Sincerely, Willis Wayde (28 page)

“It won't,” Sylvia said. “I know it's fresh of me but just looking at you makes me curious, because you look so happy and so sure of everything.”

“I'm glad you think I look happy,” Willis said, “but I wouldn't say I am, entirely. Actually—to draw an inventory—I want to be successful, to get ahead, and eventually to be my own boss, with a business of my own some day and a home of my own of course, and a family. But my main problem just at present is to get ahead, and that's quite a game in this town.” He had forgotten about Sylvia, being lost for a second in his own imagination, but he was acutely aware of her when he paused. She was leaning toward him listening, and it was the first time he had ever thought of her as good-looking. “Well, that's my picture and now it's your turn. If you had a wish what would you wish, Sylvia?”

He saw her hesitate but the light had not left her face.

“I'd like about what you want,” she said, “but a girl can't get any of those things by herself, you know. I'm awfully tired of being poor and bright.” She gave her head a quick shake. “I'm tired of being just me. If I were to tell you what I want just now, you'd think I was an awful fool.”

“Oh, no,” Willis said. “Go ahead and tell me.”

“All right,” she told him, “I want that green dress in Bergdorf Goodman's. I always want something I can't get.”

The Plaza was not a bad place for wishes, he often thought afterward. The voices and the music made Willis gay and reckless.

“Personally,” he said, “I've been wanting to buy an automobile all day, and drive to the country with the top down.”

“Have you?” she asked him. “Really?”

Nothing that he was thinking made much sense. He could never analyze the reason behind the decision that he made, and he never cared to try to explain it.

“Listen,” he said, “if you want that dress we'll go over and buy it.”

“Don't be silly. Of course I can't do that,” she said.

“You can if you want to,” he told her. “We'll buy the dress and then we'll buy a car. It might be a very good idea if you and I did what we wanted for once.”

“Willis,” she said, “don't be ridiculous. Of course I couldn't do anything like that.”

He smiled at her. He had often considered large sums of money in the abstract, but he had never realized so definitely and concretely exactly what money meant.

“Sylvia,” he asked her, “what's the matter? Are you afraid?”

“No,” she said, “of course I'm not afraid, only—what would people say?”

“No one needs to know,” he said, and he nodded to the waiter and asked him for the check.

He was Willis Wayde again as soon as they were out of the Plaza, and Sylvia Hodges, though she did have a good figure, looked plain and rather pale. She would have looked much better if she had worn more lipstick. She was Sylvia Hodges again, the girl whom he used to know in Cambridge.

“You know I can't let you buy me a dress,” Sylvia said, and it no longer seemed possible now they were out of the Plaza.

“I don't suppose you can,” Willis said, “but just the same I'm glad I asked you.”

“I never thought that you and I could be so much alike,” she said.

“I guess we're both tired of what we are, aren't we?”

“Yes,” he said, “I guess so.”

“Well,” she said, “it's been awfully nice seeing you, and thanks for the tea. I really ought to be going now.”

“But you haven't told me where you live,” Willis said. “Can't I come up and call on you sometime?”

“Oh, I live in an apartment with another girl,” she said. “You don't want to see me again, do you?”

“Yes,” he said, “seriously, I want to,” and he got out his notebook and pencil, and she gave him her address and telephone number. “But I am going to buy an automobile today, even if it's a Ford.”

“Then I'll go with you,” she said. “I'd like to see what it's like to buy one.”

Willis's five years in New York with Beakney-Graham and Company had molded him into the man he became. He had risen by gradual steps from an ordinary employee in the office to a first-rate junior executive, and he had started from the bottom in the worst years of the depression. It was confusing to him that Sylvia Hodges should have disturbed his assurance that afternoon.

There was always a reaction to everything, and reaction swept over him when he went to his apartment on West Tenth Street in order to bathe and change before meeting those clients at the Waldorf. Willis lived at that time on the third floor of one of those old brick dwellings that he liked to call “mansions” which still existed on Tenth Street. His room might have been the owner's bedroom before the house was remodeled into apartments. Its proportions reminded him occasionally of the Harcourt house, and the Harcourt house was always the standard of his tastes. This must have been in his mind when he had shopped around for secondhand furniture and rugs, at a time when it was still possible to pick up Victorian chairs and tables at a reasonable price. His studio couch and typewriter were all that gave his room a modern touch. His clothes were in a black walnut wardrobe which he had purchased for fifteen dollars. The rugs, though worn, were good Persian carpets. He had bought a mirror and two steel engravings for the wall, and a Morris chair and a General Grant desk and a revolving bookcase. If acquaintances from the office asked why he didn't buy some new stuff now that he could afford it, Willis always answered that he liked it as it was. He always felt at home whenever he reached his apartment, but its quiet was like a rebuke on that May evening.

He felt foolish and uncertain of himself, once he was inside the room and the door was closed. He had bought a runabout and he had written his personal check for it in the showroom and had agreed to take delivery late Monday afternoon. He did not mind the expense as much as not knowing exactly why he had made the purchase, but he did know that he would never have taken such a sudden step if he had not met Sylvia Hodges. He had done it on account of her, but now that she was gone the episode was like a daydream.

At the same time a trace of his elation still was in him. Without his being in love with Sylvia Hodges, for a while their minds and desires had blended together, and they had defied together things that held them. They had both wanted the power of money, and they had felt its power. It had expressed itself in the glittering showroom with its friendly salesmen and in the red paint and leather of the car. They had also shared an identical sense of guilt. He remembered she had told him in a frightened whisper that he really ought not to do it.

“It's just as though I had done it myself,” she said. “I never thought you'd be so crazy,” but she was really saying he was not crazy, that she admired him for the act and that she understood his motives.

When he selected a new tie and looked at himself in the mirror, his features and his light hair were the same as they had been that morning. It might be just as well not to see Sylvia Hodges again. She was plain and awkward and yet she would have looked well in that green dress.

When his telephone rang, Willis was so deep in his imagination that the sound made him start guiltily.

“Hello, Willis,” a girl's voice said.

“Oh,” he answered, “hello, darling.”

It was Lydia Hembird calling, who had an apartment in the Village in order to get away from her parents' home in Montclair, New Jersey, and who was studying at the Art Students League.

“Darling,” Lydia said, “have you got a girl up there looking at etchings, or have you got a cold or something?”

“Oh, no,” Willis said. “Why?”

“I'll bet someone
is
there,” Lydia said. “Your voice sounds so devious. I'll bet you've got someone in bed with you this minute.”

“Oh, no,” Willis said, “not this minute, darling.”

“You're too cute to be trusted around the corner,” Lydia said. “Willis, how about coming to dinner, and then, the way it was the other Saturday? You haven't forgotten, have you?”

“Of course I haven't, darling,” Willis said.

He had to leave to keep his appointment at the Waldorf, but at the same time he had an alluring mental picture of Lydia.

“Look, Lydia,” he said, “you don't know how much I wish I could, but I've got to go right out. Business entertainment. It's a crowd from Cleveland and I've got to see
Red, Hot and Blue
again.”

“You poor darling,” Lydia said. “You promised you were going to call me up this afternoon, you know.”

He had completely forgotten that he was going to call up Lydia. Nothing ever seemed to end with Lydia.

“I know it, darling,” he said, “but I've been tied up with these people all afternoon.”

“Oh, Willis,” she said, “you know you could have taken a minute off to call me. It's awfully thoughtless of you when I've been waiting around for hours.”

Of course he should have called her and of course he should have remembered.

“I never dreamed you'd be waiting around all this time just to hear from me,” he said.

“But I told you I was going to,” she told him. “Haven't you had me on your mind at all? You said you were always thinking about me. You told me so the other night.”

“Of course I've been thinking about you, darling,” Willis said, “but there are lots of other things.”

He found himself pacing nervously back and forth before his writing desk, but he was tied by the cord of the telephone, which also tied him to Lydia Hembird.

“What sort of other things?” she asked.

“Business,” he said, “and it looks as though I've got to go out to Cleveland next week.”

“I'll bet it wasn't all business this afternoon,” she said. “I'll bet you were out with some other girl.”

“Lydia,” he told her, “I've really got to be going now. I'm sorry I was thoughtless, Lydia.”

“Then if you can't come over tonight,” she said, “come over for breakfast in the morning.”

He was still tied there by the telephone cord to Lydia.

“I wish I could,” he said, “but I have to take those people out to Darien in the morning.”

He waited for her to answer, but there was nothing but unbelieving silence. It was a relief at last to be able to feel honestly indignant.

“If you don't believe me,” he said, “get up tomorrow morning and stand by the Park Avenue entrance of the Waldorf. I'm going out to Darien with Mr. Hawley from Cleveland.”

“Darling,” Lydia said, “you can come around on Sunday night, can't you?”

“Why, yes, I'd love to, Lydia,” he said, “and good-by until then, darling, and I'll tell you a secret, but I didn't mean to tell you until Sunday night.”

He could not understand what made him say those last placating words, except it was unkind to leave her with the feeling that he was not enthusiastic. “I've bought a Ford runabout with red leather upholstery. I bought it this afternoon.”

“Oh, darling,” she said, “was that why you didn't call me?”

“Yes,” he said, “of course it was.”

“Darling,” she said, “I can't wait. I'm awfully sorry I was mean to you.”

Willis had a feeling of temporary relief when he hung up the telephone, and it was a greater relief to think about Sylvia Hodges. She was different, he was thinking, from any girl he had ever known, shy and aloof and proud, and even her plainness was appealing. Sylvia Hodges would never seduce him in an off moment. Sylvia would never bother him on the telephone.

It was also a relief to meet Mr. Nat Hawley in his suite at the Waldorf, because there Willis was dealing with a familiar personality. Industrial executives, Willis was beginning to learn, were different from Mr. Henry Harcourt, who was an older model, but they were all pounded and battered and then smoothed on a sort of universal production line.

Mr. Hawley's suite was in disorder. There was an array of bottles on the table, and ice and soda and an untouched plate of sandwiches and even two individual bottles of milk. The contents of a briefcase were scattered over another table, and coats were draped over the backs of chairs. Mr. Hawley was pacing back and forth in his shirt sleeves, holding a highball glass. Pete Judkins, second vice president of Hawley Pneumatic Tool, was pouring himself a drink, and Art Rose, assistant sales manager, in his undershirt, with his face covered with shaving cream, stood in a bedroom doorway.

“Damn it,” Mr. Hawley was saying, “after you've made a sale take your hat and get the hell out. You can tell all the boys that from me personally, Art.”

When he saw Willis, Mr. Hawley gave a loud, happy cry. He was a heavy-jowled man with black eyebrows, and he clasped Willis by the hand and at the same time held him by the elbow.

“Well, well, if it isn't our host for the evening,” he said. “We've just been sort of washing up and having a little
skitch
and soda before we get on the road. Help yourself to skitch, unless you want some bourbon.”

“Thanks, I could certainly do with a touch, Mr. Hawley,” Willis answered heartily. It was always best to pretend that you liked liquor, and yet he knew that Mr. Hawley's hard brown eyes were watching how he handled it.

“You call me Chief,” Mr. Hawley said. “You're working for Pneumatic Tool tonight, isn't he, boys?”

“He sure is, Chief,” Pete Judkins said.

“Okay, Chief,” Willis said. “Hello, Pete. Hello, Art.”

He had not forgotten that they had reached a first-name basis at the University Club. It paid never to forget.

“You go wash your face, Artie,” Mr. Hawley said. “We've got to get on the road and see
Red, Hot and Blue
. What's the plot of it? Am I right in believing that a girl sits on a waffle iron?”

“That's right, a waffle iron,” Willis said. “There are really some good bits in the show.”