Highsmith, Patricia (35 page)

“No. A stage designer.”

It was Mr. Bernstein, and Therese sidled between a couple of groups of people and reached him. Mr. Bernstein held out a plump, cordial hand to her, and got up from his radiator seat.

“Miss Belivet!” he shouted. “Mrs. Crawford, the make-up consultant—”

“Let’s not talk business!” Mrs. Crawford shrieked.

“Mr. Stevens, Mr. Fenelon,” Mr. Bernstein went on, and on and on, until she was nodding to a dozen people and saying “How do you do?” to about half of them. “And Ivor—Ivor!” Mr. Bernstein called.

There was Harkevy, a slim figure with a slim face and a small mustache, smiling at her, reaching a hand over for her to shake. “Hello,” he said, “I’m glad to see you again. Yes, I liked your work. I see your anxiety.”

He laughed a little.

“Enough to let me squeeze in?” she asked.

“You want to know,” he said, smiling. “Yes, you can squeeze in. Come up to my studio tomorrow at about eleven. Can you make that?”

“Yes.”

“Come and join me later. I must say good-by to these people who are leaving.” And he went away.

Therese set her drink down on the edge of a table, and reached for a cigarette in her handbag. It was done. She glanced at the door. A woman with upswept blond hair, with bright, intense blue eyes had just come into the room and was causing a small furor of excitement around her. She had quick, positive movements as she turned to greet people, to shake hands, and suddenly Therese realized she was Genevieve Cranell, the English actress who was to play the lead. She looked different from the few stills Therese had seen of her. She had the kind of face that must be seen in action to be attractive.

“Hello, hello!” she called to everyone finally as she glanced around the room, and Therese saw the glance linger on her for an instant, while in Therese there took place a shock a little like that she had known when she had seen Carol for the first time, and there was the same flash of interest in the woman’s blue eyes that had been in her own, she knew, when she saw Carol. And now it was Therese who-continued to look, and the other woman who glanced away, and turned around.

Therese looked down at the glass in her hand, and felt a sudden heat in her face and her finger tips, the rush inside her that was neither quite her blood nor her thoughts alone. She knew before they were introduced that this woman was like Carol. And she was beautiful. And she did not look like the picture in the library. Therese smiled as she sipped her drink. She took a long pull at the drink to steady herself.

“A flower, madame?” A waiter was extending a tray full of white orchids.

“Thank you very much.” Therese took one. She had trouble with the pin, and someone—Mr. Fenelon or Mr. Stevens it was—came up and helped.

“Thanks,” she said.

Genevieve Cranell was coming toward her, with Mr. Bernstein behind her.

The actress greeted the man with Therese as if she knew him very well.

“Did you meet Miss Cranell?” Mr. Bernstein asked Therese.

Therese looked at the woman. “My name is Therese Belivet.” She took the hand the woman extended.

“How do you do? So you’re the set department?”

“No. Only part of it.” She could still feel the handclasp when the woman released her hand. She felt excited, wildly and stupidly excited.

“Isn’t anybody going to bring me a drink?” Miss Cranell asked anybody.

Mr. Bernstein obliged. Mr. Bernstein finished introducing Miss Cranell to the people around him who hadn’t met her. Therese heard her tell someone that she had just gotten off a plane and that her luggage was piled in the lobby, and while she spoke, Therese saw her glance at her a couple of times past the men’s shoulders. Therese felt an exciting attraction in the neat back of her head, in the funny, careless lift of her nose at the end, the only careless feature of her narrow, classic face. Her lips were rather thin. She looked extremely alert, and imperturbably poised. Yet Therese sensed that Genevieve Cranell might not talk to her again at the party for the simple reason that she probably wanted to.

Therese made her way to a wall mirror, and glanced to see if her hair and her lipstick were still all right.

“Therese,” said a voice near her. “Do you like champagne?”

Therese turned and saw Genevieve Cranell. “Of course.”

“Of course. Well, toddle up to six-nineteen in a few minutes. That’s my suite. We’re having an inner circle party later.”

“I feel very honored,” Therese said.

“So don’t waste your thirst on highballs. Where did you get that lovely dress?”

“Bonwit’s—it’s a wild extravagance.”

Genevieve Cranell laughed. She wore a blue woolen suit that actually looked like a wild extravagance. “You look so young, I don’t suppose you’ll mind if I ask how old you are.”

“I’m twenty-one.”

She rolled her eyes. “Incredible. Can anyone still be only twenty-one?”

People were watching the actress. Therese was flattered, terribly flattered, and the flattery got in the way of what she felt, or might feel, about Genevieve Cranell.

Miss Cranell offered her cigarette case. “For a while, I thought you might be a minor.”

“Is that a crime?”

The actress only looked at her, her blue eyes smiling, over the flame of her lighter. Then as the woman turned her head to light her own cigarette, Therese knew suddenly that Genevieve Cranell would never mean anything to her, nothing apart from this half hour at the cocktail party, that the excitement she felt now would not continue, and not be evoked again at any other time or place. What was it that told her? Therese stared at the taut line of her blond eyebrow as the first smoke rose from her cigarette, but the answer was not there. And suddenly a feeling of tragedy, almost of regret, filled Therese. “Are you a New Yorker?” Miss Cranell asked her.

“Vivy!”

The new people who had just come in the door surrounded Genevieve Cranell and bore her away. Therese smiled again, and finished her drink, felt the first soothing warmth of the Scotch spreading through her. She talked with a man she had met briefly in Mr. Bernstein’s office yesterday, and with another man she didn’t know at all, and she looked at the doorway across the room, the doorway that was an empty rectangle at that moment, and she thought of Carol. It would be like Carol to come after all, to ask her once more. Or rather, like the old Carol, but not like this one.

Carol would be keeping her appointment now at the Elysee bar. With Abby?

With Stanley McVeigh? Therese looked away from the door, as if she were afraid Carol might appear, and she would have to say again, “No.” Therese accepted another highball, and felt the emptiness inside her slowly filling with the realization she might see Genevieve Cranell very often, if she chose, and though she would never become entangled, might be loved herself.

One of the men beside her asked, “Who did the sets for The Lost Messiah, Therese? Do you remember?”

“Blanchard?” she answered out of nowhere, because she was still thinking of Genevieve Cranell, with a feeling of revulsion, of shame, for what had just occurred to her, and she knew she would never be. She listened to the conversation about Blanchard and someone else, even joined in, but her consciousness had stopped in a tangle where a dozen threads crossed and knotted. One was Dannie. One was Carol. One was Genevieve Cranell.

One went on and on out of it, but her mind was caught at the intersection. She bent to take a light for her cigarette, and felt herself fall a little deeper into the network, and she clutched at Dannie. But the strong black thread did not lead anywhere. She knew as if some prognostic voice were speaking now that she would not go further with Dannie. And loneliness swept over her again like a rushing wind, mysterious as the thin tears that covered her eyes suddenly, too thin to be noticed, she knew, as she lifted her head and glanced at the doorway again.

“Don’t forget.” Genevieve Cranell was beside her, patting her arm, saying quickly, “Six-nineteen. We’re adjourning.” She started to turn away and came back. “You are coming up? Harkevy’s coming up, too.”

Therese shook her head. “Thanks, I—I thought I could, but I remember I’ve got to be somewhere else.”

The woman looked at her quizzically. “What’s the matter, Therese? Did anything go wrong?”

“No.” She smiled, moving toward the door. “Thanks for asking me. No doubt I’ll see you again.”

“No doubt,” the actress said.

Therese went into the room beside the big one and got her coat from the pile on the bed. She hurried down the corridor toward the stairs, past the people who were waiting for the elevator, among them Genevieve Cranell, and Therese didn’t care if she saw her or not as she plunged down the wide stairs as if she were running away from something. Therese smiled to herself. The air was cool and sweet on her forehead, made a feathery sound like wings past her ears, and she felt she flew across the streets and up the curbs. Toward Carol. And perhaps Carol knew at this moment, because Carol had known such things before. She crossed another street, and there was the Elysee awning.

The headwaiter said something to her in the foyer, and she told him, “I’m looking for somebody,” and went on to the doorway.

She stood in the doorway, looking over the people at the tables in the room where a piano played. The lights were not bright, and she did not see her at first, half hidden in the shadow against the far wall, facing her. Nor did Carol see her. A man sat opposite her, Therese did not know who. Carol raised her hand slowly and brushed her hair back, once on either side, and Therese smiled because the gesture was Carol, and it was Carol she loved and would always love. Oh, in a different way now, because she was a different person, and it was like meeting Carol all over again, but it was still Carol and no one else. It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell. Therese waited. Then as she was about to go to her Carol saw her, seemed to stare at her incredulously a moment while Therese watched the slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly, her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before. Therese walked toward her.