The Wintering (15 page)

She thanked him, wondering what he meant, supposing only money, though surely he knew she had enough of that. Knowing she could not attribute his remark to stupidity, she felt a vague sense of her own ignorance. That feeling carried over when she stood on the sidewalk and gazed at the lavish, monumental apartment building where the publisher, Alex Boatwright, lived. When Almoner had paid the driver, and they went inside, she sensed more how the party was going to be beyond her. A red-coated doorman opened polished glass doors into the subdued rich glitter of a mirrored lobby. They stepped from a quiet small elevator immediately into Alex's apartment, which was a new experience for Amy and confusing. She had expected to step into a corridor of closed doors. Looking about foolishly, she thought that she stood a moment too long before understanding. All around her were blurred older faces. Rooted to the spot before the elevator, she heard the inaudible whisper going about the room: “Almoner's come!” All eyes had turned their way.

Alex Boatwright came, with extended hand, to the foyer to rescue them. He stared at Amy from what seemed a great height, giving her a queer feeling that he knew as much about her as she knew about herself. But would Jeff have mentioned her to Mr. Boatwright? Introduced, he nodded a great shaggy head and looked at her kindly. She went across the room between him and Almoner feeling safely maneuvered, occasionally nudged, like a little boat between larger ones.

“What may I get you to drink?” Alex asked and bent to hear her when they reached the bar.

“A martini would be fine,” she said.

“A martini would be fine for this young lady,” he repeated, though the bartender had heard and already reached for a pitcher. She wondered why, with a little smile, Mr. Boatwright had repeated her order. Holding her glass, she stood between them like a child with something to pacify it, while they talked across and above her head. She was eventually separated from Almoner by other people crowding around to talk to him. When Alex's attention was taken, too, Amy wandered toward windows, full-length at one end of the room. There, Almoner presently joined her, having noticed her alone; but he said nothing, as if he felt, too, the enormity of everything, as she did: not only of night and the city below them—simply of everything; that was the only word Amy could think of. They were forced, eventually, back into the room by others. As they went from group to group, he sometimes touched her elbow, guidingly. Irritated that she was so inadequate, she felt annoyed by his possessive touch. She wondered several times about Leigh and the party she might have chosen.

Might he get her a refill? Almoner asked. Amy shook her head, guarding against losing whatever wits she had. Never before had she been to a party where women wore long dresses, unless it was a dance. She was so much the most underdressed female at the party that she forgot to worry about her appearance. She sat on a footstool near Almoner's knee, considering herself hardly distinguishable from its pattern. She grew used to the fact that anyone who spoke to her was going to ask the same questions: How she had met Almoner and what she did? Oh, they then said, what school? without really caring. They wanted to know so obviously, she thought, not only more than she told them but more than they dared ask. At home, her father and his friends drank quickly, seeing how much they could “put aboard” before dinner. Without drinks, Almoner and Alex Boatwright sat now discussing a vague sonnet. Amy wished she could tell her mother about the ice sculpture and about the crepe suzettes for dinner, fantastically thin. She longed, in a burst of enthusiasm, to write her mother about everything!

Almoner, tuned to her moods, said in a low voice, “I told you in New York we would have good food and good talk.”

An exchanged glance between them acknowledged several things, that freezing day by the river when they had first risked meeting, that undeniably there would be more meetings, that truthfully no matter how nice it was here, they preferred their own part of the country. Almoner then went for coffee, thinking that the glance between them had been as intimate as one between lovers, wondering if he and Amy ever would be.

As soon as he left the table, the woman sitting next to Amy said, “How nice that you know Mr. Almoner. How did you meet him?” Her rising eyebrows were dyed heavily, black as ravens' wings. Amy watched their flight.

“He's a friend of my aunt's really,” she said. She smiled innocently, believing the woman could not think there was anything between the shy, ill-at-ease girl she saw and the famous man. Surely the woman must see she had been brought along by Almoner as unthinkingly as he had brought his coat. The woman's eyebrows lowered and her nose quivered. She was affronted by being lied to. She turned, as Amy did, to watch caterers who, as if they were magicians, folded away tables and transformed the foyer into a place for dancing. Beyond, Almoner had been stopped by admirers and stood uncomfortably, holding demitasses. Not even saying “Excuse me” the woman left the table. Conspicuously alone then, Amy was grateful when a youngish man came up, bowed, and asked her to dance. She rose, thinking that men just beginning to grey at the temples were handsome, always. He was not so old, either, probably about thirty, she judged. He turned out to be rigid and untalkative, however, and she began to wonder why he had asked her to dance. Unheedingly, he kept hitting her in the eye with a white carnation in his buttonhole. Assuming their silence was her fault, falling back on her mother's advice, Amy talked wildly about whatever came into her head: how thin the crêpes had been, the ice sculpture, whether he had read any good books lately. He kept woodenly pushing her about until the music stopped. He then, unexpectedly, asked if she would like to go to a jazz concert in the Village the next afternoon.

“I'd adore it!” Amy cried.

“Do you think Mr. Almoner would go?” he said.

“I doubt that,” she said.

But shouldn't they ask him? the young man said insistingly, starting her across the room. Forced to introduce them, Amy repeated the invitation, which Almoner declined.

“I'm sure you would like to go, though,” he said generously.

“It's all a bit indefinite,” the young man said.

“It sounds great,” Amy said.

“Mr. Almoner,” said the young man. “I run a literary lecture agency. You wouldn't be interested in one lecture, or a tour?” He then ruefully threw out his hands, meaning he had anticipated Almoner's negative reply. With another stiff bow, he retreated across the room.

Was she still invited to go? Amy wondered, watching him. Almoner later was helping her into her coat, and she glanced across the room at the young man, who stood by the bar. He managed to miss that glance, turning quickly to have his glass refilled. More than she had wanted to go to the concert, Amy knew she had wanted to go out with that sophisticated young man. That made her too guilty to tell Almoner what she had learned, that night, about the ways of the world. How gullible she had been and how duped. When they went down in the elevator, she told him, instead, how often she had been questioned about knowing him. That the implications attached to the questions had bothered her hung explicitly in the air, though Amy did not say so.

“Of course,” Almoner said understandingly. “Here, I'm lionized. People were curious. Why had I chosen you?”

“Certainly not for my fascinating conversation,” she said wryly.

“You had the guts to be yourself,” he said.

“What's myself, though?” she said.

“Someone who is seeking something beyond what most people her age are,” he said. “You behaved like exactly what you are, a properly brought up young lady at her first big New York party (and frightened to death, he thought).”

“Oh, was I awful?” she said, mortified.

“Awful?” They had by now been bowed through the glass doors by the obsequious doorman and stood on the sidewalk. Her face, reflecting the city's night lights, seemed to him a small white flower in danger of being trampled on. He said, “Amy, you were charming. And you are modest. Not many women are that any more.”

Feeling unconvinced, and that she had been only stupid and shy, Amy felt exhausted by the evening. She pulled her coat tight about her and said, “I'm cold and tired. You're so close to your hotel, you go on there. I can take a taxi alone to mine.

“I'm sorry we're not staying closer together,” he said.

“I stay in rooms just for college girls,” she said quickly. “It's cheaper.”

“That's a sound idea,” he said. “But I can't let you go around in the city alone, at this hour.” At his whistle, a taxi leapt away from a curb as immediately as a horse reacting to a crop.

Amy said agitatedly, “But I've often gone around by myself this late at night.”

“I'd hate to face your momma, though, if anything happened when I was in charge of you.” He gave her a little tug toward the door he had opened.

Amy determined, sitting back in her corner of the cab, that he was not going to get out at her hotel; glum and silent, she wondered how to keep him from it. She stared at the driver, humped over his wheel, feeling that the taxi was like a stealthy rat roaming these dark side streets, while everyone in the city slept. Then, the taxi's tires slithered along the curb, as it drew to a stop. She reached immediately for the door handle. Almoner, in his corner, did not move and said, “Will you be sleeping late tomorrow?”

She regretted having felt so meanly toward him. “No,” she said, “I don't want to waste our time together sleeping.”

They arranged a meeting for the next morning. The doorman had been patiently holding open the door, and she stepped out quickly. She watched the taxi go off, but Almoner did not look back through the rear window. The doorman had hurriedly crossed the sidewalk and seemed huddled against the building. Inside, a dance had just ended. There came down red-carpeted steps, toward the street, an outpouring of formally clad young people; not their faces, but wilted corsages of the girls, showed the lateness of the hour. One young man burst through the door as Amy started inside. Thinking she was one of them, he called out that she was going the wrong way. He made a grab at her but Amy escaped, then looked at him from the lobby. He stood on the sidewalk, looking back at her in surprise, laughing.

Blinking against the bright cold morning, Amy said, “I don't think there are any bars open on Sundays until one. You want a drink this early?”

“At my age, it's sometimes necessary after a night out,” Almoner said, surprising her since he had not had much to drink. “Walking may clear my head, if you don't mind. I slept very little.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, seeing that he was pale. Taking his arm, she drew him toward her as if to take him from someone's earshot. “I stayed awake awhile wondering about something you said. Why did you choose me?”

“Why, I told you,” he said, looking better. “Someday, you may be beautiful.”

“Seriously,” she said.

“Though this morning, I think you may already be beautiful, Amy.” They were walking rapidly because of the cold, their eyes blinking against gusts of wind. She felt he had evaded her question. Sensing it, he was serious. “I think you were chosen for me,” he said, his arm tightening against hers. “Didn't you know that? Call it fate or destiny or God or whatever you will.” Her face glistening with cold was bent toward him intently. Since neither cared in what direction they were going, he suggested they turn a corner and not face the wind. They walked more comfortably. “I don't think persistence is your nature, Amy. But you persisted and wrote me that letter after I had rebuffed you. It seems a miracle, or something akin to one, that brought you back into my life again.”

“It seemed that night that a voice did tell me to write it,” she said. “No. On my own, I wouldn't have done it.”

“I think I'm to act as a catharsis for you,” he said. “To free you from your past, to do whatever it is you want to do. Be a writer, if that's it. Though, Amy, I have to tell you, sometimes I'm not sure you know what you do want.”

“That seems to be a general opinion,” she said, lowering her head against more than the cold. “I guess that's what causes so much confusion inside me.”

“I see in your eyes so much that's troubling you,” he said. “Lift your head and look at me. They're bluish today. You must be wearing something that color. Yes, I see.” She had drawn aside her coat collar to reveal a bit of of her dress. “I went searching for violets today before I met you,” he said. “But I couldn't find a florist open. I'll find them eventually.”

“Thank you for looking, anyway,” she said. “I do hate feeling always troubled. But Jeff, it's not always about myself. I worry about the unfairness of your being unhappy and lonely. And”—she pointed to a man lying in a doorway, a discharge long as a watch chain hanging from one nostril—“I worry about people like that. Things I can't do anything about.”

“It's all right,” he said. “Worry. You have to.”

She let out a little breath of relief, which bounded ahead of them, whitely, in the air. “I'm so glad to know you,” she said, touching his cheek. “If only we were closer in age. Should I have been born sooner, or you later?”

He caught the hand that had touched his cheek and held it against his overcoat for warmth; she wore no gloves. “At your age, I was too busy working, Amy. I wouldn't have paid any attention to you if we had met then. It had to happen now, as it has.”

“Most people say don't worry about things you can't do anything about. I thought that was dumb, but I wasn't sure. Most people want only to be happy, to think about things that are happy. And I do think that's being stupid.” She stopped. “Here's a bar open now if you still need a drink.”

He then drew his watch from his pocket and squinted at it. “I haven't been thinking again. Probably, you're hungry. Let me get a cab and take you someplace very nice. The Plaza?”