Illusions of Love (14 page)

When he brought her to the door of her apartment, they looked at each other for a long moment. He wondered if he should kiss her. She handed him the key and he opened the door.

“It’s been a lovely evening, Martin,” she said.

“For me, too.”

As he started to walk towards the elevator she called out, “Martin, I believe you have my key.”

He looked down at his palm, then burst out laughing as he handed it back to her.

“I don’t know if this is according to Hoyle, but would it be rushing things. Miss McCoy, if I kissed you goodnight?”

“Yes, yes, it would be. Why not give it a whirl anyway.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her gently.

“Jenny,” he said, ‘don’t go to Chicago tomorrow. “

“You’re not only rushing things, you’re interfering with my livelihood. I have to be at Marshall Fields at eight o’clock Monday morning, but I’ll be back Friday.”

He looked at her, then brushed the curls back off her face.

“Call me, will you?”

“I can’t promise … If I have time, I will.”

“Make time. In fact, I’ll pick you up at La Guardia.”

“Well, that’s a deal. I’ll call.”

After he had gone, she shut the door and leaned against it. / think I like you a whole lot, Martin Roth. And I’d like to know more about what goes on inside your head. The fascination for Jenny was not only that she’d found Martin very attractive, but that he was a Jew. He represented something forbidden. Growing up in Biloxi, Louisiana, she hadn’t seen a Jew until she went to Hunter. Then she found them exotic and exciting. Until now she hadn’t dated one, but Martin Roth heightened her senses. She went to bed wondering what it would be like to make love to him.

Monday morning Dominic stopped by Martin’s office.

“Well, how did it go, old buddy?” Dominic said.

“What go?”

“Your date with the Queen of Sheba with Jenny, of course.”

“Just as you planned. You’re always on target, Dominic.”

“I take it you like her.”

Martin nodded.

“She’s a very nice girl.”

“That’s the best you can say? She’s fabulous and you know it.”

“If you think she’s that great, how come you were so generous?”

“Well, truth to tell, old buddy, I tried. But I couldn’t score with that lady. How’d you make out?”

“Let me tell you something, Dom you’re beginning to sound like a yenta.”

“Sticks and stones … what did you think of her?”

“I’ll let you know if I see her again.”

“I’m really shocked. I thought by now I would have heard the sound of the mating call. Okay, old buddy, you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t. Just tell me one thing. Did she turn you on?”

Martin stood for a long moment looking at Dominic and then smiled.

“Jenny McCoy would turn on the Sphinx.”

“Well, thank God. There’s still hope for you, Martin, boy. I was beginning to worry.”

In the week to come, Martin found his thoughts kept turning to Jenny.

Like a schoolboy with his first crush, he lay in bed at night fantasizing what she would feel like. The days dragged interminably and it was sheer agony when Friday came and she hadn’t called. Every time the phone rang he lunged for it. By four o’clock he’d almost given up hope. Then, finally, the phone rang. It was Jenny.

Controlling a sudden inclination to stammer, he said, “How did your promotion go?”

“Wonderful.”

“That’s good. What time does your plane arrive?”

“Well, my flight’s been grounded. I should be in, give or take a few minutes, around seven-thirty.”

“I’ll be there.”

Envisioning those long legs and the perfect body, he felt a stirring in his groin and realized it would be a while before he could get up.

That hadn’t happened to him since high school, but damn, it was a great feeling.

He arrived at the airport half an hour early and was frantic with expectation when he saw her coming down the ramp with her long elegant stride. His eyes took in the tawny mane of hair, the deep amber eyes.

Composing himself as best he could, he said casually, “Welcome home.

Where would you like to go to dinner? “

“Surprise me.”

But she wasn’t at all surprised when they went back to the same little restaurant they’d gone to the night of the party.

As she sat across the table looking at Martin over the rim of her wineglass, she admitted to herself how much she had missed him. Martin had not been the only one plagued by fantasies. Jenny had fallen asleep and woken up each day she was in Chicago thinking about him.

She knew she was going to have an affair with him. Had he pressed, she’d have let him carry her off to her bedroom that first night;

nothing would have prevented her from losing her virginity Yet, till now, her discipline had less to do with her strict Catholic upbringing than the fact that she hadn’t met anybody who had aroused her to the point where she felt it was worth risking purgatory. Now, dammit, the one man she wanted to give herself to had to be a Jew. Mother Superior obviously would have instructed Jenny McCoy to exorcise Martin Roth from her thoughts. And even Jenny was afraid Martin was wrong for her, but looking at him, she suddenly didn’t care.

Jenny felt a sense of unreality. His nearness, the sound of his husky voice, sent soft flutters through her.

“What would you like to eat?” Martin asked, bringing her back down to earth.

“What? Oh … I … why don’t you order for both of us.”

He gave the order to the Italian waiter in what was apparently flawless Italian.

She was impressed.

“I didn’t understand a word, but I know your Italian must be impeccable. How did you learn that?”

“A little something I picked up when I was touring the war zones of Palermo.” Martin laughed.

“The army paid for that vacation as well as the lessons in Italian.”

There was something sobering in his voice that made Jenny uncomfortable.

Then he smiled and they both began talking at once. Jenny knew she was acting like a sixteen-year-old on her first date. She kept picturing him in her arms, in her bed. His Italian had impressed her. It had taken four years after leaving Biloxi for her to learn to speak English correctly. Now she felt intimidated by his sophistication. She sat with a fixed smile, answering his questions about Chicago with one-word answers. What a departure from the self-assured Jenny of a week ago. Tonight she was subdued, and just seeing Martin made her feel unsure. She was going to try like hell not to let him know it, but she knew she wasn’t in his league. He had class written all over him and she still

thought of herself as poor white trash. But she’d made a life, she reminded herself. Working since she was twelve at the local soda fountain, ushering at the Bijou Theatre, and at fourteen moving into Cora Belle Collingworth’s anteroom so she could be at her beck and call and wash her fanny during all those years of her supposed illness. Illness-she was a drunk, that’s all, and Jenny thought back to the times Cora Belle had the screaming meemees and slapped her around until she was black and blue. She’d come a long way since then, but that’s what she’d had to go through to earn the money that got her through Hunter College. Well, Jenny said to herself, she might not have been so classy then, but no one would know it now.

Remembering her long struggle restored her self-esteem, and by the time the waiter brought dinner, she had recovered her spirits and her voice.

“Has New York always been home for you?” she asked.

“No. San Francisco. And you?”

That was always a delicate question for Jenny.

“Biloxi Louisiana as opposed to Mississippi.”

“Oh? For some reason you don’t seem like someone from the South. You have no accent for one thing. But even aside from that, I don’t see you as a Southern belle.”

“Really? And what is a Southern belle supposed to be like?”

“I don’t know. Pampered, spoiled?”

“You think that’s only a Southern trait? Truth is, Mr. Roth, there’s a little Scarlett in every lady.” Jenny laughed, but Martin realized that there was a great deal more to Jenny than appeared on the surface.

To break the mood he asked her to dance. After they sat down again, Martin kept staring at her. In spite of her sophisticated manner, there was an air of vulnerability about Jenny. And although nothing about her seemed contrived, Martin sensed something studied about her poise.

“Jenny, tell me about yourself,” he asked.

“What would you like to hear?” she said, looking totally enchanting in the candlelight.

“I’d like to know about your childhood.”

She looked at him for a long moment.

“Well,” Jenny said, starting slowly, ‘it’s not a very original or very pretty story. “

“I’d still like to know, that is if you want ” To tell? I suppose I don’t mind. Well, talk about living on the other side of the tracks, the McCoys certainly did. When I was a little girl, I used to sit on the park bench in the town square and watch the elegant ladies coming out of the Bonton Department Store. Well, I thought they were elegant at the time. Anyway, they used to carry all kinds of packages out to the black chauffeurs, and at Christmas, I used to dream about all the things I wanted. I’m sure it was then that I made up my mind that I was going to be rich and I was going to be a lady. You sure you want to hear all this, Martin? “

“Please, I want to know more.”

“All right. Maybe my ambition was greater than that of most kids my age. Even then I knew that life was what you made of it. No matter what the cost, you had to salvage yourself. I suppose that’s what I did.” Suddenly she stopped.

“Why am I telling you all this?”

“Because you know I’m interested in you. Please go on.”

“Okay. Well, my mother drank too much because she couldn’t accept herself or life. She died five years ago, not from cirrhosis of the liver as the death certificate stated, but by committing suicide day by day until she finally drowned herself in the bottle.” Jenny hesitated.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

He lit one for her.

“My father ran away from my mother when I was five. Strange thing is, I never really hated him. Don’t ask me why. I just felt that he was going to come back. I dreamed about it, really. Well, anyway, I saved money from the time I was able to earn. I’d always known that I was going to New York, and I had a teacher in the eighth grade who became my mentor. She told me I could do anything I wanted with an education.

She was the one who really inspired me. Well, when my mother died, the bank sold the small house we lived in and put the money in trust. Then

took it out and went to college in New York. So now you know the happy saga of Jenny McCoy. ” She looked at Martin as though studying him.

It was the honesty in her eyes that impressed him most. It took real courage to talk about her past, and what he felt now for Jenny was more than just physical attraction. He wanted to protect her, to make up for her past.

“Well, you know about Jenny McCoy. What about Martin Roth?” she said.

Since he didn’t want to discuss the war, his relationship with Sylvia, the areas of disagreement with his mother and father, it left him with little to talk about except his happy days at Yale with Dominic.

When he’d finished, Jenny suspected there was much he was leaving out.

“So why did you leave your father’s firm?” she said.

“I wanted to make it on my own. Find out who I was.”

“And what have you found so far?”

“That I’m happy to be here at this moment with you … Now how would you like to take a walk?”

“I’d like that.”

The night was clear and cool and they walked without speaking. It seemed to Jenny that more words would be superfluous after all they’d said tonight. It wasn’t until they reached 73rd and Lexington that Martin broke the silence.

“I live in that building,” he said.

She made no comment and they kept walking. From time to time they stopped to look at the displays in store windows, but much too soon she found herself in front of her own building.

For an awkward moment she stood silently looking at him. She wanted Martin and knew she was going to have an affair with him, but she wasn’t ready quite yet. She was saved from finding an excuse not to invite him up when he asked, “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

Knowing that magic moment was yet to come, she answered with a strange sense of relief, “No, I’m not busy.” Then she found herself being drawn into his arms and

gently kissed.

“This has been the best evening I’ve had in a long time.”

“Thank you, Martin, it was for me too.”

“Sleep tight,” he said. Then he kissed her again and walked off.

Upstairs, she closed the door to her apartment and, with out turning on the lights, walked into her bedroom and inexplicably began to cry.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer, but the thought of the confessional on Sunday terrified her.

After an almost sleepless night, Jenny was awakened from a light doze by the phone. As soon as she heard Martin’s voice, her fears fled.

“I just wanted to say hello,” he said.

“Hello.”

“What would you like to do tonight?”

Go to the moon with you, she thought, but said only, “Whatever you feel like.”

I’d like to take you to bed.

“Do you like Mamma Leone’s?”

/ could skip dinner.

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

By eight o’clock, Jenny was a nervous wreck. In the last hour she had changed five times and was still not sure she was wearing the right thing, because she wasn’t entirely sure what Martin liked, what kind of woman pleased him. For some reason she could not fathom, she settled for a demure lilac chiffon that enhanced the delicate colouring of her skin and made her amber eyes glow. She was studying herself in the mirror when the bell rang.

Afraid to ask him in, she grabbed her purse and wrap, opened the door, stepped into the hall. He kissed her without restraint.

“You look enchanting,” Martin said.