Some Came Running (16 page)

Frank didn’t say anything, but his distaste showed on his face.

“It’s just a simple problem in adjustment,” Dave said. “If you’re an integrated personality, you adjust.”

Frank nodded. He had driven to within a block of the railroad and the end of the brick without knowing it. He went around the block back east toward town. “We better get on home,” he said. “I guess you’d rather not talk about it anyway.”

Over here off the main street, Wernz Avenue, the houses were smaller and there were no rows of street lamps, only bare bulbs in reflectors hung over the center of the street at corners, and the light would come and then be gone, come and then be gone, on their faces through the windshield.

“No,” Dave said somberly, “as a matter of fact I wouldn’t. I want to forget all that.”

Frank nodded and drove on a piece. “I guess you think I did wrong,” he said suddenly, “makin you leave town that time?”

“Why no,” Dave said. “As matter of fact, I’ve always felt you did me a favor. Otherwise I’d probly still be here, married to that little gal, or some other little gal, workin in some office, goin home to the same house every night, payin the electric bill every month.”

“There are a lot of worse ways of spendin your life than that,” Frank said.

“Not for me there ain’t.”

“I guess you were right a while ago,” Frank said. “I guess you haven’t got any smarter.”

“I guess not,” Dave said. Then suddenly he couldn’t go on with it anymore. Maybe it was too easy. “I didn’t mean to go casting aspersions on your way of life,” he said.

You’re a chameleon, he told himself, feeling in him the liquor he had drunk back at the hotel. An emotional chameleon, that’s what you are. You become somebody else with everyone you’re with. That may be a good thing in a writer, but it’s a damn poor trait in a human being.

“Oh, sure,” Frank said. “I know that.”

“What we need is a drink,” Dave suggested.

“That’s a damn good suggestion,” Frank said, and suddenly remembered Agnes was waiting for them at home. His nervous anxiety was at once restored full-blown. He had forgotten all about Agnes in his guilty talk of war. It was like sex. It seemed to him suddenly that he never felt anything but anxiety or guilt or fear anymore. Even when he was with Geneve in Chicago, fear of meeting someone who knew them was what dictated most of his movements.

But, of course, that wasn’t true, either. He felt all kinds of happy things. All the time. Didn’t he.

“This is our street,” he said cheerfully, turning the corner. “It’s only a few blocks from here. Then we’ll get that drink.”

“Great,” Dave said, but already beginning to be mad at himself for chickening out.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, Frank worrying about the reception Agnes would give Dave, Dave worrying because he had chickened out on his advantage over Frank. Neither of them, at this long postponed moment of meeting, was even considering how strange it was that of all the men in the world, they two should be brothers; or gave the slightest thought to the two persons responsible for this, namely their parents, who—with complete lack of forethought, perhaps even with indifference, driven by that biological characteristic of the Mammalia as a man is driven into shelter by the weather—had engaged in an attempt (largely unsuccessful) to relieve themselves of loneliness and labeled it virtue after the fashion of their species, but which actually resulted mainly only in the making of their offspring relatives; and who were the most nearly responsible for having made them the singular, and largely unhappy individuals, that they were. Neither of them thought of this. But when the car pulled in the driveway and stopped, they both thought that it had been a nice ride together, a fine way to meet after nineteen years.

F
RANK NEEDN’T HAVE WORRIED
about Agnes at all. She had bathed, fixed her hair, and dressed, and she looked fresh and happy and at least ten years younger. There were no signs whatever that less than an hour before she had been either exhausted or tearful, or furious. She led Dave inside with such honest welcome and charming grace that it appeared she had been waiting this whole nineteen years, just for him to return to Parkman.

Not only that, little Dawn who had got home from the glee club rehearsal was right there with her, equally dressed up and part of the welcoming committee. Dawn was at that age where she felt it unworthy of her newfound intelligence to have anything to do with her parents except at mealtimes. So this could only, Frank knew, have been Agnes’s doing.

The house looked lovely in the light of the lamps and the subdued indirect lighting he had had put in. The big table in the small dining room had been laid with full service for six, dazzling white and bright silver. The cocktail things were laid out invitingly on the buffet.

It was a fine home Frank thought and went straight to the buffet and nervously poured himself a stiff shot of the rye for the manhattans. Then and only then, he followed them on out to the kitchen.

Agnes was proudly showing Dave how the automatic dishwasher worked. Dawn had already gone back into the living room and gotten herself a book.

“That’s all there is to it!” Agnes said. “When you take them out, they’re done. It’s one of the first ones in town.”

“It’s amazing,” Dave said.

In spite of his anger, which still hurt his ears and which the liquor had not helped yet, Frank decided that for a woman of her age his wife was a remarkably beautiful woman when she wanted, in spite of the thickening around her middle. He walked over to her from the door and draped his arm around her waist.

“Maybe Dave’s not interested in our domesticity, Mama.” “Oh no!” Dave said. “I’m interested.” He was beginning to recover a little from his embarrassment at the effusive welcome he had not expected.

“Of course, it probably doesn’t mean much to you men,” Agnes smiled, taking Frank’s hand into her own. “But it means an awful lot to a housewife.”

“I’ll bet it does,” Dave nodded. He was determined to be a superlative guest, so that nobody especially Agnes could run him down afterwards.

“You men would probably rather talk about some old car or a business deal,” Agnes said. “But I did want to show off my pretty house.” She gave Frank an open sidelong smile, her eyes alight with a great deal of love that had not been there earlier today before Dave came on the scene. And which, Frank thought matter of factly, would not be there after Dave left.

“Well, we will certainly show it to him, Mama,” he said heartily. “All of it.”

“I want to see it,” Dave said.

“First we’d better get him a drink,” Agnes said turning her warm smile on Dave. “I ought to be ashamed, running him all over the house before he even gets a drink.”

“A capital idea,” Frank said.

“You didn’t run me all over the house,” Dave said.

“Will you mix them, Poppy?” Agnes said.

“Gladly,” Frank grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Are you goin to have one, Mama?”

“Well, maybe just one,” Agnes said. “Since this is a special occasion.” She smiled at Dave with girlish excitement. “We’re manhattan drinkers. Poppy’s famous for his manhattans. Besides we’re too old to be changing back and forth from gin to whiskey, we’re exclusively whiskey.”

“I’m an old whiskey drinker myself,” Dave said. He wondered would it be like this all evening?

“Let’s go on in and watch him make them,” Agnes suggested. “It’s really a treat to see.”

“Swell!” Frank said, leading the way and winking at Dave. “Mama knows I always do better when I’ve got an audience.”

“Now, Poppy,” Agnes chided.

Together, after Frank had mixed the drinks and handed them round, they showed Dave the rest of the house, explaining how they had redesigned, all of them carrying their drinks as they went. Then they came back to the dining room for another drink.

Frank needed one badly. As he had moved around the house, he gradually descended into an acute depression. It was a good act they put on for guests, he and Agnes, and he was proud of it. What depressed him was not so much that they were dishonest—he had no moral qualms about lying to anybody when it was necessary, neither did Agnes. But he wished that sometime they could just continue to play the act for a little while when they were by themselves.

“Are you goin to have another one with us, Mama?” he asked.

Agnes was delicately inspecting the layout of the dinner table. She straightened a salad fork a sixteenth of an inch and turned back and smiled at Dave sweetly before she answered.

“Well, do you really think it would be all right?” she said. “I might get giggly.”

“Go right ahead!” Frank boomed, and winked at Dave. “Go right ahead! You’re among friends.”

“Well, all right,” Agnes laughed. “Just one more then. I don’t ordinarily, but I will this once.”

She turned back to the table. “We’re having a couple of other people in to dinner to meet you,” she said to Dave. “That’s why the six places.”

“Yes,” Frank said. “They’re Robert Ball French and his daughter, Gwen. You remember them, Dave?”

Oh no, Dave thought, oh no. “Just barely,” he said. “I went to school to Bob French.”

“They’re both writers,” Agnes said. “That’s why I asked them. I thought you’d have something in common to talk about that way. Bob French is really quite well known nationally as a poet.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard of him.” Oh no, he thought again, oh no.

“Well. Now you boys just go on in the other room and sit down and have your drinks,” Agnes said. “I’m going out in the kitchen and get things started. You bring my drink out there for me, Poppy.”

“Sure thing,” Frank said. He had just sneaked another shot of the straight rye.

“That’s sure a beautiful table you’ve got laid there,” Dave said. He was in it now, all the way, might as well play it out to the bitter end. Even with the literary Frenches dragged into it, he was still determined to be a superlative guest.

Agnes stopped in the kitchen doorway. “Oh, Dawn and I didn’t have much time. We would have fixed a real dinner if we’d known you were coming.”

“I tried to call her all afternoon, Dave,” Frank said, “but she was out gallivantin someplace.”

“So you’ll just have to take potluck with us,” Agnes said demurely. She went on into the kitchen. Her dark eyes were bright with party-excitement. Nobody knew the initial energy that had been required of her to lift herself into this state. It had been tremendous, almost heart-bursting, and its expenditure would almost certainly show itself later. But right now, like a spaceship that had almost exploded itself to reach escape velocity, she could shut off and just coast the rest of the way on her own previously expended fuel.

“Here, Dave,” Frank said, “you take this on in the other room and talk to little Dawn. I’ll join you in a minute, soon’s I fix Mama’s.”

Dutifully, Dave wandered into the front room, holding his glass carefully. He was tiring fast from being a superlative guest. Everything had moved so fast. And now the damned Frenches, who wanted to do a book on lesser writers, such as D Hirsh, were being hauled into it. He might just as well have gone out with Wally Dennis. Dawn was curled up with her book in the big leather easy chair. He sat down in the lesser upholstered one.

Dawn looked up briefly with wide eyes, smiled distantly, and then looked back down her hair falling about her young face and hiding its sternly adult expression.

Dave cleared his throat and took a swallow of his drink. She had been his niece for more than seventeen years, he calculated, although he did not feel like an uncle. She was born two years after he left and he had only seen pictures of her—as a fat baby, as a less fat little girl, as an extremely unfat big girl (as if the fat had all receded inward, gathering its forces for the onslaught of womanhood when it would suddenly swell out again at the particular right places), but since going overseas he hadn’t even seen pictures of her.

In those two years, the transformation had taken place. Her breasts were not budding, but had budded; and her thighs were not swelling, but had swelled. And he knew that at this moment she was intensely aware of it and expected him to be aware of it, too. Dave shifted uneasily in his chair. He was aware of it, all right. She had the same short, stocky body all the Hirshes had only on her it looked good he thought, and everything about her shouted eloquently that she was just waiting, confidently and with supreme assurance, until somebody or other came along and adored her, as she knew was her inalienable right.

He cleared his throat again.

“I met a friend of yours uptown today,” he said.

“Oh?” Dawn said, raising her head on her pretty neck. “Who was that?”

“Boy named Wally Dennis,” Dave said.

“Oh, Wally,” Dawn smiled. “Yes. I’ve had a few dates with him. He thinks he wants to become a writer, someday maybe. He’s a nice enough fellow.” She looked back down at her book.

That seemed to have closed that subject. Dave cleared his throat again.

“What’re you reading?” he asked.

Dawn looked up without closing the book.
“The Remembrance of Things Past,”
she said, and looked back down.

“Proust?” Dave said. “That’s kind of heavy reading for a high school girl.”

Dawn smiled. “Oh, do you think so? I like him very much.”

“He always seemed a little bit too sensitive for me,” Dave said.

Dawn’s face took on a look of genuine horror. “Oh no! That’s the very thing that’s so wonderful about him! He has one of the most exquisite sensibilities of any man I’ve ever read.”

“Yes, he certainly has a great sensibility,” Dave agreed. “Well. See, I knew so many third-rate intellectuals out in Hollywood, you see. Who made such a fetish of Proust. I guess it turned me against him.”

“But do you think that’s fair? It’s hardly fair to blame Proust for that, is it?”

“No. Of course it isn’t. That was just what I was going to say.” Dave took another tentative swallow of his drink, wondering what the hell was keeping Frank.

As if mollified by his last remark, Dawn closed her book with finality, and turned upon Dave a brilliant smile, her eyes kindling with a half-bold, half-shy knowledge of her own attractiveness. It was at once innocently girlish and artfully womanish, and it made him mad.