain and self-centered; he was an actor, wasn’t he? Laurence Olivier was probably vain and self-centered. And yes he might lie now and then; wasn’t that exactly what had attracted her and still did?—that freedom and nonchalance so different from her own boxed-in propriety?
She drove into Brewster and called him. Service answered, the Friendly One: “Oh hi, dear, are you back from the country? Oh. Guy is out, dear; c
an he call you? You’ll call him at five. Right. You’ve certainly got lovely weather. Are you enjoying yourself? Good.”
At five he was still out, her message waiting for him. She ate in a diner and went to the one movie theater. At nine he was still out and Service was someone new and automatic with a message for her: she should call him before eight the next morning or after six in the evening.
That next day she reached what seemed like a sensible and realistic view of things. They were both at fault; he for being thoughtless and self-absorbed, she for failing to express and explain her discontent. He could hardly be expected to change until she showed him that change was called for. She had only to talk—no, they had only to talk, for he might be harboring a similar discontent of which she was similarly unaware—and matters couldn’t help but improve. Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk.
She went into Brewster at six and called and he was there. “Hi, darling,” he said. “How are you?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“All right. I miss you.”
She smiled at the phone. “I miss you,” she said. “I’m coming home tomorrow.”
“Good, that’s great,” he said. “All kinds of things have been going on here. Rehearsals have been postponed until January.”
“Oh?”
“They haven’t been able to cast the little girl. It’s a break for me though; I’m going to do a pilot next month. A half-hour comedy series.”
“You are?”
“It fell into my lap, Ro. And it really looks good. ABC loves the idea. It’s called Greenwich Village; it’s going to be filmed there, and I’m a way-out writer. It’s practically the lead.”
“That’s marvelous, Guy!”
“Allan says I’m suddenly very hot.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“Listen, I’ve got to shower and shave; he’s taking me to a screening that Stanley Kubrick is going to be at. When are you going to get in?”
“Around noon, maybe earlier.”
“I’ll be waiting. Love you.”
“Love you!”
She called Hutch, who was out, and left word with his service that she would return the car the following afternoon.
The next morning she cleaned the cabin, closed it up and locked it, and drove back to the city. Traffic on the Saw Mill River Parkway was bottlenecked by a three-car collision, and it was close to one o’clock when she parked the car half-in half-out-of the bus stop in front of the Bramford. With her small suitcase she hurried into the house.
The elevator man hadn’t taken Guy down, but he had been off duty from eleven-fifteen to twelve.
He was there, though. The No Strings album was playing. She opened her mouth to call and he came out of the bedroom in a fresh shirt and tie, headed for the kitchen with a used coffee cup in his hand.
They kissed, lovingly and fully, he hugging her one-armed because of the cup.
“Have a good time?” he asked.
“Terrible. Awful. I missed you so.”
“How are you?”
“Fine. How was Stanley Kubrick?”
“Didn’t show, the fink.”
They kissed again.
She brought her suitcase into the bedroom and opened it on the bed. He came in with two cups of coffee, gave her one, and sat on the vanity bench while she unpacked. She told him about the yellow-and-orange woods and the still nights; he told her about Greenwich Village, who else was in it and who the producers, writers, and director were.
“Are you really fine?” he asked when she was zipping closed the empty case.
She didn’t understand.
“Your period,” he said. “It was due on Tuesday.”
“It was?”
He nodded.
“Well it’s just two days,” she said—matter-of-factly, as if her heart weren’t racing, leaping. “It’s probably the change of water, or the food I ate up there.”
“You’ve never been late before,” he said.
“It’ll probably come tonight. Or tomorrow.”
“You want to bet?”
“Yes.”
“A quarter?”
“Okay.”
“You’re going to lose, Ro.”
“Shut up. You’re getting me all jumpy. It’s only two days. It’ll probably come tonight.”
CHAPTER 10
IT DIDN’T COME that night or the next day. Or the day after that or the day after that. Rosemary moved gently, walked lightly, so as not to dislodge what might possibly have taken hold inside her.
Talk with Guy? No, that could wait.
Everything could wait.
She cleaned, shopped, and cooked, breathing carefully. Laura-Louise came down one morning and asked her to vote for Buckley. She said she would, to get rid of her.
“Give me my quarter,” Guy said.
“Shut up,” she said, giving his arm a backhand punch.
She made an appointment with an obstetrician and, on Thursday, October 28th, went to see him. His name was Dr. Hill. He had been recommended to her by a friend, Elise Dunstan, who had used him through two pregnancies and swore by him. His office was on West Seventy-second Street.
He was younger than Rosemary had expected—Guy’s age or even less—and he looked a little bit like Dr. Kildare on television. She liked him. He asked her questions slowly and with interest, examined her, and sent her to a lab on Sixtieth Street where a nurse drew blood from her right arm.
He called the next afternoon at three-thirty.
“Mrs. Woodhouse?”
“Dr. Hill?”
“Yes. Congratulations.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She sat down on the side of the bed, smiling past the phone. Really, really, really, really, really.
“Are you there?”
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Very little. You come in and see me again next month. And you get those Natalin pills and start taking them. One a day. And you fill out some forms that I’m going to mail you—for the hospital; it’s best to get the reservation in as soon as possible.”
“When will it be?” she asked.
“If your last period was September twenty-first,” he said, “it works out to June twenty-eighth.”
“That sounds so far away.”
“It is. Oh, one more thing, Mrs. Woodhouse. The lab would like another blood sample. Could you drop by there tomorrow or Monday and let them have it?”
“Yes, of course,” Rosemary said. “What for?”
“The nurse didn’t take as much as she should have.”
“But—I’m pregnant, aren’t I?”
“Yes, they did that test,” Dr. Hill said, “but I generally have them run a few others besides—blood sugar and so forth—and the nurse didn’t know and only took enough for the one. It’s nothing to be concerned about. You’re pregnant. I give you my word.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go back tomorrow morning.”
“Do you remember the address?”
“Yes, I still have the card.”
“I’ll put those forms in the mail, and let’s see you again—the last week in November.”
They made an appointment for November 29th at one o’clock and Rosemary hung up feeling that something was wrong. The nurse at the lab had seemed to know exactly what she was doing, and Dr. Hill’s offhandedness in speaking about her hadn’t quite rung true. Were they afraid a mistake had been made?—vials of blood mixed up and wrongly labeled?—and was there still a possibility that she wasn’t pregnant? But wouldn’t Dr. Hill have told her so frankly and not have been as definite as he had?
She tried to shake it away. Of course she was pregnant; she had to be, with her period so long overdue. She went into the kitchen, where a wall calendar hung, and in the next day’s square wrote Lab; and in the square for November 29th, Dr. Hill—1:00.
When Guy came in she went to him without s
aying a word and put a quarter in his hand. “What’s this for?” he asked, and then caught on. “Oh, that’s great, honey!” he said. “Just great!”—and taking her by the shoulders he kissed her twice and then a third time.
“Isn’t it?” she said.
“Just great. I’m so happy.”
“Father.”
“Mother.”
“Guy, listen,” she said, and looked up at him, suddenly serious. “Let’s make this a new beginning, okay? A new openness and talking-to-each-other. Because we haven’t been open. You’ve been so wrapped up in the show and the pilot and the way things have been breaking for you—I’m not saying you shouldn’t be; it wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t. But that’s why I went to the cabin, Guy. To settle in my mind what was going wrong between us. And that’s what it was, and is: a lack of openness. On my part too. On my part as much as yours.”
“It’s true,” he said, his hands holding her shoulders, his eyes meeting hers earnestly. “It’s true. I felt it too. Not as much as you did, I guess. I’m so God-damned self-centered, Ro. That’s what the whole trouble is. I guess it’s why I’m in this idiot nutty profession to begin with. You know I love you though, don’t you? I do, Ro. I’ll try to make it plainer from now on, I swear to God I will. I’ll be as open as—”
“It’s my fault as much as—”
“Bull. It’s mine. Me and my self-centeredness. Bear with me, will you, Ro? I’ll try to do better.”
“Oh, Guy,” she said in a tide of remorse and love and forgiveness, and met his kisses with fervent kisses of her own.
“Fine way for parents to be carrying on,” he said.
