Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (32 page)

     And now here she was, almost within reach...

     But he held back. Not now, not yet. He wanted to savor it; he wanted to fantasize about the many ways he was going to punish her; he wanted to build himself up to the point where his pleasure at torturing her was going to be sublime.

     As he watched her move toward the restaurant, Danny felt the sexual tension tighten within him. He realized he was going to have to let some steam off after all; if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to keep going at this rate and maintain control.

     He went back to the registration desk and got himself a room for the night. Then he joined the crowd in front of the hotel who huddled under umbrellas against the rain while waiting for their cars. When he got his Jaguar, Danny struck out into the rainy afternoon in the direction of Beverly Hills, charged with energy and power. He was thinking of the large-breasted salesgirl with the gold corsage back at Bragg on Rodeo. She didn't know it, but she was about to have the evening of her life. Perhaps the
last
evening of her life.

Hollywood, California, 1958

P
HILIPPA THREW UP IN THE BATHROOM
. T
HIS WAS THE
seventh morning in a row, and one of the other boarders had alerted the landlady to it. So when Philippa came out, Mrs. Chadwick was waiting for her.

     "What's wrong, honey?" the woman said. "You didn't have a bite of breakfast—haven't for a week. So how come you're throwing up?"

     "It must have been something I ate last night."

     "Come here, honey, I want to talk to you." They went into Mrs. Chadwick's apartment, where blond Danish modern furniture stood on spindly wrought-iron legs and the kitchen contained the latest ultramodern turquoise appliances. The TV set, tuned to
Dragnet
, was the focal point of the living room and had a trio of sleek black panthers arranged on top of it.

     "Can I ask you a personal question?" Mrs. Chadwick said. "When was your last period?"

     Philippa was startled. Why would her landlady want to know that? "I can't remember. I guess I've skipped one. Maybe two."

     Mrs. Chadwick sighed. "Honey, you're pregnant. Don't you know that?"

     "Pregnant! Oh no, I can't be. I'm not married."

     The landlady sighed again. This wasn't the first young female boarder she had had to illuminate on the facts of life. "You got any family? Folks somewhere maybe?"

     Philippa thought of Johnny in San Quentin and shook her head.

     "Mmm," Mrs. Chadwick said. She had wondered from time to time in the past four years about her quiet boarder, why the girl had no friends her own age, no family, never talked about where she came from. But Mrs. Chadwick prided herself on being a landlady who wasn't nosy; as long as the rent came regularly and on time, and the lodger was clean and quiet, she kept out of their business. She liked Philippa Roberts; so sweet, so reliable. Even helping with the dishes at night, which she didn't have to do, and sometimes bringing things home from the drugstore, like opened candy boxes that couldn't be sold or leaky perfume bottles that had to be tossed out. Mrs. Chadwick liked these simple gifts, and the girl's occasional company when she didn't have night school. They would get together sometimes and watch
What's My Line?
and share a bowl of buttered popcorn. And Philippa was sensible, not crazy like some girls who were making fools of themselves over this Elvis person. So Mrs. Chadwick felt this was one time it would be all right to interfere.

     "What about that boyfriend of yours?" she asked. "The one you been seeing?" Mrs. Chadwick had her doubts about this so-called boyfriend. He never telephoned, never came by; she might almost suspect that there was no boyfriend at all and that Philippa had made him up, except that the poor girl showed the obvious signs of being in love and she went out most evenings. And, of course, now this. So there was a boy friend, but Mrs. Chadwick couldn't help thinking that there was something suspicious about the relationship, something that made her think that when he heard this news he wasn't exactly going to hand out cigars.

     "Is it true?" Philippa asked Mrs. Chadwick. "Are you
sure?
I mean about my being pregnant?"

     "Well, I'm no doctor, honey, but you've got the signs." Mrs. Chadwick put her hands on her wide hips and gave the girl a sympathetic look. Men. Mrs. Chadwick knew all about them, and she had had her fill. "I have to ask you another personal question. It's the only way to find out. Have you been sleeping with your boyfriend?"

     Philippa felt her cheeks redden. "Yes," she said. "I have."

     "Well then, honey, you're going to have a baby, all right, and you'd better tell that boyfriend of yours."

     "Yes," Philippa said, experiencing a baffling mixture of fear and excitement all at the same time. A baby.
Rhys's
baby.

     "I must tell him right away!" she said, and she started to leave.

     But Mrs. Chadwick put her hand on Philippa's arm and said, "Listen, honey. Sometimes men...well, they don't react to this kind of news the way you'd expect them to. What I'm trying to say is..."
What I'm trying to say is that Mr. Chadwick married me because I was pregnant with his baby. He didn't like it, but he did it. I was lucky. We ended up having a decent marriage, until that heart attack got him.
"Just remember, honey, that it might come hard to him, this kind of news. If he reacts wrongly, just give him a few days, let it settle into him, let him get comfortable with it, like a new sofa. Everything will work out, you'll see."

     "It will be all right, Mrs. Chadwick," Philippa said, her eyes shining. "You don't know Rhys. He's a very loving man. This baby might be just what he needs to change his life around."

     As Philippa hurried out, the landlady watched her go and thought, I've heard
that
one before.

     Philippa went first to her room, where she had only last night wrapped a present that she was going to give to Rhys. It was her little book bound in floral cloth, in which she wrote inspirational thoughts. In the two months that she had been seeing him, she had witnessed more of his sadness and fatalism; he was tender and loving in bed, he was a slow, considerate lover, he always made her feel special. But then he would return to his typewriter where the roll of butcher paper was cranked out each day, covered with defeatist philosophy. She had tried to get through to him, to make him see his worth, his value, but she made no impression. Perhaps this little book,
which contained her philosophy—"Believe and succeed" and "Always remember that you are special"—would help him. That Rhys would regard such homilies as simplistic she had no doubt, but he needed to be reached, one way or another. She didn't yet know what unspeakable event had occurred in his childhood, but she knew that it was the root of his low self-esteem, his belief that he, and all people, were worthless and doomed.

     She had tried so many times to talk to him after they made love, when they were lying on his mattress and he would toy with her hair. She would try to explain that there was worth in everyone, and hope, and the ability to make life better. But he would only laugh softly and stroke her, as if she were a child who had just uttered something compellingly naïve. She couldn't get him to take her seriously. But now there was going to be a baby. Part of her, part of him. Maybe this would make him realize that there was, after all, a future.

     When she turned down his street, she realized that she was walking so quickly she was almost running. She couldn't wait to tell him the news. Perhaps Mrs. Chadwick was right and Rhys wouldn't take the news well or maybe he would be ecstatic and ask Philippa to marry him.

     Whatever happened, it would turn his life around in one way or another. He would finish his book, send it to a publisher, and live for tomorrow, for the future of their child.

     As she was hurrying up the steps of his apartment house she thought she heard a car backfiring. And when she entered the building, she saw Mr. Laszlo, the landlord, running up the stairs two at a time. By the time she reached Rhys's apartment, several other tenants were banging on the door and calling to him.

     Philippa pushed through and used the key Rhys had given her. The first thing she was aware of when she opened the door was the pungent smell of smoke—but not the usual marijuana smell. Something else.

     And then she saw him slumped over his typewriter, a curious berrylike stain on his temple.

     She saw the gun on the floor, still smoking.

     "
Mein Gott!
" cried Mr. Laszlo, and then the other tenants were suddenly animated. Someone shouted for the police, another for an ambulance,
while Philippa walked slowly forward, staring at the closed eyes, the peaceful expression on Rhys's handsome face. She gently drew him back from the typewriter; his head flopped unnaturally. She looked at the last thing he had typed: "There are no more words."

     The room seemed to tilt.

     She saw men running in; they swam through the water of her tears. Numbness, like novocaine, crept up from her feet all through her body as she stood off to one side and watched men in uniforms take away the man she had loved—men in dark blue with badges; men in white with medical patches on their sleeves, unfolding a stretcher. Someone with a pad and pencil came up to her and asked her some questions. She noticed he had a pimple on his chin.

     "That's the girlfriend," someone said, and Philippa recognized by the accent that it was Mr. Laszlo. "She came
after
the gunshot. Mr. Rhys, he kilt himself.
Mein Gott.
"

     As Rhys was carried out on a stretcher, a sheet over his face, his arm fell down and Philippa saw the strong square hand that had so many times explored her body, and that had written such sad words, and that had ultimately fired the gun.

     People kept coming up to her and saying things, but she stayed where she was. After Rhys was gone, she heard Mr. Laszlo say, "He got a brother in Sacramento. I call him. Yes, he come get all this stuff."

     Philippa walked over to the typewriter, picked up an end of the paper, and began unraveling it. The words made no sense, she couldn't read them. But finally she came to "...plump partridge in this papier-mâché town. Her face, with the sweet roundness of a cherub, she was like a pure, baby angel, when she opened her mouth to speak, light came out. Her soul is young. She has a long road to walk before wisdom will carve her up. She lay in my arms like a warm little quail..."

     The next thing she knew rain was falling over her, and lights seemed to go runny around her, and she was vaguely aware of headlights and of other pedestrians and someone asking her something.

     She went past Mrs. Chadwick's boardinghouse and kept hinese and people get out. At Hollywood and Vine, couples sat in a coffee shop and ate
butterscotch sundaes. The newsstand on Cahuenga was battened down for the night. Cherokee Books was dark. Palm trees drooped in the rain; where had the sunshine gone? A panhandler asked her for a dime. Runaway kids huddled under the awning of the Golden Cup, looking for someone to take care of them.

     And then Philippa was back at Mrs. Chadwick's and she was walking up the front steps and then up the stairs to her room, barely aware of her drenched clothing, the squishing of her shoes, the little voice in her abdomen that kept saying, Why? Why? Why?

     Philippa awoke to the sound of her teeth chattering. In fact, her whole body shook as if she were cold, and yet she realized she was burning up.

     She looked around, discovered that she was in her own room, in her bed, in a nightgown, but she had no memory of getting there. She saw her clothes crumpled on the floor—the blouse and skirt she had worn to tell Rhys the good news—and the little floral cloth-bound book lying on her desk next to the history paper she had been working on for a midterm grade. It occurred to her that she might fail that class.

     She wondered how long she had been in bed, and she shook some more, so badly that it alarmed her.

     Memories of her long walk in the rain came back in patches, but not her memories of Rhys. What she had found when she unlocked his door and went into his apartment. No, she wouldn't think about that.

     Now she was burning with fever. She felt terribly sick.

     And then the cramps hit.

     Mrs. Chadwick had made herself a tub of that new stuff called California Dip, the mainstay of every social gathering these days, and she helped herself generously to it with each potato chip that she plunged into the bowl. She was comfortably ensconced in her Relax-a-Sizer, her feet up in big fluffy slippers, and she was watching
I Love Lucy
, her favorite show. Lucy had just said, "Ricky, you're impossible," and Ricky had just said, "You're the one who's impossible,
I
happen to be quite possible," when she thought she heard a noise outside her door.

     Mrs. Chadwick considered herself to be very modern—she had one of those fancy remote control devices that let you mute the TV set with the touch of a button, which she did. And as she listened, hearing the rain that had been punishing Southern California for three days, she thought she also heard another sound. It was almost like someone knocking, but very softly.