Girl on the Best Seller List (12 page)

With Louie dispensing these pads to the doctors, it would mean more business, since they could only be used at Stewart Drugs. It was a grand and practical idea, and while Louie wished his dear (vital!) mother no harm, it was annoying to have to wait for the day when he could put it into effect. Meanwhile, he said nothing about it to her, for fear of ridicule. He kept it as one of his Thoughts.

Louie’s mother was usually right about what was good for Louie. He would be the first to say so, and he would add to it that his mother was usually right about what was good for most people. She had saved the Fultons’ marriage back in 1953, hadn’t she? Louie had been only twenty-six then, but he still remembered hanging over the banister upstairs, dressed in his pajamas, listening on those nights his mother had “talks” downstairs with Freddy Fulton.

“But I love her, Min,” he remembered Fulton saying. “I am truly very deeply in love with Edwina.”

“You’re romantically in love.”

“Of course.”

“Romantic love is the worst kind, Frederick. It’s ephemeral.” “Not ours.”

“No, no one ever thinks
his
is, but take my word for it. Frederick, you have the child to think about.”

“I know.”

“And your wife as well.”

“The only thing that makes me hesitate, that makes me ask for your advice, Min, is my daughter. She’ll need me. I can’t imagine Fern raising her properly or giving her any kind of happiness.”

“Your daughter will need you both, Frederick. Edwina Dare doesn’t
need
you.”

“She loves me.”

“Frederick, romantic love thrives on obstruction; it’s the only kind of love that does. You complained earlier that your business is failing. It is not your business, it’s your integrity. Regardless of how well-kept your secret has been in Cayuta, your emotional involvement is showing. You lost the Lindgren account because you weren’t on your toes. I suppose that’s the reason the bank refused your loan.”

“I love her, Min.”

“How much? Enough to give up your daughter and your firm? To break your wife’s heart and spirit? And you know I’ve always admired Fern’s spirit. I hope your daughter inherits some of it.”

“I’ve never thought of Fern as having spirit.”

“Confusion doesn’t scare her, Frederick, even when it’s her own inner confusion. She speaks it out, acts it out. I suppose it seems too obvious a way for you, but I like it. Sometimes subtlety is merely a façade to pretense.”

“I want to thank you, Min, no matter how I decide.”

“And should you decide to abandon your Edwina, Frederick, I’ll advance you the capital the bank refused.”

Louie still remembered it all — how his mother had placidly piloted Fulton’s moods from rage to agonized whimpering to self-pity to ultimate resigned acceptance of her advice, advice which was really more of a proposition. There were three conditions attached to her loan: that Fern Fulton was not to know he had been persuaded by her to keep his marriage intact, that he was to convince Edwina Dare to leave Cayuta, and that for the period it took Fulton to repay the loan, the products of his pharmaceutical supply company were to be sold to Stewart Drugs at cost.

• • •

After Louie finished his lemon Coke, still without having chosen his Thought, he ordered another. He tried not to, because it was not part of his ritual to have two, but his anxiety about everything lately made him relent. If only he could get it across to Doctor Mannerheim that what he hated about that novel, was that there were errors all through it, misspellings and misprints and words running together! He got a grip on himself after he felt his hands squeeze the glass too hard; his teeth began their grinding, and he thought, easy now, fellow, eeee-zee! In his mind he pictured a mathematical formula.

Then he felt better. It was a way he had of bringing himself under control — by factoring.

The soda jerk handed him his second lemon Coke, and Louie spun around on the red leather chair and faced the door. When he saw the woman coming into the drug store, Louie’s mind began to whirl. He held tight to the glass and fought desperately for control.

After Gloria Wealdon left Stewart Drugs that noon, with the anti-acid prescription Louie had filled for her, she put her car in the lot behind the Cayuta Hotel. She went inside through the restaurant entrance.

At a side corner table, Min Stewart was waiting for her.

As Gloria crossed the thick saffron carpet, she felt suddenly sure that her stocking seams were crooked. She was conscious of the hangnail on her thumb, and aware of the fact that even though she had dressed carefully, following all the rules Pitts had set forth, she was somehow slovenly.

She did not mean to say, “Hi! How’s it go?” It just happened, vulgar-sounding and hicky.

Min was sipping a vermouth cassis. She nodded and smiled thinly.

Gloria had tried to fix her features in a disdainful, superior pose, but as she sat down, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror behind Min. She looked like someone with a stiff neck, who had just bitten into a bar of soap.

“A Martini,” Gloria told the waiter. “Dry, with a lemon peel. How are you, Mrs. Stewart? You wanted to see me about something?”

Min Stewart managed another wry smile. “There is no necessity to discuss it immediately. How was your New York visit?”

Another rush of ill-chosen words escaped from Gloria Wealdon: “I think you ought to get it off your chest right off the bat.”

“Very well, then.” Min Stewart patted her silver hair, touched a long, manicured finger to the pearl choker at her neck, and brought the finger down to rest on the sleeve of her soft, brown wool suit. “I would like to talk about my son.”

“I just spoke to Louie a moment ago, in the drug store.”

The remark went unacknowledged. That fact made heat rise to Gloria Wealdon’s neck. What was it about a person like Min Stewart that gave her the right to be so pompous? Why was Gloria Wealdon always in the position of playing the fly to her spider.

Min Stewart, pausing to sip her drink, said, “He’s under doctor’s care.”

“He looks good.”

“Yes, Louie does look
well.
But he doesn’t feel well. Doctor Mannerheim is treating him.”

“Oh?” Gloria smiled wryly.
“That
kind of doctor.”

She imagined that the idea of a psychoanalyst treating a Stewart, from Min Stewart’s viewpoint, was synonymous with a Rosicrucian’s converting Princess Margaret.

Except for a slight tightening of the lips, Min Stewart was oblivious to any innuendo. “Doctor Mannerheim,” she said, “feels that your novel has upset Louie.”

“That’s the way the ball bounces,” Gloria said. It seemed that her choice of words when she spoke to Min Stewart made her all the more the clumsy person Min thought she was.

“Is it?” said Min. “Jay feels that something in the novel triggered a neurosis in Louie. He isn’t sure of the nature of the neurosis; he feels Louie isn’t either. For my own part, I am not concerned with the nature of it, merely with its dismissal.” Min took another sip of the vermouth and set down the tiny, long-stemmed glass.

She said, “Jay feels it will take some time for Louie’s problem to be resolved. I disagree with him.”

“What has this got to do with me?”

But Min continued: “I believe that psychoanalysis, as valuable as it is, in many instances too readily offers a crutch to people whose problems might be solved quite simply.” She paused, and slipped off the suit coat from her shoulders. Gloria looked to see if there was a label in the lining. Of course, there was not.

In her novel, Gloria had written about this eccentricity of Min’s. She had not ascribed it to Min, because Min did not figure in the story, nor was there any character with a personality similar to hers. Yet she had described a woman purchasing an Emeric Partos coat from Bergdorf Goodman and requesting that the labels be removed. Like Min, Gloria’s character did not believe she should be a vehicle for advertising.

Gloria repeated: “What has this got to do with me?”

Min Stewart smiled the way someone would smile at a restless child. “ ‘Adopt the pace of nature,’ “ she said in cryptic-sounding tone, “ ‘Her secret is
patience.’
… Do you know who wrote that, my dear?”

“I suppose Shakespeare,” said Gloria.

“Emerson.”

“I wouldn’t know about him.”

“It’s from ‘The Over-Soul,’ “ said Min.

The waiter brought Gloria’s Martini, and there was a respite then while lunch was ordered.

• • •

Gloria’s stomach ache had not left her. It irritated her that she should have this problem again upon her return to Cayuta. Throughout her New York stay, no matter the circumstance, she had not experienced a nervous stomach. She had thought the security she had felt with the publication of her novel had put an end to all that. Yet ever since her visit with Fern that morning the pain had been constant. In a way it was like those dreams she had had while she was writing her novel, dreams of being back at college and steeling herself for final examinations, frenzied nightmares of anxiety that she would fail all her subjects.

• • •

When the waiter left with their order, Min said, “My son has found innumerable errors in your novel, Mrs. Wealdon. I speak not of content but of such errors as those in editing, proofreading and typography. Simple, trivial errors, which Louie has listed, and which he persists in brooding over.”

Gloria Wealdon took a gulp of her Martini. She was beginning to feel less unsure of herself now. She was pleased that she could think to say, “What am I supposed to do? Rewrite?”

“If you were to go to Louie,” said Min, “and tell him that you feel that there were mistakes in the novel — that the printer and the editor had made mistakes — and if you were to ask him to point them out to you, I am confident that Louie would benefit greatly from the situation.”

She looked into Gloria Wealdon’s eyes carefully. “I do not say that Louie, when he
is
himself, is without peculiarity, but he functions. He has been unfortunate not to have had a father’s guidance all his life. As a result, he is a little silly sometimes and a trifle absurd a good majority of the time. But he works hard. He’s quite agreeable under normal circumstances.”

Gloria remembered hearing that when Louie, Sr., had married Min, no one ever imagined he would continue at the drug store. Min was a Wadsworth girl with wealth of the best kind — inherited wealth. But Louis, Sr., was a stubborn individual. It was rumored that on his deathbed he gave two orders: “Let the dog sleep in the house nights now, Min, he’s old” and “See that young Louie, when he grows up, carries on my business.”

Gloria Wealdon said, “It was very important to me a few years back that I get into the Birthday Club. You kept me out, Mrs. Stewart. Do you remember?”

“I recall that your birthday is in January. We already have eight Januarys, and had that amount at the time your name came up.”

“But now?”

Min’s face was blank. “Now?”

“If I were to do this — favor, you would be willing to add to that amount.” Gloria stated it as fact. Her lips tipped in a slight smile. She was impatient to refuse the invitation Min was obliged to extend.

“Eight is far too many already,” said Min.

“Do you mean if I were to do what you ask, you’d still keep me out?”

“The idea behind the Birthday Club, Mrs. Wealdon, was to choose twelve women whose birthdays fell in the twelve months of the year. We had never intended to have more than twelve members. We have made far too many exceptions in the past, and we have decided unanimously that we won’t make any more. So you see, it’s out of my hands.”

“And just what would I gain if I were to do what you ask?”

“Not a gain really, Mrs. Wealdon. It would be in the way of a saving.” “A saving?”

“Yes. You would save your life, I think.”

“My life!” Gloria let out a hoot. Several people in the dining room turned to stare. Min Stewart’s face was quiet and solemn.

“Are you kidding?” Gloria said.

“I very rarely
kid,
Mrs. Wealdon. This morning, my son was writing formulas on the tablecloth at breakfast. Quite often he does this when he’s keenly distressed, but he never dirties anything. Louie is neat to a point where it is somewhat of a mania.” She smiled. “I don’t believe he realized what he was doing. I shouldn’t like him to extend that mood to other areas, and I am not at all convinced that we — you — can afford to wait while Doctor Mannerheim attempts treatment. I know my son, Mrs. Wealdon. He is not a murderer, but I suspect he will kill you if too much time elapses before someone takes the necessary steps to prevent this.”

“The police — ”

“Yes, the police … but they wouldn’t believe you.”

“And you wouldn’t …?”

“No, I wouldn’t, Mrs. Wealdon.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ “ Min Stewart finished the vermouth in her glass and added, “That
is
Shakespeare.”

Gloria Wealdon tried to recall the details of her meeting with Louie Stewart, less than an hour ago. The stomach ache persisted, seemed to grow. She tried to think. Was there anything out of the ordinary when she was in the drug store, any note of hostility from Louie, any remark, expression, anything at all like that? He had been most prompt in filling her prescription and most polite. There had been a minimum of palaver: Hello, how are you, yes, it is cool — no more, chit-chat was all. And Min Stewart was a fox, had always been one, had always gotten her way with everything and everyone. She would like Gloria Wealdon to make a fool of herself, to go to Louie that way, fearful of her life, crazy-acting and vulnerable to this hideously melodramatic chicanery. That was it, wasn’t it?

“Ridiculous!” Gloria breathed. She could feel Min’s eyes watching her.

She said aloud, “Simply ridiculous, the whole business.”

Min Stewart looked beyond her toward the front of the restaurant. She said, matter-of-factly, “Since you brought up Shakespeare’s writings, there was another saying attributed to him, Mrs. Wealdon. ‘Don’t take cannon-bullets for bird-bolts.’ “