9

 

BENITA SELBY'S JOURNAL. Friday, May 29: " ... my table in the corridor of The Briars' Women's Association. Right now it is ten after ten in the morning. I can't believe this will soon be over. I view the end with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I will miss the excitement. On the other, I will be relieved, for it has been an arduous fourteen months. This is our fourth day of interviewing here, and that means we have nine days more, seven-of which will be devoted to work. I had a long letter from Mom this morning. Her arthritis is worse. Everyone seems to be on edge. I drove in with Dr. Chapman, who is the one exception. He is always nice, but Cass was awful. He could be so attractive if he weren't so sarcastic. He wasn't friendly this morning. He had a headache, and I told him it was smog. He made some taunting remark about my journal, and I told him if it weren't for journals where would we be. I pointed out Philip Hone, Samuel Pepys, the Goncourt Brothers, Stendhal, and Andre Gide. That silenced him, except Dr. Chapman said he hoped I was being discreet, for we have enemies, and I reassured him. More and more, I feel this journal will be a wonderful record of a historic period in modern science. By that I mean, it will serve to humanize Dr. Chapman, if this is ever read.

"When we arrived, Horace and Paul were already here. Horace was a million miles away, as usual, and Paul was definitely upset about something. Usually, Paul is good-natured, but everyone must be allowed an off day. I signed the first three women in at nine, and they are there now. There were two telephone calls. The first was the publicity director of a movie studio inviting Dr. Chapman to lunch in honor of a picture being made about unmarried teen-age mothers, to which he said no because it was undignified but told them he would be willing to address the producers' guild on sex and censorship, to which they agreed—oh, this sentence, when will it stop?—anyway, it will be arranged. The second call was from a young lady requesting me to give Paul a message. She said she would like to meet him for lunch at The Crystal Room at a time convenient to him. I told her twelve sharp was the best time. She said to call if he could not make it. She had a beautiful voice, like Margaret Sullavan and others. Her name is Mrs. Ballard. What would Paul be seeing a married woman for?"

When Paul arrived at The Crystal Room, he saw that she was seated alone in a mauve booth, beneath a glittering chandelier, smoking and toying with a match folder. For a moment, he stood inside the entrance behind a group of new arrivals watching her. His first judgment had not been wrong. She was exquisite. The anger of the night before had given way to curiosity, to that, and to a sense of adventure as well.

He advanced toward her booth.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Ballard," he said.

She lifted her head quickly. "Hello." She seemed relieved. "I was positive you'd stand me up. I wouldn't blame you if you had."

"Surely you didn't believe I would." He sat down across from her.

"Anyway, I'm glad you came."

He smiled. "I'd have made book that I wouldn't see you again."

She flushed. "You understand, I don't usually call strange men and make dates—"

He was about to tease her but saw that she was too anxious.

"...but when I awoke this morning, I realized how horridly I had behaved last night. I kept worrying—that poor man, what must he think of me--"

"He thought you were a determined wallet-loser, and you hated to have it back."

"That was what troubled me most," she said. "You had only tried to do me a favor."

"That's not quite true, Mrs. Ballard."

She stopped, and gazed at him, and he was aware of her silken lashes and Oriental eyes. "I don't understand," she said.

"I was doing myself a favor. You see, you were right last night. I won't let you torment yourself. It was unethical of me, an investigator, to seek out a subject. Normally, I would have behaved with propriety. I would have turned the wallet over to Miss Selby—our secretary—and she would have telephoned you, and you would have come by and picked it up. It would have all been very correct and sterile, untouched by human hands. But it so happened that I had to open your wallet to learn who owned it. I saw your picture. I had to see you. Those are the facts. So it is you, not I who deserves the apology."

She furrowed her brow, averted her gaze, and stared down at the silver service. She thought, What is he saying? Why is he telling me this? Then she remembered. He interviewed me, and during the interview he heard all those lascivious details, and he thinks I'm sex mad, a push-over.

He frowned, observing her. He had believed that she would take his frankness for flirtatious fun, but now he saw that he had troubled her. He thought, What is she imagining? Does she think I'm trying—my God, that idiotic interview—she must think I'm using it to

An elderly waiter, in red and blue uniform with brass buttons, was standing over them. "May I get you something from the bar before lunch?"

Paul looked from the waiter to Kathleen. "Will you join me?"

"I believe I will. Martini."

"Make that two, and very dry," Paul told the waiter, who wrote the order and was gone.

Paul turned his attention back to Kathleen. "Mrs. Ballard," he said quickly. "I think you may have misunderstood me, and it's offended you—"

"No."

"If you imagine, even for a second, that anything relating to the interview had anything to do with my calling upon you —well, I assure you, that is not so. To be perfectly honest, there have been so many interviews, I find it impossible to sort them out. I wouldn't remember if you're the nymphomaniac, the lesbian, or the lush."

She smiled at last. "The lush," she said.

"Of course. I should have spotted it—the blotched cheek, trembling hand, the slight stagger in your voice—and the cluster of diamonds spelling AA."

"Where did you say you lived—Baker Street?"

For a short time, the colloquy remained suspended at that level, formal, inoffensive, unengaged, but brought down to the two of them, finally, face to face, by the appearance of the Martinis.

"Well," he said, lifting his drink toward her, "to you—for making another day possible."

She imitated the gesture. They sipped.

"This is strong," she said.

"Frightened by an olive at an early age."

She laughed.

Both were suddenly aware that they had nothing to say to each other—or else everything. She knew nothing of him, personally, and wondered if it would be bold to ask, and he knew more of her, and knew he could not ask.

"Were you always in this kind of work?" she wanted to know.

"No; just a few years. I used to be a teacher—and writer of sorts."

"What made you give it up?"

"I'm tempted to be flippant. If I were, I'd say an interest In sex and money. My downfall. But that's not so, really. I think I was flattered by the opportunity to work under Dr. Chapman, to be on the inside of something so important. I suppose, in some secret place, I still think of myself as a writer —there's no such thing as an ex-writer—and I like to believe all this will one day be useful. When I'm old and tottering about Monte Carlo on a small pension." He paused and considered what he would say next. "There's another thing I've never articulated. Until now, I'd guess it's been subconscious. But it's poking to the surface. I think I always felt that by being in this work, finding out about others, I'd find out some-thing about myself."

"Have you ever been interviewed—the way you interview others?"

"No. All the sampling on the bachelor survey was finished when I came in. One of my colleagues was interviewed by Dr. Chapman and, of course, the doctor interviewed himself."

"Is that possible?"

"I would say it's impossible—except for Dr. Chapman. He's a remarkable man."

"I thought his lecture was impressive."

"It always is. He's adept at that sort of thing. No, I meant as a human being. He's solid and single-minded. Dedicated. It's good to be around a man like that when everything around you seems uncertain, unsolved, flying off in every direction. He's been a fine example."

"I'm surprised you would need one," said Kathleen. "You seem. . . sure of yourself—I mean that in a nice way."

Paul smiled. "Façade," he said, "like everyone. Inside, there are too many corridors and turnings, and we're all apt to get lost sometime."

"Yes," she said solemnly.

"What I was trying to say before was—well, here I am—thirty-five, a bachelor. It surprises me; it was not what I had always dreamed—"

"Perhaps you've never been in love."

"I'm sure I have, several times, in different ways. At each age, you are in love in a different way. It's like spinning a roulette wheel. If you're lucky enough to land on the right number, you have the right way, you win. Anyway, I thought that sitting behind that screen, listening, learning, might make me a lucky one. I'm not sure now. It sorts out a lot of things, but the deeper confusion isn't touched." He finished his drink. "Maybe you're right, though. Maybe I've never been in love. Maybe I've been afraid." Thoughtfully, he rotated his empty glass.

"I didn't know that happened to men."

"Of course it does. Even to men who are married.”

“You know, I never thought of that."

He continued to turn the empty glass in his hand. "I've been talking too much."

"Only fair," she said. "You've had the advantage of learning all about me."

"That was business. This is pleasure."

"You mean you don't enjoy all that vicarious sex talk with assorted women?"

He saw that she was chiding him, but he remained serious. "It's meaningless after a while. The vicarious part. I enjoy it as a . . . an investigator. It's gratifying to see the statistics develop. But as a person—" He shook his head. "There's an inevitable sadness about everyone."

She stared at her drink. "Does that include me?"

"And me." He studied her sweet, melancholy face. "Your husband—I was wondering—was he the Ballard who was so famous?"

"Yes."

"I've often thought about the widows of famous men. Presidents' widows, for instance. It must be different from having just a man removed. It must be like a planet gone, a planet thickly peopled and buzzing with activity, suddenly taken away."

He waited. Her face was noncommittal.

She thought. Not like a planet removed, but like an army of occupation gone home at last.

"Something like that," she said.

"Have you adjusted to being alone?"

"You have to be very interested in yourself to adjust to being alone. I'm not sure that I am."

He had some stake in her that he did not understand, and he could not know enough. "How do you spend your time now? What do you do?"

"I do what most women do, not just widows, married ones, too." She paused. "I wait."

"For someone?"

"For something ... for life to explain itself to me."

The waiter had returned. Suddenly, they both realized that the restaurant was filled. Kathleen ordered carefully, selecting what she thought he would expect her to like—a bouillabaisse and toasted French bread. Paul ordered exactly what she had ordered, because he wanted her to know he liked what she liked. As the waiter marked the order, Paul decided that later, when they were leaving, he would ask to see her again. He wondered if she would say yes.

Benita Selby's journal. Saturday, May 30: "... eating together at the other end of the conference room, and talking about Cass. When Cass didn't appear at breakfast, Dr. Chapman found him ill with an upset stomach. Dr. Chapman thought it sounded like ptomaine and insisted on Cass resting. He has taken over Cass's interviews today. I had a short letter from Mom. She wants to change doctors because she feels Dr. Rubinfeer doesn't give her enough time and charges too much, and he hasn't improved the arthritis one bit. I wrote her this morning not to make any move until I get home. You start out being taken care of by your mother and always wind up taking care of her. Although, the poor thing is absolutely crippled. Mr. Borden Bush just telephoned from the network to confirm the lunch with Dr. Chapman for Monday. Mr. Bush said to remind Dr. Chapman to bring a list of the questions he wants to be asked when he appears with the panel on `The Hot Seat.' The television show will be coast to coast a week from tomorrow. It was arranged in New York three months ago, to celebrate the end of Dr. Chapman's female survey. I'm most excited, though Dr. Chapman seems to take it in stride. There are still fifteen minutes before we resume. I think I'll read the new Houseday and find out what it's like being an artificial-insemination baby and why that actress gave up career and drugs for God."

Ursula Palmer kneeled before the magazine rack in the hotel lobby, removed the dozen remaining copies of the latest Houseday from behind a rival periodical that partially covered it, and placed Houseday in a prominent position on top. This habit of rearranging Houseday was a task of long standing, one she had assumed the day that she had been hired by Bertram Foster. It comforted her to do this, for she felt that every copy of her magazine sold was one more guarantee of her future.

Rising, she glanced about to see if she had been noticed, but there were only several groups of men in the lobby, wearing the celluloid lapel buttons that indicated another convention had occupied the city. She looked toward the elevators, nervously waiting for Foster, but the elevators were all still airborne.

She wandered restlessly through the spacious lobby, wondering what she would tell him, and then stood beside a huge potted rubber plant, trying to think it out. Her original date with Foster had been for last night, when he was to have driven in from Palm Springs, to see her alone and read her notes. When she realized that she would not have the notes, she had telephoned him in Palm Springs to explain the delay. Alma had answered the phone. Ursula had asked Alma Foster if she were having a good time, had learned she was not having a good time, and Ursula had then inquired for Mr. Foster. He was on the golf course, it turned out, and then he had some special business in Los Angeles. "That's just it," Ursula had blurted, "he mustn't come—I'm not ready for him yet. I hope you can catch him." There had been a forbidding silence, and Ursula had realized her blunder. "Don't worry," Alma had said tightly. "I'll catch him." Ursula had tried desperately to repair the unmeasurable damage. "It's about a series of articles, Mrs. Foster. Would you tell him I don't have the notes ready yet. I'll call him when I do."

That tactical error had been committed early yesterday morning. Early this morning, the telephone had rung, and it was Foster, and it was not long distance. "Alma and I are back in the hotel," he said—stiffly, Ursula thought. "I have only some garbled message from her about your not being ready. I think you better come and explain it straight. I'll be in around noon."

She sat in the chair beside the potted rubber plant and weighed truth against white lie. Could she tell him that the notes on her interview were only one third typed? Could she tell him that she got stuck every time she tried to go on with them, reading and re-reading them, thinking about the past and about her life with Harold? Could she explain that she was up against the first writing block in her entire career? Would he understand? How could he, if she didn't? Wouldn't it be better to shift the blame to Harold—the flu was all over the place, she had read—and keep herself efficient and uncomplicated?

"Well, here you are." It was Foster speaking, as he waddled toward her, and she literally leaped to her feet.

"Oh, Mr. Foster—I'm sorry if I inconvenienced you. I hope you didn't come into town because of me."

He emitted a deep nasal snort. "I did. And Alma did, too.”

“I'm sorry."

"Never mind that. With me, life never is a picnic. I want to know only one thing—what did you tell her on the phone?"

"It was nothing. I told her I had to speak to you, and she said you were playing golf and then going to Los Angeles, and I said that's what I was calling about, that the work we were to go over had been delayed, and that you should not come in until I phoned you back." She showed her bewilderment. "I don't see anything wrong."

"Naturally. Because you're not Alma. I said I had special business. I didn't say with who. The minute she found out—a-ha—anyone in skirts is poison—she began following me like a guilty conscience. So what's the use? Here we are." He studied her, his tiny eyes even tinier. "What's this about no notes? You went in and gave them your whole sex life, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Foster."

"More than an hour, wasn't it?" She nodded. He lifted his shoulders. "So—where's the notes?"

"I have them, but—" She saw that a group of men nearby, attracted undoubtedly by Foster's loud reference to sex, were watching them. She felt uncomfortable. "May we sit down for a minute? I'll explain."

"Suits me." He took her arm, walked across the thickly carpeted lobby to a love seat near the window. "Right here."

They both sat. "I took complete notes at the interview," she went on hastily. "Every question, every one of my answers. It was very thorough."

"It was, eh? You blushed?"

"Believe me, I felt like it. But I told the truth, the whole truth—"

"So help you God?"

"Oh, yes. But I had them down in a sort of shorthand I use. I started transcribing them for you, and suddenly Harold was sick last Monday night—a hundred and two fever—and I've had my hands full with him ever since. But he's better today. I can get on it soon."

"You couldn't hire someone to dictate to?"

"Mr. Foster, I wouldn't let anyone on earth hear or see these notes—except you. Why, it'd be like undressing in front of a stranger."

"I suppose." His eyes were bright again and his fat lips moist. "So I have only a week more here. Give me a date."

"What's today? Saturday. I'll still be busy nursing Harold tomorrow, but I'll start Monday and work right through. I should have them by next Wednesday or Thursday. I'd say Thursday, to be absolutely certain:"

"No sooner?"

"I'll try, but—"

"All right; we'll make it definite—definite Thursday night, here in my room. I'll work out something with Alma. You come at seven and plan to have drinks and dinner and put in a long session." He looked at her a moment. "I hope it's good."

"It will be."

"I already called Irving Pinkert and told him the whole thing about the three-parter. He's impressed, like I promised. So see that it's juicy."

"I hope it is, Mr. Foster. I'm not Madame Du Barry."

He placed his pudgy hand on her knee and rubbed it. "All women are Madame Du Barry," he said sententiously, and Ursula nodded, half believing it, and thought of New York.

But, soon after, driving westward on Wilshire Boulevard, her preoccupation with New York dimmed as the distance she put between Foster and herself grew. New York was winning every battle but the last one, and the last one was Harold. He was finally fixed fully in her mind, and when she reached Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills, she turned off toward his new office, determined to surprise him by settling the decoration of his suite once and for all.

The white building, with its colonnades, was one of the few in the block that housed neither analysts nor internists. The black directory with white lettering, beside the elevator, was populated by public-relations counsels, business managers, and several enigmatic corporations. Not having visited the building since the week Harold had moved in, Ursula had forgotten the floor. She found Harold sandwiched between an importer and a talent agency, and took the self-service elevator to the second floor.

The office was the third from the elevator. On the frosted glass—impressively, she had to admit—was the black lettering: "Harold Palmer and Co., Certified Public Accountants." The "Co.," she knew, was merely a sop to proper status. Harold would have preferred "Ltd." had he not felt it too ostentatious. Except for a tax student who came in to help two months of the year, Harold's operation was one-man.

Feeling all benevolence, like those massive clubwomen who delivered baskets to the hundred most needy each Christmas day, Ursula opened the door and went into the reception room of "Harold Palmer and Co." What met her eye stunned her. When last she had visited the office, the once she had done so, there had been a sagging maroon sofa, a faded slip-covered chair, and a nightmarish Orono reproduction askew on the wall, all furnished by the landlord until his tenant could become settled. But now, by some magical transformation, the landlord's pieces had disappeared, and what replaced them might have graced an interior decorator's window on Robertson Boulevard. The room sparkled with youth and newness and lightness, like a Scandinavian starlet devoted to outdoor living. The two low-slung sofas, the chairs, and desk, were Danish modern, the wood bleached walnut and the fabric gray print. A single deep red rose, in a long-necked Swedish-glass vase, stood on the coffee table between copies of Réalité and Verve. On the walls were fragile lithographs, signed in pencil, by Dufy, Matisse, and Degas. Ursula stood speechless. Whatever had happened proved but one thing—here, at least, she was expendable.

Still in small shock, she crossed to the private office door and rapped sharply.

"Yes?"

"It's Ursula."

"Come in!"

Ursula opened the door and went in. The first sight that met her eyes was the young lady's behind, large, ungirdled, wanton, disgusting. The young lady was bent across Harold's desk, lifting the lid from the carton of coffee on a tray that also contained wrapped sandwiches smelling of hot beef and gravy.

Harold appeared less gray and concave than usual. He waved his arm. "Hi!" He seemed as pleased and afraid as a schoolboy caught smoking. "This is a surprise."

"I'll bet," said Ursula frostily.

The young lady, unhurried by the intrusion, straightened at last, and her buttocks were no less large. She turned slowly, smiling. Her healthy, polished-apple face, like the light-walnut modern furniture in the office, assaulted Ursula with its unused freshness. Her hair was straw yellow, and braided too cutely, and her blue eyes were startled saucers. Her mammary development, beneath the lemon sweater, was indecent, and Ursula was pleased to see that she had thick legs. She looked like a hundred Helgas, a prize Aryan cow, and one of the Hitler Yugend in white middy blouse and navy skirt doing gymnastics in a Nuremberg stadium.

"...my secretary, Marelda Zigner," the hateful goat was saying. "This is Mrs. Palmer."

"How do you do, Mrs. Palmer," said Marelda Zigner, offering two vivid dimples. Her accent was faintly Teutonic, and Ursula knew that she would not let go of it for years. Marelda turned back to the goat. "Is the lunch enough, Mr. Palmer?"

"Fine, Marelda, fine. You better go out and have yours."

"I will, please." She smiled at Ursula. "Excuse me."

Ursula's eyes followed the swaying mammaries out of the office, and Ursula glared at the goat.

"Who in the hell was that?" asked Ursula.

"My new secretary," Harold appeared surprised. "I told you about her last week."

"Don't tell me she also types?"

"Marelda's worth any three I ever had. Those German girls are remarkable—meticulous, neat, efficient—"

"And size forty-two."

"What?"

"Never mind." She waved her hand at the furniture. "When did all this happen?"

"The furniture? Delivered yesterday. You were so busy, with the Fosters here and all, and it was making me nervous, especially since I landed the Berrey account. I didn't want him to come up here and think I was a bum—so Marelda and I went out—"

"Marelda?"

"Yes. It was my good fortune that she'd taken a course in interior decoration at a school in Stuttgart—"

"So she fixed you up all Nordic? Well, we'll see—"

"I thought you'd like it, Ursula. I've had a dozen compliments this morning."

"It's utterly incongruous. It doesn't go with you. It looks like a honeymoon cottage, not a dignified business office."

Harold's left eye jumped nervously. "I kept waiting for you." He indicated one of the sandwiches. "Will you have something?"

"I'm not hungry." She scanned the furniture again. "This must have cost a fortune."

"Not really. You know those Germans. Very frugal. And. . . and now that I have Berrey—well, we don't have to draw on your savings."

"So now you feel independent."

Harold stared at her quietly. "Don't you want me to?" She felt nervous and confused. "Of course I do. I just don't want you to act foolishly. Well, I'd better be going."

"What made you come by? It's the first time—"

"The second time. I just wanted to see how my husband spends his day. Like any wife. Is that wrong?"

"No. I'm pleased."

She had reached the door. Some instinct, long dormant, came alive. She turned, and tried to smile. "I almost forgot, Harold—I'm going shopping; is there anything special you'd like for dinner?"

The novelty of the question, the importance it gave to his reply and to himself, disconcerted him. "I . . . I haven't thought."

"Never mind. I'll dream up something good." She pointed to his tray. "Eat before it gets cold. And chew it well. You know your stomach. I'll see you later."

She opened the door and went out, very erect, bosom high, so that Marelda would know the formidable nature of the democratic opposition.

Benita's Selby's journal. Sunday, May 31: "I'm sitting by the pool of the Villa Neapolis. I finished a five-page letter to Mom. I felt guilty about my abrupt note of yesterday, and I know what these letters mean to her. She has only a son and a daughter to hear from, not counting her sisters, and Howie hasn't time to write, so if I don't who will? I told her we are all expecting a short vacation when we get back, and then I will find out about a specialist and take her to Chicago for X rays and examination. It's very hot by the pool, but the heat is not like the Midwest but drier. You don't perspire as much. There are half a dozen people in the pool. I have on the halter and shorts I bought in Milwaukee, and sun lotion all over. There's a young man across the pool sitting and reading, and a couple of times I caught him looking at me. I must look a sight with this lotion. Dr. Chapman is at the umbrella table behind me with Cass and Horace. Cass is feeling better today. Dr. Chapman is still talking about Dr. Jonas. At break-fast, he saw an article and architect's drawing about an enormous new marriage-counseling clinic being built near the ocean, which Dr. Jonas is going to manage, and Dr. Chapman was furious. I don't blame him for the way he feels about Dr. Jonas, which is only human, because I read some of the re-views that Dr. Jonas wrote. Dr. Chapman asked me if I had seen Paul, and I told him I saw Paul go out early carrying a tennis racket and tin of balls. It occurs to me you can't play tennis by yourself. Who is Paul playing with? The young man across the pool is looking at me again. I think I'll take off my sun glasses and finish this later. ."

Always, before, when Mary McManus had played tennis with her father on Sunday mornings, he had seemed marvelously youthful to her. Even after a hard-fought set, in the most intense heat, his sparse hair lay neatly in place, and his strong face remained dry, and his breathing regular. His white tennis shirt and shorts were always spruce and creased and dapper.

But today, going to the net to retrieve the two balls—she had double-faulted on her first serve—and picking them up, she observed him through the mesh as he stood at the far base line, and she saw that he had changed. He's old, she told her-self with incredulity. His hair was out of place, in wet knots; his face was beet red with sweat; his chest heaved beneath his damp, wrinkled shirt; and his belly was distended in a potty, unathletic way that she had not noticed before. He's an old man, she told herself again. But why shouldn't he be? He's my father, not my boy friend.

She walked slowly back across the baking asphalt court, her thick white tennis shoes making squashing and sucking sounds on the surface, toward her base line. Calculating backward, Mary tried to fix on the period when these weekly Sunday games at The Briars' Country Club had begun. Probably in her last year of junior high school, she decided, shortly after she had started taking lessons. Her father had always taken her along to the club, those Sunday mornings, and settled her on the terrace with a Coke, and gone below to play his doubles match, two out of three. One Sunday, Harry Ewing's partner had telephoned that he was held up, and Mary had been invited to play alongside her father. It had been a thrilling morning—she had acquitted herself stoutly and was highly praised —and soon after, her father had abandoned his weekly doubles to concentrate on singles with Mary. Except for those periods when he was out of the city on business, or one of them was ill, the weekly Sunday game had been continued all of these years.

Even after her marriage to Norman, when she had been so anxious for her father to know that she was not forsaking him, she had gone on with the Sunday match. At first, of course, Norman had been invited to join them, so that she and Norman alternated against her father. But Norman, able as he was at most sports, had neither the finesse nor the training for tennis. As a youngster, he had batted the ball about on various cracked public courts, and he still wielded the racket like a baseball bat. He was not a match for Harry Ewing, nor even for her, and though Mary encouraged him and complimented him, he eventually withdrew. Now it was his custom to sleep late Sunday mornings, while she enacted the traditional liturgy with her father. Most often, Norman was at breakfast when they returned home, and she was twice as attentive as usual in the afternoons.

"Are you all right, Mary?" Harry Ewing called out.

Mary realized that she had been standing at the base line for some seconds. staring at the two balls in her hand. "I'm fine!"

"If you're tired, we can call it quits."

"Well, maybe after this set, Dad. What's the score?”

“Five-six. Love-fifteen."

She had lost the first set, three-six, and now she decided to lose this one, too, and have it over, legitimately or not. Sometimes, in the last half year, she had felt that with extra exertion she could soundly drub him. Her game was sharp, and recently he had been covering the court more slowly. But somehow she had never been able to bring herself to run him around and humiliate him. Especially on a day like today—when he was old.

"Okay," she said. She tossed a ball aloft and went high on her toes and into it, whacking down hard with her racket. The ball streaked an inch above the net, and then bounced. But Harry Ewing had it on the rise, off his forehand, and slammed it cross-court. Mary twisted to her right, watching the ball nick an inch into the alley and out, and then she ran after it.

"What was that?" he called. "Out?"

She snapped the ball off the asphalt with her racket, and caught it. "Right on the line," she said. "Love-thirty." She double-faulted on her next service, and her father advised her to let up a little on the second ball. Then, with the set at match point, they rallied briskly, until she charged the net, and he passed her for the win. -

With relief, she congratulated her father and went into the subterranean women's locker room, welcoming the cement chill, and washed her face and neck and held her wrists under the faucet. After combing her hair and freshening her make-up, Mary locked her racket in its press and climbed the stairs to the terrace.

Harry Ewing, still red-faced and breathing heavily, was seated at a metal table, waiting. She sat dutifully beside him, observing by her watch that it was near eleven and wondering if Norman was awake yet.

"Well, you gave me quite a run for my money, young lady," Harry Ewing said. "I've worked up an appetite."

"When it's hot like this, don't you think doubles would be more sensible?"

"Nonsense. When they put me out to pasture, I'll take up doubles again." He snapped his fingers at the colored waiter clearing the next table. "Franklin—"

The colored waiter bobbed his head. "Yes, suh, be right there, Mistah Ewing."

"I have worked up an appetite," Harry Ewing said to his daughter. "Are you going to eat anything?"

"Mother'll be angry about lunch. I'll have lemonade."

The colored waiter came with his pad, and Harry Ewing ordered lemonade for Mary and a plate of thin hot cakes with maple syrup and iced tea for himself.

As Mary watched the waiter leave, she saw Kathleen Ballard come up the stairs from the courts, followed by a tall, attractive man. They were carrying rackets, and Kathleen was wearing a short, pleated tennis skirt. Mary guessed that they had been playing on one of the rear courts, which were out of sight. Her escort said something, and Kathleen laughed.

"Kathleen—" Mary called out.

Kathleen Ballard stopped in her tracks, searched for a familiar face to go with the voice, and finally located Mary McManus. She lifted her hand in greeting, said something to her escort, and then they both approached.

"Hello, Mary."

Harry Ewing pushed himself to his feet.

"You know my father, Kathleen," said Mary.

"We've met. Hello, Mr. Ewing." She stood aside to expose Paul Radford fully. "This is Mr. Radford. He's visiting from the East. Mrs. Ewing—" She caught herself. "I'm sorry. Mrs. McManus, I should say, and Mr. Ewing."

The men shook hands. Kathleen insisted that Harry Ewing be seated, but he remained standing.

"Where's Norman?" Kathleen wanted to know.

"He's been working like ten dray horses," said Mary quickly. "He's so exhausted, we felt he should have one morning."

"Now there's a perfect wife," said Paul to Kathleen. Kathleen beamed at Mary. "I won't disagree," she said to Paul.

After a few moments, they moved on to an empty table nearby, and Mary was alone with her father.

"Who is he?" asked Harry Ewing.

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Mary, "except he's attractive."

"I didn't think so."

"I don't mean like a movie star. I mean like a frontier scout —the tall in the saddle type—except—" she glanced off—"he looks like he also reads by the bonfire."

Presently, the lemonade appeared, and then the hot cakes and iced tea. While her father ate, Mary drank the lemonade and surreptitiously spied on Kathleen and Mr. Radford. They were sitting close to each other, he packing his pipe and speaking and she listening attentively. There was an air of intimacy suggested that gave Mary a wrench of loneliness. She and Norman had not been together like that, not really, since their brief honeymoon. She missed Norman now, and didn't give a damn about tennis, and wished that Kathleen had seen her with Norman.

Harry Ewing had eaten as much of his hot cakes as he wanted, and now he shoved the plate aside and brought the iced tea before him, stirring it "I suppose," he said, "Norman told you about the trial."

"Yes. Friday night."

"What did he tell you?"

"He said you had a poor case, and he did his best, but there wasn't a chance, and so you lost."

"You believed him?"

Mary was surprised. "Of course. Shouldn't I?"

"Well, I don't want to contradict your husband outright, or run him down. He's a fine young man, a promising attorney, a little wet behind the ears yet, and rash, but he'll develop. Right now, his problem is one of loyalty."

"What does that mean?"

"He lost our case not because it was poor—any one of our other men would have managed it properly—but because he didn't believe in it He's still got a black-and-white mind—that's what I mean by professional immaturity—and he went into that court telling himself it was. capital versus labor."

"Wasn't it?" Mary asked aggressively.

"Only to an obvious mind. No, it wasn't. Because an employee brings suit doesn't mean he's automatically right because he's an employee—the downtrodden—with a billion-dollar thug union behind him. Employers have their legal rights, too. Why does wealth automatically have to suggest piracy?"

"Because the history books are filled with the Commodore Vanderbilts, and Goulds, and Fisks—and a couple of guys named Krupp and Farben—and that's just the beginning."

"It seems to me there's a few words there about the Bill Haywoods, and McNamaras, and anarchists like Sacco and Vanzetti—"

"Oh, Dad—"

"But that's not the point. My son-in-law thinks my money good enough to accept every week. Therefore, he must earn that money. But to go into court, pretending to represent me, my firm, and knuckle under to those labor bullies—"

"Who says he knuckled under?"

"I have my means of hearing what goes on. I'm not blind."

"You mean your spies are not blind."

"Mary, what's got into you? A transcript of the case is available. Norman didn't use all his ammunition."

"He said most of it was unsubstantiated character assassination."

"I'll be the one who determines what's substantiated and what isn't. And that's not all. His final summation was filled with concessions, vacillating—"

"He was trying to be fair. He told me so. He's no gallus-snapping redneck, no rabble-rouser."

Harry Ewing was silent a moment. He wanted Mary to simmer down. She was like her mother, all unreasoning, when she was emotional. "When you go into court on a thing like this, Mary," he said, his intelligent voice at its softest, "you are going into an arena of combat, do or die and no quarter asked or given. It's not a debate society or bull session of egg-heads. It's for keeps. If Norman has too many left-wing prejudices to undertake such a case, he should withdraw before it starts, or tell me so. I'll confine him to paper work, where he's more useful. But to go in, on my behalf, with his secret sympathies on the other side—that's too much." He paused. "I gave him the case only because you said he was restless and wanted to flex his muscles in court. Well, he's had his chance. I'm appealing, and I've taken the case away from him. I think that's best all around."

Mary felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach. She could not look at her father. "Do what you think is best," she said at last. "Only try to be understanding and fair."

"When it comes to you, I always lean over backward, Mary—always will. As a matter of fact—well, I've told you I think he's capable—I've often told you that, haven't I?"

"Yes, you have."

"I'm sincere. I want to do what's good for both of you. I want to get the most out of the boy for all our sakes, make him live up to his potential, be proud of what he does. Yes, I've been giving Norman a good deal of thought. I think I've come up with something extremely interesting."

Mary looked up. Her father was smiling, and it softened him, and she felt a wave of relief and the old affection. "What is it, Dad? Is it something good for Norman?"

"Something wonderful, for a boy his age. You'll be pleased, too, I assure you. Give me a day or two. I'll have it worked out by the end of the week."

"Oh, Dad, I hope so." She reached across the table and sought her father's hand, as she always had when she was a little girl. "Try to be tolerant of Norman. He's really so sweet."

Harry Ewing squeezed his daughter's hand. "I know he is, dear. Don't you worry. I want you both to be happy."

Benita Selby's journal. Monday, June 1 :". . . is Gerold Triplett, and he's an economist who works for a private company in San Francisco that has contracts with the Air Force. After I ate dinner with the others last night, I went out to the pool to cool off, and he was there again. We sat and talked until almost midnight. I didn't tell him exactly what I did, because when men find out you work for Dr. Chapman, they treat you like a nurse. I said I was visiting relatives in Pacific Palisades. He's here for three more days consulting with someone in Anaheim. He wanted to go to a concert tonight at the Philharmonic, but I haven't said yes, though I will. Gerold said he will be in Chicago for several weeks in August and wants to see me. Fate works in curious ways. We shall see. I had two letters from Mom this morning and only had time to read them hastily, since I overslept. She's slipped a disk, and Mrs. McKassen is helping her out. The Lord never made Job suffer more. Dr. Chapman is with Horace and Paul doing interviews today, because Cass had a relapse this morning. The virus, we think, and he's in bed. I called him a half hour ago to see if he's still alive, but the desk said he drove down to the drugstore to get something to keep from throwing up. . ."

Cass Miller sat behind the wheel of the Dodge sedan, parked alongside the curb of the side street, and brooded and waited.

He did not feel ill, really, except for the giddy and faint sensation when he tried to walk. The migraine usually came and went, throughout the day, although he did not suffer from it now. Perhaps he did have a touch of the flu, as he had told Chapman. More likely, it was fatigue. He could trace it back definitely to that Thursday-morning interview. When it had ended, he remembered, he had felt unhinged and irresponsible, and uncontrollably resentful, as he had that time in Ohio when the doctor called it a nervous breakdown, and he had been forced to take a month's leave of absence on some more acceptable pretext.

The street around, though merely two blocks from Wilshire Boulevard and the Beverly Hills shopping district, was in-credibly empty and quiet. Far ahead, he could see the toy cars inching noiselessly forward, but no sound of their screeching and jamming and horns reached him. Momentarily, he was conscious of a stout mailman treading past, shuffling eternally through his envelopes. When the mailman was gone, he saw a tall, young, redheaded girl start out of the apartment beyond his door window. He twisted and watched her approach the sidewalk as she pulled on her white gloves. She glanced at him only briefly, then turned resolutely toward Wilshire. He continued to observe her as she meandered away, and then he deliberated on the fourteen months that had gone by.

The cumulative effect of those thousand interviews—there must have been a thousand or more that he had listened to personally—gave Cass Miller his own private mental image of the American married woman: a female beetle, turned on her back, legs in the air, legs waving in the air, wriggling and squirming but still on her back—until impaled.

In the streets of the cities at night, when he walked alone, and this he had done frequently and everywhere, Cass Miller had always watched closely the young women who promenaded ahead of him. He pictured them again: their full bottoms rotating provocatively beneath their tight skirts, their calves indecently encased in sheer nylon to thighs unseen, their high-heeled whorish pumps tilting them forward, steadily forward, to some vicious assignation. Sometimes they would halt to gaze into a window and thus give their profile to him, and he would have eyes only for the shameless protrusion of their unfettered busts. On such occasions, he would halt, too, and regard them with boiling hatred. They were harlots all of them, subtle and secret sluts. Not one of them was decent or trustworthy or faithful. They smelled of musk and body heat and the sick odor of sex, and you had only to touch them, and they would quickly lie on their backs, female beetles, wriggling bitch insects, wriggling. He hated women, and he lusted for them, and the emotions were one.

Absently rubbing the warm wheel of the Dodge, staring straight ahead, waiting for the sight of her, he recognized that the compulsion was not usual or widespread. Unconsciously, his mind gave it a vague rationale that was permissive. He was here because she was there, and she was misled and ill-used and wanted direction. He was here to meet her and give her his hand, and he would promise not to punish her too harshly. It was the least he owed his father, broken old bastard, racked by life and the beetle lust.

He waited with ruthless patience.

He had just consulted his wrist watch, and calculated the passage of nearly one hour and ten minutes, and allowed the unreasoning wrath to mount and possess him, when he looked up blindly—and there she was.

She had emerged from the apartment four doors ahead, patting the bun of dark hair behind her head, and hastened to the curb. For a moment, she glanced up the sidewalk, in each direction, and then began to cross over to her station wagon, parked on the same side as his car and faced in the same direction. She walked heavily, her legs full against the bright rayon dress, and then she went behind the car and opened the door and slid inside. She sat in the front seat a moment, occupied with something that he could not see, and he decided that she was lighting a cigarette.

He heard her engine sputter and catch, and then he watched, in a detached, dreamy way, as her vehicle floated forward. He waited until it had gone a block, slowing for the cross street, when he started the Dodge and unhurriedly followed her.

Sarah Goldsmith became fully aware of the Dodge at Westwood Boulevard. Its grill, reflecting the sun, and the dark, sullen face behind the windshield filled her rear-view mirror with a pounding remembrance and fear, and after that, for twenty minutes, it did not leave her mirror.

By the time she reached her street—with the safety of small children playing on someone's lawn, and a gardener guiding a power mower over another—she saw that her rear-view mirror was free of M. Javert (she had seen the movie on Sam's television, not read the book), and that only the placid, receding landscape was in sight. The choking fear was at once alleviated, and she began to feel that it was either a coincidence or a trick of hallucination.

She swung into the carport, parked, found her purse, and stepped out. She realized that there was no grocery bag, that she had forgotten to shop, but decided that the freezer would serve them adequately. She had started across the paved area toward the door when she was aware of a sedan wheeling into the street. She stopped short, staring off, and the white needles of dread and calamity punctured her forearms and legs. The Dodge came to a halt three doors away, scraping the curb, and the engine idled. The face in the recess behind the glass was indistinct but pointed toward her. Even without seeing it plainly, she knew that it was dark and sullen.

Involuntarily, she gasped. Her legs were wooden, anchored. And then they moved. She stumbled, half running, to the door, shook frantically through her key ring, then opened the door, banged it behind her, and hysterically hooked the chain.

Her first illogical instinct was to call Sam, preserver of home and property, and then the police, and then the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Pederson, or Kathleen Ballard around the corner, and finally she saw the absurdity of all these impossible collaborations. Although her body was chilled rigid, her mind, so practical, reasoned out an explanation of M. Javert, and she knew that there was only one number she dared call.

In the kitchen, after hastily checking the service porch door, she snatched the receiver of the wall phone, making communication operative and rescue imminent, and she dialed Fred Tauber's number. After the first ring, she prayed that he was still on the bed. After the second ring, she was sure that he was in the bathroom. After the third ring, when her heart was sinking, he answered the phone.

"Hello," he said with incredible calmness.

"Fred!"

"Hello?"

"Fred—it's Sarah!"

"Yes--it's Fred—what's the matter?"

"I'm being followed," she gasped; "someone's following me—he's outside."

"What do you mean, Sarah? What are you talking about?"

Fred's voice was steady, steadying her, but tense. "What man? Do get hold of yourself. Are you in danger?”

“No--I don't know, but—"

"Then calm down. Tell me as quickly as possible what is wrong."

She held the mouthpiece in one hand and drew closer to it. "When I left you, I noticed the car parked near, and then I started, and I guess it started. I was halfway home when I noticed it again, right behind, and then I kept watching, and it was still behind. And now it's two doors down—"

"Who's driving it? Did you see?"

"I couldn't tell very well. He's got black hair and a cruel face."

"Have you seen him before?"

"No—I mean, yes, I have. Saturday, I remember now. He was parked across from your apartment, the same car, and it came into the block here, but I didn't pay any attention then. Fred, who is he?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. "Is he still outside?”

“I suppose—"

"Go and look. I'll wait"

She let the receiver dangle and went into the living room. For a moment, alarm held her, but Fred was waiting, he was with her, and so she went out to the big window, the drapes partially drawn against the sun. She moved to the edge of the drapes and pulled one back slightly, and in this way hidden, she peered outside.

The street was before her. The Dodge was gone. She exposed herself more fully, the drape covering her like a broken tent, and searched the street, No car was in sight.

She freed herself of the drape and ran back into the kitchen.

"Fred—"

"Yes, I'm here."

"He's gone."

"You're sure?"

"I looked everywhere."

"Curious."

Threat was supplanted by mystery, and the anxiety in her voice was shaded by a subtle difference. "Fred, who can it be? Can it be about us?"

"It might be." He did not try to conceal his concern. "You're sure about the car shadowing you—Saturday and today?"

"Positively. I mean, if he got out and went someplace, or pretended to do something else, why, maybe I wouldn't be sure. But outside your apartment, and then right behind me, and parking here, just watching me, not pretending to be going anywhere else—"

"Be careful, Sarah. And don't use my name. The phone may be bugged." Fred's secret vice was television, after all.

Sarah was impatient. "If it's tapped, they've heard enough already. We have to talk. Maybe it's your wife—"

"My wife?"

"She suspects us. She saw me. I bet the man's a detective she hired."

"That could be. There's another possibility. He may have been assigned by your husband."

Sam? Ridiculous. "That's ridiculous," she said, and the moment she said it, she wasn't sure. Why not Sam? He wasn't the utter fool. Perhaps she had slipped up somewhere; perhaps she had been seen; perhaps there was gossip. An anonymous letter to the store. It took only a phone call and fifty dollars a day, she'd read somewhere, to hire a private eye. They existed. They even advertised in the yellow section of the phone book. "Investigations discreetly made. Call day or night." Sam. But no. If Sam even suspected, it would break out all over him like a rash, and there would be obvious innuendos or blunt accusations, and crying and turmoil. This wasn't Sam at all. It was Fred's wife. The juiceless one. Exactly what she would do. Yet it might be Sam. But if it was Mrs. Tauber—was that really her name?—was it so bad? Maybe she'd give him his divorce then. What was she thinking anyway?

"...not so ridiculous," he was saying. "I'm sure your husband is as capable of doing this as my wife. In fact, Sarah, knowing my wife as I do—or did—I would say that she's less capable of this than your husband or anyone else."

"Why?"

He hesitated. "I don't think it would surprise her that I'd be interested in someone else. So I don't think she'd spend a dime to confirm that. No, I'm inclined toward your husband. That bothers me. I gather from you, he's not very sophisticated. Evidence about us might make him go haywire. He might behave badly. That's what bothers me."

"What should we do, Fred?"

"For one thing, keep a watchful eye for that same man and that car. See if he returns and hangs around. If he does, telephone me at once. Any hour. The other suggestion I'd make is that we stay away from each other for a little while."

"Fred, no—"

"Honey, just a couple of days, until we see if this is really trouble or simply nothing at all."

"How long, Fred?"

"A day or two. Let's play it cool, see what happens. If the coast is clear, call me Thursday morning."

"Thursday morning. Fred, I'll die."

"Honey, it's just as hard for me."

"Fred, do you love me?"

"You know I do. Now hang up, go about your work as if nothing's happened, and keep watch. I'll expect to hear from you Thursday morning. Goodbye, Sarah."

"Goodbye darling."

Benita Selby's journal, Tuesday, June 2: ". . was lovely. After the concert, I told him it was so late I had better be taken right to the motel. But afterward we sat and talked until one in the morning, and then he took me to my door. He was such a gentleman. He asked if he could kiss me, and I agreed. I think I will see him once more before he leaves, and we leave. I look forward to Gerold's arrival in Chicago. It could be interesting.... There was a letter from Mom this morning, obviously written in pain. It's not a slipped disk but a dislocated hip. She'll have to remain in bed a while—not that she isn't anyway. I think we'll all be glad when this is over. Four more days of interviews, and Dr. Chapman's broadcast in `The Hot Seat,' and then we leave Sunday night. Paul was as sleepy as I was this morning. He should be. I saw him come in late last night, while we were in the car talking. Cass is back at work. He came up behind me this morning and put his hands on my chest, the way he used to, and I was furious. He had such a nasty disposition. I amused Dr. Chapman when he came in an hour ago. I was reading the weekly newspaper they have in The Briars. It was called The Alert, and it is delivered door to door, free. Under `Social Activities' I happened to see that a society woman named Teresa Harnish is giving a party Friday night for the elite of the community. It is a costume party, with buffet, and everyone is being told to dress as the person they would like to have been, or be, when Dr. Chapman interviewed them. Very clever. I clipped it and read it to Dr. Chapman. He laughed out loud. He has such a magnificent sense of humor, unlike most famous people. He also has a memorable memory, as I have already explained in this journal. After he laughed, he said that he remembered having personally interviewed Mrs. Harnish, and that she was a lovely lady and that he hoped her party would be a huge success.... "

Teresa Harnish sat on the blanket at the perimeter of Constable's Cove, her shapely legs straight out before her, and for what seemed the hundredth time she adjusted the strap of her new bathing suit. She had been pleased when she purchased the white suit. The saleslady had said that it was ravishing (not that she listened to them), and had thought it might be exactly what she wanted, that is, if she didn't mind something so daring (for it was a deeply cut maillot, drawn high against her thighs) , but Teresa hadn't minded, and was satisfied that the suit showed off her trim figure in the best manner possible, and subtracted ten years from her thirty-six.

She had shopped for the bathing suit yesterday morning, after dropping Geoffrey off at the shop especially early, since he was making frantic last-minute preparations for the Boris Introsky show. She had kept the suit on, upon leaving the store, and driven directly to the beach. But the beach was devoid of life, and after a half hour of disappointment, she had driven home and puttered away the rest of the endless day in wretchedness.

Determined to continue her vigil until Ed Krasowski would appear again, she had hastened to the beach this morning. Again, it was desolate. She had been at her post ten minutes now, bookless and umbrellaless, for she did not intend to linger, once she had spoken to him. Since her brief encounter with him exactly one week ago, her mind had dwelled on almost nothing else.

Purposely, she had avoided the beach until yesterday, trying to sort out and examine each of her separate feelings. She was a reasonable, sensible girl—her family had always been prideful and boastful of this—and though now obsessed, she was not unreasonable, insensible. Byron had always disdain-fully referred to his hapless wife, Annabella Milbanke, as the Princess of Parallelograms, meaning apparently that she was of a precise and mathematical turn, and implying some lack of emotion. Teresa had always regarded Byron with disgust, and, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, had sided with the admirable Princess Annabella. Over the long week end, Teresa had tried to review the situation coolly, as Byron's judicious wife might have done, but she perceived soon enough that this was impossible, for she was not a remote English lady, constricted and strait-laced, but a modem product, superior albeit, of a generation and time far advanced and considerably liberated. Still, constraint and sensibility and common sense were the proper words.

After hours of soul-searching, Teresa broke down her situation and problem satisfactorily. She had: (a) been married a decade to a gentleman, and had been the best of wives, and would continue to be so considered; (b) she was a female of special endowments, intelligence, wit, and a certain physical attractiveness, and the narrow boundaries of monogamy gave no room for further development and enjoyment of these gifts; (e) she was thirty-six, and had much to offer, and much to share, and much capacity to enjoy, and it would be wasteful and an insult to the Divine Creator if she used her best years poorly because of bourgeois guilts that imprisoned so many; (d) she had no sentimental attachment for Ed Krasowski, who represented only a symbol of her goal of full attainment, but she felt that each of them, he and she, deserved more of the miracle of life; (e) she could accomplish true fulfillment of the life force by giving herself to a primitive, for there was an inexpressible Biblical beauty in this, the mating of the best product of civilization, the patrician wife of Hellas, with the barbarian of the north so recently removed from cave and club; (f) rather like Isadora and Essenine; and, finally, (g) her life would be richer, more meaningful, for it, and Geoffrey's, too.

Once the situation had been rationalized in an orderly fashion, Teresa was satisfied that she could proceed to the next step. The approach she had prepared absorbed and stimulated her more than any single activity since that occasion, several years back, when she had become engrossed in bonsai, and had spent an entire summer studying the Japanese art of dwarfing trees from its origin in the Ashikaga era to the present. Because she was emancipated beyond her sex—emancipated sufficiently to have been entirely truthful in her Chapman interview, which the other women had not been, she was sure—there was no need, she felt, to practice the degrading ceremonials of coquetry and seduction with Ed Krasowski. He would want to possess her, it was obvious, like the aboriginal that he was, and it would debase nature not to give herself in the same spirit.

The procedure was as simple as the object visited: go to the beach, wait for him, address him straightforwardly, and, finally, arrange the meeting that would enrich both their lives with added depth and breadth. Of spirit, she hastened to remind herself, breadth of spirit.

Her gaze picketed the beach, and, from time to time, she squinted out at the foaming whitecaps hurtling and breaking upon the wet sand. The ocean stretched endlessly to Cathay, and once, in their majesty, the lines from Keats climbed above the swelling breakers. "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies/ When a new planet swims into his ken;/ Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes/ He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men/ Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—/ Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

In a most casual way, they appeared far to her left, three of them, clad in bulky sweat suits, trudging down to the sand from the highway slope, and striding along the harder packed sand near the water. Closer, they came and closer, and Teresa's heart thumped. When they reached their game area, and spread apart until they had formed a triangle, and began tossing the football around, their faces became distinguishable to Teresa. Dismay pressed her heart. Ed Krasowski was not among them.

Her carefully arranged procedure was a shambles, but she did not panic. So single-minded was she about her necessary goal that she remained composed and imperturbable. She examined and evaluated possible actions. She might simply depart, and continue to return until she found Ed Krasowski present. She might seek out a telephone book and telephone him directly. She might write a note and leave it with his three companions. But none of these methods would immediately solve what was bothering her the most: what had happened to Ed Krasowski? Actually, two of her approaches would answer the question soon enough, but that would not be soon enough for her. She wanted no more daydreaming, no more fitful nights. She must know at once.

Emboldened by a desire that she had not known she possessed, she rose to her feet. By the direct approach, she was exposing herself to them, but her need surpassed human frailty and false modesty. No rationalization made the task easier. She felt her stiff, bare legs, one before the other, carrying her through the sand. She was within a few yards of the nearest of the three. He was squat and chunky, exerting himself with great exhalations, and his ridged back was to her.

In restaurants, she remembered, when she was still single and dining with women, she had always found it difficult to summon the waiter. Did. you snap your fingers? Unladylike. Did you tap fork on glass? Autocratic and European. Did you call "Waiter!" as in "Fido!"? Or "Mister"? Or clear your throat loudly? The problem had been solved, at last, by marriage. Geoffrey snapped his fingers. But now this athlete, just ahead, unknown to her—here was another waiter.

"Oh, Mister," she called.

He had gone up into the air to catch the football on his chest. She waited until he had thrown it back.

"Mister!" she called loudly.

He looked over his shoulder, surprised. His hairline and brow were low, and his countenance resembled a pumpkin that someone had sat upon. "You calling me, Ma'am?”

“Yes, please—"

He came toward her, puzzled.

"I had hoped to see your friend here today," she said quickly. "Mr. Krasowski."

"Ed? He's working."

"Regularly? Or will he be back?"

"He just got the job day before yesterday. Guess he'll be on it all summer, until we're back in uniform. Though he'll have some time off for workouts. But not here. He's through with the beach."

"Do you know where I can . . . reach him?"

"Paradise Park."

"Paradise Park?"

He looked at her as if she were a Martian. "The big amusement park—you know—between Santa Monica and Venice. He's got one of the booths."

"Will he be there tomorrow?"

"What's tomorrow—Wednesday? Yeah, sure. And Thursday, Friday and Saturday he's off, but he's got to work Sundays."

"I really appreciate this. Do you see him at all?"

"Every night, practically. We got an apartment together not far from here."

"I wonder—could you give him a message for me?”

“Sure thing."

"Tell him I'd like to see him about a . . . a private matter—at noon on Wed—no, better say Thursday. Thursday at twelve, at the amusement center. What's a good place to meet?"

This seemed to tax him a moment. He tried to concentrate. "It's awful big there," he murmured. "I know. After you go in, there's a pool for seals—everyone hangs around and feeds them fish."

"All right. Tell him I'll be there noon Thursday."

She was aware that for the first time he was impressed by her bathing suit. For a moment, she was unsure of the suit, and then she felt pleased. He would undoubtedly report her appearance to Ed. "Glad to oblige, Ma'am," he said finally. "Anything else?"

"No, nothing else. You won't forget?"

"Oh, no."

She flashed her best smile. "Thank you very much."

"Sure." He ducked his head, started to turn away, then halted. "Hey, I almost forgot—what's your name?"

She hesitated. "Just tell him, the girl—" she paused, remembering that to Ed she was not a girl but a lady, and she decided, exasperating as it might be, to keep her identity clearly defined—"tell him the lady he met on the beach, right here, last week, the one who was almost hit by his football He'll remember."

He looked at her oddly, and she felt uncomfortable. "Okay, Ma'am," he said at last, and then he left to join the others.

Pleased with having accomplished what she had set out to accomplish, Teresa hastily gathered her few belongings, made her way to the car without once glancing at the other three, and drove swiftly to The Briars.

Once home, she efficiently made lunch and ate it. She discharged a half-dozen household phone calls. She wrote several thank-you notes, and one letter. She wrote checks for the bills. At three, she lay down for her daily nap—to which she attributed her continuing youth—but now, instead of dozing, she permitted herself the luxury of fantasizing the divine union with her aboriginal. (In a way, she regretted that her meeting with Ed Krasowski had not occurred before the advent of Dr. Chapman. For now, she was permanently in his history as merely healthy; had Ed preceded the interview, she would have been immortalized as healthy and lusty.) At four, she was still wide awake, and rose to make up and dress meticulously for the Boris Introsky show. Minutes before five, she drove toward Westwood and the art shop.

Reaching the vicinity of the shop, she saw that parking places were difficult to find. Possibly it meant the show had drawn a large turnout, and she was pleased. She left her car in a nearby lot and walked to the shop. Approaching it, she saw several groups of people enter. Geoffrey was usually successful with these cocktail previews; his embossed announcements, mailed to a select list of opinion-makers (art critics, professional hostesses, wealthy divorcees, and film stars), were impressive and well received.

The small gallery was, indeed, crowded. Teresa swept ,in, her short cocktail dress rustling against her petticoat, nodding at some people she did not know, waving at some people she did know. Geoffrey, champagne glass in his left hand, stood center stage, like a captain in the pilot house—or was it fo'castle? No, rather like his idol, Ambrose Vollard at the old Galerie. Teresa pushed toward him, and took his hand, proffering a cool, wifely squeeze and her cheek, which his mustache brushed. He drew a small, emaciated, Rabbinical young man into their hub. The young man, perspiring profusely, was ridiculously immature for his shining bald head and short beard. Whenever she met a young man with a beard, Teresa always decided that either he had no chin or no talent. Geoffrey introduced him as Boris Introsky. Teresa did not mask her surprise. The name had evoked, when first she heard it, a grizzly, bearish Ukrainian, muscular, uncompromising, insulting. But this Boris, she guessed, had been born William, and raised in Coney Island, and been to Paris on the GI bill. His voice was thin, his eyes watery, and his opinion conventional. He will not sell, she decided.

Always, on these occasions, she had been valuable to Geoffrey. She mixed. She knew the patter. But now she had no stomach for it. She remained beside Geoffrey, until he whispered to her. Then she went to the punch bowl, and then she circulated through the overfilled, stifling room. The garish abstracts on the wall, no Duchamp or Kandinsky our Boris, gave her the impression of a nursery school, progressive, not of an art gallery, avant garde. She greeted Kathleen Ballard and a tall, serious young man named Radford, and she shook hands with three critics, and she shook hands with Grace Waterton and the Palmers. She circulated and circulated, dimly aware of the priestly Aramaic language of creativity ("but it's his sense of color harmonies . . . the texture, my dear. . . those rich blue areas . . . it draws you inside it . . . motion through multiple images, darling . . . new boundaries . . . sense of form. . . ultramarine. . . texture. . inner eye .. . Montparnasse. . . vermilion. . . rebel. . . Hiroshige"), and wondered why Geoffrey had exiled the lovely ferrets of Pieter Brueghel for this, but knowing that this was a commodity available, to be bought cheaply and sold high, and had been made the fad.

Two hours had passed, and four champagne cocktails, and she decided that she should have a headache. Briefly, in the crowd, she had Geoffrey's ear. He was with buyers and nodded absently.

She pushed outside, where it was night and alive and not in the least abstract, no broken lines, and dabs, and dotted planes, and she thought of Ed Krasowski, who was closer to true Art, and wondered what he might make of all this. He would have seen it with her eye, she knew, and she felt closer to him.

How many of these beastly false shows had she ornamented? Where were those nights, those years?

Later, Geoffrey returned home an hour before she had expected him. She had intended to be fast asleep when he returned, since this was their night, and she was not in the mood for it. But here she was on the sofa, in the conversation group near the window, wide awake, and plainly well.

"It was a marvelous show," she said. "But you look so tired. How did it go?"

Geoffrey shook his head. "Disappointing. We only got rid of six."

She was pleased. "I'm sorry," she said sympathetically. "I was afraid of that. His work demands too much. People out here simply don't have that much to give. In Paris—"

"Ah, yes, Paris."

"Or even Rome."

"Mmm, yes."

"But you'll just have to concede something to mediocrity, my dear."

He nodded, staring at the beige carpet, then suddenly looked up. "How's your headache?"

"Better now." Then she added quickly, "I'm afraid it's that time of the month—"

She had never lied about that before, but, she told herself, this was an extraordinary transitional period in her growth. She would make it up to him tenfold, one day soon, and they would both be the happier.

"I'm sorry," he was saying. "Perhaps you should lie down."

She was on her feet, almost gay. "You're the one we're to worry about. Now, let's take your coat, and I'll get your slippers, and then we'll have a brandy."

She loved him so. And really, he would be happier.

Benita Selby's journal. Wednesday, June 3: ". . . extraordinary thing that's ever happened to me, and I wouldn't write it down on paper except I think he's all right and will be my husband. After he became so drunk on those bourbons, I drove us back to the Villa Neapolis. We sat, and he started reciting his life—Mom's an angel next to his—and then he admitted being in analysis two years, and then he said he was a latent homosexual, which most men are anyway, but had never done anything wrong, and the analyst was curing him.

He put his head on my chest and cried and said he hoped to marry me. I was so sorry for him and wanted to take care of him always, and said we would talk about it. After a while, I agreed we would decide in Chicago, and when he left this morning, after we had breakfast, he was so nice. He needs me, there is no doubt, and since he is normal, as Dr. Chapman has proved, I think it may work out fine. We shall see. He makes $13,000 per annum. It is one-thirty, and my mood is good. In four days, we leave. There was a letter from Morn, and I don't blame her for quitting Dr. Rubinfeer. Who ever heard of a dislocated hip being psychosomatic? I'll write her tonight and give her moral support. I felt so good, I splurged at The Crystal Room. I was passing the table where Paul and Horace were eating with an attractive woman when he (Paul) stopped me and introduced me to her, Mrs. Ballard, and asked me to join them. I did. It was very friendly. When I was first passing the table, though, I heard Horace discussing his wife, which is why I slowed down, and they saw me, because since I have been with Dr. Chapman, I have never heard Horace discussing his wife. Of course, everyone at Reardon knows why. I mention it because a strange deductive fact comes to mind, which is, could Mrs. Ballard have been Horace's wife and now be married again? It could be, except she was so reserved, and the picture I have of Horace's wife . .."

Naomi Shields sat woozily at the table beside the dance floor, where Wash Dillon had placed her after he had received her message, and with effort she brought the highball glass to her lips and downed the last of the gin.

She turned, scraping her chair, to call the waiter for a refill, and then the large dim room came into focus, and she saw that all of the tables in Jorrocks' Jollities were empty. A waiter was unbuttoning his white vest, and a Mexican in overalls had entered with a broom, and there was no one left, no one left, except herself and the orchestra.

She wrenched her face back to the dance floor and peered across it at the bandstand. The figures had a fuzzy quality, but she recognized Wash kneeling, laying away his saxophone, and there were the four others putting away their instruments and sheet music. She felt that they were her only friends, Wash especially, especially Wash.

Twice in the last eight days, three times counting tonight, she had come to the bar of Jorrocks' Jollities, which was in the room next to the entrance, and had some drinks and wanted Wash to know and changed her mind and taken a taxi back to The Briars. Each successive morning, she had felt pride in her new chastity, the reformation, and each afternoon and night she had felt sick lonely and ache lonely and had realized that she could not go on unloved. Earlier this night, in her kitchen, food had revolted her, and she had begun to drink mildly (to work up an appetite), and more (to drown desire), and at last, at ten, she had phoned for a cab and come here the third time. This time, she had told the bartender, who was a trusted friend by now, to tell Wash, and after the medley, Wash had appeared and led her to the table.

She liked being one of the family. Twice, during breaks, they had trouped to the table behind Wash and pulled up chairs, acknowledging her, complimenting her, making amusing remarks to Wash (who always winked), and finally talking in a crazy way that she did not understand at all. About music, she thought. And musicians. Their names were .. . well, Wash . . . Perowitz . . . Lavine . . . Bardelli . . . Nims ... no, Sims ... Kims, whims, hymns.

She squeezed her eyes between forehead and cheeks and tried to match the names to the faces of the friends . . . the pasty face with the cigarette dangling . . . the Roman face with curled hair and jiggling knee . . . the black Negro face with scraggly goatee and all the rings on the fingers with long nails . . . the chewing gum face with thick beaked nose and twirling rabbit's foot . . . the long, long, long jaw face, sunken eyes, long, long body, arms, legs that matched Wash Dillon, arm around her, tickling her ear lobes with his lips.

She saw him coming across the slippery floor, ugly, desirable, in his tuxedo, and she tried to sit straight.

He was above her. "How's my baby?"

She lifted her head. His toothy, pock-marked visage doubled in her vision.

"You feeling all right, honey?" he asked.

"All right."

"Night's young. Like to have some more fun?"

Give the baby a toy, she thought, read her a bedtime story, put her in her trundle bundle, beddy-bed. Her mouth was cotton candy, pink. "Like to."

"You're mighty pretty, honey child, mighty delectable.”

“If you like me."

Wash's smile was lipless. "Like you? Honey, or Wash isn't one of your talkers. He likes to prove what he preaches. Honey, maybe you couldn't tell, but up there I was going crazy every minute wanting you."

She nodded. "I'm tired," she said.

She tried to rise, but it was impossible until he reached under her arms and easily hoisted her to her feet.

"On your feet," he said. He grinned. "Not for long, I'm hoping." He folded her arm inside his. "Come on, honey. We're going home." His arm around her was strong, and she felt better.

He started her through the empty tables, with their spotted cloths, half-filed ash trays, balled moist napkins, like all those mornings after.

"Hey, Wash!" someone was calling.

He stopped, and glanced over his shoulder.

"Havin' a game tonight?"

"More than that," he answered. "Little jam session, too." He looked down at Naomi. "Aren't we, honey?"

"Wash, I just want to lie down."

"You will, honey child. 0l' Wash'll take care of his baby good."

Outside, the cold air was a wet rag on her face, but although she partially revived, the universe remained invisible except for the towering, moving form beside her. Somewhere off far, the traffic hummed anonymously. High above, the twinkling dome of heaven tilted, and far, far below, the pavement was a concrete slide. On the leather of his car, it was easy to let herself be pulled toward him, until she smelled the satin and broadcloth of his suit, and the vague scent of some round flower in his lapel.

She was aware of being carried forward, of rocking on the turns, and bobbing gently, and his hand massaging the sweater over her breast.

"I knew you were it," he said, "the day I brought that post card over. Bet you felt it, too."

She laid her head back on the seat, eyes still shut.

"How long has it been, honey?"

"What?"

"Since you were loved?"

If she told him an eternity, since the cradle and since, he would think her mad. Besides, she was too tired. She said nothing.

The space ship went on and on, and then it was still, and she opened her eyes.

"Here we are," he said.

After a while, the door opened, and he helped her out. Arm around her, he helped her across the sidewalk, through the glass door, into the building. The rows of name plates and buzzers and brass-lidded mail boxes. The shadowed corridor past the staircase to the rear. The number five on the door.

The lights were on, and she stood unsteadily beside the green felt poker table in the center of his living room. He had returned from somewhere with two glasses, and one was in her hand.

"Come on, honey, drink up. We haven't got all night.”

“I'm drinking gin."

"It's gin." He swallowed the contents of his glass in a single gulp. "Put it away, hon. It's for the road. We're going the mile."

She drank. The liquid was tasteless.

He set the glasses on the poker table, took her elbow, and firmly led her through the open door. He flipped the switch, and the overhead bulbs glared. She was beside the maple bureau, and beyond the chair was the double bed with the low maple headboard. An orange chenille spread neatly covered the bed.

"You're neat," she said thickly as he closed the door behind her.

"They throw in maid service. Mulatto broad. She puts out for a fiver."

He tore the chenille spread and maroon blanket off the bed, undoing part of the white linen sheeting that had been tucked in beneath, and dropped both to the floor. Then he threw the pillow aside.

"I like plenty of room," he said. He favored her with the lipless smile. "What about you, honey?"

"What about me?"

He went to her, half lifting her from her feet, and pressing his mouth hungrily to her own. Arousal surfaced slowly through the vapor layers of intoxication. It wasn't the kiss, but the pressure against her sore breasts and his hand on her hip. He released her, and they both labored for breath.

"Let's go, honey," he said.

He began unbuttoning his shirt. She moved slowly toward the bed, intending to undress, but finally just standing there. The momentary urge to copulate had diminished, and what was left was the apathetic void. Behind the dizziness in her temples, there was a sobering, and the unadorned bed was less inviting. No desire stirred her—no desire to see him naked and taut, for there had been so many; no desire to be joined with him, for there had been too many. Why was she here? If she told him, explained, maybe there was hope.

"Hey, honey—" he said.

She turned wearily, intent upon logic and reason, and then she saw his endless, hairless, bony frame, and knew it was futile. She had wound up the machine; it must run down.

"...what's holding you. Come on."

With sad regret, she took the bottom of her sweater and slowly, slowly, began to draw it up across her brassiere. "Hurry it up, dammit!"

He was over her, grabbing the sweater, yanking it over her head. His hands were behind her, trying to unfasten the brassiere, and finally, powerfully, ripping it apart. As it fell to the floor, and her enormous breasts burst free, she tried to protest. But his hands were on her, painfully, and she was off her feet and harshly on the bed.

"Wash, don't—"

"Goddammit—"

Her nylon pants were being torn roughly down her thighs. He was beside her, and over her

"My stockings—" she gasped.

"To hell with that."

"No, please—"

She tried to rise. She mounted an elbow. She only wanted to explain. There was a certain code to love, and a lady didn't lie unclad except for stockings. The stockings were indecent, absolutely indecent.

His arm fell like a crowbar on her throat, and her head slammed into the mattress. His hands were gritty on her breasts, and she moaned for the indignity of the stockings.

Once, opening her eyes, she saw him and was frightened. "Don't hurt me," she cried.

His voice was anger, impatience, passion. An animal chant dinned against her ears, and she closed her eyes, sinking in the darkness, offering her flesh so that the death would come sooner, and the pain be ended.

At last, the expected sensation—skin peeling before the scalpel, she thought, lacerating, lacerating, but soon healing, soon healing—and she was grateful because the sensation was now bounded, now limited, now familiar, now known. Her body recoiled and recoiled from the rhythmical beat, but it continued interminably, unceasingly, until the searing agony was joined by pleasure, so that agony and pleasure were one and the same, and at last her hands grasped his back. "I love you, Horace," she murmured.

But later, it was done, and she felt limp and victorious, even in this defeat. For she had always given, as she told the man behind that foolish screen, and tonight he had given, but she had not. The pleasure of this dominated any other pleasure she had known.

She turned her head on the mattress and looked off. Wash was buckling his belt.

He saw her and grinned. "You'll do, kid. Want a drink?"

She shook her head. "Take me home." She started to rise, but he came to her and pushed her down gently. "Not so fast," he said. "It's not polite to eat and run." She lay back, weak and groggy, and watched as he went to the door and opened it. Through the doorway, the mingled sounds of clattering chips and indistinct voices came to her.

Wash called off. "Okay, Ace—you're on."

Suddenly, a stranger came through the doorway—not a stranger but the Roman face with curled hair. Shocked, she reached for something to cover herself, but there was nothing but her hand.

"Sa-ay now," said the Roman face.

Wash formed the lipless smile. "Bardelli, tonight you are a man."

Bardelli began to remove his shirt. Naomi sat up. "What do you think I am?" she shrieked at Wash.

She tried to swing off the bed, but Wash caught her by the shoulders and pressed her backward. She flayed at him with her fists, until he grabbed her forearms and pushed her flat.

"Guess you didn't make her happy," said Bardelli. "Too much fight left."

Naomi tried to scream, but Wash stifled it with his arm. "Come on, you old bastard," he called behind him. "This is a tiger."

Unable to move her arms or cry out, Naomi thrashed her legs wildly. But someone pinned them down, and above Wash's arm she saw the Roman face with curled hair, and in a moment the curls were on her face and the garlic mouth on her mouth. She twisted and squirmed, and once she saw Wash grinning from the door, and after that she saw only the Roman face. She kicked him, and he grunted, and smashed his palm across her face. She sobbed, and tried to bite, and again felt the sting of his big hand, and after a while, she stopped fighting, and he stopped slapping, and she let him handle her as he would a rag doll.

Again, it was interminable, the stitching pain, the cramped pain, the savage violence of it accompanied by a door somewhere opening, closing, opening, closing, and far away voices entreating Bardelli to get on with it, get on with it, and the Roman face hung from above like a contorted lantern, curls greasy and wet.

And when it was done, she could not rise. No will on earth could make her lift her racked flesh. And now the victory of not giving was no victory at all. She lay panting, her huge pointed breasts heaving, her eyes staring and waiting. Her innards had been scooped hollow of resistance, and she lay prostrated, staring and waiting.

The door opened and closed, and there was laughter, and there was the thick nose and the chewing jaws and hands on her breasts and thighs on her thighs . . . Lavine, Lavine .. . and now the black one, Sims not Nims, Sims she had learned at last, and shutting her eyes, she remembered there had been one like this one before—when?—the bartender, the intellectual who read so many books and told her that the race problem in the South stemmed from the psychotic fear white men had that black men were better endowed. . . . Sims, don't, Sims, until she screeched hoarsely . . . and when she opened her eyes, it was no longer Sims but a pimpled flour face twitching . . . and during this, she sank into unconsciousness. . . .

When she opened her eyes, she was upright, propped upright between Wash and Sims, who was driving. Both windows were open, and the wind was cool as a brook.

"You all right?" Wash was asking. "We're taking you home."

She looked down and saw that someone had dressed her. Real gentlemen, real gentlemen—for a lady fair.

"Now don't go flipping on us," Wash was saying. "Any ol' sawbones will tell you five's no worse than one. What little girls got don't wear out. Only listen, honey—you're--well, you got to be careful—one of the boys, he—you've been hurt a little—but nothing serious, nothing at all. Hey, Sims, over there, pull up there."

She felt the car swerve, and jarringly halt, engine idling. Wash opened the door. "We're letting you off a few doors away, honey, in case somebody's waiting up."

He offered to help her out, but she didn't move.

"Lend a hand, Sims."

Together, pulling and pushing, they maneuvered her out of the car. Wash propped her against a tree. He pointed off. "That way, honey." He offered his mock smile and inclined his head. "Thank you for the evening."

After the car had gone, she remained against the tree. At last, she stretched a leg, to see if it would move, and she saw that her stocking was below her knee, torn and stained.

She began to run, stumbling forward, sobbing and running.

When she reached her lawn, she collapsed, dropping in a heap on the cool, moist grass, wailing uncontrollably.

But then she heard footsteps on the pavement, muffled on the grass, approaching swiftly. She tried to stop crying, and lifted her head, expecting a policeman and finding herself not at all surprised that it was Horace who was beside her, saying something she could not understand, before she shut her eyes and brain to all sensibility.