ON THE MORNING FOLLOWING these events, along the Eastern seaboard of the Continental United States, sunrise was scheduled for 7:25 o’clock, but the only members of the Johns family who could have attested that it occurred even approximately on time were Gerald and Geraldine.
“There’s the sun,” Gerald said, gazing beyond his wife’s shoulder as they sat at breakfast together in their night-chilled kitchen. “Imagine having breakfast at”—he consulted the electric clock beside the breadbox, but Geraldine, as she did every morning despite the fact that it unnerved him, had disconnected it a few minutes before for the toaster—“at sunup,” he concluded lamely.
“It’s better than lie there tossing for another two hours.”
“Maybe for you,” he said. “But I can’t get a nap later.” He remembered how often he had promised himself that he would install a cot or day-bed at the rear of the store, and foolishly given up the plan each time because the delivery men from the pharmaceutical companies’ trucks would think the proprietor of the Johns Pharmacy was getting to be an old man. What vanity; what self-delusion. They could look at him, couldn’t they?
“Nobody needs to nap when they’re this excited,” Geraldine said comfortably, “but it’s too bad you’re going downtown today. It would be nice to talk out everything a little more.”
He laughed. “We didn’t skip much last night.”
“No. Except one thing. One thing we didn’t think of at all.” She sounded serious.
“What one thing?”
“The one thing we mustn’t do. I thought of it after you were asleep.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell people about Gregory. Go around just telling everybody in town. No matter which way we told it, it would sound like bragging.”
Gerald nodded. “I suppose it would,” he said.
“They’ll hear about it on the radio in a few days, anyway, or read it in a newspaper. Anyway, they’ll hear it somehow and then they’ll think, Why those two knew it all the time and didn’t go shouting from the housetops.”
“It would be better that way.”
“A lot,” she said. “Because your friends are always a little upset if one of your children gets rich and famous.”
How wise she is, Gerald thought; she looks like a perfectly ordinary person, but her intelligence is often astonishing. Well, intuition then; her intuition is often astonishing. She understands human nature so well and she has more self-control than I have. I’d have blatted to the first customer that came into the store.
He looked at her admiringly. She was in her old flannel bathrobe, but she never looked sloppy, even in the early morning. Her white hair was cut short and it curled over her head like a child’s. Her blue eyes had the odd three-cornered shape that Thornton alone, of all the children, had inherited, and though she had slept even less than he had, they were clear and rested. She was just plump enough so that her cheeks were round and firm; compared to her he must look all skin and bones. Some people filled out and expanded in flesh as they grew old; others seemed to shrink into themselves and get wizened. He was a shrinker.
“I can’t imagine getting upset if one of the Heston boys got rich and—” He broke off and then said, “But you’re probably right. I won’t say a word.”
He finished his coffee and put his palms on the table. Pushing down on them, he rose to his feet. His knees felt like cement. It would be good to go back to bed, but he never felt comfortable letting Hiram run things alone all day, filling prescriptions as well as managing the counters. He sighed and started for the stairs.
In the bedroom, he slowly drew on the socks Geraldine had remembered to lay out, along with fresh underwear and a shirt, before getting into bed last night.
Last night? This morning; less than five hours ago. He should have made her turn the light out much earlier, but he had felt as much like talking as she had. At Thorny’s, with everybody around, neither of them had said much; they never did any more when they were with young people, even with their own children. Once you were close to seventy, you knew that everything you said sounded pokey or silly, except to other people of seventy; and more and more you kept things to yourself. Even Geraldine hadn’t said much until they had left the party; then she had started and not once during the whole drive home had she stopped.
If Geraldine had any serious fault, that was it. That not-stopping, that need to tell him every tiny thought she had about every single thing, from the reasons she had decided to paint the kitchen or top a cake with a new kind of icing, to the reasons she felt wonderful that this great success had come to Gregory instead of to Thornton or one of the girls.
Well, at least this wasn’t paint or icing; this was enough to make anybody want to talk forever. Gregory, of all the children! There was always something strange and special about that long string bean of a boy, but who in his senses would ever have thought he could turn into a famous author? He suddenly remembered the day Gregory had gone off alone to see the editor—he was fourteen and had never traveled on a train by himself. He hadn’t opened his mouth about his plans but he left a note so they wouldn’t worry. “Gone to New York, back soon,” it had said, or something equally laconic. They had worried; the boy was so immature and impractical compared to the way Thorny had been at fourteen. Why, even at ten, Thorny had a paper route that took him three miles from the house every afternoon; by eleven, he was earning two dollars a week mowing neighbors’ lawns; at thirteen, he was regularly employed every Saturday as delivery boy for the store. But at ten Gregory showed not a spark of ambition or gumption; he kept his nose forever in a book, and if you asked him to phone anybody, he would freeze with shyness.
Maybe Geraldine and he hadn’t been clever about bringing Gregory up. It was so much easier and quicker to send Thorny to the phone, to tell Thorny to water the lawn, to get Thorny to hammer in a nail. It was a real shock when Gregory came jauntily back from New York that day and said, “I’m going to write school news for the Sun. I saw the school page editor and I’m the correspondent for Freeton High.” A boy who had never written anything except bits for the school magazine, having the nerve to tell newspaper editors what he wanted! He never earned more than fifty or sixty cents a week for the items he sent the Sun about class elections and Arista and the S.O.—what had S.O. stood for?—but he was prouder of being “on a real newspaper” than if he’d been captain of half the school teams like Thorn. Maybe that alone should have tipped them off that someday he’d be a big author. Student Organization, that’s what it was, and Thorn had been president of it in his last year, while Gregory had never been elected to anything.
Gerald shook his head, and consulted his watch. It was much too early to go downtown, but he could Start on the Squibb cartons that came yesterday. And, behind the locked doors, alone, he would be able to think everything out. He finished dressing quickly. The store was a good place any time. He was proud of the Johns Pharmacy, especially now that it was the only independent drugstore left in Freeton. He didn’t care how many Liggetts and Rexalls and Walgreens opened up on Main Street, there still would be folks who preferred getting their drugs and cosmetics and sodas in a store that was the lifework of somebody who had belonged to the town for over forty years. They never could have that same confidence, or even affection, for a salaried manager of a unit in a big chain.
His father had owned a pharmacy before him, and his only ambition, as a boy, had been to own one too. From the moment he had married, he had never loved any human creatures except Geraldine and the children, but the store was the other half of his nature and he always went to it with an eagerness that was like love. Once inside, looking out at the world through the plate-glass window, he was undisputed master of everything, challenged by nobody. It was a kingly feeling and he would never be truly old as long as he had it.
Mysterious vitality, coursing through Geraldine’s nervous system, reduced the burden of her housework to the merest chore, and by nine, she had swept and dusted and made beds and washed dishes, had sprinkled and rolled up yesterday’s wash, had made the chocolate nut pudding which would be dessert for supper, had dressed for the street and started down the path to the front gate. She left the house as hurriedly as if she were late for an appointment. Then she paused uncertainly. Nothing was ahead but the marketing.
It was mild for January, but the wind was blowing in steadily from the bay and she shivered. Across the street, Amy Persall, wearing only a gingham house-dress without even a sweater over it, was briskly sweeping the steps of the porch. Gazing vacantly at Amy’s back, Geraldine thought, That’s what it is to be young—she can’t be more than a couple of years older than Gregory, and how surprised she would be if she knew that he had just made a fortune! Geraldine stared at Amy thoughtfully.
The broom made a pleasing swish-swish-swish across the dry planks of the steps. If she were to go across and tell Amy, her broom would drop, her mouth fall open, and her eyes start from her head. Geraldine smiled and remembered her own wisdom at the breakfast table. She promptly opened the gate and turned left. At the click of the latch, Amy looked around and called, “Hello, there.”
“Morning, Amy.”
Amy’s broom came to an expectant standstill, but Geraldine only said, “My marketing,” and went right on. She had said she wouldn’t and told Gerald he mustn’t and that was that.
Suddenly she felt tired. At the corner, the wind flung itself upon her and she shivered again. She had been casual about Gerald’s talk of a nap, but now she wondered whether excitement could support you very long after so little sleep. If you were young, yes; but not if you were growing old. Her blood seemed lukewarm, her bones huddled together. She walked more slowly.
She turned into Main Street, already crowded and bustling though it was still early. Cars honked irritated horns, people went by with blank eyes, even the traffic cop was a stranger. Freeton was growing old too. When Gerald and she had first moved out here, a year after Thorny’s birth, it was scarcely more than a village, with meadows and fields just back of the houses and stores, with sandy gravel roads that had to be tarred each summer, and with so few families you knew everybody. The Long Island Rail Road station was a long wooden platform instead of the concrete and brick slab it had become and there was only a two-story grade school. When boys and girls were ready for High, they had to go to Mineola or Jamaica, and the first talk of building a big high school right in town had seemed like the talk of radicals. And yet, ten years later, when Freeton High was ready, pupils swarmed to it from every direction and it seemed only a matter of months until the building which had seemed so spacious began to be called inadequate. The war had done the usual trick to Freeton’s population. The first war. She always forgot, these days, to specify the number when she said “the war,” but it was that earlier one which would, for her, always remain The War.
Geraldine shook her head, and tried to recapture her earlier mood. Long before there was even a hint of gray in the sky, she had waked with a kind of bubbling-up in her mind. My own child, she had thought again and again, my own son. Gregory. Not Thorn, who had always been successful at everything, in school, in college, in business, but Gregory. The one who had always been—if she had to admit it, which she had never done to one solitary soul all her life—her favorite son. Parents should never have favorites, and among the girls she had none. But from the instant they had put Gregory into her arms nearly forty years ago, so puny, with such a weak little cry—from that moment, something fierce had welled up in her heart. And when Gerald had looked at him and said, “He’s good and long, like his brother was, but no husky bruiser, is he?” she had burst into tears.
Gerald kept right on comparing the two of them, even when Gregory was old enough to understand. She had often gone at Gerald about it, but he was forever getting the two of them to “make a muscle,” talking about Thorny’s husky build and how much he weighed. Thorny would barrel out his chest like a boxer and absolutely shine with conceit while poor skinny Gregory would look on and marvel.
Anyway, it was Thorny’s turn to do a little marveling, now, and that was only right. This thought had in it so much—Geraldine hesitated, searching her heart—so much spite that she was shocked. She was being unfair, really, for Thornton was as happy last night as the rest of the family; his delight and excitement had been a beautiful thing to see. You might have thought, watching him, that this great good luck was happening to him—
“Deeny, oh, Deeny.”
It was Fanny Heston’s voice, somewhere behind her, and she turned quickly, but couldn’t see anybody. Gerald didn’t like “Deeny” for a nickname but all her close friends went right ahead with it, and Fan was one of her closest. Just then, Fan came in sight, stepping out of the recessed entrance to Smith’s Hardware, and they went toward each other eagerly, both calling out, “Hello, stranger.” This they always regarded as a delectable joke, since no more than three days ever went by between visits. Fan and Jim Heston were the Johnses’ oldest friends and neighbors; even after the Hestons had moved to the outskirts of town, they had never lost touch and presumably never would as long as telephones and cars existed. Fan’s arms were loaded with bundles, but, Geraldine thought, she’s as straight in the back as a woman of fifty.
“You were going to phone me.” Fan stopped short and added, “Deeny, are you sick?”
“Heavens, no.”
“But you look worn out.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I never slept a wink all night.”
“Why not?” Fan immediately set her parcels on the sidewalk, and said urgently, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why couldn’t you sleep a wink?”
“Nothing bad, I meant.”
“Something good! What was it?”
Geraldine couldn’t help smiling. Just running into Fan, just chatting idly this way—her spirits had already risen to the level they’d been on before seeing Amy. She was considering this phenomenon of the emotions when Fan said, “Deeny, what?”
“I can’t tell you, not just yet.”
“A secret? About what?” Fan moved closer.
“I’ll tell you in a few days.”
“That’s not fair! Teasing me, when we’ve always—”
“I’m not trying to tease you, honestly, Fan.” She was flustered. How on earth had this started? “It’s just something that happened last night and I never closed my eyes. Gerald didn’t either.”
Fanny Heston cried, “What kind of thing?”
“Just something about Gregory.” That far she could go but wild horses couldn’t make her go further.
“About Gregory?”
“About his new book.”
“Has it come out?”
“No, but it’s—” She bit her lip and again thought of the breakfast table.
“I won’t tell a soul, if you say not to. You know I won’t.”
Geraldine sought frantically for some skill which might help her deflect this conversation to other matters, but her mind refused her. And Fan was so concerned, so worried-looking. “Promise? Not a word to anybody?” Her own words startled her.
“Promise. Oh, Deeny, come on.”
“Well, it’s just earned over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“It what?” Fan almost screamed it.
“It’s just been taken by Best Selling Books, that book club, you know, and they pay over a hundred thousand dollars down and maybe more later on.”
“A hundred thousand—you’re fooling!”
“Remember, you promised—”
“A hundred thousand dollars?”
“To start with.”
“Why, he’ll be rich for the rest of his life!”
“Can you blame me for not sleeping?”
“It’s just too marvelous—how proud and happy you must be! Oh, Deeny, I am too. Imagine having your own child—” She could not go on.
The breathless admiration in Fan’s voice sent strong shivers of joy through Geraldine. Telling her couldn’t have been avoided, she decided firmly; somehow things had taken a turn which had led inevitably on, with no turning back, with no side path to duck into. It was, almost, like fate. Nobody could fight against fate.
And since this was true, there was no reason to hold back any of the rest of it. She suggested going somewhere for coffee and then she told Fan the entire story, starting with their arrival at Thorn’s and ending with the way she and Gerald had watched the sun come up. It was wonderful to have somebody stare at you and hang on each separate word; your fatigue and chills vanished; you felt new, reborn. “Oh, let me,” Geraldine cried when the counterman brought the punched tab-ticket; she wished it were for more than twenty cents. When she and Fan finally parted, they each said the same thing: “I’ll call you soon.”
Geraldine went straight to the A. and P., marched up to the meat counter, and ordered briskly, as though she had never laid eyes on the butcher before. “Fine day, Mrs. Johns,” Bill said, “and you’re looking fine too.” Almost coldly she answered, “I was just told I was looking rather ill.” Bill stared at her but she ignored him. That was what had started it, she suddenly thought, that remark of Fan’s about her looking all worn out and ill. She had had to answer that, hadn’t she? And anyway, everybody had the right to one confidante, and Gerald need never know.
Considerably cheered by these reasonable reflections, Geraldine paid for the chops and started toward the vegetable and fruit counters, but a few feet away, she halted. Edith Markham was there, in front of the oranges and grapefruit. Edith was almost as close a friend as Fan, but it might be wiser not to stop even to say hello. Casually, yet soundlessly, she moved backwards, away from the counters. Edith turned around.
“You look so well, Deeny.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I had the most marvelous news last night.”
“What kind of news?”
Geraldine thought, Oh, dear.
The effect on Edith Markham was just as electric as it had been on Fanny Heston. Geraldine again felt her spirit expanding, filling with new sap and juice, like a tree in the spring sun, and as she talked, a delicious vision appeared to her mind’s eye, of other friends even now doing their marketing and destined by fate to cross her path on the way home.
Shortly past noon of that same day, the cash register of the Johns Pharmacy at the corner of Main and Church had already rung up a larger daily total of dollars and cents than had ever been amassed in the entire history of the store, with the single exception of the day the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918 had hit the town. Such a purchasing of tooth paste and aspirin and shaving creams had never been known, of cold cream and cleansing tissues and soaps and nail polish, of baby talc and cough lozenges and bicarbonate of soda, and virtually everything else that could be had without a prescription.
The heavy plate-glass door was scarcely still, and each separate customer, the moment her purchase had been made—her, because it so happened that all the customers were female—each and every one had congratulations to offer and questions to ask. Was it really possible for a book club to pay two hundred thousand dollars? Was it really going to be a Betty Grable picture? Was it true that Gregory was flying out to Hollywood to write on the picture himself for ten thousand dollars every week? And was Abby going out with him, or was she going to let him attend all those parties with movie stars alone, as if he were a bachelor?
If Gerald Johns had had a moment of confusion over the first of these smiling purchases and questions, the moment was short-lived. As was his habit, he had glanced at his watch while a Mrs. George Simmons was offering her happy felicitations; it was half past ten. That meant that today Geraldine had begun her marketing at about nine. He thanked Mrs. Simmons heartily and thought without rancor, Well, I might have known. Aloud he said, smiling as he did so, “Did you run into Geraldine?”
“No, I haven’t seen her yet, but I’ll call her the minute I get home. Perhaps you two could come to dinner soon and—”
“We’d love to. But how did you hear it? I’m just interested.”
“From Beth Martins, you know, lives up on the hill?”
“Yes, I know.”
“And she’s a sister-in-law, or maybe sister, I forget, I’m so excited, of the Pecks, and Linda Peck told her.”
“Linda Peck?” He searched his memory. He couldn’t quite place the Pecks. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I just wondered.”
“Why, is it a secret?”
“Lord, no.” He paused and added, “Not any more.”
“I thought not. Why ever should it be, anything so wonderful?”
“Why indeed.”
The moment Mrs. Simmons departed, Gerald Johns, never one to cry over spilled milk, beans, or apple carts, called out, imperatively, “Say, Hiram.” From the back of the store where Hiram Spriggins, his assistant, was unloading the remaining cartons a deep bass “Yes?” answered him. “Better leave the cartons for tomorrow; we’re in for a busy day.”
For Thornton Johns, it was already a busy day. He had waked before the alarm went off, to find Cindy propped against her pillows, smoking a cigarette, and smiling at him.
This was unusual. Everything about it was unusual. Cindy never awoke until after he had left for the office, Cindy never smoked before breakfast, and Cindy, until she had had her black coffee, never smiled at anybody.
Now, however, she said, lovingly, “Good morning, darling, did you sleep well?”
“Mmm,” Thorn said, and then remembered. He had not slept well. Long after Cindy had gone to sleep, he had lain awake thinking, and even after he slept he had apparently been hurrying somewhere. Now he sat up in bed, stretching. “Not really. I was making plans all night.”
“What sort of plans? Thorny, do you really think there’ll be a movie sale?”
“No. That’s one of the things I thought over after you went to sleep. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I finally pinned Gregory down to telling me more about the book. He does write the damnedest stuff.”
“Oh, Thorn. I had my heart set—” She stubbed out her cigarette but at once lighted a new one. “You’re not going to give up in advance, are you? The book club must think it will appeal to people, so why not the movies?”
He shrugged. “I can’t say ‘why,’ I just have a hunch they’ll think it’s too mental, not enough action, all that. Gregory does too.”
“Even so, the book club—”
“Its name is B.S.B.” He was surprised to sound so testy, but Cindy did not appear to notice.
“Yes. As I was saying, B.S.B. thinks—”
“Look,” he said reasonably. “Would you go to a movie about electing the first President of the World?”
“There’s lots in it beside world government, Gregory said.”
“And about armies demobilizing? And nations giving up the right to make war, and agreeing to live under world law, and a world constitution? Can you see yourself standing in line at Radio City to see that?”
“Oh, Thorn.” She looked at him beseechingly. “It has a love story too.”
“Not what the movies call a love story,” he said. “Of course they’d probably jazz up that part of it, but fantasy just isn’t right for pictures.”
“That old one about Mr. Jordan was fantasy, you know with, I think, Cary Grant going to Heaven after an airplane smash.”
“It wasn’t Cary Grant; it was Bob Montgomery.”
“Anyway,” she said triumphantly. “And what about The Bishop’s Wife, and let’s see—”
He got out of bed. “Cindy, I’m going to read it myself. After that, I might have certain ideas. I told you I lay awake making plans.”
“About trying to sell it to the movies?”
He frowned. “What were we talking about, if not the movies?” He closed his eyes. The down-slanting folds at their corners felt stiff and thickened. He blinked rapidly, several times, and said, “Hangover.”
“Won’t the publishers try?”
“They have a fifteen per cent cut in any movie money. Of course they’ll try.”
“I thought you didn’t remember if they had a cut or not.”
“I remembered perfectly.”
“But suppose it was you who sold it, not the publishers?”
“If God sold it, they’d still get their fifteen.” He began to dress, thinking, If I go on with the idea and it does work, she’ll be sure she put me up to it. And if it flops—
He went to the bathroom to shave. If only he had some good contacts in Hollywood. Or if he knew more about how these things were done by professional agents, what approaches were used, what prices asked. He thought again, as he had done so many times during the night, of seeking out Jim Hathaway once more. For a moment his brush paused in mid-air, dripping lather; then he slapped it to his face in discouragement. This was not something he could do without telling Gregory, like that other visit to Hathaway, and if he asked permission, Gregory would flatly refuse, saying he wouldn’t be “pushy” about his own book. Even the suggestion about dropping in on his publishers this morning had met with resistance—could anyone in his right mind think that would be pushy? Was Gregory going to be extra-mulish now about things that everybody else would take as a matter of course?
Thornton Johns reflected, as so many others had done before him, that he would never understand authors. Admire them, yes, observe them, study them, discuss them, sometimes envy them—yes and again yes, but understand them, never. Even his own blood brother could baffle him a hundred times a year. If he, Thorn, asked, for authorization to take any bold steps about a movie sale, Gregory would have forty reasons for sitting back unless a movie company initiated the courting. But that old fox in Chicago would not be so coy.
Lather, forgotten and unattended, quickly cakes, and now Thornton Johns found his nose twitching. He began to shave with nervous rapidity. It was a shame about Hathaway. The firm of Storm, Goldberg, Miller and Hathaway were specialists in the affairs of radio, movie, and theater actors, producers, playwrights, novelists, and directors. They knew every studio in Hollywood and could arrange—
The hell with it. There was plenty for him to do in the next few days and that was all he wanted anyway. He would never stand in his brother’s way for the long pull; perhaps this very morning when Gregory phoned he’d start him thinking about the need to sign on one of the best Hollywood agents while the news was hot. If the suggestion didn’t issue from him, it would most certainly be forthcoming from Digby. Thorn nicked his jawbone and cursed.
Cindy pushed open the bathroom door. “Thorny, if you did help with a movie sale, would you get—” She hesitated. He stopped shaving and looked at her in the mirror.
“Get what?”
“Any commission? Or I mean, any part of the commission?”
“Cindy!”
“I only thought that with a movie—”
“You don’t take commissions from your own brother.” He rinsed the razor vigorously under the tap.
“Don’t be so superior,” Cindy said. Then, placatingly, “I’m sorry, Thorn. You did say you’d be giving lots of time to things now, and it just seemed perfectly ordinary business, even on the book-club money—”
“It’s not.”
She left and he was suddenly impatient to get to the office, refresh himself on other points in the contracts, and get going. Women were grasping creatures, at times nearly immoral; Cindy probably would have thought it only fair if he had deducted an agent’s commission of a hundred and ten dollars from the eleven hundred that Gregory’s last book had earned him for two years of work! Well, he had never made money on his own brother and he never would, no matter what it came to. Ten per cent of fifty-two thousand was—
He still wouldn’t.
There is, as everybody knows, a large satisfaction in the public renunciation of profit to which one has neither a legal nor moral right; that satisfaction now flooded Thornton’s heart. In this splendid mood, he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror and suddenly felt sheepish. He finished dressing quickly, went to the dining room, and said, “Skip it, sweetie, I was being a touch touchy.”
“For a change?” she said.
But there was no ill humor in her eyes and when he left for the office, he felt sunny and even-tempered and filled with anticipation once more. By the time Diana came in, he was nearly through with Gregory’s contracts and waiting to make his first call.
Diana proved him an accurate prophet. “Your own brother, Mr. Johns!” Her eyes were round; her voice was awed. Questions bubbled from her beautiful mouth; he answered them graciously, despite an inevitable preoccupation with the notes he was making on his memo pad all the while she spoke. He told her which calls he would make, and in what order, and when she finally left the office, she went, or so it seemed, on tiptoe. A wave of pleasure laved his heart and when at last he telephoned the Treasurer of Digby and Brown, his tone was very nearly affectionate.
So was Jack McIntyre’s. Never before had McIntyre evinced such affability. In the past, when Thorn had sought explanations or information, McIntyre had always seemed impatient to answer and have, done, but as they discussed the tax laws which would force Gregory to accept, and pay taxes on, the whole fifty-two thousand in this year instead of permitting a “spread” over several years, McIntyre was leisurely, even loquacious. He seemed to find such talk enjoyable too and it was Thorn this time who had to maneuver the conversation to a close. “I’m expecting a call from Gregory any minute,” he said regretfully.
“Ed Barnard wired him to be sure to come in,” McIntyre said. “Let me switch you over. Ed will want to hear about his reaction to all this.”
“Oh, no,” Thorn said hastily. “Gregory ought to talk to him himself, first.” But McIntyre was already jiggling the hook and saying, “Put Mr. Johns through to Ed Barnard, please,” and almost at once Barnard said, “Hello, Mr. Johns, is Gregory with you?”
“No, but he’ll be in to see you later on.”
“How did he take the news?”
“Well, you know Gregory.”
“Was he calm or excited or what?”
“I’ll let him tell you himself.”
“But are you sure he’ll be in? I wired him at seven-thirty this morning and haven’t even had a call so far.”
“At seven-thirty?”
Barnard laughed. “Luther Digby started routing all of us out of bed at six, which was five in Chicago—” He laughed again. “You really think Gregory will come in?”
“I made him promise he would. He tried to call you last night as soon as he got the telegram. He was at my house when he heard about all this.” A strange elation twanged Thornton Johns’ nerves: he was in the know; he could report, hand out information, say authoritatively what Gregory had done and would do. When he hung up and began on his next calls, he felt that this was already the happiest day in his life.
By ten-thirty, the magic phrase “fifty-two thousand dollars,” and the, doubly magic one, of “a hundred and four, thousand,” had been formed by his lips, larynx, palate, and glottis over a dozen times. And each time, a resounding confidence, rang through him, allied to the elation he had felt before, but extending to another dimension, as if the delegated right to shape these golden vowels and consonants carried strength and authority and power with it.
Thornton Johns was so sensible a man that he was more than a little aware of this absurdity, yet he could not halt the swift upsurge within him. Sums like these were not the vocal property of nobodies, except in fragile and unvoiced daydreams. He was not daydreaming: He had been given, as it were, due power of attorney over these treasures and so it was not unseemly that he should hear himself speaking like a man of substance. Particularly, he reflected, when other people spoke to him as if he were.
And if he spoke like one, and were treated like one, then why not act like one? Would a major executive in any business firm consult everybody in sight before taking the initial steps toward what might be a large triumph? Why had he been so sure that he could not call Hathaway without first getting Gregory’s permission? Could Gregory conceivably regret a movie sale? The added money? The vaster fame? The Good World on every marquee, on everybody’s lips?
He pushed the buzzer and Diana appeared. “My next call—”
“The Chicago one?”
“No, that will have to wait.” He gave orders and then sat back deep in his chair. He was relaxed, easy in every fiber. How odd that was, when he was using every nerve and all his brains and energy! This was the sort of life he was meant for and he would not give over too easily. If he spent, say, a hundred dollars on any other hobby, who could complain or charge him with extravagance? He smiled at the telephone, and his fingers began on their arpeggio, but lazily. Through the open door to the anteroom where Diana sat, he could hear her making her explanations to Hathaway’s secretary, and ending, “Will you put him on, please? This is urgent.” He drew the instrument to him expectantly and when she signaled him, he said blandly, “Hello, Mr. Hathaway. If Roy Tribble didn’t sleep all morning, I’d have got him to reintroduce us. It’s been a long time.”
“Let him sleep. We’re reintroduced.”
But it sounded uncertain and Thorn said, “During the war, it was. I consulted you about the option clauses in a book contract.”
“A book? My secretary said, ‘Roy Tribble’s insurance broker.’”
Thorn laughed. “I am. The author of the book was my brother, Gregory Johns.”
“Yes, I do remember now. You were acting as his agent—”
“And still am. This is about his new book—and a possible movie deal.”
“I see.”
“And I got to wondering if you might advise me, on a sort of provisional basis.”
“Provisional? We don’t accept contingent arrangements.”
Thorn said, “His new novel has just been taken by B.S.B. for April.”
“B.S.B.?” There was a pause and Thorn said nothing. “They still pay over a hundred thousand, don’t they?”
“A hundred and four. Look, Mr. Hathaway, why don’t we meet and talk my idea over anyway?”
“Well, we might. Any time you and your brother can make it, give me a ring.”
“It would just be me,” Thorn said casually. “Like last time.”
“Not your brother?”
“Not to start with. He’s pretty busy just now. O.K.?”
They made a date for drinks at five that afternoon. Thorn turned away from the phone and thought exultingly, It’s going to work, see if it doesn’t. Again he summoned Diana.
“I’m wiring Digby, instead of calling him,” he said. “Check his office and see if he’s staying in Chicago for tonight and if they say yes, send him this, fast rate: ‘Discussing movie possibilities today will phone this evening please start no Hollywood action without consulting me first since I am still acting as my brother’s agent thanks.’” He looked at Diana. “Punctuate that and sign it G. Thornton Johns and add our address.”
“Yes, Mr. Johns,” she said in her soft voice. She started out.
“Oh, and Diana.”
She turned around.
“Yes, Mr. Johns?”
“I’m working late tonight,” he said, hardly knowing, before he heard his words, what they were to be. “And I hope you can stand by.”
“Of course.” The old caressing note was in it, the old assurance that he was her one concern. But this time there was an urgency beneath the tone, as if she realized well how demanding life on a certain plane could be. “I have a date, but I’ll break it and get a sandwich at the drugstore.”
“No,” he said, and paused. When had he decided to do this? He glanced up at her. Her eyes still held something of their rounded awe, and he spoke gently, as if he were sorry that she should be so transparent, so easily understood. “I’ll have to have some sort of food too,” he said. “We’ll grab a quick dinner together, if you’d rather.”
“Oh, I would, Mr. Johns,” she said.