Part of it, she knew, stemmed from her availability. Other men had followed in Sully’s wake, with more or less subtlety but with the same lack of success. She was open and friendly in most cases but she was simply not interested.
But not everyone who talked to her was a man on the make. She felt that she must be projecting more warmth, that she must give the impression of greater openness. More people were waving hello on the street; more casual acquaintances would stop into the Lemon Tree to exchange a few words.
Peter confirmed it for her. “You’ve changed,” he said. “I suppose everyone’s told you that.”
“As a matter of fact, you’re the first. How have I changed?”
“You seem less uptight, I guess.”
“Maybe I am. How?”
“I don’t know. You’re easier to talk to.”
“Did I used to be hard to talk to?”
“I shouldn’t say that, because you and I hardly ever talked. I think the first time we rapped at all was the night Marc split. But before that, I don’t know, it was a feeling I got from you. Vibrations. Like walking past a restaurant and just knowing they’re not going to want you in there with sandals. I always felt that you wanted to be left alone.”
“And I’m opening up now?”
“Well, maybe it’s that I know you better than I did. But you look better, did you know that? You look more, alive.”
“Well I feel better, Peter.”
She did little long-range planning. She would get up around nine and cook breakfast and do the dishes. Then she would read or play the radio until it was time to open the shop. For lunch she would pick up a sandwich and a container of coffee from the diner down the block. After she closed at night she generally took a long walk around town. The weather had turned warmer and her response to spring, somewhat delayed this year as was the season itself, was strong.
In the course of her walk she would stop to pick up something for dinner. She had turned lazy toward the end of her time with Marc, and dinner more often than not consisted of something canned or frozen. Now, with only herself to cook for, she cooked everything herself. Her meals were not elaborate, but they were good and inexpensive and she enjoyed preparing them.
Periodically she would tell herself that she ought to move out of the Shithouse. She was paying too much for too little, and the building had always depressed her. There had been times when she could barely stand to look at it from the outside, times when she had had to force herself to walk in the door. The Shithouse’s one advantage no longer applied in her case. She was pledged to stay in New Hope at least until fall and had pledged to herself to stay longer than that. So she would have no qualms about signing a year’s lease on an apartment or on investing money in furniture.
The point came up in conversation with Tanya Leopold. The young actress was a local girl who lived with her parents, but who lately spent most of her offstage time with Bill Donatelli, a bushily bearded abstract painter who lived across the hall from Linda and who, as far as she could tell, was incapable of speech. At least he had never talked in her presence. Tanya told her she had to move soon or forget it for a few months. “A lot of people come up for the season. For one thing there are more jobs in town and the people who come to take them need to stay somewheres. And there’s people like the ones who run the art gallery on Bridge Street. They live in Philly and move here in June and just stay open during the season. Plus the freaks and college kids who move in for the summer. There’s probably still time to find something, but another two weeks and that’s it.”
Now, with time a concern, she made a decision. She would stay at the Shithouse. She would stay for no better reason than that it seemed to suit her, she seemed to functioning well, and so for the time being she would opt for the evil she knew. The building would always bfc depressing, but her segment of it could become pleasant enough. She already kept it neater and cleaner than before. It was not merely that she had more time and inclination, but that it was simply easier to keep a place neat when only one person lived in it. And there was no reason why she could not improve it further. A few dollars’ worth of paint would make a world of difference. Sully might spring for the paint and brushes. If not she could spare the money herself. A new bedspread, some halfway decent curtains—she couldn’t afford to do everything at once, but it would be fun doing it a little at a time.
And it would give her something to do. One of the reasons for long walks after work was that they shortened the gap between dinner and bedtime, the hours when solitude could become desperate. There was just not that much she could do with those hours. She took books from the library and read them, she listened to the radio; she dealt out hands of solitaire. Twice she walked to Lambertville for a bottle of wine and brought it back across the bridge and drank it. But private drinking held little appeal for her; it was a last resort, and one she rarely felt the need of.
There was no movie within walking distance. There was the Playhouse, but seats were not inexpensive and she had never been that much of a theatergoer. In the time she had been with Marc, first in New York and then here, she had seen far more plays than she cared to.
Occasionally she went to the Raparound and sat over a cup of coffee for an hour or two. The problem was that she hated to go alone, not because she minded sitting by herself, but because she looked as though she were waiting to be approached. She had enough men coming on to her without sitting around asking for it.
“You ought to get out more,” Tanya told her one afternoon. She was at the Lemon Tree and Tanya had stopped in to handle the dolls, tap experimentally on the African drums, and chat idly while she examined the stock. “You must go nuts spending that much time looking at four walls.”
“I don’t mind it.”
“No? It would, have me walking across the ceiling in no time at all. I need people, conversation.”
If she required conversation, Linda thought, her affair with the silent painter smacked of masochism. “Besides,” Tanya, went on, “how are you going to meet somebody?”
“Going to meet who?”
“Well, anybody.”
“Who am I supposed to meet?”
“Well, you won’t know his name until you meet him, Linda. A man, like. You don’t want to be a nun, do you?”
Did she? She was unsure of the answer and had spent recent weeks trying to avoid the question. She said, “I don’t really want to meet anybody just now.”
“It’s like horse riding. When you have a bad fall the thing is to get right back on again.”
“So you can have another bad fall? I would think the thing to do is stay away from horses. But that’s not the point, Tanya. I didn’t really have a bad fall. I’m in better shape now than I was before he left. I was going to leave him sooner or later, he just happened to get around to it first. ‘You can’t fire me, I quit,’ that sort of thing.”
“Then what’s the hassle?”
“I don’t feel like getting involved with anybody for the time being. That’s all.”
“Well, that’s cool.” She picked up a woven shoulder bag, modeled it, put it back on its hook. “But just girl to girl, what do you do about sex?”
“About sex,” she drawled, “I has me cuppa tay.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, it’s a joke. An Englishman is in the west of Ireland, and he likes it there but there’s nothing to do for sex, so he asks an Irishman what they do about sex, and the Irishman says about sex we have our tea. I can’t do accents at all and it’s not that good a joke in the first place but I happened to think of it.”
“Oh, I get it.”
“It’s not very funny.”
“But besides tea, Linda, what do you do?”
For the slightest moment she wondered what the point of this was, wondered if there was a motive to Tanya’s interest. Paranoia, she told herself. Not everyone in the world wanted her fair white body. And Tanya was an unlikely lesbian; Bill kept her busy enough in his room across the hal
l. All the two of them seemed to do was screw and watch television, and they hadn’t been watching much television lately.
“I don’t do anything,” she said.
“I don’t mean to pry.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“But don’t you … I don’t know, doesn’t it get to you? I mean you’ve lived with guys, you get used to it”
“I’ve lived without them and I’ve gotten used to that, too.”
“I suppose so. I couldn’t go without it myself. I just get so I can’t even talk to people. I start biting my nails, I get ginchy, the whole trip. I mean a couple of days and I just about break out in hives. I guess people are different that way.”
“I guess they are.”
“For me it wouldn’t be healthy. And as far as getting involved. I mean there are enough guys in this town and the last thing they want is getting involved. Unless you’re afraid of falling in love yourself and getting hurt.”
“No.”
“The point is, you could take care of your needs without getting involved.”
“Well, I have all the time in the world, Tanya.”
“Well, sure.”
“It’s not as if I had a deadline.”
“Who said it was? You know, I think I’d like one of the Greek bags. That’s where they’re from, Greece? For two bucks I might as well. You think it’s right for me?”
“I think it’s very good. Try the blue one right behind you, it might be a better color for you. Yes, I think it’s better.”
“You know, you’re right. Yeah, I think I’ll take it, Linda.”
When Warren walked into the Raparound he saw Peter and Gretchen at a corner table. Robin was crouched beneath the table playing with Peter’s shoelaces and squealing joyously. Warren glanced their way quickly, then walked on by toward the other side of the room. He looked for someone to sit with but there was no one around whom he knew well enough to join. He was just pulling out a chair at an empty table when Peter hailed him.
He pretended not to hear. When Peter called his name a second time he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, then spun around and made a show of recognition. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” Peter said. “Have a seat.”
“I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”
“Well, sit here until they come. I suppose you’ve heard about Gypsy. You’re lucky you’re out of this one.”
“So I understand.”
“Sit down and have some coffee.”
He hesitated, then pulled out the chair Peter was indicating. As he did so Gretchen pushed back her own chair and stood. Her coffee cup was still half full.
“I really have to run,” she told Peter. “I was going to get Robin into the tub an hour ago. Are you coming or do you want to stay here?”
Peter stared.
She retrieved Robin from beneath the table, hoisted her onto her shoulder. “Whichever you want,” she said to Peter. “I’ll be at the apartment.”
Peter watched her walk quickly to the door and out. He put money on the table and gaped at Warren. He said, “I just don’t get it.”
“Go with her.”
“I don’t—”
“Some other time. Go on.”
Warren turned and went to the table he had originally selected. He sat down and ordered a cup of coffee, unfolded his newspaper and glanced idly through it. The new Hillbreth play had opened the night before and Clive Barnes seemed to have liked it, although it was hard to be sure. It was also evidently hard to be sure what the play was about, or at least it had been hard for Barnes. He scanned the cast. Three of the seven listed performers were ones he’d worked with at one time or another.
He felt a momentary twinge of envy and smiled at it. No matter how thoroughly one knew one did not wish to play Broadway, there were inevitable moments when one forgot. He had decided long ago that he did not want all that. Nor was it sour grapes. He could have had, if not steady employment, at least the Broadway equi thereof. He was a solid character actor with a wide range. Producers and directors knew him and liked to use him. Other actors found him good company on and off the stage.
He had worked one Broadway show. The vehicle was a good play, the first (and, as it turned out, the last) work of a promising young playwright. Warren’s own part was small, but that sort of thing had never concerned him.
What did concern him was what had happened to the play. After endless rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts, it opened at the Martin Beck and closed after three performances. The critics, the handful of important ones, did not like it. What they didn’t like nobody saw.
He decided it was ridiculous. He and a great many other talented people had spent an untoward amount of time—not to mention a ton of Other People’s Money—polishing a play to the point where they could bring it to New York, perform it three times, and then consign it to theatrical limbo for eternity. It did not make sense, nor did it make much more sense to land in a hit show and be doomed to play the same role night after night until you couldn’t keep from walking through the play one night out of three. There were two pitfalls for an actor on Broadway—failure and success.
He had returned to New Hope vowing never to be tempted away from it. God knew it had its disadvantages. Tony Bartholomew was one of them all by himself. The money was not good, although it was not much worse than Broadway and the steady work more than compensated. The performances were never perfect. Something was always a little off, and often virtually everything was a little off. If the New Hope Repertory Company was not in any sense amateur, neither was it utterly professional. In any event, it was handicapped by the need to get a new play on the boards every week or two. Things could never be perfectly polished under those circumstances.
On the other hand, there was the excitement of a new play always in the wings. One could not go stale in a role. The most loathsome play never took more than a few weeks of your life. One was sustained by the knowledge that it would be part of the past before too long. Nor could any play fail as plays failed on Broadway. Good or bad, critically praised or damned, they played out their run and drew about the same size house regardless.
There were still occasional moments when he would forget that he did not really want fame. He would see an old friend on the Cavett show and would have to remind himself that he did not want to be on the Cavett show, that it was sacrifice enough on his part to watch it. He played enough ego games and played them well enough. He needed no additional ones.
He had worked his way through the Times to the television section and was on his third cup of coffee when Peter sat down at his table. He folded his paper and sighed.
“I’m sorry about that, Warren.”
“You’ve no reason. I just hope that didn’t precipitate a scene.”
“It didn’t. We gave Robin a bath and put her in for a nap, and Gretch was tired and decided to take a nap herself. So I thought I’d see if you were still here.”
“And here I am.”
“And here you are. What was all of that about?”
“It’s too long to go into, and it’s ancient history anyway. I hope you didn’t ask her.”
“I wanted to but she acted as though nothing had happened, and I thought it would be uncool to bring it up.”
“Wise of you. She looks good, by the way.”
“She’s been good.”
“I can see it, and I’m glad for her. And for you. I take it she’s working.”
“Not too many hours a day. The important thing is staying clean. But she’s working.”
“That’s very important. And you too are working, which is also important, and I believe you were telling me with a certain amount of glee that the show stank.”
“You haven’t seen it?”
“I played the album just last night. I saw it on Broadway with Merman. A solid show. Not much book, but the music and lyrics are more than enough to carry it. Of course,” he added casually, “you do need a star.”
??
?That sums it up.”
“Vanessa, I take it, shall not a Merman make.”
“I never even heard the album, let alone saw show. The thing is, it doesn’t matter whether she’s good or not. She has everybody around so uptight that they can barely walk on and off the stage. Either she’s coming on to you with this phony sugary routine or she’s screaming like I don’t know what.”
“Like a fishwife, perhaps?”
“I guess. She has Tanya just about ready to give up show business for life, and Tanya’s hardly in the fucking play. I don’t know how she found an excuse to give the kid hell, but she did.”
“Oh, dear. Tanya does not deserve that sort of treatment. I suppose you get your share of abuse.”
“It doesn’t bother me. It’s a pain in the ass but she acts that way to everybody so I can’t see taking it personally.”
“You’re wise.”
“She isn’t always yelling at me. The rest of the time she’s groping for my cock.”
“I think I’d rather be yelled at.” He shook his head. “I would not work with that bitch in a royal command performance. I worked with her once the summer before last. She deliberately made me look bad four times on opening night. Cheap tricks, Peter. She came in as a big name star and had to feed her ego with the tackiest sort of bits. Things you learn how to do in high school drama groups, and then in college you learn not to do them. She went from one lucky Broadway role to Hollywood, and if she knew anything about acting she forgot it out there. Now she’s too old to stand close-ups and too rotten to make it on Broadway, so she plays the circuit and everybody wants to see her because she’s a Big Star. They see her on talk shows and think they know her.”
“She certainly sells tickets.”
“So do a ton of name people who are also human beings. Her outstanding feature is that Tony can get her cheap because so many places won’t touch her with a rake. She gave me the treatment opening night and waited to see what I’d do. I did nothing. Pretended I didn’t notice. So she did it again the next night, and I let her get away with it. Eight shows, and each time the cunt was waiting for a reaction. By the last performance she was blowing her own lines. She was that tense to see what I was saving up for her. Nothing. Nothing on the stage, nothing after the show. It was a truly difficult piece of acting, and I doubt she got the point, but I was trying to teach her a trick she never heard of. Restraint.”