Jack and Susan in 1953 (16 page)

The club women on her guided tours that day at the Metropolitan came away from the galleries with the unfortunate impression—engendered by Susan's tone of voice, and sharp commands—that the Golden Age of Athens must have been something similar to Hitler's Third Reich.

After work Susan went straight home and climbed into a hot bath. When it grew cold, she ran hot water again, and soaked some more. Woolf whined and scratched at the bathroom door. When that didn't gain him entrance, he tried barking. When that didn't work, he pulled all the covers from Susan's bed, dragged them into the kitchen, and went to sleep on the soft pile. In the tub, Susan tried not to think of anything, but she could not blot out what had happened the day before.

She wore gloves that evening because her fingers were so water-wrinkled.

Rodolfo took her uptown to La Caravelle for dinner. That made her feel good, even though the restaurant was only ten blocks south of Jack's apartment, and four avenues over.

Rodolfo was wearing a new suit, a light-colored tropical-looking linen suit. Susan didn't like it. It wasn't quite the season yet; it was still a few weeks till the time Manhattan men allowed themselves lighter colors. And the suit somehow made Rodolfo look more Cuban. Extraordinarily handsome still, of course—but handsome in a, well, Cuban sort of way. She said nothing about the suit, however, though she flushed when she saw the maître d' eyeing it with what she took to be disapproval. As if a too-light suit were more ridiculous than the bow-tied mink stole worn by the floozy who was escorted in right after them.

Two martinis, a bottle of wine, and La Caravelle's fine food began to restore Susan's equanimity. It was a relief also that Rodolfo had not renewed his proposal of marriage, though she expected it to come before the end of the evening. That put her in mind of another engagement. The thought occurred to her again and again, until it was like a chant in her mind, that Libby and Jack were both fools and deserved each other.

…deserved each other…

…deserved each other…

…deserved each other…

Rodolfo reached inside the pocket of his linen jacket and withdrew a long, oversized white envelope. He placed it on the table between them.

Susan looked at it and him quizzically.

“Open it, please,” he said.

She took up the envelope and held it to her breast a moment as the waiter took away some of their dishes. When the waiter was gone, she took out the papers that were inside.

The alcohol was making Susan's head swim. The romantic lighting in the restaurant was dim and it was hard to read the small lettering.

“They're tickets,” she said finally, and pushed them back into the envelope. “Tickets on the Italian Line. Tickets for where?” she asked, forming her words carefully, trying not to sound as tipsy as she felt.

“Two first-class cabins on the
Andrea Doria
. Sailing for Cuba a week from tomorrow.”

Susan stared, not quite sure what to say. Nothing came to mind. She opened her mouth, and what came out was “To Cuba…”

“My home. You must meet my family—and your uncle, of course. I have already written him, and I have had a letter from him today. He says we must stay with him for a few weeks. He says that he feels very ashamed—he has neglected his favorite niece for far too long.”

“I am his
only
niece,” Susan pointed out.

“He says that he will build us a house to live in. I will run his plantation and you will make him laugh.”

Susan smiled, though she knew that a smile at this juncture might get her into trouble. “He says my letters make him laugh,” she said to Rodolfo. “I don't make anybody else laugh. I make most people uncomfortable.”

“That is because you tell the truth.”

Susan looked away, thinking about Jack and Libby. She hadn't told either of them the truth.

…deserved each other…

If she had told Jack that there was still some possibility of love between them, instead of insulting him every time she ran into him, then perhaps he wouldn't now be in the clutches of Libby Mather.

If she had told Libby that she wasn't done with Jack Beaumont yet and that she—Libby—was to stay way the hell away until Susan
was
done with Jack Beaumont then maybe Libby wouldn't be wearing that dreadfully ostentatious diamond on her finger. Libby wouldn't say it was an engagement ring, but she denied it in such a way that it was no denial at all.

If Susan had spoken up and told the truth, she wouldn't be practically engaged to this handsome Cuban sitting across the table from her.

She hadn't told the truth; and now she must pay the consequences.

He was speaking to her in Spanish. And probably had been for some time, but her mind had been wandering, and it was befuddled with the martinis and the wine. Now a second bottle of wine had been brought to the table, and Susan was replying to him in Spanish. It really wasn't a very good idea, though she didn't know exactly why that should be so.

“Do you prefer to be married here or in Cuba?” Rodolfo asked.

Susan sipped at the wine he'd poured her, and thought,
How do I get into these situations…?

“If we get married here in New York,” Rodolfo went on, “the wedding will be held in the home of the Cuban consul and we will need only one cabin on the
Andrea Doria
. And if we get married in Cuba, the wedding will be held in the home of your uncle.”

Susan continued to sip her wine. She smiled, though a smile was now more dangerous than ever. She thought about it all, and to her surprise, she didn't have any difficulty imagining it happening. It was certainly no stranger than imagining the wedding of Jack and Libby. She knew that she ought also to consider what life with Rodolfo would be like
after
the ceremony, but she was tired, and she'd been through a lot. Her imagination at this interesting point seemed to give out.

“Which will it be?” Rodolfo persisted. “New York or Cuba?”

Susan took another sip of wine.

“Cuba,” she said.

Susan was hung over the next day. She decided to take the day off, and she called in sick.

“Did I do the right thing?” she asked Woolf over breakfast.

Woolf hesitated, as if waiting for her to explain,
about what?

“About Rodolfo,” said Susan.

Woolf wagged his tail rapidly. Evidently he felt that she had.

The telephone rang. She was certain it was Rodolfo.

A little perversely, she felt that her acceptance of his proposal of marriage should be enough; he shouldn't pester her with telephone calls. She placed a pillow over the telephone, which muffled the ring until Woolf pulled the pillow off in order to play with it as if it were a dead animal.

Susan took Woolf out with her about eleven o'clock. She walked around Washington Square, then set off west, along Christopher Street toward the Hudson River. She bought herself and Woolf hot dogs from a vendor, not forgetting that Woolf liked ketchup and relish. She decided to try to call Jack—to tell him that he really was going to have to take his dog back as she was going to Cuba in order to get married and she had no intention of taking Woolf along with her on the
Andrea Doria
, not because she wasn't fond of Woolf, but because there wasn't time even to apply for a quarantine exemption. She dialed his number from a pay phone, but he wasn't at home.

Susan stood at the end of Christopher Street and watched the Cunard Line ship
Caronia
pass downstream. It was headed toward the Battery, toward the Statue of Liberty, and out to sea toward some other country. She could see the passengers, with champagne and balloons, leaning over the deck rails and waving. A week from today, a week from this very moment, she'd be on another ship, headed toward Cuba. Depressed for some reason, she bought Woolf another hot dog, and spilled ketchup on her shoes.

When she returned home, there was a telegram waiting for her.

There were four folded sheets inside the envelope. Her landlady on the first floor had tipped the delivery boy fifteen cents, and demanded that she be reimbursed.

Susan gave the woman three nickels, explained that Woolf wasn't there permanently but was only visiting for the afternoon, and then—having got rid of the landlady and locked Woolf in the bathroom—she sat down and read the telegram.

It was in bad German, and it bore no signature.

She read it through again.

She stared out the window at the brick wall.

Woolf was barking in the bathroom. She got up and let him out. He bounded through the apartment with all the apparent joy of someone who's been unjustly locked up for years seeing unbarred sunlight for the first time again.

Susan read through the telegram a third time. It no longer seemed so strange to Susan that the telegram had been composed in German.

She crumpled up the four yellow pages into a ball and placed them on a saucer and set a match to them. The burning fired a black circle on the surface of the china, but Susan didn't care. She was somber, and her hangover was gone.

Accepting Rodolfo's invitation to travel to Cuba aboard the
Andrea Doria
now appeared to have been a very wise thing to do.

Susan swung into action. She packed two small bags with clothing, and set them beside the door.

She grabbed her purse and went down to the street, then headed toward Seventh Avenue. On the way she stopped in at a delicatessen and purchased half a dozen cans of Red Heart dog food. On Seventh Avenue she walked downtown until she came to the Hertz Driv-Ur-Self System outlet, where she rented herself a forest green Nash Airflyte Ambassador with power steering.

She drove back to Washington Square, parked illegally by a fire hydrant, ran upstairs, and fetched her bags and Woolf in a single trip. She got in the car and headed uptown. At a Western Union office on Second Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street—only eleven blocks from Jack's apartment—she sent a telegram to Rodolfo.

It read:

She turned east and zoomed over the Queensborough Bridge. She drove fast, as if someone were chasing her. All the way out to the end of Long Island Woolf sat next to her on the front seat with his head lolling out of the window, staring teary-eyed into the warm spring wind.

J
ACK QUIZZED MADDY relentlessly. What had Mr. Estess meant when he said that Jack was fired?

“He meant that you don't work for the firm anymore,” said Maddy.

Jack was in a daze. Had Mr. Estess meant to imply that Jack was not to come to work anymore, that he was not to receive any more employee benefits—such as health insurance, use of the executive cafeteria, and a biweekly paycheck?

Maddy nodded miserably. Tears began to dig tiny trenches through the layers of makeup on her cheek, just as the Colorado River had worn through seven thousand feet of geological strata to create the Grand Canyon. “Do you know who they're giving me to?” Maddy wailed in the midst of her erosion. “They're giving me to Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton is a pansy, Mr. Beaumont. Mr. Hamilton will never even look at me!”

Jack was embarrassed. In the first place it had never occurred to him that Mr. Hamilton was a pansy; he'd thought him no more than a meticulous dresser—and rather envied him that. In the second place Jack never knew that Maddy put so much stock in being admired; he knew how infrequently he had complimented her in the past two years. Jack blushed violently on both counts.

But then the color drained from his face with the realization—coming to him with full force—that he had actually been fired.

“Did Mr. Estess give a reason?” Jack asked, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “I can't believe it, Maddy.”