Complete Stories (54 page)

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Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca

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Their eyes went to Mrs. Chrystie, who had risen from the sofa and gone over to Emmy. She was giving certain tender pats and gentle pulls to the little bride’s coiffure.
Mrs. Bain turned back to Mrs. McDermott and suddenly giggled. “It’s terrible,” she said. “Whenever something awful’s happened in a family, I just can’t seem to stay off the subject. It’s as if something was
making
me do it. Did you
hear
what I said at dinner? Bob and I were talking about movies, and I asked him if he’d seen
Lady in the Lake.
I just thought I’d die.”
“Oh, my dear, I know,” Mrs. McDermott said. “Every time I see Bob I start talking about drowning and accidents in the water and artificial respiration too late and—ordinarily I never talk about things like that. Things I wouldn’t dream of talking about. I only hope he doesn’t notice it. I must say, he certainly doesn’t seem to. But, of course, he’s so polite.”
“Isn’t it terrible?” Mrs. Bain said. “What makes people do things like that?”
They both laughed and shook their heads indulgently.
Bob Lineham came up to them, a glass in each hand. “Scotch and soda
pour Madame,
” he said, giving one to Mrs. McDermott. “And a little something for our bourbon-and-water girl.” He offered the other glass to Mrs. Bain.
“Oh, Bob, you bad boy,” she said. “It’s much too strong. You should’ve given me just a teeny bit, absolutely
drowned
in water—oh, Bob, I just can’t get over how wonderful you look. I simply can’t get
over
it!”
“Palm Springs certainly agreed with you,” Mrs. McDermott said.
“Oh, I’ve always been crazy to go there,” Mrs. Bain said. “They say it’s terribly attractive. Where’d you stay?”
“Emmy’s father and mother lent us the house they have there,” he said. “Cutest little place you ever saw.”
“Palm Springs is real desert, isn’t it?” Mrs. McDermott said.
“Sure is,” he said. “There we were, right in the heart of the desert.”
“My, what a
real
change that must’ve been for you,” Mrs. Bain said—and wished she were dead.
“Let’s see, who else needs drinks?” Bob said, looking around. “Sherm’s all right, I see.” He went over to his wife and Thelma Chrystie.
“See what Thelma did to my hair, Bob,” Emmy said.
“Doesn’t she look darling now?” Thelma said.
“She wasn’t so dusty before,” Bob said. He cupped Emmy’s chin in his hand and kissed her little pink mouth. “This is the way she looks when she wakes up in the morning.” He kissed her again.
“Don’t mind me,” Thelma said. “You two go right ahead.”
Bob disengaged his bride. “How about a drink, Thelma? Oh, I forgot, you never——”
“Yes, I will have a drink,” she said. “Whisky, brandy, anything—straight.”
“Why, Thelma,” Emmy said. “I never saw you drink anything before.”
“Oh, my dear child,” Thelma said, “the things and things and things you never saw!” He brought a glass of plain whisky. “Thank you, Bob.”
“Quite all right,” he said.
“Is it?” murmured Thelma.
Bob returned to the liquor tray. Emmy followed him. “Oh, darling,” she said, “is it a good party?”
“I think it’s great,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she said. “Do you think they’re having fun? Honestly, am I doing all right?”
“You couldn’t do anything else if you tried your little head off,” he said. He smoothed her hair back the way it had been before Mrs. Chrystie had attended to it. “There,” he said, “that’s my girl.” He kissed her lightly on the top of her head.
Unseen and unheard, Thelma glided close. Bob looked into her eyes. They stood there for a second regarding each other over Emmy’s smoothed head.
Emmy turned to Thelma. “I was just asking Bob—do you think they’re really having a good time?”
“What do you think they want, my dear, paper hats and a magician?” Thelma said, smiling. “You haven’t a thing to worry about, child. Has she, Bob?”
“I don’t know,” Emmy said. “They all look so sort of separated.” She gestured vaguely at Mrs. McDermott and Mrs. Bain sitting together, Mr. Bain and Mr. McDermott sitting together across the room from them, and Sherm wandering about independently, holding his glass perilously tilted, and humming something from
The Chocolate Soldier
. “I wish we could sort of all get together and do something.”
“How about a little bridge?” Thelma said.
“Oh, dear!” Emmy said. “I don’t know one card from another.”
“Well, shall we throw in the towel and play The Game?” Bob said.
“We’ve got enough people,” Thelma said.
“Thelma’s a whiz at The Game,” Bob said to Emmy.
“Oh, I’m terrible at games. I’ll never be any good,” Emmy said. “I’ll never learn anything. Never at all.”
Thelma smiled at her. “You will, Oscar, you will,” she said.
Sherm came over to them from the table where he had been replenishing his glass. He waved it in waltz time, “ ‘Come, hero, mine,’ ” he caroled. “Wonderful brandy, Bob, ole boy, ole boy,” he said. “Marry the boss’s daughter and ossify your friends, what?”
“Bob says let’s play The Game, Sherm,” Thelma said. “Want to play?”
“Sure I want to play The Game,” Sherm said. “Emmy and I will take you all on. What do you say, Boss’s Daughter?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Emmy said. “I’m scared stiff to play. I’m scared stiff anyway in front of all these people.”
“Of course you’re not,” Thelma said. “Bob will be playing on your side. When you’ve got him, you won’t think about anybody else.” As she moved away, she added, not quite audibly, “And you can quote me on that.”
The Game has never had a more specific title, nor has it needed one. It is a pastime lightly based on “Charades.” It does not bring out the best in its players and it is, goodness knows, no sport for introverts. Nevertheless, in the Linehams’ drawing room The Game got under way. Bob was made captain of one team, Thelma of the other. Thelma had selected Mrs. McDermott and the Bains; Bob had taken first Emmy, then Mr. McDermott, and last—his usual position—Sherm.
Sherm’s feelings were never outraged by any such slight; he thriftily employed the time required for the selection of the more desirable players in making himself a fresh drink.
Sheets of paper were produced in record-breaking time; little Mrs. Lineham was so proud of her note paper with the new monogram. But there was pencil trouble.
Mrs. Bain smoothed things over for her hostess. “Dear,” she said to her husband, “let Bob have your pen.” Dear obliged. “It’s a dream of a pen,” she said; “it’s one of those ones that write under water.” She laughed. “I can’t imagine what good they think that is; who wants to be under——” She stopped just in time.
Thelma took her cohorts into a smaller room called the study, though the origin of the name was obscure. They clustered around her in silence and watched her bite her pencil.
“Let’s make them terribly hard,” Mrs. McDermott said.
“Ah, no, we mustn’t be mean,” Thelma said. “Think of Sherm and poor little Emmy.”
“Let’s see,” Mr. Bain said, “how about
War and Peace
?”
“Oh, everybody’s done that,” Mrs. McDermott said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Bain said. “All anybody would have to do is to signal ‘book’ and then signal ‘beard.’ ” She made a gesture as if she were drawing an invisible goatee to a point. “And they’d guess the author like a shot. And there they’d have it.”
Thelma shuddered slightly, but she smiled at Mrs. Bain. “Anybody got any good quotations?” she said.
“Oh, I know a beauty,” Mrs. McDermott said. “ ‘Get with child a mandrake root.’ John Donne.”
Mr. Bain shook his head, “Too easy,” he said. “All you’d have to do is——”
“Oh, I know,” Mrs. Bain interrupted with excitement. “A second marriage is the ‘triumph of hope over experience.’ Dr. Samuel Johnson.”
Mrs. McDermott looked at her with wide eyes. “Mercy!” she whispered.
“Mr. B,” Thelma said, “would you get me a drink of plain whisky?”
“Plain whisky!” he said. “You want plain whisky?”
“Yes,” she said. “The stuff they drink at wakes.”
Mr. Bain went into the other room to fetch the drink. “Time out,” he called, as he entered.
“Thank you,” Thelma said, taking the refilled glass from him when he returned. “W-e-l-l, what about songs? Anybody got any songs?”
“ ‘Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba, Chi-Wawa,’ ” Mr. Bain said. “That ought to hold them.”
“W-e-l-l,” Thelma said again. “How do you spell it?”
For the next few minutes Mr. Bain insisted the initial letter was “S.” Mrs. McDermott said she had never heard of the thing. Thelma wrote it down as best she could and said, “We haven’t any quotations yet.”
“Wait a minute,” Mrs. McDermott said. “ ‘Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, and therefore I forbid my tears.’ It’s in
Hamlet
, where they say Ophelia’s drowned.”
Mrs. Bain giggled, “That’s cute,” she said. “You’re worse than I am.”
“Oh, what
makes
me do it?” Mrs. McDermott said. “Oh, that would be awful if Bob got it.”
“What about poor little Emmy?” Mrs. Bain said. “We just couldn’t do anything to hurt her. Bob would never speak to us again if we did.”
“It would be brutal to remind them of anything unpleasant,” Mrs. McDermott said.
“Unpleasant is putting it rather mildly, isn’t it?” Thelma said.
“Listen,” Mr. Bain said, “How about a play?
Billion Dollar Baby
?”
“
Really,
dear!” Mrs. Bain said. “You needn’t hand it to them on a platter.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Thelma said. “It would be rather nice to give them something darling Emmy might be able to get.”
“If she gets that one to act out,” Mrs. Bain said, “all she’d have to do is to get up and point to herself.”
“Ah, come,” Thelma said. “It isn’t the poor child’s fault.”
“I don’t see why she’d mind,” Mrs. McDermott said. “I’d take it as a compliment if anyone thought I had a billion dollars. After all, it isn’t as if Bob married her for her money. Of course, a lot of people may have thought so at first. He certainly is crazy mad about her now. I never saw a man so much in love with a woman, did you, Thelma?”
“My dear, let’s not go into the beautiful love life of the Linehams.” Thelma said. “We’re supposed to be thinking up things for the other side to guess.”
“Well, I never saw anything like it,” Mrs. McDermott said. “I actually feel we’re all butting in on them. We ought to leave them alone.”
“Really?” Thelma said. “Let’s see, what were we doing?” She wrote “
Billion Dollar Baby
” on a slip of paper and folded it.
There came shouts from the other room. “Hey, what are you doing in there? We’ve been ready for hours.”
Mrs. McDermott called back, “All right, all right, just another minute.”
“We are taking much too long,” Thelma said. “We haven’t any quotations, have we? What was that thing from
Hamlet
? ‘Too much of water hast thou . . .’ Oh, yes.” She began to write.
“You’re not going to use that one, are you?” Mrs. McDermott said.
“I’m just putting it down in case we can’t think of anything else,” Thelma said.
“Everything I’ve thought of is wrong,” Mrs. Bain said. “You can’t mention water, you can’t mention rich girls, you can’t mention second marriages. What can you do?”
“Oh, here’s one,” Thelma said. “More Shakespeare.” She wrote hurriedly.
There were renewed shouts from the other room.
“Oh, bless you, Thelma,” Mrs. McDermott said. “What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when we get in there,” Thelma said. She raised her voice and called, “We’re coming.”
They went into the other room where the opposing team awaited them, looking patient. Their group too had had certain difficulties in making their selections. Sherm had had a bit of Mrs. Bain’s compulsion trouble. He had urged that they choose the song “Don’t You Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?” and sought to advance his cause by singing it over and over. Nervously quelled by Mr. McDermott, he then suggested “Asleep in the Deep,” and finding no enthusiasm went on to “Roll Out the Barrel.” It was then that Emmy had replenished his drink for him.
The captains exchanged papers, and the teams sat down facing each other. When Sherm was a player, it was understood that his side was to take precedence. More, it was accepted that Sherm was to be the opening actor. It was imperative that he perform his solo before he fell asleep.
Sherm, happy and confident, drew a folded slip of paper, faced his team, and bowed so low that helpful hands were outstretched toward him and solicitous voices cried, “Whoo-oo-ps!” He regained his balance and, at the word “Go” from his chieftain, unfolded the slip. He accomplished this one-handed, for his other hand was curled about his glass. He read what was written on the paper, and went into his act.

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