“David, I’m not going to bed with you!” She had almost shouted it. Then in a lower voice she said, “Please take me home.”
“Change of plans,” he called out to the driver. “Make it the Pierre Hotel.” Then he turned to her with a tight smile. “Okay. Let’s talk about more important things. How’d you do on the commercial? Did you get it?”
“That’s not until tomorrow. David, don’t be angry. But I . . . well . . . I just can’t go to bed with someone I barely know.”
“Forget it,” he said quietly. “It was just a suggestion.”
“I do like you, David.” (Why was she apologizing! After all, it wasn’t as if she had turned him down for a dance.)
“Fine, January. I understand.” His voice was cold. “Oh, here we are.” And when he walked her to the door and kissed her on the brow she felt as if she had been slapped across the face.
She got into bed and turned the radio to an album station. She liked David. That is, she could like David—if only he gave her a chance to learn to like him. She needed to like him, she wanted to like him, because she suddenly felt so lonely.
It seemed she had just fallen asleep when the phone rang.
“Did I wake you?” Linda said cheerfully.
“What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty in the morning . . . sixty-eight degrees . . . air quality acceptable, and I’m sitting at my desk and have already done an hour of yoga.”
January switched on the lamp. “My drapes are closed. It still looks like midnight in here.”
“January, I’ve got to see you. It’s important.” Linda was still cheerful but there was an urgency in her voice. “How about throwing on a pair of slacks and coming up here for breakfast? I’ll send out for it.”
“I can’t. I have a nine o’clock appointment at the Landis agency. Hey, congratulate me. I’ve learned to smoke.”
“Quit before it grabs you.”
“Oh, I’m only doing it for the commercial. Although I must admit it helped get me through a dilly of an evening last night. When you’re staring into space and your date is talking to the next table . . . a cigarette can be a girl’s best friend.”
“January, I’ve got to see you.”
“Is it about the story?”
There was a split second of silence before Linda said, “Of coursel Listen, you wouldn’t by any chance be free for dinner?”
“Very free.”
“Fine . . . then come by around five-thirty. We’ll sit with Sara Kurtz and discuss the story. Then we can go to Louise’s. It’s a good Italian place where two ladies can go without people thinking they’re trying to score. See you later. . . .”
Linda was just ending an editorial meeting when January arrived. She motioned for her to sit on the couch in the back of the room. Linda was sitting at her desk. Her editors and assistant editors sat in a semicircle surrounding her.
“I think that’ll about wrap up most of the plans for the February issue,” she said. There was a slight scuffling of chairs as everyone began to rise. Suddenly Linda said, “Oh, Carol, check on John Weitz. He said he might take over the Colony and give a Valentine’s Day party. Find out if he is. Maybe we could simulate some shots of the decor so we could run it in the February issue. Also, if he has any idea of his guest list . . . I know it’s early, but he must have about ten or twelve names that he knows he’s going to invite.” She stood up, signifying the meeting had come to an official end. Her hint of a weary smile conveyed that a real smile would take too much out of her. Her eyes clocked the group who were hastily disbanding. “Where’s Sara Kurtz?” she demanded.
“She’s on the phone with London,” a young man answered. “She’s trying to track down an idea she has that the Bow Bell Boys are not really English.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Linda snapped. “They’re the biggest sensation to hit the States since the Rolling Stones.”
The young man nodded almost apologetically. “Yes, but Sara swears she saw the lead singer doing a disc jockey gig in Cleveland in 1965. She claims he’s straight from Shaker Heights. And you know Sara—she never forgets a face.”
“Well, send her in. I need her now.”
Everyone left in little groups. Linda walked over to January and flopped down on the couch. “And this was an easy day,” she sighed. She watched January light a cigarette. “Oh, you got the commercial, I see.”
“Wrong. I was among the last three to be eliminated. Seems I inhale like a champ . . . but my exhaling needs work.”
Linda laughed and walked to her desk. She pressed an intercom buzzer. “Tell Sara Kurtz to come here immediately. I can’t wait all night while she tracks down one of her neuroses.”
“Do you think the boy really comes from Cleveland?”
Linda shrugged. “Sara digs disc jockeys. The boy in Cleveland probably gave her a real brush. And she won’t rest until she gets even. Gold help him if he is one of the Bow Bell Boys.”
“She sounds dreadful . . .”
“She is. Well get this over with. Then well talk.”
Within seconds, an enormously tall girl, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Tiny Tim, loped into the room. Linda introduced Sara Kurtz, who stooped over as she shook hands with January. Then she pulled a crumpled pad out of a beat-up denim bag and began scratching away. She was mostly concerned with the spelling of January’s name and was amazed to learn it was spelled like the month. After a few more questions, she uncoiled herself and backed out of the room.
“She’s a beast,” Linda said. “Keith claims she looks as if she could play for the New York Knicks, but her father was a good newspaperman, and oddly enough she’s inherited a kind of style by osmosis. We save her for our shaft pieces. She gets her orgasms doing them. I told her that this has to be an ‘up’ piece—that’s why she looks even more miserable than usual.”
“Why does she like to shaft people?” January asked. “I would think she wouldn’t be able to face them afterwards.”
“Maybe when you look like Sara you just naturally hate the world.”
“But I thought you said being ugly was in.”
“I did. But there’s an ‘In’ ugly and an ‘Out’ ugly. Sara is definitely out. But don’t worry. You have complete approval of the article. Here’s the paper . . . all signed.” She handed January an envelope. “Tell Daddy he doesn’t have to worry.”
January put it in her bag. Linda stared at her closely. “Hey, does losing that commercial really bug you?”
“Of course not. Why?”
“For a second there . . . you looked like it was the end of the world.”
January forced a smile. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve got everything to be happy about. I’m in New York . . . my father has a wonderful wife . . . I have a beautiful room all redecorated for me at the Pierre.”
“Bullshit!”
“What?”
“I said bullshit. January, who are you trying to con? You hate living there and you can’t stand seeing your father with Deirdre Milford Granger.”
January shrugged. “That’s not true. Besides I rarely see them. But I do feel funny about living there. I mean, it’s her apartment and I feel like an interloper.”
“Then move.”
“He doesn’t want me to.”
“Look, when you try to please everyone, you wind up pleasing no one.”
January stubbed out her cigarette. “Trouble is, I don’t really know what I want. Probably because all my life I never really thought about anything except being with my father. And now I find when I go out on a date it’s like . . . I don’t know what to do . . . how to act.”
Linda whistled. “Boy, do you need a shrink!”
“I had enough of that at the Clinique.”
“What?”
“Oh, Linda . . . it’s a long story. But look. When you grow up without a mother, it’s a natural thing to make your father the major thing in your life. And when you have a father like Mike . . . why not?”
“
I agree,” Linda said. “Your father is damned attractive. But then, so is David Milford. Ronnie Wolfe had it in his column that you were at Raffles with him the other night. I don’t dig that phony social scene. But if you have to go that route, going with David Milford is the only way to go.”
“That was Dee’s party. We also had a date last night. He asked me back to his apartment, but I wouldn’t go. When he took me home he didn’t even try to kiss me goodnight.”
Linda stood up. “Let’s go to Louise’s. We both could use a drink.”
January liked the restaurant. Louise was a warm motherly woman who brought them a plate of her homemade chicken liver. She welcomed January to New York and told her she looked like a movie star. The whole atmosphere was homelike, and January began to relax. She ordered a glass of white wine, and Linda ordered a double Tanqueray martini on the rocks. For a few moments they both sat in silence.
Linda took a long swallow of her drink and swished it around on the ice. Then she said, “What did you think of Keith?”
“He’s very nice.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“Me? Why would I see him?”
“Well, I haven’t,” Linda snapped. Then she took another long swallow of the martini. “Tell me, please. Tell me the truth. Did he come on to you?”
“Did he what?”
“Make a pass . . .”
“Of course not! We went to see the show and—”
“And what?”
“I walked out on it . . . and him, I guess.”
They were both silent. Then January said, “Look, Linda, maybe I’m old-fashioned. But I was shocked and—”
“Well, I have nothing against nudity,” Linda said. “But—” She stopped. “What is this bullshit I’m giving you? I sound as brainwashed as Keith. Sure, we’re the big liberated generation. The body is beautiful—so show it. Well, I went down there last night. Keith was sitting in the audience. He didn’t see me. But you tell me what’s beautiful about a bunch of ugly people rubbing their bodies against one another in a dirty theater on a dirty stage. Their feet were black with dirt—it was revolting. And don’t think those people with the limos come to see art! They come to see a lot of starving actors demean themselves. God, an actor has to go through enough rejection in his life . . . at least, let him have some personal privacy. But no, there’s no such thing as personal dignity anymore. That’s for squares. We’re the new generation. We’re liberated. Marriage is out . . . bastards are in. . . .”
“But yesterday you said you didn’t believe in marriage.”
Linda shook her head. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. Look, my mother has had four husbands and is working on getting her fifth. My father had three wives. Between them I have seven half-brothers and sisters, whom I hardly know. They’re all off in some version of Miss Haddon’s. But they were born in wedlock so everything’s all very proper. At least my mother thinks so—because that’s what she was taught. But now our generation is against marriage—because that’s what we’ve been taught.”
“By whom?”
“By the people we meet and care about.”
“Linda, you do want to marry Keith, don’t you?”
“Maybe. But if he thought I felt that way I’d lose him. That is, if I haven’t already.”
“But what’s happened?”
“He never came home that night. He called and said he’s decided to live at that filthy commune for a while so he can think things out. He knows I’m against his being in that play. He hadn’t told me which play it was that day in the office. Look, if nudity is important to a plot, if it’s realism, then okay. But the way they’re doing it in that play—” She shook her head. “But I know what’s really bugging Keith. It’s the fact that I earn thirty-five thousand a year plus a Christmas bonus and he earns thirty-five hundred a year including his unemployment insurance. To him I’m Establishment. I’m so mixed up. Look, I’ve tried to do it his way. I’ve sat with his friends. I’ve drunk beer instead of martinis. I’ve worn dungarees instead of slacks. But there’s no law that says I have to live like a pig. I pay four hundred a month for my apartment. It’s in a good neighborhood, in a good building, with a doorman and elevator operators. I’m in my office every morning before eight and sometimes I don’t leave until midnight. I’ve earned the right to have a nice place to come home to. Why should I give it up and work on some underground newspaper for fifty bucks an article?”
“Is that what he wants you to do?”
“All I know is he’s always putting down me, Gloss and every article I dream up. But he raves about a guy he knows who sells dirty poems to newspapers that run pictures of a man’s penis on the cover. He claims the man is writing because he has something to say and isn’t looking for plastic glory. I tell you I’m so sick of all these phrases. But I love him and I want him. It’s not that I’m forcing him to do things my way . . . but if only we could compromise. I know we could have a great life together. I want it. Oh, God, I want it!”
“It must be a good feeling to really know what you want.” January said.
“Don’t you? Didn’t they give you any direction at that fancy Swiss University? By the way, what was the name of the school? Sara will at least want your college credits.”
“Linda, I’ll tell you all about it . . . after dinner.”
They sat over coffee and Linda listened silently as January told her about the Clinique. She sipped some brandy and tears came to her eyes when January had finished. “Jesus,” she said softly. “You really had the shit kicked out of you. Three years out of your life . . . three years of waiting to come back to Daddy Dream Man. And then to find him married . . .”
January managed a smile. “Well, it’s not as if he’s deserted me. He isn’t my lover.”
“Isn’t he?”
“Linda!”
“Oh, come on, January. You didn’t sleep with that divine Italian who was responsible for you breaking your skull. You rejected David Milford. Any psychiatrist would tell you that on your second date with David you had a subconscious desire to cool the relationship because you liked him too much. You had the guilts. It was like cheating on Daddy.”
“That’s not true. Look at how he arranged the date. Our first time alone together. No candlelight and wine . . . no small talk . . . he arrives at five-thirty . . . calls me from the lobby . . . won’t even come up for a drink. Then we sprint five blocks to the movie. Then he rushes me to Maxwell’s Plum. It’s a great swinging place. But you don’t take a girl there when you want to talk and get really acquainted. Then he suddenly asks me up to his apartment.”
Linda looked thoughtful. “I agree. There must be some conversation before you leap into bed. And when a man invites you to his apartment, it is usually for just one thing. Somehow it’s different if you invite him up for a nightcap to your apartment. You’re in control, and whatever happens seems natural and not planned. But you can’t very well invite him up to the Pierre. Really, January, the first thing you’ve got to do is find an apartment of your own.”
“I’d like to, but—”
“But what? Look, whether you realize it or not, you’re eating your heart out every time you see your father with Dee. It’s not fair to you . . . or them. Take my word for it—you’re never going to have an affair until you move out on Daddy. And as for your career in the theater . . . well, I’m the last one to give you any advice there. . . .”
“I’m not Keith. I realize I’m not serious about acting,” January said. “But I know I want to do something. To be part of the scene. I don’t want to be like my mother.”
“Why? What did she do besides die when you were young?”
“Oh, she . . . well, she sat around on the sidelines . . . with her big brown eyes just watching life. Watching . . . while Mike was doing. I want to do too!”
“Well, as I said, there’s always an opening at Gloss for you.”
“I don’t want an ‘in-name-only’ job, Linda.”
r /> “It wouldn’t be that kind of a job. I’d really put you to work.”
“Are you serious?”
Linda nodded. “And so what if I asked you to use whatever pull you could to get to certain people—or to get a story? I do that myself. My mother’s sister is married to a golf pro. I used her to get me permission to travel on a big tournament. That’s how I did my story on how the golf wives live. Now the money won’t be too great to start with.”
“I have over fifteen thousand of my own,” January said. “And you’re right—I’m going to get out of the Pierre.”
“Listen.” Linda snapped her fingers. “There’s a bachelor in my building. Edgar Bailey. I think he’s a closet queen. Anyway, he teaches at Columbia and he’s going to Europe on a year’s sabbatical. He asked me just the other day if I knew anyone who wanted to sublet. It’s only one room . . . a studio job. He pays nothing for it. His rent’s frozen. In fact, I think they built the building around him. Want me to find out the price?”
January looked at her watch. “It’s only nine o’clock. Call him now. Maybe we could go over.”
Edgar Bailey was enchanted with January. Her name enthralled him. He showed her the large walk-in closet, the small dressing room, the marvelous Castro Convertible, and the kitchen with a window. He said he paid one seventy-nine, but because of his furnishings he would have to ask two hundred and seventy-five.
“Come on, Mr. Bailey,” Linda cut in. “You’re paying one thirty-nine. I know from the super. They’d like to bomb you out of here. January will pay you two twenty-five a month—that’s all it’s worth. There isn’t a stick of furniture that costs anything. Including the Castro. It’s over ten years old.”
He pursed his lips for a moment. Then he reached for a bottle of sherry and three tiny glasses. “To my new tenant. I know I could get much more, but I’ll feel better knowing someone lovely will take care of my little home.”