Tales for a Stormy Night (28 page)

“Jan, I care about you and I don’t like to see you make a fool of yourself.”

“Okay. I get the message.” The worst of it was that deep down it hadn’t been fun; the make-believe that she had almost bought herself now fell apart.

“Don’t sulk over it. For heaven’s sake, you’re not a little girl anymore.”

“I never was a
little
girl.”

“Just don’t drink so much.”

“It’s none of your damned business how much I drink. Okay, keep your Don Juan. I’m going to find Fred.”

She did not look for Fred right away. She went out to the garden to cool off, to sort out anger from hurt, as though they were divisible at the moment. She took a glass of champagne with her, drank it too fast, and then took another from the tray one of the teenaged helpers was passing as though his night’s wage depended on the score in champagne corks. The feeling of humiliation began to set in, a replay of the exhibition she had made of herself. She did not know whom she disliked more, Nancy, Dorfman, or herself. Herself.

She almost went directly home then, but Fred was always accusing her of disappearing at parties. She spent a lot of time in bathrooms, especially if there was a children’s bathroom where the ducks and frogs and floating pigs gave her surcease from the social tensions. Fred was not in the billiard room. No one was. She wandered through the gun room, and wondered vaguely if any of the blunderbusses in the glass cases were loaded. She looked up at the moosehead over the fireplace, its glassy eyes frozen in sadness. “You and me, baby.”

THE DOUBLE ENTENDRE: the sign hung above the door. That’s me, she thought. I’m a double entendre. She wandered with fascinated distaste from one to another of Tom Winthrop’s pornographic objets d’art. He always set out a half-dozen or so for the titillation of his guests. For anyone who appreciated the sampling enough to tell him so, he would come down and show the really important things in the collection. Fred said he’d never seen anything like it. Fred, the connoisseur. It was a strange place to be alone, a strange place to be discovered if anyone came. That was all she needed. She remembered her mother opening the closet door on her, a precocious ten-year old with a flashlight looking at the illustrations in an anatomy book she had stolen from the locked bookcase. “Wicked girl.” There were no locked bookcases in Fred’s and her house. No anatomy books either.

She picked up a picture—in what medium she could not tell—of a unicorn. No larger than three by four inches, in a silver frame, it was exquisite, and she could not imagine what was pornographic about it. Then, when she went to set it down, she saw the trick: a shutter effect where beauty in a different angle of light turned into obscenity. She set it down and turned to flee the room. Dorfman was standing in the doorway.

“Here you are—in the naughty room. What fun!”

She stopped herself from saying that she was looking for her husband. She pushed by him. “Please tell Nancy—if Fred’s looking for me, I’ve gone home.”

“Don’t leave on my account.”

“I’m not,” she said.

She found Fred herself. He was in the library where he and Dick and Phil Eckstrom were deep in conversation. Local politics, she gathered. Eckstrom was on the town board. She did not interrupt. The bar wasn’t crowded, and she decided on one for the road. The bartender, who worked most parties at Maiden’s End, didn’t even ask her what she wanted. He knew: Scotch with a splash. Nancy, she observed, was dancing again. With Phil Eckstrom, senior.

Jan finished her drink and went out by way of the garden. From there she cut down along the ravine path that crossed the creek and meandered up near the Adams house, beyond which lay her own. There was a three-quarter moon, but she knew the path from her own childhood. What did Nancy see in him, she wondered. Something. Or she would not have left her poems at his bedside. He certainly wasn’t going to understand them if Jan didn’t. She often wondered if Dick did, all that symbolism. Not that Nancy cared: It isn’t what they say, it’s what they show. Simply fireworks? Jan had to believe they were deeper than that. She often imagined Nancy making them up, quite removed, while Dick was telling one of the stories in which he was the hero. It wasn’t easy to be a hero in advertising, not and continue to make as much money as Dick did. Pure fantasy. To which all Nancy had to say, in effect, was “Yes, dear.” She’d been flying in a holding pattern for years. But then, who hadn’t? After the first child, Jan didn’t say, “Yes, dear,” to Fred. In Fred’s stories he was always the victim; most people found that funny. The trouble was, Fred’s stories were true. Nancy ought not to have spoken to her the way she had. She ought to have understood. Maybe she did. And that was worse, even more humiliating. The hall lights were on in the Adams house, upstairs and down. An unfamiliar car, which had to be Eddie’s, sat alongside Nancy’s battered V.W. in the driveway. They had taken Dick’s Buick. Jan always felt that hall lights made a house look more empty than, say, a light in the living room or an upstairs bedroom. She went round to the kitchen window and got the key from the bird feeder. She returned it after opening the door. There was something she had to know—if there was anything to know: She wanted to see how Nancy had inscribed the book for Eddie Dorfman. In Jan’s copy she had written, “Love, toujours.”

The stairs creaked beneath her step. It was an old house with a curving banister that many a child’s behind had polished over the years. She did not hesitate in turning on the bedside lamp. Somehow it seemed her right to be there. She saw at once that the book had been removed. Dorfman’s one large piece of luggage was on the stand, the flap closed but not entirely zipped. So far as she could see, he had not unpacked at all: no hairbrushes or shaving kit, nothing on the dresser. She looked into the bathroom. Not even a toothbrush. And he had been freshly shaved. He reeked of after-shave cologne. The bathroom was still scented with it. It was as though, after dressing, he had repacked.

She went to the suitcase and ran the zipper far enough to lift the flap. Tucked into the corner was
Refraction
, the poems of Nancy Eldridge Adams. There was no inscription. Which brought the shame thundering in her ears. It was more difficult to fit the book back than it had been to take it out and in doing so she disturbed the bathrobe and partially uncovered something in chamois.

Now, Jan had given Nancy a chamois bag of several compartments two Christmases before. Nancy used it, when traveling, to carry such of her jewelry as she took along. She had several nice antique pieces and a valuable pearl necklace. Ordinarily they were kept in an ivory jewel box on Nancy’s dressing table. Jan lost no time in discovering that the bag was the same and contained the pearls, a diamond brooch and earrings, and the lovely jade pendant, the only piece of jewelry Jan had ever coveted. Nancy had promised to give it to her some day.

The thought that Dorfman was a thief delighted her after the shock of discovery wore off. The question, however, was what to do about it without placing herself in even deeper disgrace. Her mind grew muddled with the sickening thought of how to explain the discovery: she also wondered then just when the theft had occurred. She had not met him until the party was well on. He could have stayed at the house on some pretext and come along later on his own. But surely he had to expect that Nancy would discover the theft when they came home? Jan understood then why the suitcase was packed: He expected to leave tonight, long before the Winthrop party was over. A rented car. London tomorrow…

However humiliating it might be, Jan resolved to bare the truth to Nancy. Replacing everything, she drew the zipper. And changed her resolution even as she put out the light. What was a handful of jewels in comparison to her own pride? She would let the matter run its course and never let on she anticipated the story when Nancy told her of the theft. It did not occur to Jan to wonder why Eddie Dorfman had not put the suitcase in the car before he left for the party. Her main concern was to get out of the house quickly.

But Dorfman was coming up the stairs when she reached the hallway. He quickened his step when he saw her and came round the banister smiling with that nasty lower lip. “I had a feeling we’d meet again before I took off,” he said. “Something told me.”

Jan gave a little moan of chagrin. She thought of accusing him outright. She had no subtlety, and she was able to defend herself only by striking out in anger. But at the moment she had no anger. Nor could she run: Dorfman stood between her and the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other on the wall.

“Let me guess: You’ve brought me something. A flower? Something that blooms in the night? Come on, let’s have a look.” He nodded toward the door. “You’re not afraid of me, are you? I’m completely harmless unless stepped on.”

Jan made a noise in her throat. No words came.

“I thought that would amuse you,” he said. “Light the light and let’s see where we are.”

Jan turned back into the room and lit the lamp. She would run when the chance came. Simply run.

He leaned in the doorway, seeming to fill it, and looked all around the room before letting his eyes rest on her. “Nothing? Did you put something in my suitcase?”

Jan shook her head.

“I know: Nancy told you I was leaving and you wanted a few minutes alone with me first. If only I had more time…”

“You’re making fun of me,” she said.

“I don’t make fun of women, Salomé.” he said. He came in and closed the door. He drew the bolt across. There was no key.

“Don’t! Leave the door open,” Jan said.

He turned, smiling. “Then you shouldn’t flirt with a man of my reputation. Didn’t Nancy tell you?”

“Just let me go,” she pleaded.

“Go.” He stepped aside.

But as she tried to pass him, he caught her, pulled her around and kissed her, forcing her back to the closed door.

Jan yielded, as though that might gain her time, or some position of advantage, but with the thrust of his tongue between her lips, its probe of her clenched teeth, she broke away.

A few feet apart, they stood and stared at each other. He took his cigarette case from his pocket, opened it, and closed it again. He put it away without taking a cigarette. “Do you mind telling me what you were doing in my room?”

“I was looking for a book.”

He began to laugh, as though at the ridiculousness of the excuse. He stopped. “Nancy’s book? Why? Am I not allowed to have it?” Slowly his whole expression changed; he understood. “Salomé, you’re jealous! You weren’t flirting with
me
. It was an act. And me thinking all the time I was the object of your affections…Eddie, my boy, you’re slipping. You should have caught that—no vibes, no sparks…”

Jan went to the door with as good grace as she could manage. Her main feeling was relief, and at the heart’s core, something almost pleasurable. At the sound of the suitcase zipper she glanced back.

“Look here, Salomé. I’m left-handed. You’ve put the book back in the wrong corner.” He plunged his hand into the case and brought out the chamois bag. “Ha! I’ve found the surprise.” He weighed the bag in his hand, opened a compartment, and closed it again after a quick, pretended glimpse at what was in it. “Nancy’s jewelry? Surely not.” Slowly then in mock wonderment: “By God, I’d never have believed such mischief in a grown woman. You
are
a Salomé. You wanted my head.”

Jan felt faint. Her whole body was perspiring. She pulled at the bolt and skinned her knuckles when it gave.

“Wait,” he said as she stepped out of the room. “Listen to me for a minute.”

Jan paused.

“Why don’t you put these back—wherever they came from—and neither of us needs ever say a word.” He brought her the bag.

Jan took it from him and went into the master bedroom where she put the jewelry, piece by piece, back in the ivory box on Nancy’s dressing table. She tucked the chamois bag into the side drawer where Nancy kept it.

He was waiting at the stairs, smiling. He offered her his left hand, as to a child, the suitcase in his right. “No hard feelings. Come on now, give me your hand and no hard feelings.”

Jan gave it to him as though it were a bribe.

“I’ll bet Nancy doesn’t even know,” he said. “What fun.”

A bribe for what?

With a crack-of-the-whip wrench she whirled him from his feet. He let go of her hand, trying to save himself, but while she fell backward, he hurtled down the stairs, the suitcase clattering after him. She listened for a few seconds and then picked herself up. All she could hear was the pounding of her own heart. The suitcase was lodged between his sprawled legs at the turn in the stairs, the rest of him out of sight from where she stood.

Jan went down carefully. When she stooped and looked into his face Dorfman’s lashes fluttered like a wounded butterfly, but the baby blue eyes only stared. His cigarette case had flown out of his pocket, and a lighter. Jan was stepping round them when she blacked out.

Her first awareness was of rock music, the shattering beat of it breaking through what had seemed a silvery stillness. She was walking across the bridge on the ravine path, the moonlight more vivid than seemed natural. Her mind was crystal clear except that she could not understand why she was going in that direction when she had intended to go home. Then everything came back up to the moment of the blackout. She sat down on the bridge and said what she knew to be a futile prayer, that it was all a dream.

She got up after a few minutes and returned to the party going in the way she had come out, through the French doors onto the garden. Fred was standing just indoors, his pipe in hand, watching the disco dancing.

“No,” Fred said when she approached.

“No, what?”

“I won’t dance.”

“Who asked you?” He had not even missed her.

Nancy and Dick were dancing together, very athletic, the best-looking couple among a lot of very chic and handsome people. The Big Band crowd had all gone home.

“Come on,” Fred said. “You’re pouting. Let’s get into the action.” He knocked out his pipe and put it in his pocket.

“I don’t think so,” Jan said after a tremendous effort inside herself. “Why don’t you ask Liz Toomey?”