The Best of Everything (65 page)

"Don't touch her!" the policeman said, pulling her back.

"Don't let her lie there like that," Caroline said. "It's so dirty there." And then she began to cry, because she realized that Gregg didn't know or care whether it was dirty on the floor or not.

There was a man standing leaning against the wall. He looked gray and sick and as if he would fall if he were not using the wall for support. "She fell right down," he murmured. "Right down. She just ran right down the stairs and fell down."

"It's all right," the policeman said. "We know."

"Right down . . ." the man repeated, as if he were stunned. "Right down those stairs. I thought she was locked out."

Two interns came up the stairs with a stretcher, and the crowd moved aside. There were the two pohcemen and some people who were in nightclothes and were evidentiy neighbors, and the man who had witnessed the scene; and David Wilder Savage and that girl. He had his arm around the girl now and he did not say a word. Paul put his arm around Caroline. "Don't look," Paul said softly.

Caroline couldn't help looking. She watched as the interns put Gregg's body on the stretcher and carried it away, down the stairs, very gently, as if she were still alive. Someone had put a sheet over her, and Caroline had the wild, illogical feeling that if they didn't take the sheet off Gregg's face she would smother. But Gregg was dead. . . .

"Somebody has to call her family," Caroline said. She looked at David Wilder Savage standing there in his bathrobe with his arm

protectively around that girl, as if he were married to her, and suddenly, although she knew it was not his fault, Caroline resented him. "I don't know where they hve," she said, looking pointedly at David. "They never wrote to her, and Gregg didn't say. Somebody has to find her family."

"We'll find them," the policeman said. "It's somewhere in Dallas," Caroline said. "They'll find them," Paul said gently. "Come." Caroline was still looking at David. He had not said another word, and his pale face was controlled; a Httle unhappy, a httle shocked, but mainly controlled. The girl beside him looked bewildered. She was young, in her early twenties. That's Judy Mas-son, Caroline thought suddenly, as if she actually knew the girl. It gave her a strange, queasy feeling. Don't you care? Caroline wanted to cry out to them. "Is that all now?" David Wilder Savage asked.

"Yes," the policeman said. He was writing in a httle notebook. "You can all go home now."

Home, Caroline thought. She let Paul lead her away, feeling his gentle, capable hands on her shoulders. She didn't even say goodbye, but tiien as she started down the stairs she looked back once and saw David Wilder Savage leading Judy Masson back inside his apartment, protectively, and closing the door. Nobody cares about anybody, Caroline thought; we could all die, and who would care? Does anybody really care about anybody? When she found herself in a taxi with Paul she put her head on his shoulder and let the tears come out of her closed eyes, and she was grateful for his comfort. Who am I really crying for? she wondered. For Gregg? For myself? For every girl in the world who wanted someone to care? "We'll go to your place," Paul said.

She hardly heard him. I wouldn't listen, she was thinking, when Gregg wanted to talk to me in the middle of the night.

When she was in her apartment-the apartment she used to share with Gregg-Caroline let Paul take off her coat and then propel her gently to the studio couch. She lay down and he took off her shoes and put her coat over her like a blanket and poured out a httle glassful of brandy. "Drink this," he said. "I don't want you to think about it any more tonight." 'Tou're like a nurse."

She drank the brandy and he knelt down on the floor beside her bed and stroked her hair. "You can't stay here tonight," he said.

"No . . ."

"Do you want to come to my place? My parents are home, it's all right."

She shook her head, "I want to stay here/'

*1 don't think you should."

"Will you stay with me?"

He looked worried for a moment and then he smiled. "I will if you like."

"I don't want to be alone," Caroline whispered.

He was still stroking her hair, gently, hypnotically. "I don't want you to be alone," he said very softly. "I want to take care of you. You'll never have to be alone."

Her eyes were closed. She hardly knew what she was saying. All she knew was that she didn't want to be like Gregg, she didn't even want to be like Caroline, she didn't want to be alone. "Do you love me?" she asked. "You've never said so."

"Yes," Paul said. "I love you."

"Very much?"

"Very much."

"I want somebody to love me," she whispered.

"I love you."

"Do you still want to marry me?"

"Yes."

"I want to marry you, too," Caroline said.

Paul rose to his feet and sat down on the studio couch beside her. He put his face next to hers, his cheek against her cheek, and did not say anything for a moment. Then he said, "I'll make you happy."

"I know you will."

He turned his face and kissed her on the mouth. She did not move. Happy, she was thinking, happy. ... It was what she had said to Eddie. She tried not to think of it, but only to smooth out her mind as you smooth out the sheet on a rumpled bed and not to think of anything but Paul and how he would take care of her and cherish her for ever after. "You'll be glad," Paul murmured. He kissed her again, gently, as one might kiss an invalid, and yet she could feel tlie pulse beginning in his lips and she tried to keep her mind blank and smooth.

Paul lay beside her on the narrow studio couch. There was just enough room for tlie two of them if they lay close together. He did not disturb the coat that covered her but put his arm around her waist over tlie coat and held her to him. "Caroline . . ." he said, and he kissed her mouth again.

Eddie, she thought, and she fought to keep the thought out of her mind. This is Paul, my fiance. My fiance. He loves me so much. And I'm so fond of him, so very fond of him. I love him. She kept her eyes shut as Paul kissed her again with more feeling and then she felt his hand moving the coat aside and touching her shoulder. She did not move, or even dare to breathe. His hand moved to her waist and the bones of her ribs just beneath her breast and she still did not move. She tried to think of how much she really cared for Paul; he was so good, so kind, so right.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Fine," she whispered.

"Let's get married as soon as possible," he said. "We've known each other so long. I've waited for you so long." His hand touched her breast and she knew then what he meant. Eddie! She thought. It came into her mind like a scream, so loudly and desperately that she wondered if Paul himself had not heard it. Oh, please, she thought, please God, make everything be all right.

She opened her eyes and looked at Paul. He was leaning on one elbow, with his other hand beginning to stroke her breast, and he was looking down into her face, smiling at her tenderly. She realized then that he had taken off his glasses and folded the earpieces back neatly behind the lenses and placed them on the coffee table next to the bed. She had never seen him without his glasses before, and it startled her a little because he looked so naked without them. His face was so close, so undressed, there was something so intimate about it, all white and half blind with the preparations for love. This is how he'll look when we're married and he goes to bed with me, Caroline thought. She was suddenly overtaken with a wave of nausea and fright and she sat up quickly.

"What, darling?" he asked.

She had her hands over her face and was shaking her head. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, she thought, and she knew then that it would be no use to try any longer with Paul.

"Please," she said. "Oh, please. Go home now."

"Don't you want me to stay? I'll sleep on Gregg's bed, or even in the chair if you like."

"Please go home, Paul. Don't worry about me. I'll be all right now."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He stood up and put on his glasses again. He smiled, completely unaware. "Would you like me to tuck you in before I go?"

She shook her head.

"You go to sleep. I'll call you tomorrow morning." He was smiling down at her. "And Caroline . . ."

"Yes?"

"Save Monday lunch hour. We'll go for the ring."

She shook her head but she did not answer. She could not bear to tell Paul tonight. I'll tell him tomorrow, she thought; on the telephone.

When Paul had left she stood up slowly, like someone who is first testing his unsteady legs after a long illness, and walked to the door. She locked it. Then she walked back to the dresser and opened the drawer where she had hidden Eddie's framed photograph and she took the picture out. It wasn't a very good likeness, it was too formal. Eddie looked much better than that. But it was all she had. She set the photograph on top of the dresser and looked at it for a while. Tomorrow she would have to get some silver polish and shine up the frame.

How long she sat on the edge of her bed staring oflF at nothing she did not know. She could call Eddie right now, or she could not. He would meet her tomorrow and she could say yes to his plan, or she could not. She did not even try to make a decision, she simply sat there, and she tried not to think of anything at all. Her mind that had been so active she could not shut it off, when Paul was making love to her, was now completely stilled. It had stopped working at last, she had managed to turn it off. The Httle motor had run down.

She did not even feel like crying. She had cried, and it was over now. She was through with crying, numb, drained, dead. I'll sit here forever, she thought tiredly, and never think again. Everything will be easy that way. Never think, never move. If tomorrow never comes and I never have to speak to Eddie again, I can go on. But

Eddie's face, his voice, his words, the meaning of the question she dreaded, tore her with so many conflicts that she could not think about them. She could not say yes and give up her life to live only a poor part of a life for ever after. That would be more painful than anything that could ever happen to her now. She knew only one thing, dully, that she never wanted to feel as hurt again as she had in these past hours, when the hurt was so great that her mind rebelled and could not register it any more.

The telephone rang four times before she answered it, although it was only inches from her hand. "Yes," she said.

"Caroline ... is it really you?"

"Who is this?"

"Can't you guess?"

"I don't want to guess."

"It's John Cassaro,"

"Oh," she said. She paid a little more attention now, because his call was a surprise. She felt nothing, but she was surprised, and that at least was something. "How did you find me?" she asked.

"There's a great American institution known as the phone book. You made it this year, baby."

She smiled, despite herself. "I guess I didn't think of that."

"I must have waked you up," John Cassaro said sympathetically.

"No . . . What time is it?"

"One o'clock."

She looked at her watch. It was twenty-five minutes to two. Well, what did it matter? "Do you always call people in the middle of the night?"

"My friends I do."

"Oh."

"I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No," Caroline said. "You didn't."

"I get lonesome at night," John Cassaro said. "Don't you ever feel that way?"

"Yes."

"What's the good of getting another phone call in the daytime when you're busy? It's the night hours that are the bad ones."

"Yes," Caroline said again. She was beginning to feel a Httle better. She didn't believe a word John Cassaro was saying, they were obviously Hes, and yet they happened to be true too.

"Nighttime is a waiting time," he said. His voice was low and intimate over the telephone, an after-midnight voice, from one person who is alone to another. "What are you doing, Caroline?"

"Now?"

"Yes."

"Nothing," she said.

"Are you dressed?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a suitcase and an evening dress and a bathing suit?"

"Yes," she said, perplexed.

"Then put them all together and take a taxi to my hotel. I'll be waiting for you downstairs and I'll pay the cab. We're going to Las Vegas for Christmas."

"Who's 'we'? Not me," Caroline said. But she was surprised to find herself smiling at the impudence and madness of this man. He sounded a little impish too, as if the Las Vegas trip was an idea he had thought of only this instant on the telephone with her.

" 'We' consists of you and me and four of my friends. Don't worry, we're going to take a regular plane. It leaves at four-thirty, so you'd better hiury up."

"Las Vegas . . ." she said.

"You don't have to work tomorrow. It's Christmas Eve. I'll get you back in time Monday morning. Now tell me something. Do you have something better to do on Christmas?"

"I . . . don't know." He was actually trying to persuade her, in his way; John Cassaro, who could have nearly any girl he wanted if he would only ask. Why did he care whether she went or not? He could find a dozen girls once he got there. She still didn't trust him, but it pleased her that he wanted her particularly to go, even though she knew she had no intention of going.

"What better thing are you going to do tomorrow night?" he asked. "Hang up your stocking with that guy?"

"What guy? And don't be so fresh."

"That guy you wouldn't break your date with the last time I called."

"I don't even remember who it was."

"I do," John Cassaro said. "I remember your dates better than you do. What a girl you are." His tone was so pleasant that she could not quite get angry with him. He was teasing her, he wasn't insult-

ing her, and the difference in his tone showed the difference quite clearly. She wanted to hang up on him because he had called her at such an inconsiderate hour, with such a disrespectful request, and yet, somehow, she couldn't. Because his voice was amused and reassuring, and when she listened to it she thought of things like "What shall I say to him now?" and it was fun, and when he made her spar with him tliis way she was only half aware of her loneliness and pain, as if providence had sent someone to divert her.