Where Love Has Gone (13 page)

She smiled at me. “Good morning, Luke.” She sat down and unfolded her napkin. “How is she this morning?”

“She seemed all right,” I said. “She had a good night. I guess the morning sickness is about over.”

She nodded. “Nora is a strong, healthy girl. She shouldn’t have any trouble.”

I nodded in agreement. I hadn’t been home more than six weeks when Nora discovered that she was pregnant. I’d come home from the office one evening and found her in raging hysterics. She was sprawled across the bed in our room, sobbing angrily.

“What’s wrong?” I was already used to some of her temperamental outbursts, like when the forms she thought should come alive to easily refused to take shape.

“I won’t have it! I don’t believe it!” She sat up and screamed. I stared at her. “Take it easy. Won’t have what?”

“That damn doctor! He says I’m pregnant!”

I began to grin in spite of myself. “Such things have been known to happen.”

“What’s so funny? You men are all alike. It makes you feel big and proud and virile, doesn’t it?” “It doesn’t exactly make me feel bad,” I admitted.

The tears were gone now and all her anger was directed at me. “Having a baby won’t interfere with
your
work. Having a baby won’t twist
you
all out of shape, make
you
big and fat and ugly so that nobody will look at you anymore.”

She glared at me. “I won’t have it!” She screamed again. “I’ll get rid of it! I know a doctor—” I went over to her. “You won’t do any such thing.”

“You can’t stop me!” she shouted, getting off the bed and starting for the door.

I caught her shoulders and turned her toward me. “I can and I will,” I said quietly.

Her eyes clouded with anger. “You don’t care anything about me! You don’t care if I die having it. All you care about is the baby!”

“That’s not true. I do care about you. That’s why I want you to have the baby. Abortions are dangerous.”

Slowly the anger in her eyes faded. “You do care about me, don’t you?” “You know I do.”

“And when the baby comes, you’ll still care more about me than—than it?” “You’re the only thing I’ve got, Nora. The baby is something else completely.” She was silent for a moment. “We’ll have a son.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Babies aren’t made in a studio like statues.”

She looked up into my face. “I know. Every man wants a son and you’re going to have one. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Don’t worry about it. A little girl would be okay with me.”

She slipped out of my arms and walked over to the mirror. She dropped her negligee on the floor and, turning sideways, looked at her naked reflection in the glass. “I think I’m getting a little tummy.”

I grinned. She was as flat as a washboard. “It’s a little early for that.”

“Oh, no, it’s not! The doctor says it shows earlier on some women. Besides I feel heavier.” “You don’t look it.”

“I don’t?” she asked. Then she turned and saw my grin. “I’ll show you!”

She laughed and threw herself across the bed at me. We tumbled together, she on top of me. She kissed me, letting all her weight rest on me. “There. How does that feel?”

“It feels fine.”

“It does, does it?” I knew that suddenly hungry undertone in her voice. She kissed me again, her body beginning to move.

“Wait a minute,” I said cautiously. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Don’t be silly! The doctor told me everything should go on as usual. Just not to place too much weight on me. He recommended the position of female superior.”

“Female superior?” I questioned, feigning ignorance. “I thought males were superior.” “You know. It means the woman on top.”

I acted as if I were learning something new. Then I couldn’t help myself. I threw my arms and legs ecstatically into the air. “Take me, I’m yours!”

We collapsed in a gale of laughter.

But the next few mornings had been rough. She had been sick almost every day since. “How’s the work in the office going?” my mother-in-law asked.

“Okay, I guess. They’re still getting used to me and I’m trying to find out what’s going on.

Actually, I have very little to do as yet.” “These things take time.”

“I know.” I looked at her. “I’ve been thinking maybe I ought to go back to school and brush up.

So many new concepts have developed while I was away. There’s a whole new field in the use of aluminum as a structural component. I don’t know anything about it.”

“There’s no point in rushing.”

I knew what it meant when she spoke like that. It meant that she knew something that I didn’t. But there was no use asking her. She would tell me when she was ready. Or she wouldn’t tell me at all. I’d have to learn it for myself.

She was quite a woman, this mother-in-law of mine. She had her own way of doing things. Like that first morning I had gone to the office.

She’d called me into the library and taken an envelope out of the desk and given it to me silently.

I’d opened it curiously. Several elaborately printed stock certificates fell out. I picked them up from the floor and looked at them. They represented twenty percent of the stock of Hayden and Carruthers. On the back of each she had endorsed the shares over to me.

I put them back on the desk. “I didn’t earn them.” She smiled. “You will.”

“Maybe I will,” I said. “But right now, I couldn’t take them. I’d feel like a damn fool. There are people in that office who have worked there for years. They’d resent it.”

“You haven’t seen the morning paper?” “No.”

“Then maybe you’d better look at it,” she said, handing me the
Chronicle
.

It was already folded to the financial page. I read the small headline: HAYDEN AND CARRUTHERS APPOINT NEW VICE-PRESIDENT. Alongside the story was my picture. I read the item quickly.

“That’s really starting at the top,” I said, giving the paper back to her. “There’s nowhere else a Hayden can start.”

There was no point in telling her that I wasn’t a Hayden. She was quite clear in her thinking. She hadn’t lost a daughter, she’d gained a son.

“I hope my demotion isn’t as rapid.” “You’ve a strange sense of humor, Luke.” “Easy come, easy go,” I said.

“Don’t talk like that!” Then she smiled. “You’ll do all right. I know you will.” “I hope so.” I turned and started for the door.

Her voice stopped me. “Wait,” she said. “You forgot the stock.” “You keep it. When I think I’ve earned them I might ask for it back.”

A kind of hurt crept into her eyes. That wasn’t what I’d intended at all. I came back to the desk. “Please understand,” I said. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do. It’s just that I’d

feel a lot better if I could make it on my own.”

She stared at me a moment, then slipped the certificates back into the desk. “I understand. And I approve heartily. It’s the way I’d expect a Hayden to act.”

I had no reply to that one. “Good luck.”

I returned her smile. “Thank you.” I’d been uneasy about it ever since.

When Nora came down we were just finishing our coffee. She was already dressed to go out. I raised an eyebrow. Anytime Nora got down before noon it was a miracle.

Her face was excited. “Do you have to be at the office early?”

“I guess not,” I said. If I didn’t show up for a year I doubt that anyone would have missed me. “Good! I have something to show you.”

“What is it?” “It’s a surprise.”

“Tell me,” I said. “I’ve had enough surprises in the short time I’ve been home. I’m not sure that I can take another.”

She laughed. “You’ll like this one.” She looked at her mother and they both smiled. “A friend of mine wants you to do her house over.”

“Well, now,” I said. That was more like it. Something to do at last. “Where is it?”

“Not far from here. We’ll go over and look at it and I’ll tell you want she’s got in mind.” “Great. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

“I’m ready right now. I had my breakfast upstairs.”

It was a dream house. Three wings and seventeen rooms, at the top of Nob Hill looking out over the bay. There was a wonderful old marble staircase curving up off the large entrance foyer. The rooms were tremendous, like nothing they ever built today. Out in back there was a three-car garage, with servants’ quarters above. The house itself was greystone, beautifully patinaed with age, and there was a blue tile roof that seemed to soak up its color from the sky.

“It’s beautiful. I hope they don’t want to do much to it. They’d only spoil it.”

“I think it’s mostly modernizing the bathrooms and the heating plant, perhaps doing a few rooms over.”

“That makes sense,” I said, still studying the house.

“They’ll need a nursery. And a large studio for the wife in the north wing, to catch the light.

Maybe a combination den and office for the husband, when he wants to work at home.”

I wasn’t altogether dumb. “Exactly who is this house for?” “Haven’t you guessed?”

“I’m afraid to.”

“Mother bought it for us,” Nora said.

“That’s great!” I exploded. “Do you know what it would cost to run a house like this? More in a month than I make in a year!”

“What difference does that make? We don’t have to worry about money. The income from my trust fund alone is more than enough to take care of us.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I said. “But didn’t you ever once stop to think that I might like to support my own family? All you and your mother ever think of is money. I’m beginning to feel like a gigolo.”

“You’re acting like a damn fool! All I’m interested in is having a decent place to live, a proper home to bring up a baby.”

“A baby doesn’t need a seventeen-room house on Nob Hill to be brought up properly. If you want a place of your own, there are lots of houses we could buy. Houses that I can afford.”

“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “But I couldn’t afford to be found dead in any of them. I have my position to consider.”

“Your position? What about my position?”

“You made your position clear when you married me,” she said coldly. “And when you went to work for Hayden and Carruthers. As far as San Francisco is concerned, you belong to the Haydens. Whether you like it or not, you’re one of us.”

I stared at her. The realization spilled over me like the shock of ice-cold water. What she said was true. The war was over, and as far as anyone else was concerned, Colonel Luke Carey might as well be dead. The only identity I had left was associated with them.

“I want this house,” Nora said quietly. “And if you don’t want to remodel it, I’ll find an architect who will.”

I didn’t have to look at her to know that she meant what she said. I also realized what it would mean to me. I might as well look for a job as a truck driver if I let it happen. “All right,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll go it.”

“You won’t be sorry, darling.” She threw her arms around me. “You’ll be the biggest architect in San Francisco when everyone sees the wonderful things you’ll do with this house!”

But she wasn’t quick enough to hide the glimmer of triumph in her eyes. And that night, for the first time since I’d come home, she did not seek my embrace.

11

__________________________________________

In the end it wasn’t I who did the house. I got all the credit, but it was only a technicality. Actually, it was all Nora. All I did was translate her ideas into their proper architectural concepts.

But she was right about one thing. It was a showplace. We’d scarcely moved in before
House Beautiful
did a spread on it, and the month after the magazine came out I was the hottest architect in town.

Everyone who was anyone on the Coast wanted me to do their houses. I could have had more commissions than a five-percenter on a field day in Washington.

Instant success. I suppose I should have been content with it, but it bugged me. I guess that it showed, because the first time I turned down a client, George Hayden came into my office.

I looked up in surprise. George was a big man. Heavy-set, florid-faced, very solid and dependable. It was the first time he’d come down to see me instead of calling for me.

“How’s it going, Luke?”

“Okay, George,” I said. I turned off the light over my drafting board. “What can I do for you?” “I thought we might have a little talk.”

“Fine.” I waved to a chair.

He sat down. “I’ve just been looking over the monthly report. I get the feeling that you’re being overloaded.”

“I don’t mind,” I said easily. “It’s a pleasant change from having nothing to do.”

He nodded. “I’ve been thinking it’s about time we gave you a department. You know, a few boys to do all the preliminary work so you can have a chance to keep an eye on the big ones.”

This language I understood. The Army spoke like that. I played it ignorant. “What big ones, George? All I’m doing is small stuff.”

“There’s a good margin in your field,” he said. “Much better than in the big stuff. That’s why I hate to miss out on anything just because you’re too busy. If somebody has his mind made up to build and one architect can’t do it, he’ll find one who can.”

“You mean like Mrs. Robinson who just left?”

“I don’t mean only Mrs. Robinson. There will be others. They are coming to you for your ideas.

They won’t care who does the actual drawing.”

“Let’s stop kidding ourselves, George. They’re not coming to me because of my ideas. Most of those idiots wouldn’t know an architectural idea if it hit them in the face. They’re coming to be

because all of a sudden I’m the fashion.”

“So what, Luke?” he said, looking at me shrewdly. “The main thing is to keep them coming.” “And how long do you think that will last? Only until they find out that their houses won’t make

the magazine like mine did. Then they’ll be after someone else.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that. We can keep things alive. That’s why we have a P.R. man.” “Oh, cut it, George,” I said disgustedly. “We both know it’s Nora’s house.”

He looked down at his hands for a moment without speaking. They were soft and white and well manicured. Then he looked up at me, his eyes unblinking. “You and I both know that I’m not half the architect Frank Carruthers was. But I’ve managed to keep this a going business and maintain our reputation.”