The Slipper (28 page)

“You're actually going to throw me out?”

Julie picked up her purse and took out her wallet. She had been paid two days ago and had thirty-five dollars in cash. She pulled it out and handed it to him.

“This should pay for a room tonight and the taxi to get you there. If it isn't enough, I suggest you call Cynthia.”

His cheeks flushed a dark red, and he looked at her with his mouth set in a tight, ugly line. Julie gazed back at him without flinching, without betraying a single emotion, and, clutching the bills in his hand, he finally stormed into the bedroom and began to pack his clothes. Julie stood there for a long time without moving, afraid to move, afraid she would break into little pieces if she so much as breathed too hard, but it didn't happen. She went into the kitchen and put the food away and washed the dishes and the calm contained her like a tight, invisible shell. She finished in the kitchen and went back into the living room and heard him on the telephone, ordering a taxi.

Doug came into the room with two old suitcases, a tennis racket under his arm. He moved past her and opened the door and set suitcases and tennis racket outside, and then he came back and placed the top back on the white box and picked it up. He would look very handsome in the navy blue suit, yes, but she would never see him wear it. The irony of it brought yet another smile to her lips. Doug thrust the box under his arm and angrily shoved a thick brown wave from his brow and adjusted his horn-rims.

“My lawyer will be in touch with you,” he told her.

“Fine,” she said.

“Good-bye, Julie. Been nice knowing you.”

He stepped outside and slammed the door behind him and she heard him carrying his things up the steps and, a few minutes later, heard the taxi honk in front. She did not break down. There were no sobs, no tears. The tight, invisible shell protected her still, and a curious numbness inside held the pain at bay. She stepped into the bedroom and looked around at the disarray he had left, drawers open, contents scattered, the closet door standing wide, her own clothes either pushed aside or hurled to the floor, and, calmly, she straightened things up, put clothes away. She found a worn old tan T-Shirt with CLAYMORE printed across the chest in brown—he had overlooked it or deliberately left it behind—and she remembered the times he had worn it and she almost broke down then. Almost. Julie folded the T-shirt up and put it in the bottom of a drawer and finished straightening the room and looked at the bed and knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep on it tonight.

Julie went into the living room and sat down on the shabby pink sofa, and she was still sitting there as the light turned pale gold and faded to a misty gray. Darkness came and filled the room with blackness and eventually silvery beams of moonlight streamed in through the window and made shimmering patterns on the floor, but she did not get up to turn on a light. She sat there, holding a cushion against her breast, and the tears brimmed at last and she sobbed and clutched the cushion tightly. She cried for a very long time and then she wiped her eyes and, mercifully, slept, curled up on the sofa. Bright sunlight brushed her lids and awakened her in the morning, and she got up and felt grief and loss and emptiness, and it was overwhelming, but there were no more tears. There was no time for them now. She had to get on with the business of surviving.

She was in a cluttered office in back of the library at five o'clock that afternoon, sitting at a long wooden table piled high with new books. They had come in earlier, and Julie's job was to stamp them with the library stamp, declaring them Property of Claymore University Library, and to paste a small library label inside each front cover. It was tedious, time-consuming work, but Julie was grateful for it today. It helped. Rub the stamp on the ink-soaked pad, stamp the book, neatly and carefully so that the ink doesn't smear, place the label on the sponge, gummed side down, moisten it thoroughly, place the label on the inside front cover, smooth it down, close the book and set it aside and move on to the next one. The very monotony was somehow soothing. She had been at it for four hours, working steadily, like an automaton, and there were still at least three dozen more books to stamp and label.

She didn't look up when the door opened, assuming it was one of the other aides come to take a break or have a quick cigarette. She reached for another book and opened it and stamped it and looked up when Nora sighed. Her friend was wearing a tan skirt and a pale yellow sweater. Her customary vivacity was missing today. Her face looked slightly pale, and those lovely brown eyes had a sad expression, faint gray shadows beneath them, as though she, too, had had a very bad night. Nora sighed again, smiled a brave smile and sat down across the table.

“Hi,” she said listlessly.

“Hi. You—you look awful, Nora.”

“Thanks, kid. I needed that. I really needed that today. I'm ready to jump off a high building and my best friend tells me I look like shit. I
know
I look like shit. You shoulda seen me before I bathed my eyes. I didn't get much sleep last night. In fact, I don't think I slept at all.”

“You talked to Brian. You—you told him.”

Nora nodded. “Last night. He took me out to dinner. I told him I couldn't marry him. I told him that I had to write, that it was the most important thing in the world to me. I told him I wasn't right for him, that both of us knew that, that I was doing him a favor—and I
am
, Julie. If we got married, it—it would be disastrous. I know that. Brian knows it too, deep down, but he—he loves me and he still believes love conquers all obstacles.”

Julie applied the gummed label to the book and smoothed it down, then set it aside and reached for another. Nora fell silent, remembering, more subdued than Julie had ever seen her.

“How did he take it?” she asked.

“He was very polite. He was hurt—God, the pain in his eyes—but Brian is a gentleman and a thoroughbred and he nodded gravely and smiled a sad smile and said I had apparently given it quite a lot of thought, and I nodded and he said, ‘I guess that's it, then.' He drove me back to the dorm and walked me to the door. He took both my hands in his and held them tightly and looked at me and—and told me I would always have a special place in his heart. He kissed me lightly on the lips, and then he let me go. I watched him walk back to his car and I thought—I didn't think I could take it. I longed to call him back and tell him it was all a mistake, I couldn't possibly live without him.”

“But you didn't.”

“I didn't. I went inside and went to my room and—and I cried most of the night. Me, the cynical sophisticate with a smart, snappy answer to everything. Can you believe it?”

“You're not as tough as you think you are.”

“I'm tough as nails and you bloody well know it. He—he'll get over it, Julie, and one day he'll thank me. He'll meet the right girl, a poised, perfect Vassar graduate with blood as blue as his—someone named Tracey or Wanda or Gwen—and his parents will approve and the munchkin will adore her and all his friends'll welcome her into the fold with open arms. She'll fit right in, and—and he'll remember the kooky Jewish girl back in college and give thanks every night for his narrow escape.”

“You do yourself an injustice.”

“I'm right. I
know
I'm right, but—it doesn't help at all. Oh, Julie, I—I really do feel like jumping off a high building. I've never been so miserable in my life.”

“I'm sorry, Nora.”

“If—I feel better just talking about it.”

“That always helps.”

“I'm going to get over it. I'm going to be strong.”

“Of course you will be.”

“I'm going to New York and I'm going to
make
it. I'm going to write that blockbuster if it kills me. I've got to now. I'd never be able to forgive myself if I gave him up and then fell flat on my ass.”

Julie didn't say anything. She stamped and labeled another book and then set it aside. How ironic it was. Nora had just given up what she herself had wanted more than anything else—a husband who loved her, as Brian loved Nora, a home in the suburbs, a peaceful, domestic life with children. Acting, no matter how satisfying, could never take the place of that. Nora sighed again and glanced at the clock.

“It's almost your quitting time. Know what I'd like to do? I'd like to get drunk.”

“You don't drink,” Julie reminded her.

“I know. I—I don't suppose you'd like to keep me company tonight?”

“I'd love to.”

“Doug won't mind?”

“Doug isn't in the picture anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“He left me yesterday. He has filed for divorce. He's flying to Chicago with Cynthia Lawrence.”

“Jesus! Oh, Julie—I'm so sorry. I come storming in here and bellyache about my own problems like the selfish bitch I am, and all the while—forgive me, darling.”

“There's nothing to forgive.”

Julie stood up, brushing a speck of lint from her brown skirt and pushing a lock of hair from her cheek. “I can finish this in the morning,” she said. “I just have to speak to the head librarian and then we can leave.”

Five minutes later they were strolling across campus, late afternoon sunlight spreading shadows over the lawns. There were few other students around at this hour. Many had already left for the summer. Julie knew the pain was there inside, waiting to savage her, but calm still possessed her, holding the pain at bay. Quietly, she told Nora what had happened. They paused by one of the fountains.

“Oh, darling,” Nora said, taking her hand. “It must have been terrible for you—and you were all alone last night. You should have called me. You should have—what are you going to do now?”

“I don't know. I—I talked to Mr. Compton this morning. He wants me to apprentice at a summer theater in Cape Cod, said he would make all the arrangements for me, but I—I don't think I should do that. There's something else, Nora. I'm pregnant.”

“Holy shit,” Nora whispered. “You told him?”

Julie nodded. “He wanted me to have an abortion.”

“The son of a bitch! I hope you told him to go fuck himself.”

“Not in those precise words. I—I'm not going to fight him. I'm going to let him have his divorce, Nora. I'm going to have my baby and—I'll make it somehow. I don't have anyone to turn to, but—”

“What the hell do you mean, you don't have anyone to turn to?” Nora let go of her hand and gave her an angry look. “What am
I
, chopped liver? We're sisters, you silly bitch, and sisters stick together. I'll tell you what you're going to do. You're going to go to New York with me. We'll get an apartment and you'll take care of yourself and have your baby and I'll be an aunt. After the baby comes we'll find a nurse for it and you can go study with that Russian woman you told me about and become a famous actress.”

“Nora, I appreciate your offer, but I—I don't have any—”

“If you mention money I'll slap your face, I swear it. I can make plenty of money for both of us. Even if Sheridan doesn't sell my book right away I can whip off enough confessions to keep us in crackers and keep a roof over our heads. It'll be an ad
ven
ture, Julie.”

“Nora—”

“I'm not taking any lip—it's settled. Come on, we're going to go back to your apartment and I'll help you pack. You're not going to spend another night by yourself. We'll stay at the dorm tonight, and tomorrow we'll settle everything here and then it's off to the train station.”

“Graduation. Your diploma—”

“They can send it to me. Stop dawdling, kiddo. We've got things to do, places to go. Right?”

Julie had vowed she wouldn't cry again, but the tears came nevertheless, brimming over her lashes, trailing down her cheeks. Nora took her hand again and squeezed it tightly.

“Right?” she repeated.

“Right,” Julie said.

10

It was April and the sky was slate gray and Paris seemed to be etched in shades of mauve and pewter and dingy brown. The chestnuts might be in blossom and the trees in the
bois
might be green, but who would notice on a day like this, with puddles everywhere and a fine mist still falling? Carol didn't mind the weather at all. After three grueling months on location in Morocco with Roger Hanin and Françoise Arnoul, it was wonderful to be back, to be able to shop and relax or do nothing at all unless the spirit moved her. There wasn't another film on her agenda at the moment, but that didn't bother her in the least. She was in strong demand and another script would come along and, in the meantime, how delicious to stroll along the Champs Élysées this gray afternoon, a belted transparent plastic raincoat over her green-and-black checked skirt and long-sleeved black jersey, the plastic hood pulled up over her short-clipped hair.

Filming in Morocco had been exhausting, yet it had been exhilarating, too. A Hitchcock-inspired thriller—Hitchcock was a God over here, everyone seemed to be imitating him—it featured a remorseful criminal, Hanin, in love with a disillusioned nightclub singer, Arnoul, and indifferent to the waif downstairs, Carol, who is in love with him. After a plethora of fights, stabbings and chases through the twisting alleyways of the Casbah, waif turns in nightclub singer who is actually a spy and, for her trouble, is strangled to death by Hanin, who then gives himself up to the police. It was her second film with Claude Bouchet, a stylish, suspenseful romp filmed in murky Technicolor that would do great business over here and have a limited run in select art theaters in the States. Hanin was ruggedly handsome and great fun to work with, Arnoul was pleasant, if a bit reserved, and Claude was a charmer, driving them all mercilessly but with Gallic good humor.

After the first Bouchet film, Carol had gone immediately into a frothy comedy with Daniel Gélin and Dany Robin, playing a madcap, high-heeled heiress who attempts to take Gélin from wholesome Robin. After a brief rest she had done a drama with Maurice Ronet, her performance as Ronet's neglected and love-starved wife winning plaudits from the French critics. The film she had just completed was unlikely to wow the critics, but it had been an interesting role and fun to do. Without exorbitant, inflated budgets and Machiavellian studio intrigue behind the scenes, filmmaking in France was far more relaxed than it was in America. Carol had done four films over here now, and on the set of each there had been a casual intimacy and a feeling of jaunty camaraderie that was wonderfully refreshing after the ordeal with Berne.