“Me? Nuffin,” said Natalia.
Jack noticed that Louis would have kissed her on the cheek, but that Natalia evaded it. Natalia was not fond of cheek-kissing.
“Greetings, Jack! Come in—and lose yourself,” said Louis.
Louis’ and Bob’s apartment looked as crowded as at the pre-Christmas party, and the people seemed louder and more informal. The come-as-you-are idea had provoked some weird responses. Jack’s eye was caught by a devilish male figure in black tights with red horns on his cap and a whip in his hand. One woman and apparently her mate had come as butterflies in diaphanous gowns over leotards with spotted wings supported by delicate wire frames. Jack saw Elsie, a figure in black, black ruffled skirt neither long nor short, broad white belt, black high-heeled shoes. Her fair hair was pulled back from her face and fastened in back with something, and hung now below her shoulders. He found his eyes lingering on her, returning, as if to a point of energy amid the mostly older crowd, but Elsie was not in action at the moment. She was standing and talking with a long-haired young woman whom Jack recognized as Genevieve, Elsie’s former girlfriend.
Drinks. And hellos. Isabel Katz wore ancient jodhpurs and a pink shirt. Louis’ garment was a Chinese dressing gown, Jack saw in better light, and he had an elegant white silk shirt with black bow tie under it, evening trousers, and patent leather evening slippers. Half the people Jack didn’t know, or they were too thoroughly disguised for recognition. Several wore masks.
“How that takes me back! And you can still get into it!” Louis was saying to Natalia. “It looks the same as ever! Just like yourself!” Despite doctor’s orders, Louis was a bit high tonight.
Louis’ words were in praise of Natalia’s outfit, which was simply an old suit, a black skirt with fine orange stripes down it, and a long-sleeved black jacket which hugged her body and stopped at the waistline. Earlier that day, Natalia had dragged it from the depths of some closet, its hanger folds not too severe, but she had given it a pressing. She had worn this often, she said, a couple of years before she had met Jack, and had always been too sentimental about it to chuck it. Jack couldn’t see its great charm, but Louis gushed over it like a lover re-living evenings with his beloved.
“Ardmore…Fifty-second Street…”
Jack had to smile. He drifted over to Elsie, and said a word of greeting to her and Genevieve. A Beatles record or cassette played, but not too loudly. It was Sergeant Pepper.
“Oh, Jack,” Elsie said in her soft voice. “Oh, I’m glad to see you!” With a small turn of her head and shoulders, she seemed to detach herself completely from the stolid Genevieve and focus on him.
Jack’s smile broadened. “Are you? May I say you’re looking gorgeous tonight?”
“But I’m so tired. You wouldn’t believe it.”
No, Jack wouldn’t have. Elsie was saying something about having been kept up till all hours by—what? It didn’t matter. It was difficult to hear anything.
“Fran!” said Genevieve, extending a hand to get someone’s attention. “Want you to meet Mr Sutherland.”
Jack faced a sturdy young woman with short light brown hair, thin lips, and slightly worried or shy eyes. “How d’you do?”
“Fran Bowman,” said Genevieve, or so it sounded to Jack.
Fran was in trousers and dark blue shirt with a string of pale blue beads that hung down to her waist. She was bullet-headed and singularly unattractive, Jack thought. He remembered Marion saying that Genevieve’s former girlfriend was a tough cookie, or some such. Elsie was watching him, and she gave Jack a smile that looked simply amused, like a child’s smile. Her glance said, “Let’s move on.”
Jack nodded to Genevieve, and drifted with Elsie only six feet or so away, but this meant people between them and Genevieve and her friend. “Where’s Marion tonight?”
“She’s coming later. She has rehearsals tonight.”
“And how’re you doing with the income tax?”
Elsie gave a laugh. “It’s done. Marion did most of it. It’s just that I have no steady salary. It’s very hard to figure.”
“I know.” Jack did know. He didn’t know what next to say to Elsie, but he didn’t want to leave her. “Feel like dancing?” He held out his hand.
She did not touch his hand, but they began to dance. The music wasn’t Sergeant Pepper now, but something else that sounded especially pleasant and good for dancing. Male voices sang about good vibrations.
“That’s the Beach Boys,” Elsie said. She danced gracefully, turning full turns, the rows of black lace whirling.
Who was leading? It didn’t matter. People were watching Elsie. She danced effortlessly, as if she floated in another element. The music changed, the beat was faster, and Jack moved in his own style and Elsie followed, responded as if they had rehearsed. Smiling, happy, Jack found himself leaping on every fourth beat, and Elsie did the same. People moved back to give them room. Jack’s vision blurred except for the glow of Elsie’s head. His pleasure was the same as that he experienced when he swung himself into a refreshing sweat on the handrings, and he felt he could go on all night, or forever. He wore jogging shoes, comfortable trousers and a T-shirt. He was himself now. Some of the people in the circle around them clapped their hands with the beat. Jack caught a glimpse of Natalia standing beside Louis, both watching Elsie with fascination, and not far from Natalia, Fran, thin lips compressed as she stared at Elsie, and murmured something to Genevieve. Jack and Elsie circled each other at a distance, and Jack had the feeling that he floated in air. Then the orchestra faded, the beat faded, and Jack realized that he held Elsie in his arms, that her hands were on his shoulders, lightly. He kissed her cheek, inhaled deeply as if he would devour her, and felt her breath as she laughed.
“More!” someone shouted.
Jack was slow coming back to reality and gravity. He stood on two feet again, looking at Elsie. She moved away toward the others in an odd near-silence that had fallen over everyone, as over an audience when the curtain drops and before applause breaks out. Then some applause did break out, laughter, murmurs, and a “Bravo!” or two. It’s Elsie’s power to bewitch, Jack thought. He went in quest of a drink.
Bob Campbell stepped into his path. He wore a black gown and a dog-collar, or God-collar, like a preacher. “Jack, you may enter the kingdom of heaven, I’ve decided. Elsie’s already there. We love her, love her!” Bob spoke with fervor. “Is it a drink you’re after, dear Jack?” Bob led him to the drinks table, remembered his favorite and poured a generous measure. “Don’t you think Louis is looking well tonight?”
Jack didn’t. He thought Louis looked yellowish, but he returned a polite, “Yes, indeed.”
“He’s wearing a Chinese robe we bought on our round-the-world trip five years ago. Louis hardly ever puts it on, but he was keen on it for tonight—a special night. D’you notice all our old friends are here? No coke tonight, at least not from us. Tonight’s an old booze party with maybe a slight hangover tomorrow, something to nurse on a cozy Sunday at home, with Bloody Marys and eggs Benedict. Yum-m.” Bob was in ebullient good humor.
Jack wandered off, looking for Elsie, and saw her with Marion near the hall door.
“Hello, Jack!” Marion said warmly. She put a thumb under the shoulder strap of her blue overalls, under which she wore a checked shirt. “I am not as I am tonight. These are rehearsal clothes.”
“Oh? And what’re you rehearsing?”
“A couple of skits with music. For a bar in the Chelsea section.”
They went to the drinks table to get something for Marion. Marion asked what he thought of Elsie’s “big job,” modeling a diamond ring for a full page in Vogue, and was surprised that Elsie hadn’t mentioned it. Jack poured tomato juice for Marion. Elsie had vanished suddenly.
“My God, there’s Genevieve,” Marion said quietly, looking across the room.
“Yes. With her old friend, I think. Elsie introduced us.”
“You don’t mean that awful Fran?”
r />
“I think that’s her name. So they’re back together?” Jack asked in a tone of mock interest.
“No.” Marion shook her head. “Fran’s willing but Genevieve isn’t, I heard via the grapevine. Maybe Genevieve’s carrying a torch for Elsie. I couldn’t care less.—Fran ought to join the Mafia. Matter of fact somebody told me she’s a dealer—in the really hard stuff, you know? Nobody likes Fran, so some awful stories get around.”
Depressing, Jack thought. He glanced toward the wide doorway to the living-room, and saw Elsie and Natalia in the hall beyond, talking with each other, Natalia gripping Elsie’s hand, then they kissed, and a second time, quickly and on the lips, before they walked into the room, Natalia a bit ahead. Jack saw that Marion was looking at him with a slight smile.
“I don’t mind,” said Marion. “Do you?”
Jack swallowed the sip of drink he had been holding in his mouth. “Not at all.”
“Elsie adores Natalia.”
“Oh? More than she does you?”
“I dunno,” Marion said with a shrug. “But what can I do about it?”
“Lots of people,” Jack remarked, “get attached to Natalia.—Louis, for instance.” And Jack recalled a time shortly after they had met the Armstrongs, when Max Armstrong had had more than a crush on Natalia for weeks, but had had the good sense not to press his case too hard.
“Lots of people fall in love with Elsie too,” Marion replied. She added with a laugh, “Quite a problem, these girls, you know, in bars—They just come right out with their passionate declarations.”
Jack could imagine.
Suddenly Elsie was beside them again, and Natalia back on the sofa with Louis. It was after 1 o’clock, Jack saw to his surprise when he glanced at his watch.
“Now I really am getting tired,” Elsie said more to herself than to Jack. “And hungry too.”
The canapes on the drinks table had almost vanished, and if Louis and Bob were serving anything more substantial, there was no sign of it yet. “Let’s go down to my place,” Jack said. “Like before. Want to?”
“With Natalia?” Elsie asked.
Jack shook his head. “You can’t tear her away from Louis for hours yet. Want to bet? Want to try?” He smiled.
Elsie didn’t, and Jack went over to Natalia and told her he was taking the girls down to their place for bacon and eggs, and did she want to come?
“No, I’ll stay on a while,” Natalia answered.
“You can’t have her yet, Jack,” said Louis, as if he had an absolute right to keep her.
“Okay. See you later, darling.—Good cheer, Louis. And thank you!”
The three of them found their coats and departed. Jack felt happy. He loved playing host to Elsie and Marion. On Grove Street, the apartment was quiet, with Amelia asleep, and Susanne, Jack knew, asleep in the spare room down the hall beyond his workroom. Susanne had left one light on in the living-room. Jack told the girls of Susanne’s presence, and asked them to be on the quiet side.
“Can I put on one cassette if it’s very low?” Elsie asked.
Jack found it impossible to say no to Elsie. “If it’s really low,” he whispered.
Jack got to work in the kitchen on the menu of Canadian bacon, English muffins and scrambled eggs. Marion helped. Jack ground coffee with a couple of dishtowels over the machine to smother some of the noise. He heard faint music, and to his surprise it was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
“Can you tell me why, Elsie,” Marion said as they were eating, “that Genevieve bore got invited tonight? And why she brought that hood with her?”
“I didn’t do it.—Maybe Bob decided to invite everyone who was at that last big party. The one before Christmas.”
Marion exchanged a glance with Jack. “Embarrassing even to know the names of people like that.”
“You don’t have to rub it in,” Elsie said. “Sure, I admit I brought Genevieve to that party before Christmas. But Bob told me they keep a list of invited people, so they can ask them again when they’re giving another—”
“Or not, I hope,” Marion put in.
“I’m sure it was like that, Louis or Bob inviting Genevieve, and Genevieve dragging along this Fran—just to be nice to Fran.” Elsie spoke in the earnest way she had sometimes, when the circumstances didn’t really warrant the earnestness.
Elsie was probably ashamed of ever having been a close friend of Genevieve’s, Jack thought, but he had noticed tonight that Elsie had seemed quite cool and collected on seeing Genevieve again and had also talked with her. Jack poured more coffee. “True, Bob keeps a list. Come on, it’s not important.”
They got through the meal without waking up Amelia or Susanne. Again Marion lent a helpful hand with the clearing away, and Jack told her to leave the dishes.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” he said. “Today’s Sunday.”
Dawn was coming at the windows. Jack turned off a light.
“Elsie?” Marion said, looking into the living-room. “Gone. Wonder if she’s conked out somewhere?”
Jack smiled. “I’ll find her.” He went to the bedroom.
Elsie lay face down with her head on his pillow. She had pulled the counterpane halfway back. In the dim light, she looked as if she were flying in space, the black skirt flaring, arms higher than her head around the pillow. Jack felt pleasantly high, or tired, or both. He knelt by the bed, and had an impulse to kiss her cheek to awaken her, but something stopped him or made him afraid to. Her eyelids flickered, and she saw him.
“I love you,” he said.
Elsie smiled suddenly, like a child awakening from a good sleep. “Was I here long?”
“Maybe half an hour.”
Jack went out with them to look for a taxi. They hadn’t wanted him to phone for one, despite the crazy hour of a quarter before 6. They walked toward Seventh Avenue.
“There he if!” said Jack in almost a whisper.
Linderman, in the morning’s gray haze, stood some ten yards away on Bleecker in his old overcoat and hat and with God on the leash. He stared at them as they crossed Bleecker. The sight of them might have stopped Linderman in his tracks.
“That’s the old guy?” asked Marion.
“Yes!” said Elsie. “Walk faster and don’t look at him!”
Suddenly the humor of it struck Jack, and he put his head back and laughed. Old Linderman was probably thinking that he had spent the night with two girls, one of whom was Elsie, the second an extra luxury.
Elsie bent, trying and failing to repress her giggles. “Hey, Jack!—I can just imagine what he’s thinking! Ha-ha!”
Jack waved his arms in the middle of nearly deserted Seventh Avenue. He stepped out of the way of a truck. They had a taxi in about thirty seconds. Jack insisted on giving them a five-dollar bill for the fare. “Take it! No argument!” Jack said, and slammed the taxi door.
Jack stood for a moment on the sidewalk, looking down Grove Street, thinking Linderman’s figure might appear, but it didn’t. He walked homeward, and didn’t glance into Bleecker when he crossed it, not really wanting to see even the back of Linderman and his dog. He went into the apartment quietly, and wrote a note for Susanne, which he put on the kitchen table.
Late night. Natalia is still out.
6 a.m. J.
He put on pajamas and brushed his teeth. He thought of going into his workroom, putting on the light for a moment and looking at the three full-page photographs of Elsie which he had neatly cut out of magazines. But he had something better in his eyes, the image of Elsie’s head on his pillow with her face turned toward him, eyes closed in sleep. I love you, he had said, in that tipsy and happy moment. Would Elsie even remember? Would it matter if she remembered or not? No. How many times a week did she hear the same words from fellows and girls? True, he was a little in love with Elsie. But not only did she not want any boys or men at the moment, he had no desire to try to take her to bed. The fact that she existed made him happy.
And Elsie and Natalia? Now that
was a surprise! What were they up to? Natalia had stayed out late a few evenings lately. Had she really been with Isabel Katz or with one of their art buyers?
Jack went to bed feeling happy, and fell asleep at once.
24
If Ralph Linderman had been able to find a taxi on Grove or Seventh that Sunday morning, he would have taken it. He had seen John Sutherland passing some money to Elsie or the other girl. Naturally, he’d pay them off in a gentlemanly way, under cover of paying their taxi fare. Two of them! Ralph thought he had not seen this second girl before, a little taller than Elsie and in trousers, dark hair rather short and full around her head. Ralph had crossed Grove and concealed himself in a doorway, pushing God back against the door, but Sutherland had not glanced at the other side of Grove, just kept walking toward home, looking rather pleased with himself.
Ralph did not have to work that Sunday until 6 p.m. His hours at the Hot Arch Arcade were always changing. Now they were asking that he walk the length of the arcade and back every half hour. Bad enough to watch the scum of all races oozing past the entrance, but worse to see them in action inside, roughing one another up, not always playfully, falling asleep or passing out against the walls, groping one another and worse. Once he had stopped what he had thought was a gang rape, and the bouncer had only laughed at him. True, whores and their clients didn’t need privacy any more. Privacy, even a desire for it, was a thing of the past. The changing hours threw Ralph’s sleep off, and he was more irritable than when he had been working at Midtown-West Parking. He could sleep soundest between 7 a.m. and noon, if he had those hours free, otherwise he kept waking up every two hours.
He slept that Sunday morning, despite the shock of having seen Elsie Tyler after a whoring date with Sutherland. Ralph suspected now that Sutherland had lied about Elsie’s modeling for fashion photographers. Fashion models made good money, and why would she be whoring if she earned enough? The pity of it! The sadness! If he knew where to reach Elsie, he was sure he could shame her into stopping this business with Sutherland. He would pay Elsie to stop it, give her half his salary, to keep her as she was. And Elsie would know from that, that he adored her, that he wanted nothing from her, unlike Sutherland.