The Chapman Report, page 35
She watched Ed Krasowski come to a halt across the pool, searching for her, looking directly at her, and still searching. She hurried around the pool toward him, and then he recognized her.
“Hiya,” he said. “Didn’t see you at first.”
“Because I have a dress on,” she said. “You always see me in shorts. Besides, if you’re used to seeing a person in one place, and suddenly, you see them against a different background, they look different.”
“Yeah,” he said.
There was an uneasy pause.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said quickly.
“Sure. Jackie told me.”
The teenagers were giggling again. Ed glanced at them, and Teresa followed his glance.
“Can’t we find somewhere to talk?” she asked quickly.
“You mean to sit down?”
“Anywhere.”
He held up his large steel wrist watch. “Well, lady, I got only half an hour for lunch—old Simon Legree don’t like me late—so maybe I better eat while you talk.”
“I’ll have something, too. Is there a restaurant—”
“Couple fancy ones. But I’m not blowing my bankroll there.”
“I’d love to treat.”
He bridled. “What do you take me for? No. Dutch.”
She felt a wave of pleasure at his manliness and his gallantry. “I’m sure any place you say—may I call you Ed?”
“Everybody does.” He nodded toward the main promenade.
“Tuffy makes the best dogs in the Park. Come on.”
She walked hurriedly beside his hugeness, skipping several times to keep up, and feeling proud and possessive of his size. He uttered not a word as they progressed, until they reached the whitewashed wooden stand with the monstrous metal frankfurter on top and the four empty stools below, and then he said, “Right here.”
She ascended a stool, elegantly, and he squatted on the one beside her. He wheeled toward the counter. “Hey, Tuffy—”
A wrinkled, toothless old man, wearing a ridiculous starched chef’s hat and a spotted apron, appeared from a rear room, hoisting in greeting the arm tattooed with an anchor. “Hiya, Rams.”
“What you doing back there, Tuffy, burying money?”
“Got better to do with money.”
Ed Krasowski wheeled toward Teresa. “What you having?”
“Whatever you have.”
Ed winked, pleased. “Specialty of the house. Two dogs, Tuffy. The supers. Everything.”
Teresa observed Ed’s arms, the subtle play of muscles beneath the tanned surface as he cracked his knuckles and then proceeded to arrange toothpicks on the counter in some curious formation.
“Are you going to be working here long?” she asked.
“Couple months maybe. Until we go back to practice.”
“Do you like it?”
He shrugged the big shoulders. “Makes no difference.”
“Your friend said you had one of the booths. Which?”
“Knocking over the wooden milk bottles.”
“What do you have to do?”
“Nothing much. Make change. Pick up the balls. Set the bottles. Jolly the dames and kids along. It’s like finding money.”
“I’ll bet you meet interesting people.”
“Never noticed.”
She pushed on like this, leading him, understanding his halting, monosyllabic answers, appreciating the inarticulate strength of the man of action. The change was stimulating, exhilarating. How many years had she wasted listening to cultivated, hollow words? Listening all those dull years, listening to all those chattering effeminate men? She stroked Ed with a glance. What had Napoleon said? Voilà un homme!
The burned frankfurters were served. They were mammoth, twelve inches in length, protruding from either side of the roll, heavy with chopped onion and relish. She held the elongated frankfurter awkwardly, gazing at it, and then at Ed.
She nibbled. He chewed. He swallowed a mouthful, spun partially on the stool toward her. “Jackie said you had some private business to talk to me about.”
She nodded, as he made inroads into his frankfurter. Until now it had seemed vaguely possible, less and less so, but possible, that her planned and rehearsed proposal of mating could be openly broached. But the frankfurters made it impossible. Amid such wine as this—root beer on tap—could Isadora and Essinine flourish?
His nearness was maddening. The magnificent thing must be kept alive. Another way? “I… I’ve watched you—on the beach—”
“I thought you was always reading.”
“I read, too. Don’t you?”
“Sure. Not books, though. Takes too long. Hated them in school. Coach got the grinds to cram me. Mostly, I got time only for magazines nowadays. Anyway, about the beach—”
“I observed you playing ball. You’re extremely agile. You have a good body for it.”
“I keep in shape,” he admitted with undisguised pride.
“Well, that brings me to why I wanted to see you.” She put down the ridiculous frankfurter and faced him earnestly. “I’m an artist, quite a good one,” she said, almost believing it, “and from the moment I saw you, I said to myself, I must capture him on canvas.”
His forehead was puzzled. “Paint me? You mean a regular picture?”
“Dozens of pictures,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve watched you, as I said, closely, and you’re a human being of many facets. I want to know all of them. I want the world to know you as Greek God, Olympian, Roman Emperor, Gladiator.” She had heard Geoffrey’s artists sometimes speak like this, not precisely so, but similarly, and she was sure it sounded correct. “I hope you’ll consent.”
“I never thought about it. Who are the pictures for?”
“Myself. Exhibits. Perhaps some will be reproduced in magazines or books.”
“Does it take a lot of time?”
“An hour or two a day, no more.”
He finished the frankfurter and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I don’t know. I ain’t got much time what with this, and practice, and a man’s got to relax a little.”
“You’ll find it relaxing.”
“Not what I mean.”
“What do you call relaxing?”
“Few beers with the boys, maybe a movie, and—well, some fun.”
“You mean, girls?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Her lips were compressed. She wanted to shake him, scream at him: I’m girls, look at me, all girls, all women, the best, the best you ever met, I’m attractive, well dressed, witty, cultured, I have a large home in The Briars, I’m desirable. I am fun.
She swallowed. “Well, I understand that. But, Ed, you’d be surprised at what good sport this can be.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
Desperate measures were indicated. Finger on the emergency button. Press. “Of course, I don’t expect you to model for nothing.”
He looked up sharply.
“I told your friend I wanted to see you about business,” she added. “What do you make here?”
“Eighty bucks a week.”
“I’ll pay you twenty dollars for each…each session you pose.”
“You mean for a couple of hours?”
“That’s right.”
He grinned broadly. “Lady, you got a deal.”
Inside her, something eased. She had not wanted it to go this way, nor would he want it this way, once he understood her better offer, but for the moment this was enough. There would be the private meeting. It was all that she desired. And now she ached to have it at once.
“Wonderful,” she said. “When can we have our first…meeting?”
“You name it.”
“Tomorrow—eleven in the morning.”
“I’m not free tomorrow until five.”
It was so long a time to wait. But, all right, anything. “I can meet you at your place at five-thirty.” She opened her purse and took out pencil and the white leather pad on which she jotted her aphorisms. “Here, write your address.”
He wrote it, returned pad and pencil, and looked down at his metal watch. He rose from the stool “Back to the salt mines,” he said.
She slipped off the stool. He hesitated, staring down at her. “Funny,” he said.
“What?”
“You don’t look like a painter.”
“No? What do I look like?”
“Well, I don’t know—”
“You mean—I look like…like just a woman.”
“Something like that.”
Her heart leaped. “You’re very nice,” she said. “I’ll be looking forward to tomorrow.”
“Okay. Be seeing you.”
She watched him lumbering off, swaying, Brobdingnagian, magnificent. She wondered exactly how it would happen finally, and what it would be like, and she shivered. She watched the Ferris wheel revolving and somewhere heard a calliope. She didn’t feel like de Pompadour or de Poitiers, that was for sure. But she felt like more, far more, than she had been before, and that was good enough.
* * *
By five-fifteen, the sun no longer high through the kitchen window but the afternoon still bright, Kathleen had abandoned the mystery novel and busied herself heating water for tea.
When the telephone rang out, startling her, she hastened to pick up the receiver, to prevent it from awakening Naomi.
“Hello?”
“Naomi?” The voice was a girl’s voice.
“I’m a friend of Naomi’s—Mrs. Ballard.”
“Kathleen?”
“Yes?”
“Mary McManus. What are you doing there?”
“Oh, hello, Mary. I… well… Naomi wasn’t—she came down with a bad cold, and I’m babysitting until a nurse comes in.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
“No, no.”
“I’m sorry about Naomi. I’ve been promising to get together with her, and tonight Dad’s having some people in for a barbecue—and, well, Norman couldn’t make it, and we have extra food, so I took a chance that maybe Naomi was free, but, this way—”
“I know she’ll be glad you called.”
“Tell her I’ll talk to her tomorrow. How have you been?”
“Domesticating.”
“What?”
“Synonym for vegetating. No, I’ve been fine, Mary. Do call me some afternoon and come over for tea.”
“I’d love to. I really would. Tell Naomi I’m sorry. She’s going to miss a good steak. Well, good to talk to you, Kathleen. Bye.”
“Goodbye, Mary.”
After she had poured the hot water and then removed the tea bag, Kathleen drank, admired the built-in stainless-steel gas range, and thought about Mary McManus. She decided that Mary was an argument for zest over beauty. Mary’s bronzed outdoor vigor, her bouncing enthusiasm, made Kathleen feel old. She supposed that she was really no more than six or seven years Mary’s senior, yet she felt used and worn, deep inside. Only technically could she offer Paul a chassis less than thirty years old. Mary, on the other hand, could give a bachelor the miracle of resurrection. Wasn’t it curious, though, that last Sunday she had been at the tennis club with her father and not her husband? Well, young girls and their fathers…
* * *
Mary McManus went out on the cement patio where her father was still poking at the heating charcoal in the brick barbecue grill. Nearby stood the portable table, the layers of thick red steak, separated by wax paper, piled majestically high. Mary watched a moment and then sat on the edge of a checkered lounge.
“Put one steak back in the freezer,” she said. “Naomi can’t make it.”
“You’re sure Norman won’t come down?” Harry asked without turning.
Mary was faintly irritated with the way the question had been posed. Unaccountably, she felt like bickering. “It’s not a matter of `won’t come down’; he can’t, he doesn’t feel well—don’t you ever feel that way?”
Her father spun about and blinked at her. “Aren’t we a little touchy about semantics tonight?”
“I just thought you wanted to say it that way.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry. But he did come home with an awful headache, Dad. You should know; you drove with him. He was sure a nap would get rid of it, but just now he said he felt no better. He doesn’t want to throw a wet blanket on the party.”
“It seems to me he’s getting more than his share of headaches lately—for a healthy, strapping young man. Why don’t you get him to see a doctor?”
“He insists he’s all right. They go away.”
Harry Ewing grunted, seemed lost in thought a moment, pursed his lips, absently wiped his hands on the comical chef’s apron, and walked slowly to the lounge across from Mary.
“Did he tell you we had a talk today?”
Mary raised her eyebrows. “No.”
“We did. About his new assignment.”
“New assignment?”
“Remember—Sunday—I told you I was cooking up something extremely interesting?”
Mary nodded eagerly.
“Well, we’ve decided to tackle those Essen people on the prefab patent case. We’re going into the German courts. I’m shipping Norman and Hawkins off next month.”
“To Germany?” Mary clapped her hands with delight. “It’s one place I’ve always wanted to—”
“No, Mary,” Harry Ewing said quickly, “not you. He’ll be up to his neck there. No place for wives. I told Hawkins he couldn’t take his missus, and I can’t show partiality to Norm because he’s my son-in-law. It would be demoralizing, bad precedent.”
Mary’s delight had given way to somber concern. “How long?” she asked.
“Who knows? Those court things drag on. And there’s a good deal of preparation to be done on the scene with our German—”
“How long?” she persisted.
“Oh, four months—at the most six.”
“Without me?” Her tone was ominous.
“Look, Mary—”
“What did Norman say?”
“Well, I will admit he didn’t take too kindly to it. I wanted to keep this from you. But he was most disappointing. I reminded him that, family or no, he was still an employee. No preferential treatment. It was an important job, and I expected him to do it.”
“But will he do it?”
“He’d better. He said he’d talk it over with you. ‘It’s up to Mary,’ he said. I’m depending on you to pound some sense into that boy. I’m through coddling him.”
Mary sat rocking her body on the lounge, staring at her father in an odd, new way.
Harry Ewing met her gaze, then exhaled. “Well, the steaks—” He began to leave.
“You want us apart, don’t you, Dad?” Her voice held no harshness, merely understanding.
“Are you crazy?”
“I think you even want him to fail—”
“Mary!”
“Yes.” She stood up. She started inside.
“Where are you going?” Harry Ewing called after her. “To give Norman my answer.”
She climbed the stairs gradually, giving herself time to adjust to the new decision, like an ascending deep-sea diver surfacing slowly against the changing pressure.
Upstairs, she moved to the bedroom, opened the door, closed it behind her, and turned the key.
Norman, lying on the bed, on his back, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling, now watched her. She went to the foot of the bed.
“How’s your headache?”
“I never had a headache.”
She nodded. “That’s what I thought. Norman, he told me.”
“Deutschland über alles?”
“Not über alles—I told him.”
“Oh?”
“Not über us.”
She kicked off her shoes, and crawled on the bed, and lowered herself beside him.
“Norman, I love you.”
“Ditto.”
“Just you.”
He examined her face warily.
“Norman—”
“Uh-huh?”
“I want us to have a baby.”
He lifted himself to an elbow. “When did this happen?”
“It happened.” She tried to smile. “We can travel when the baby’s grown up.”
“You mean it, don’t you?”
“With all my heart.”
He reached out for her, and she went into his arms, cuddled close to his chest.
“When?” he asked softly.
“Now, Norman—now.”
* * *
Miss Wheatley, the special, a large masculine woman with down on her upper lip and a severely starched nurse’s uniform, had appeared at six-twenty, and Kathleen had rushed home to assist Albertine in feeding Deirdre and to change for dinner.
Paul had picked her up at eight, and instead of hamburgers, they had driven east to an Italian restaurant on the fringe of metropolitan Los Angeles. Although no Angeleno, and especially no native of The Briars, would have been caught dead in that unlovely business part of the vast city after work hours (except for the Philharmonic season and the New York plays), Kathleen had remembered the restaurant as charming, from a visit once paid to it with Ted Dyson.
The intimate, candlelit room, decorated with hanging Chianti bottles, made them feel near and private. They had ordered minestrone and lasagna, and consumed great numbers of breadsticks and a greater quantity of red wine. They had talked a long time of Paris—she had visited it with her family in the summer between high school and college, and he during weekends from the job in Berne—and she had remembered “Just Tell the Driver ‘Sank Roo Doe Noo’ ” and he had remembered the chansonniers in Le Lapin Agile, and both had recalled the view from the Sacre-Coeur.
They had returned to The Briars slowly, reluctantly, through the balmy night, conversing less, and self-conscious for being so close and yet so far apart.
Now they were parked in the darkness of Kathleen’s driveway.
He looked at her: the achingly delicate profile, the full scarlet lips, the blouse draped from her breasts, the silk skirt outlining her thighs.
She turned her head and looked at him: the wonderfully creased and lived-in face.
“Kathleen,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly.
