5:45 to Suburbia (7 page)

“Yes, darling, I’m glad. I’d just be happier if you’d picked a night when you’d have more time.”

“It’s hard enough as it is. Now I’ll have to eat two dinners tonight. One thing this affair will do for me is to make me fat as all get out.”

“And the other, Charlie?”

“What other?”

“Or the
others?
The other
things
this affair will do for you?”

“Let’s not spoil dinner, Marge.”

“Well, you’re going to have
two,
after all.”

“Yes, that’s right. On my goddam birthday I’m going to have dinner with my wife. Yes, that’s right.”

“All right, let’s try to be calm. Let’s change the subject, Charlie. Okay, tell me more about your talk with Bruce this noon.”

“I told you. He liked
your
ideas. He may even give
me
a raise, they’re so good.”

“Charlie, do you realize that half those alleged ideas of mine are ideas you yourself think of when you’re discussing business with me?”

“Come off it, Marge. We both know the score.”

“I’m perfectly serious. The one about lowering the masthead, for instance. Remember that? We were sitting–”

“Does it make you feel better to think I
don’t
pick your brains, Marge?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, then you don’t have to think that all I want from this affair is a raise in pay and a promotion.”

“Charlie!”

“Well, what are you trying to make me feel better for? Always trying to make me feel better! … Trying to make yourself feel better maybe!”

She put her fork down and stared at him. “Charlie, I was telling the truth. They aren’t
all
my ideas. I wasn’t trying to make you feel better, and I didn’t feel bad at all — until you suggested a reason.”

“It’s what everybody thinks, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“That I’m hanging around you to get ahead.”

“Suddenly I don’t feel hungry.”

“The day I walked into Cadence, you took me under your wing, didn’t you? It was ‘Charlie, watch out for this,’ and ‘Charlie, watch out for that.’ And it was, ‘Charlie, I think the better way of doing it would be this way,’ and ‘Charlie, one of Bruce’s weaknesses is this,’ and ‘Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.’ Wasn’t it?.. How could I have missed!”

“It’s funny,” she said.

“What’s funny? Tell me something funny.”

“You have a guilty conscience.”

“No kidding?”

“Don’t be flip about this, Charlie. Please I never realized it … you actually doubt your own motivations, don’t you? You actually think sometimes that the reason for us
is
a raise in pay and a promotion … I wonder why I never thought of that.”

“Oh, eat your oysters, Marge. For the love of God, eat your oysters.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just not hungry … In fact, I think I’d like to go home … alone.”

“Don’t make a scene,” he said as she reached for her purse.

“I’m not going to. I’m just going home.”

“Don’t go home. That’s silly. Eat your oysters and I’ll drop you.”

“No, I’m going. I really want to go.”

“Marge, look, I’m all keyed up. I don’t know — today when I called Joan to tell her I’d be late, she put Janie on the phone. It sort of annoyed me. I don’t know. Let’s keep our heads.”

“Tonight wasn’t my idea, Charlie. I knew she’d want you home.”

“Eat your oysters,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m going,” she said, getting up. “Don’t be silly, please. Look, wait until I pay the check.”

“Good-by, Charlie,” she said.

She turned and started out the door.

Then Charlie suddenly realised something that surprised him, and he did a strange thing.

He knew all at once that he didn’t love her — but at the same time he couldn’t let her go.

He got up and ran after her, his napkin still tucked in his coat. Without paying the check, he ran out into the street where he found her hailing a cab.

He grabbed her arm. It had begun to rain, and both of them were getting wet. A cab pulled up for her; the door was open; but he held her arm to keep her from getting in.

“I love you, Marge,” he said. “I love you. Don’t go!”

“And I love you. But I want to go home alone.”

“Why? Listen, I’ll pay the check and come back and we’ll go to your place together for a while. Listen, let’s talk this out.”

He wondered, even as he was pleading with her, why he couldn’t let her go; why he didn’t love her; why it was so necessary for her to wait for him, for him to convince her of the love he didn’t feel.

“Will you wait?”

“No,” she said. “And I’m getting wet.” The cab driver said, “You’re getting the inside wet too, lady. Make up your mind.”

“Good night, Charlie,” she said.

She pulled her arm free, got in, and the cab went away. Charlie stood in the rain. People passing looked at him, at the napkin, at the cab vanishing down East Fifty-seventh.

Then Charlie walked back in, paid the check, and put his coat on.

For about ten minutes he walked in the rain, trying to think what it all meant, but he couldn’t accept the idea that there really was anything at all mercenary in his relationship with Marge. And even if he wasn’t
in
love with her, he loved her, didn’t he? The way lots of men loved women who weren’t their wives. Sure he did. He had wanted her so badly in the Gotham, he had felt it through to his loins — and he had tried not to have her, out of consideration for her, so was that mercenary? He loved her as a woman, as a person. It had nothing to do with anything else; not his job; not Joan or Jane; nothing or no one else.

At the corner of Sixtieth and Madison he realized he had left the gift, the key ring, back in the restaurant, and he thought of calling there and asking them to hold it for him. But when he hailed a cab to go home, he gave the address of the restaurant instead. He believed fully that that was further proof he really loved Marge Mann, as a person, as a woman … And he wished women wouldn’t get so goddam serious all the time.

W
HEN
Sandra Scott answered the telephone in her office, an instant reaction of annoyance came to her face, but she was careful to screen it from her voice before she replied,
“Yes,
Mr. Cadence will see Mr. Basescu.”

Then, pressing the button to the intercom, she said, “Mr. Basescu is on his way up, Mr. Cadence.”

“Basescu?”

“The writer, Mr. Cadence. The one who did the lead article for the
Vile
dummy … You remember, he had an appointment with Mr. Keene, but Mr. Keene had forgotten his doctor’s appointment. You said you’d talk with him.”

“What’s the matter with Wally, always running to the doctor?”

“I think it’s a head doctor, Mr. Cadence. Shall I send Mr. Basescu in when he arrives?”

“Yes,
do that. And say, Sandy, any reaction from Charlie Gibson on the memo?”

“None to date, sir.”

“You sound worried or something.”

“No, Mr. Cadence. I’m not worried.”

“I don’t know … you sound different … Well, show him in when he gets there, won’t you, Sandy?’

“I will,” she said.

Sandra Scott had been his secretary for eight years. Their relationship was one of those peculiar secretary-boss ones in which he finds all he could ask for in a secretary, and she finds — a world.

Sandra Scott’s mother knew the reason she was still unmarried at thirty-two was that she had compared every beau she had ever dated with Bruce Cadence — and found all of them wanting.

Her father wanted to know what was so special about Bruce Cadence, anyway. He had met Cadence — a man over sixty shorter than Sandra, fat, married happily, a father, and bald. So how could she even think of him as anything special?

“Since when has love had eyes?” Mrs. Scott would say.

And invariably, Sandra would take a long walk after such talk, up near Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights where she lived; and she would wonder why they had to spoil it for her by insisting she was in love with Mr. Cadence. And she would promise herself for the 106th time that she would move out and get her own apartment. And invariably her broodings would end with the one thought: Why can’t they understand that it’s just a very deep feeling for a very fine person!

Sandra Scott was a large girl, a horsey girl — good-natured, efficient, gentle. And if love had no eyes, it did have ears, very sensitive ears, and it could hear everything that was being said about Bruce Cadence.

Once, she had even heard someone say something
he
had said about
her.

“The reason I’m a successful business man and a happy family man,” he had said, “is because I have a homely secretary.”

That hurt more than anything had ever hurt.

But usually Sandra Scott heard criticism of Bruce Cadence — not because he was disliked by the majority, but simply because no one praised him behind his back.

She had grown accustomed to sifting out the distortions, and accepting the fact of his flaws. She had learned self-control in the face of both, but on the morning of March 6, 1957, Sandra Scott was hypersensitive to the office gossip.

Perhaps the most persistent criticism of Bruce Cadence was that he always needed a crutch, and that the crutch carried the bulk of the weight. They used to say Charlie Gibson was his crutch, that all of Bruce’s editorial policies were Charlie’s, that Bruce was incapable of doing anything on his own.

But Charlie Gibson, once he had put an end to his affair with Marge Mann, was well thought of by most everyone at Cadence and so there was nothing truly indignant in the criticism, and certainly little bitterness.

Wally Keene, on the other hand, was not well liked; nor were his ideas, which Bruce Cadence was currently in the process of putting into effect, popular.

Still, the employees at Cadence could forgive the idea of the
Vile
dummy, even if it was against their better judgment, for there was a chance that it would put Cadence Publications back on its feet.

Yet few of them would be able to forgive Wally Keene’s decision about Marge Mann; and least of all, Sandra Scott.

To her it seemed shameful and incredible and fantastically cruel. When she thought about it, she remembered how she had somehow known the sort of operation Marge Mann was having performed, that week before Marge went to the hospital without telling them what was wrong. Sandra knew — and the knowledge had a strange effect upon her, for while she had always found Marge amusing and agreeable, she had never felt a kindred feeling for her until then. She had never felt truly concerned and upset about anyone at Cadence, other than Bruce Cadence, until then. And she never understood why; why
then?

But it had depressed her to the point where she began to talk about it too much; until people noticed.

Her mother had said: “You’d think it was happening to you. Besides, this woman’s almost sixty, isn’t she? What difference does it make?”

Her father had said: “When are you going to stop worrying about other people and start worrying about yourself? I want to be a grandfather some day!”

Even Bruce Cadence noticed. “Sandy,” he said, “you were never close to Marge, were you? How come all the interest?”

And she had answered: “I can’t explain it. I just feel at a loss.”

Then she had had the horrible nightmare about there being a mistake made, and instead of wheeling Marge into the operating room,
she
was being wheeled in. She was begging her mother to make them stop, while her mother said, “Well, you’ve only wasted your years anyway, being an office wife. What difference does it make?”

That morning Sandra thought about it all, and then about Mr. Basescu coming up to talk to Mr. Cadence. She remembered the last time she had seen Basescu — how she had felt an instantaneous revulsion at the thin little white-faced man with the narrow nicotine-stained fingers, the nails of which were tapered and too long; at the faint odor of stale liquor on his breath, the pearl stickpin in the seedy brown-and-yellow striped tie, at the voice, barely a whisper, at the way he seemed to hover over her as he spoke with her.

“You should be used to writers by now,” Bruce Cadence had remarked upon her reaction. “They’re a tacky lot. I think you’re just bothered because of the article he wrote.”

When the door opened and Basescu entered, Sandra felt that revulsion a second time. She barely spoke to him. Then, quickly, she went to open Mr. Cadence’s door.

Bruce Cadence rose to meet Elliot Basescu, and pointed to a deep brown leather chair beside his desk.

“I’m sorry about the mix-up in Wally’s appointments,” he said, “but I know what he wanted to talk with you about. As a matter of fact, I called it to his attention.”

Basescu fumbled for a cigarette, lit it, and leaned forward, clutching it between his fingers. “I didn’t get my check,” he said.

“That’s routine. It’ll go through on the third Wednesday of the month.”

“I was afraid you had found something wrong with the article.”

“Not really wrong, but there’s one thing in it that I’m a little wary about.”

Cadence paced as he talked, his arms behind his back: “That episode at college, the one in which he paid a fraternity brother to let him — ” Cadence fumbled for words “ — to let him, well, you remember that, eh?”

“Yes. Quite vividly.”

“The point is, all through the article the information has been handled more as a hint than as a fact we state conclusively. I mean, we’ve used words like ‘alleged’ often, and ‘said to be.’ That can make all the difference in a courtroom on this type of story.”

“He won’t take it to court, believe me.”

“But, Elliot, it isn’t our business to concern ourselves with whether or not a subject will take us to court. We just have to be darn certain that, should we find ourselves there, we’ll come out the winners.”

“All right … what’s the problem?”

“Now, in every instance we’ve been able to verify the facts we have presented, but in the college incident we can’t even come close to verifying it. And remember, it involves a specific fraternity.”

“That can be deleted.”

“Right, but I think the whole incident should be deleted.”

“Then,” Basescu said, “we aren’t as well documented. Besides, it kills a lot of the suspense.”

“But we don’t even know the name of the boy he did this to.”

“Don’t we?”

“Well,
I
don’t,” Cadence said. “Where’d you dig the fact up, anyway?”

Basescu smiled at his cigarette in a preoccupied way.

“Well, you don’t have to tell me, because I’m quite sure I’m going to delete it.”

“I think it’ll ruin the story,” Basescu said.

“When are you due back in St. Louis?”

“A few days.”

“Then you’ll have time to rewrite?”

“Are you going to insist?”

“I think so, Elliot.”

“It’s a mistake.” Basescu ground out his cigarette as though he were squashing a bug. “It’s a mistake.”

“Elliot, sometimes I think you have a personal gripe against him.”

“The dinner hour will be quieter all over America.”

“Yes,” Cadence said, “but I’m afraid I don’t get very much of a kick when I think about it. That’s the dirty side to this. A man’s bread snatched out from under him because we need to sell magazines.”

“Maybe he won’t be fired because of it.”

“Oh, Elliot, face up. The man is sponsored by a soap company and soap is used in the home. It’s associated with cleanliness. And, after all, Otto Avery is always associated with current events. Nobody wants a sodomist reading off the news from the Pope or Princess Margaret or the cold-war fronts, much less at the dinner hour.”

“He really isn’t a very pleasant person. If you knew how unpleasant he was, you wouldn’t think twice.”

“You knew him well, hmm?”

“Yes,” Basescu said, “and I knew the boy in the fraternity house quite well too. He was a nice boy; a serious student, a rather shy boy, not as worldly as Avery. Avery corrupted him. Literally corrupted him, ruined his life. If it weren’t for Avery, he might have been a very great scholar, or a literary figure of some sort.”

Cadence shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It’s my own opinion that nobody corrupts someone else, not that way. And the boy did take money.”

“He was very poor,” Basescu said. “His family struggled to put him through college.”

“Well, we’re going to delete that section, Elliot. Just take it and delete it, and try to fill in with some of the minor facts we struck out on the earlier version.”

Basescu shrugged and lit another cigarette, sucking the smoke into his lungs, meditating. Bruce Cadence couldn’t avoid staring at the man’s filthy fingernails, at the general unwashed look of him.

Basescu said, “There’s something else.”

“Yes?”

“This Gibson. Has he read this yet?”

“Charlie? He’ll read it today.”

“You see, he knew Avery too. He hated him as much as — ” Basescu paused and looked at his cigarette. “He went to college with him, too. He didn’t like him any more than anyone did, but still — ”

“Did you know Charlie, Elliot?”

“I knew him. Very vaguely … I’d rather he didn’t know that I wrote this piece. Wally assured me there’d be no reason for him to know.”

“You’re using a pseudonym.”

“That’s correct. I just want to be sure. Just in case there should be any — well, reaction on the part of Gibson.”

“Yes,” Cadence said thoughtfuly, “there may well be … This sort of thing doesn’t set well with Charlie. I didn’t know he knew Avery personally.”

“He hated him. Avery pulled a rather disagreeable trick on him at one time. Surprised him with a young lady,
flagrante delicto.”

“You all knew each other fairly well, hmm?”

Basescu said, “Not truly. But a story like that circulates on a campus.”

“Would Charlie know about Avery paying this boy?”

“I doubt it,” Basescu said. “Very few people knew about it.”

Bruce Cadence rose and stood by his desk, in the perfunctory gesture of the executive calling the interview to a close.

There was something about Elliot Basescu that made Cadence uncomfortable; uncomfortable in the same way one is when eating a sandwich at a soda fountain manned by an acne-faced fellow in a soiled white apron. Yet there was more to it than simply the revulsion at the physical appearance of Basescu; there was a feeling about him, an aversion much like the one Sandy had suggested to Bruce Cadence when she had first encountered the man. Cadence felt it throughout their interview, and in some remote fashion he felt that he was allied with the man — and not simply in this despicable scheme to expose the newscaster; having entered into that business alliance, he was automatically an ally of Basescu’s in all ways. He experienced an uncanny wave of self-disgust, one which came upon him so suddenly that his voice snapped as he said, “That’ll be all, Elliot.”

Basescu noticed the tone. He raised an eyebrow, regarding Cadence momentarily, as though he understood. Then, tamping out his cigarette, he stood up.

He said, “Have you decided on a name for the magazine yet?”

“We call it
Vile
in dummy form,” Cadence answered.

A grim smile moved Basescu’s lips. “Very amusing,” he said, “and so it is. But it would be even more vile to go hungry, don’t you think? Of course, money isn’t everything. But then, who wants everything?’’

He stood picking at his fingernails for a slow second.

Then he spoke again: “And it is even more vile,” he said, “to imagine that the fear of poverty could be so overwhelming in the mind of a young boy, that he would accept a degenerate’s immoral proposition. And by accepting it — ” he snapped his short, knobby fingers — ”ruin his life.”

Bruce Cadence looked squarely at Basescu, uncertain of the insight Basescu’s words had lent him suddenly. But sure in his tone, he said: “I don’t think I feel sorry for that boy.”

“Oh?”

“Anyway,” and Cadence was curt, “I want it out of the story.”

“The fact still remains,” Elliot Basescu answered, turning to go, “but it’s your magazine.” He made a mock salute to his forehead with his finger. “So anything you say. Good day.”