Once Is Not Enough (24 page)

“Positive.”

She reached out and took one of his cigarettes. His eyebrows went up. “Since when?”

“I learned when I was trying for a commercial.” After a moment she said, “I’m sorry about David.”

He laughed. “Tell that to him . . . not me. Hell, nothing’s lost. So you dated him and he proposed. Give him back his goddamn necklace and that’s it.”

She stared down at her half-eaten hamburger. Suddenly she realized that he didn’t want to believe there had been any intimacy between her and David. He wanted to think the necklace was just a “courting present.” Mike, the sophisticate, was completely old-fashioned about her.

“Mike . . . do I have sex appeal?”

“What an insane question.”

“Do I?”

“How the hell would I know? I can tell you that you’re beautiful . . . that you’ve got a great figure . . . but sex appeal
is a one-to-one relationship. A broad who would have sex appeal for me might not have it for the next guy.”

“You have sex appeal for me,” she said.

He looked at her. Then he shook his head. “And David doesn’t.”

“David doesn’t.”

“Oh, boy—” He whistled under his breath. “Here’s a guy that every broad in New York would dig, including the most talked-about movie star in the world. And he has no sex appeal for you . . . but I have.”

She tried to make her voice light. ‘Well, maybe I’ll just have to meet someone who looks like you.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said roughly. “Jesus, you acted like you really dug the guy.”

“I liked David,” she said. “I still do
like
him. But as far as romance goes . . . he turns me off.” She tried to laugh. “Maybe it’s his blond hair.”

He pushed his glass of beer away. “This is gonna be great! Every guy who comes along is going to lose out at the last minute on account of me . . . right?”

“Look, there’s no reason to be upset just because I changed my mind about David.”

“If we don’t straighten this out, you’ll change your mind every time. You’ll get right up to the altar and change your mind. That can happen . . . hell, it has happened. And it ends up in disaster. Listen—” His voice was low. “Don’t build up any false images about me. Images that other men can’t follow. I’m no big deal. You only know me as Daddy . . . and Daddy is the dream man. Well, get this straight. There is no dream man. It’s the woman who creates that dream image. And it’s time you learned that Daddy Mike is a hell of a lot different from Mike the man.”

“I see Mike the man and I love him.”

“You only see what I’ve let you see. But now I’ll give it to you straight. I was a lousy father and an even worse husband. I’ve never made any woman really happy. I loved sex . . . but I never loved. I still don’t.”

“You loved me . . . you always have.”

“That’s true. But I didn’t hang around every night and tuck you in your crib. I lived my own life. I always have.”

“That’s because Mother died.”

“Died? She killed herself, goddammit!”

January shook her head . . . yet somehow she knew he was telling the truth. He sipped his beer and stared at the glass. “Yep . . . she was pregnant and I was running around. So one night she got drunk and left a note saying this was her way of getting even. When I came home I found her on the bathroom floor. She had stuck a kitchen knife up her to dislodge the baby. It was there too . . . lying in the blood. It was scarcely a baby . . . maybe five months . . . a boy. I had enough clout to keep it quiet, make it look like her death came from a natural miscarriage . . . but—” He stopped and stared at her. “Now you know . . .”

“Why did you tell me this?” she asked.

“Because I want you to get a little tough. Learn how to handle yourself. Be
my
daughter. If you love me so damn much, love me for what I am. And if you accept what I really am instead of what you dream I am, then you’ll find your own man and you’ll fall in love with him. Hell, you’ll fall in love a dozen times. But only if you learn to face reality. Go after what you want. Don’t live in a dream world. Don’t be a loser like your mother. She skulked around with those great brown eyes, never openly accusing me, yet damning me with every silent look. Christ, I almost respected her when I learned she had another guy. I even got a little jealous and was going to try and romance her back—then I learned she couldn’t even hold him. She’d get drunk when she was with him and cry over me. And every time I looked at her there was always those sighs.” He turned on her. “Don’t ever sigh. That’s the worst. God knows there are times right now that I want to sigh . . . But every time I start, I remember that I got into this thing for us.”

“Us?” she said. “In the beginning it was just for me.”

“Okay . . . Okay. Maybe it was the only way out for me, too. But I did try to give you the works. A great apartment, a maid, a car . . . Okay, so you walked away from it. But you
know
it’s always there, so you’re not gambling with scared money. Dee tried to give you a guy, but you don’t like the color of his hair. Okay, so he’s said he wants to marry you. But we both know that doesn’t mean a guy is madly in love with a woman. It’s a cinch he’s not foaming to see you. I don’t buy business meetings at night. I’ve used that excuse too many times myself.”

“You think he’s with Karla?”

He shrugged. “If he’s lucky . . . maybe he is. In my book, any guy who gets a shot with Karla has to flip out over her. I know I would.” He paused and looked at her thoughtfully. “Say, maybe you’re not in love with David because he doesn’t want you to be . . . at the moment. Let’s face it, he wouldn’t want you all turned on over him while he was in the midst of making it with Karla.” He grinned. “Ever think of that? Maybe he’s holding you off. After all, if a guy doesn’t get romantic with a girl, how
can
she be in love with him?” He seemed relieved at his new analysis. “Wait till he turns on the high voltage. I bet it’ll be a whole new ballgame.”

“You would flip out for Karla?” she asked.

“What?”

“You said you would flip out for Karla.”

“Haven’t you heard anything else I’ve said since then?”

She nodded. “I heard it. But I’m asking you a question.”

“Sure I would.” He finished his beer.

“And you really think she’s too much competition for me?”

He smiled and patted her hand. “You’re a girl, she’s a woman. But don’t worry—David asked you to marry him. That means that you’re the girl he really wants—later.” He was grinning. “When
he
wants.”

“When
he
wants . . .” She laughed. “Oh, Mike, do you actually think David hasn’t come on strong for me and . . .”

He slammed his fist on the table. “Has that sonofabitch tried anything?” His jaw tightened. “I’ll kill him. Don’t tell me he’s tried to . . . to get intimate with you.”

She couldn’t believe it. Mike, who had all the women . . . Mike, who told her about Tina St. Claire and Melba . . . Mike, suddenly switching their relationship to outraged father
and innocent daughter. It was crazy . . . insane . . . yet something told her not to tell him the truth.

“David has been a gentleman in every way,” she said. “But I know that I could have him any way I want him.”

“Any woman can have any man if she’ll spread her legs,” he said coldly. “But you’re different. David knows that too.”

“David!” She almost spit the name out. “Dee comes up with a nice presentable cousin, and I’m supposed to act like a Barbie doll and fall in love with him and live happily ever after. And you know something? I tried . . . and I almost brainwashed myself into believing it. Tell me—is that what you wanted for me? To fall in love with a nice plastic man, wear a white bridal gown, settle down and maybe raise a daughter and find a David for her to marry? I mean—like the song says—‘Is that all there is, my friend . . . is that all there is?’”

He called for the check. Then he stood up and left some bills on the table. They walked out into the night. Two boys with long hair with red butterflies sewn on the backs of their dungarees passed. They stopped at a street light and began to kiss.

“Looks like love is everywhere these days,” Mike said.

“They’re Red Butterflies,” January said.

“They’re what?”

“It’s a Communist Gay Liberation group that operates in Canada. A few of them are in town for recruits. Linda thought of doing a story on them. But it’s not for
Gloss.”

Mike shook his head. “Know something? When you asked me in there, ‘Is that all there is?’ I can’t tell you whether that’s all there is or not. Because I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what
is—
in life, in show business . . . in anything. The whole world has changed. In my movies and all the movies of my day . . . the villain had to die. The hero won the gun-fight, and ten years ago if I had a twenty-year-old daughter who was dating a David, I’d have said, ‘What’s your rush? The world is your oyster. And I’ll give it to you.’ But I’m not the way I was any more than the world is the way it was. So maybe I am looking for a quick solid soft berth for you. Because I look at this bright permissive world of today and in
my book it stinks! But I can afford to turn my back on it because I’m fifty-two. I’ve lived a good hunk of my life. But you can’t . . . because it’s all you’ve got. And I can’t turn it back to what it was. The corner suite at the Plaza belongs to someone else now. The Capitol Theater is now an office building. The Stork Club is Paley Park. That world is gone. You can only see it on the Late Show. Unfortunately you’ve got to face the world as it is now. So try to enjoy it. Because suddenly one day you wake up and find you’re played out. It happens overnight. So grab every brass ring you can, because when you look back, it seems like a hell of a short ride.” He put his arm around her. “Look. I just saw a shooting star. Make a wish, babe.”

They were standing in front of her building now. She shut her eyes, but she couldn’t think of anything she really wanted. And when she opened her eyes he was gone. She watched him walk down the street. He still walked like a winner.

Later, as she lay awake in the darkness, she thought about the things her father had said. He was afraid of the world now—afraid for her . . . and afraid for himself. Well, as he said, it was her world now—the only one she had—and it was up to her to go out and squeeze it and make it fit. She would be a winner . . . and prove to him that it could be done.

She smiled as she stretched in the darkness. “Daddy,” she whispered, “when Dee comes home from her backgammon game, you two better not sit up and worry about me and my future. Because, Daddy . . . I’m smiling . . . not sighing.”

Ten

B
UT DEE WAS NOT HOME
waiting to discuss January’s problems with Mike. When she saw he had fallen into a heavy sleep after his golf game, she had slipped into the study and made a quick phone call. Then she scribbled a note, propped it on the phone by his bed, explaining she had tried to awaken him but he had looked so peaceful that she left him to sleep and had gone off to play backgammon.

She got into the car and told Mario to take her to the Waldorf. “I’ll be visiting a friend for several hours. Come back to the Park Avenue entrance at eleven o’clock.” Then she entered the Waldorf, walked through the lobby and came out on the Lexington Avenue exit. She hailed a cab. It was only a few blocks; she could walk, but she was too eager to get there. It was only six o’clock. She had said she’d get there at six-thirty. Well, they’d have an extra half-hour together.

When she arrived at the large building, the doorman was busy piling luggage into a cab for a tenant. She walked right past him and into the elevator. The elevator operator was a new man who had never seen her before, but he merely nodded when she told him the floor. Some security in these luxury buildings nowadays!

She got off the elevator, walked to the end of the floor and rang the buzzer. The elevator man hadn’t even bothered to wait to see what apartment she was going to. She rang the buzzer again. She looked at her watch. Six-fifteen. Where could one go at an hour like this? She reached into her bag and took out a key. She entered the apartment and switched
on the lamps in the living room. She lit a cigarette and made herself a drink.

Then she went to the mirror and combed her hair. Thank God she had had Ernest set it in a soft pageboy today—the Gibson-Girl style got messed up in bed. Today’s girls, with their loose swinging hair—how she envied them. She looked at the new individual eyelashes Elizabeth Arden had applied. Yes, they were marvelous. She turned off one of the lamps, then went back and looked in the mirror. Yes, that was better . . .

She sat in the club chair and sipped her drink. Her heart was pounding. No matter how many times she came here, she always felt the breathless anticipation of a schoolgirl.

It was five after seven when she finally heard the key in the lock. She crushed out her freshly lit cigarette and stood up. “Where the hell have you been?” she demanded.

Karla dropped her shoulder bag to the chair and took off her raincoat. “Am I late?” she said easily.

“You know damn well you’re late. Where have you been?”

Karla smiled. “Just walking. I always like to walk at dusk. Besides, I did only two hours at the bar today. I needed the exercise.”

“You didn’t need to walk. You did it intentionally . . . just so I would be sitting here waiting!” She paused because she knew her voice had risen. “Oh, Karla! Why do you do everything to bring out the worst in me!”

With a slow smile Karla held out her arms. Dee hesitated for a second, then rushed to her. And Karla’s kiss silenced any further protests.

Later, when they were locked in one another’s arms in the cool dark of the bedroom, Dee clung to Karla and said, “Oh God, if we could only be together forever.”

“Only death is forever,” Karla said. She pulled away and reached for one of Dee’s cigarettes. She snapped open the gold case and stared at it. “Very beautiful.”

“Mike gave it to me . . . or I’d give it to you. But I’ve given you three cases. And you always lose them.”