Skyscraper (31 page)

After a moment during which Lynn said nothing, there being nothing to say, Jennie said, low, “You'll see him, I count on you. I'm pulling out of here, as soon as I can get packed. Jake will stand for the broken lease. He'll be good to me. He doesn't really give a damn for me, you know. But men are funny.”

Lynn said, feeling as if her mind had been beaten black and blue, “Then—I shan't see you again?”

“No, probably not. Don't let that worry you.” She put her hands on Lynn's shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You're a
good kid. Look here, whatever's wrong between you and Tom, make it up. It doesn't pay not to. You don't know how lucky you are. I do.”

“You don't understand.”

“No, I suppose not. Slim told me something, though. Said Tom was sunk. Said he couldn't find out why, all Tom would say was that you'd let him down, believed something that wasn't so. Don't be that way, Lynn. I don't know what you think he's done or hasn't done. I don't care. Only, if he's your man and you can make a go of sticking together the rest of your lives, what does anything he's done matter? It wouldn't to me, murder, arson, robbery—Lord, if a good guy loves you and is
yours
—I sound like a torch song. But I mean it. Don't you suppose I'd lie or steal for Slim now that I
know
? I was always the dunce in my class, I always knew the answer too late. Well, I'm doing the next best thing for him.”

She asked again: “You'll see him, won't you? Swear you won't tell him what I've told you. Just say—'She's leaving town—and you stay on your own side of the fence.'”

Lynn promised. A moment later she was out in the corridor. The door had shut. Jennie was whistling—what is it? —the blues song they had heard at Dwight' s, so very long ago. Lynn's cheeks were wet, whether with her own tears or Jennie's she did not know. She stopped and stood irresolute before that closed door. If she could persuade her—? But she could not. She went on, alone. That afternoon she telephoned the house on Perry Street. If Tom answered! But he wouldn't answer. He'd be working. She prayed he'd be working. She prayed he would not be working. Waiting, listening to the operator ringing, she felt faintly ill with fear—and with hope.

Slim answered.

“Slim? This is Lynn. I want to see you; it's important. I have to go to a class uptown. Could you ride up a ways with me? I wouldn't ask you, but it means a lot.”

He replied, thinking, she wants to talk about Tom, “Sure, I will, Lynn, glad to; I—had sort of a date, but it's off now, I guess.”

He's been trying to phone Jennie, she thought.

He came along presently; she was waiting outside the apartment. They boarded a bus, found an empty seat.

“What's on your mind?” he asked her.

“I've seen Jennie.”

“Oh.” He flushed, looked away. He said, with an effort, “I suppose she—told you?”

Sparing him as much as she could, she denied it. “No, nothing. Except to ask me to see you at once, and tell you she's leaving town. She's going—West, Slim. She wanted you to know it.”

“Leaving town?” He was silent a moment. He said presently, “Running away, eh? I suppose she thought I'd follow her She's wrong.”

“She doesn't want you to follow her, Slim,” Lynn told him.

“No, I suppose not. I don't blame her. She's picked the sort of job which matters most to her; she doesn't want her shabby friends hanging around, interfering.”

He was cold with anger, hot with shame. He thought of the freight elevator. He moved away from Lynn. He said, “Nice of her to let me know.”

“Slim, you don't understand. Don't be so hard on her. She—”

Lynn stopped. She'd promised. Besides, it would do no good to tell him, to try and interpret Jennie for him. It might do harm. What was the use, anyway?

Slim said, against his will, “I was crazy about her. I wanted to her to marry me—once. She wouldn't.”

He was silent. There was nothing he could say of the things crowding and wounding his mind. He had loathed the whole situation. It hadn't been his fault, he told himself. Jennie knew he was crazy about her. She must have known how he felt when—when she moved uptown. Sick, disgusted, hating her, hating everything. But love, or love's little sister, hadn't died, couldn't. She'd known that too, phoned him, asked him up, made things easy enough. Everything was wrong, everything was spoiled. He hated her now, more than ever; and himself. But—men are funny.

Now she was leaving, sending this untender message. Well, good riddance; she'd played hob with him, all right! His throat swelled, closed. He asked thickly, “Is—is there anything more?”

“No, Slim, that's all,” Lynn said.

But her eyes pleaded although her mouth was mute. Tom? How was he? What was he doing? Did he miss her? Slim, Slim, tell me about Tom!

Despite his preoccupation, his harsh anger and harsher grief, her unspoken longing reached him. He said awkwardly, “Gee, Lynn, I'm sorry about you and Tom—He doesn't say much but, gosh, he's shot! He's working hard, making good. They like him up there. Hank says he'll do something big some day; he wants, you know, to get into the laboratory end of things. If—shall I tell him I saw you?”

Now her mood had changed. She answered him briefly, “I don't care what you tell him, Slim.”

“I see.” He was silent a moment. Then he said, pressing the button near him, “Well, I'll be getting off here. Thanks for calling me.”

She said, as he rose, “Jennie—shall I tell her—?”

“Never mind telling her anything,” he said.

She watched him, tall, overlean, walking to the door, getting off, crossing to the curb, without a backward look. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Why had she been so obstinate? Couldn't she have asked first, “How is Tom?” Couldn't she have said, “Why doesn't he call me up?” Damn pride anyway: hers, Tom's, Slim's, which wouldn't give Jennie the comfort of a word!

She called Jennie at the first opportunity. “I saw him,” she stated.

There was silence on the other end of the wire.Then Jennie's voice, subdued, hoarse with unrestrained crying. “Did he send me—any message?”

“No, Jennie.”

After a moment Jennie said, “That's the payoff. Sure, that's fine!”

“Jennie, I'll see you before you go?”

“No, if you don't mind,” Jennie said carefully. Then she cried out over the wire, “Lynn, you're such a darned swell kid. I'd like to think of you—happy. That would help, a lot.”

“You'll write me, Jennie?”

“Oh, sure, I'll write. Goodbye,” said Jennie faintly.

But she wouldn't write. Lynn, hanging up, knew that. Farewell to Jennie—farewell.

Slim, reporting to Tom, was taciturn.

“Jennie's leaving, she's going West—with—” he swallowed unpleasant words—calling names didn't help—“with
him
.”

Tom commented, tinkering with his newly built set, “Oh yeah—well, what did you expect?” He kept his eyes away from his friend. Men don't go into hysterics of sympathy often. “Oh yeah?” asked Tom, very hardboiled. Damn all women! he thought.

“It's okay by me,” Slim said, magnificently indifferent.

“Did you see her?”

“Jennie? Hell, no. I saw Lynn.”

Tom almost dropped the new tube he was testing out. He repeated almost inaudibly, “Lynn, eh?”

“She called me up.”

“Don't suppose she mentioned me, did she?” Tom asked carelessly.

“Nope.”

Silence. Then Hank, in a corner, rising, knocking out his pipe, “They're all alike. Look here, Tom, we've time for a glass of beer before we trek uptown. Let's go to the Hole in the Wall.”

Slim has seen Lynn. How did she look, is she well, is she happy, has she forgotten me, she can't have forgotten me! But Tom, shrugging himself into an overcoat, spoke no word. He thought, funny, isn't it? Comic, that's what! I'd give my right hand to see her—and Slim, who doesn't care if he never sees her again—

Not long afterward Tom saw her, at the Cherry Blossom.

 

 

 

SARAH TAKES ACTION
HE HAD GONE UP, WITH HIS TWO BLACK BAGS and the announcer, to supervise the broadcast. He was busy behind the screen, testing the lines, waiting for signals, waiting for the broadcast to go on. It was a gala occasion, an anniversary broadcast. The dance music had been very well received; there was a chance it might be continued as sponsored, rather than a sustaining, program. Tom was highly oblivious to everything but his work. Nemo programs interested him particularly. It was his job to regulate the levels, to see that everything was going as well as possible. The announcer did his routine part; the station breaks came at the fifteen-minute intervals. Forty-five minutes of Cherry Blossom music was broadcast tonight. Then it was over.

“Pretty gay crowd,” said the announcer, and looked around the screen.

Tom looked too. The room was well filled, they were dancing, the management had provided favors.

“Swell music,” Tom agreed, tapping his foot and shrugging a shoulder.

“Let's get going,” suggested the announcer. “Hey, what's the big idea?” he asked, in amazement.

Tom had seen Lynn. At a corner table with Dwight. Her hand lay on the table. Dwight's covered it. He was leaning close, speaking to her, low, eagerly.

She was listening. Once she spoke. Once she nodded and smiled. Once she was very grave, shaking her dark head.

“My God!” said Tom aloud.

“Come on,” urged the announcer impatiently. “Have you taken root?”

After a moment Tom stumbled after the other man, out into the wide sleeping gardens, where a light snow was falling where the lanterns swayed in the wind, and those, whose little light had survived, bloomed like immense enchanted and every unseasonable flowers against the drifting flakes and the dark, unstarred sky.

DWIGHT HAD BEEN saying, back there, in the noisy room, “But you must have know always that I loved you, Lynn. I've come to an agreement with—Mrs. Dwight. She will set me free. She's abroad now, we'll run it through, routine fashion, in Paris. And I'll come back for you? Or would you join me there—in the late spring? We could be married in England. You've never known an English spring, have you? It's very lovely.”

She said slowly, “I don't love you.”

“But you
like
me?”

This is where she nodded and smiled a little. She said, “I like you very much. But—”

“Darling, you'll love me. You must. I want you so much,”he told her, “and I—need you.”

She made a curious little gesture, with her free hand, bewildered. She shook her head.

“But why—me?” she wanted to know. “It seems—so strange. All the people you've known—the women—”

“I've never known any,” he said, and believed it; “not since life began. There is only you. No one else has ever existed.”

Tom had gone from her. Tom no longer cared or he would have returned to her before this. She did not know how near he was now, behind the screen, staring at her. She had no warning, no premonition. She felt tired, suddenly, of unhappiness and of struggle. But—David Dwight?

“Don't answer now,” he said quickly, very quickly. “I'll wait. You needn't say anything now. Look up, smile. I'll not speak of it again until you're ready. Shall we dance?” he asked.

Tom saw them rise, saw her go into his arms, before he left.

Tom's duties for the evening were over. He went straight to Lynn's apartment house and was announced to Sarah. She was home, as it happened, and alone. She opened the door to him herself. He came in, shaking the wet snow from his overcoat.

“Why, Tom!” she said, astonished.

It was late. She was ready, she had thought, to go to bed. To rest, not to sleep. She had not slept well recently.

“I had to see you. I've just come from a roadhouse, out Yonkers way. I saw Lynn there. With—Dwight. He was holding her
hand across the table, looking as if he could eat her up—What does this mean, Sarah?” Tom demanded.

Sarah sat down in the nearest chair. She admitted after a moment, “I don't know—”

Tom said, standing over her, “She belongs to me. She knows it. What is she doing with—him?”

Sarah asked a question in her turn. “What has happened between you? Tell me, you
must
tell me, Tom, if I'm to help you.”

He sat down, facing her, and told her briefly, in his boyish speech. When he had finished he repeated, through her long silence, “I didn't do it. She just jumped at the conclusion. Didn't give me a chance. I could produce Rawlson, of course.”

“Rawlson knew?”