Jack and Susan in 1953 Page 9

  Whatever Libby had to say to Susan, she was making it seem important. As they crossed the crowded room, everyone they passed tried to speak to Libby. But the hostess, with Susan’s gloved wrist in a vise grip, pushed through them all with smiling indifference, like a steam-roller with a broad grin painted on the front.

  Libby’s bedroom was being used as a powder room; coats and wraps were thrown across the pink-and-yellow bed and the air smelled like the first floor of Bloomingdale’s with the mixture of the scents of a hundred different atomizers. Women were gossiping in the corners and out on Libby’s private terrace. Others were fighting for mirror space, queueing up for the bathroom, and all of them—with more or less pretense at indifference—learning all they could about Libby herself by a close examination of whatever objects lay at hand.

  Libby smiled at the crowd of women with a scarcely apologetic, “Oh I’ll talk to everybody later. Susan and I have—”

  She didn’t finish the sentence because by that time she had pulled Susan into one of her clothes closets and pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Shhh!” said Libby.

  It was disorienting. With the door shut the closet was very dark. The closet wasn’t very large, and it was filled with clothes. Susan felt a welter of fabrics brushing her arms and scraping her face. A rackful of shoes tumbled down over Susan’s feet. Libby must have been very close for Susan could feel her breath and smell her perfume stronger than she could her own.

  “Is there a light?” asked Susan.

  A light came on—a single bright bulb in a ceramic fixture on the ceiling of the closet. Libby’s hand was on the chain. Libby’s face looked garish in the harsh light, as if she’d been made up as a clown—the sort of clown that frightened children rather than amused them. Her dress seemed to fill the closet, and the rustle of the stiff skirt sounded like rats in the wainscoting.

  “Are you going to do it?” demanded Libby in a sharp, low whisper.

  “Do what?” returned Susan, mystified—and wondering what the women on the other side of the closed closet door were thinking.

  “Steal my thunder,” said Libby.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You know why I’m having this party. You know why I’m spending all this money. You know why I’ve gathered together all the people I dislike most in the world.”

  “You tell me why,” said. Susan.

  “To announce my engagement,” said Libby. “My engagement to Jack.” After a moment, she added, as an afterthought, “I love him very, very much.”

  “Libby, what do you mean, steal your thunder?”

  “By announcing your own engagement, of course.”

  “My engagement to whom?”

  “To—you know.” Even behind closed closet doors, Libby wouldn’t admit that she remembered his name.

  “Rodolfo?”

  Libby nodded.

  “He hasn’t asked me to marry him yet,” said Susan, and then regretted she’d said yet. She wasn’t exactly sure why she regretted saying it, but she did. “And even if he had asked me, and even if I had said yes, why would I announce it at your party? Libby, I don’t think I know more than four or five people out there. And them I don’t like.”

  “Who does?” said Libby. “And I’d very much appreciate it if you wouldn’t throw yourself at Jack tonight.”

  “Libby, I don’t throw myself at anybody. Ever.”

  “Well, I know it would make Jack very uncomfortable if you—”

  “If I what?”

  “If you talked to him about…things.”

  “Libby, I have never known you to beat around the bush like this. You dragged me into this closet, and you’re holding me prisoner here”—Libby was standing with her back to the door, and Susan couldn’t have gotten out unless she’d pushed Libby down and trampled over her and her new Paris dress—“so say what you’ve got to say and stop playing games. It’s stifling in here, and I’m going to pass out from breathing your perfume if you don’t.”

  “All right,” said Libby. “I’ll say what I have to say. I’m trying to protect Jack.”

  “Protect him?”

  “From you. Jack thinks that you’re still in love with him.” Susan’s eyes widened. “He thinks you’re carrying a torch. He thinks that you never really got over him, and he’s embarrassed. He’s so sweet and he hates to think that he’s hurting you, and if you go up and talk to him he’ll just start to blush. And you know how he is when he starts to blush. He gets dizzy. And I don’t want Jack to get dizzy on the night I’m going to announce our engagement so I don’t want you to talk to him.”

  “Libby, if you didn’t want me to talk to Jack tonight, why on earth did you invite me to this party?”

  Libby looked startled by the question, and she responded in all apparent innocence, “Because I like you. Because you’re the only real friend I have in the world.”

  It was Susan’s turn to be startled. To think that Libby Mather, rich as she was, known by so many people, and traveling in the circles she traveled in, should call Susan her best friend was almost beyond Susan’s comprehension. But Susan looked into Libby’s eyes and saw no conniving about this statement. About the other notion, though, she had strong doubts. There was some reason that Libby didn’t want her to talk to Jack. Susan decided right then and there, in the closet, being attacked by Libby’s dresses and breathing Libby’s perfume, that she was going to speak to Jack as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “OH, I PLEADED with her,” cried Libby. “Just pleaded and pleaded.”

  “Pleaded with her to do what?” said Jack. He was standing in a corner of the terrace overlooking the intersection of Park Avenue and Sixty-first Street far below. He was trying to persuade Woolf, whom he could see through the open window of one of the maids’ rooms where Libby had exiled him for safekeeping during the party, that it would not be a good idea to jump from the window across to the terrace, even though it was only a matter of a few feet. Jack had without success been trying to toss hors d’oeuvres through the window onto the bed on which Woolf was stationed, preparing for the leap. A number of other guests on the balcony were watching this proceeding with interest, and one gentleman had even tried to bet the bartender twenty dollars that the dog would jump.

  “I pleaded with her to talk to you,” said Libby. “I said ‘Let bygones be bygones, Susan.’ That’s what I said to her, Jack. I said, ‘I’m marrying Jack and you’re marrying Rodolfo and we’re all going to live happily ever after.’”

  In a slightly strangled voice, Jack asked, “And…and what did she say to that?”

  “She didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t want to talk about it at all. What did you do to make her so angry?”

  “Nothing. In fact, I—”

  “You made those terrible accusations about Rodolfo, didn’t you?”

  “I made a few accusations,” said Jack, coloring and now sorry he had told Libby about his suspicions. “They weren’t so awful.”

  “You told her he didn’t exist.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “You don’t tell a woman that the man she loves doesn’t exist,” said Libby sententiously. “It’s not polite. Especially not coming from someone she used to…used to be acquainted with, if you know what I mean. Jack, is that dog going to commit suicide?” she asked suddenly, catching sight of Woolf with his forelegs perched on the sill of the maid’s room’s window just beyond the edge of the balcony.

  Jack reached across the twenty-three story abyss with black caviar spread on a yellow cracker.

  Woolf lapped it up out of Jack’s palm and retreated a few inches into the room.

  “He’s lonely, that’s all,” said Jack. “And he has no fear of heights.”

  “If you think he’s going to jump, why don’t you just go close the window in the maid’s room?”

  “Because every time I start to walk away, Woolf climbs even farther out,” Jack said simply.
“Would you mind…?”

  “I have guests to attend to,” said Libby curtly. “And if he does decide to jump, I want you to deal with whatever or whoever he hits down there. You understand? You take care of it.”

  Jack nodded, then gently suggested that Libby’s other guests were probably anxious to speak to her.

  She nodded. “It’s ten o’clock now. I’m making the announcement at eleven.” Quite suddenly and unexpectedly then, she reached up, threw her arms around him, and kissed him. “I love you very very much,” she said quickly and loudly. “And remember, Susan really doesn’t want to talk to you. So leave her alone, please. Just for tonight.” With that she was gone.

  There had been something pointed and peculiar about Libby’s injunction. It was clear she didn’t want him to talk to Susan before she made the announcement about their engagement. Which had the effect of making Jack desperate to speak to Susan. He had approximately fifty-eight minutes to find her in the crush of the party, separate her from Rodolfo, convince her that the engagement was all Libby’s idea, persuade her that he loved her desperately after all these years, and that nothing remained but for her to agree to marry him.

  Temporarily sated with caviar and crackers, Woolf retreated from the window of the maid’s room. Relieved of his mission to preserve the dog’s existence, Jack quickly went up to the bar.

  He needed a drink even if getting up to the bartender’s table on the terrace used up a few of the precious minutes. He waited impatiently behind a man who wanted a Rob Roy, two salty dogs, an apricot cassis, and a rye with Canada water.

  Jack asked for scotch on the rocks—a triple.

  The bartender handed Jack the liquor and then paused, staring curiously at Jack.

  When Jack tasted the drink, he understood why. His mouth was daubed with Libby’s bright red lipstick. This, of course, was the precise moment that Susan walked through the glass doors onto the terrace, saving him the trouble of searching her out in the crowd.

  “Hello, Susan,” Jack said, wiping Libby’s lipstick from his mouth with a handkerchief.

  “Congratulations,” she replied.

  “On what?” he asked, swallowing half his drink.

  “On convincing Libby to marry you.”

  Sweat beaded out across his large forehead. He wiped it away with the handkerchief, smearing Libby’s lipstick across his brow in the process.

  “I…”

  “You what?” she prompted.

  “I tried to call you this week,” he said.

  “I tried to call you,” she replied, a little puzzled.

  “About this engagement…” Jack began.

  Libby and Rodolfo suddenly appeared in the French doors nearby. Libby gave Jack and Susan a quick, hard glance. Then she smiled, took Rodolfo’s hand and patted it indulgently.

  “Rodolfo and I have been having the most interesting conversation,” said Libby. “Every word of it in English. Susan, Rodolfo has something to show you.”

  Susan looked at Libby, then at Rodolfo.

  “Yes?”

  “Inside,” said Libby. “He’ll show you the way.”

  Then, as quickly as she had come, Susan was gone. Jack had said none of the things to her that he had meant to say, and in forty-three minutes, Libby was going to announce their engagement.

  “What do you have to show me?” Susan asked.

  Rodolfo was leading her down a mostly empty corridor. No guests here, only servants rushing back and forth with trays.

  He tried the knob of one of the doors, but it opened onto a closet.

  “No,” he muttered, “not the third door, the fourth.”

  They went in through the next door in the corridor and found themselves in a small bedroom. It was evidently an unoccupied maid’s room. Its only furnishings were a dresser, a couple of straight-backed chairs, a rush rug, and near the window an iron bedstead. On the bed was a red blanket, and on it lay a large dog, peacefully shredding a Manhattan telephone book.

  “Woolf?” said Susan.

  Woolf leaped to his feet and began barking, showering the blanket with bits of torn paper.

  “What is that dog doing here?” Rodolfo demanded with displeasure.

  “He’s a good dog,” said Susan. She sat down on the bed and, taking off her gloves, caressed Woolf and tried to keep him from licking her three-hundred-dollar dress. She glanced out the window and saw that the terrace of Libby’s penthouse began not more than three or four feet away. She could hear the murmur of conversation and the clink of the bartender’s bottles. “What did you want to show me?”

  “Mía amante,” said Rodolfo.

  “Please,” said Susan uncomfortably, “let’s speak in English. Do you mind?”

  “I love you,” he said simply, and convincingly. “And I want you to marry me. Will you marry me?”

  Susan smiled briefly—at Woolf. She couldn’t think what to say. “Why are you proposing to me in a maid’s room?”

  “Because I could not wait. Tonight I saw how happy they were—”

  “They?”

  “Miss Mather and Mr. Beaumont—and I could not wait. Please, Susan. Please say—”

  Susan held up her hand. “Let me think.”

  “No!” Rodolfo cried, kneeling at her feet. He spoke in a rapid voice that tumbled headlong in Spanish and English. “No es posible to let you think—porque you might say no to me. I could not bear that. I love you, Susan. With my corazón—all my heart. There is nothing else to say. You have to marry me because I love you the way I do.”

  Susan was astonished. She’d known Rodolfo for months, but if he’d been courting her every evening, she would still not have been prepared for the passion of this outburst.

  He covered her hand with kisses.

  He rubbed his forehead against her knee, and he wept, spilling salty tears on her dress.

  A slight movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to turn her head, even while Rodolfo still knelt before her with bowed head. She leaned slightly back and looked out the window.

  There was Jack, on the balcony a few feet away, leaning forward over the parapet and gesticulating wildly.

  “I have to talk to you!” he hissed. She didn’t actually hear him, but those were the words his lips formed: “I have to talk to you!”

  Rodolfo looked up into Susan’s face. Rodolfo’s voice was choked when he spoke. Out of the corner of her eye Susan could still see Jack’s frenzied gyrations.

  “Say it,” Rodolfo whispered. “Say you will marry me. Say you will be my wife and love me the way I love you. Say you will allow me to care for you. Say you will be mine forever from this day forward. Say anything to me so long as you do not say to me, no. Say—”

  “No!”

  But it wasn’t Susan who said no. That was someone behind her.

  It was Jack, poking his head and shoulders through the window.

  Susan whirled around, and Rodolfo was on his feet, brushing away his manly tears and stalking forward.

  Susan could see that Jack was actually trying to climb in through the window. He’d evidently leaned out over the balcony—twenty-three floors above the street—and caught at the window ledge.

  And now he was pulling himself through.

  “Don’t say yes!” Jack cried. “Don’t marry him!”

  “You—” began Rodolfo, with clenched fists.

  “Don’t!” cried Susan in alarm, fearful that Rodolfo would somehow cause Jack to lose his grip and fall to his death.

  But then the unexpected happened. Woolf bounded from the bed right at the window and at Jack.

  Surprised at this sudden movement, Jack’s mouth flew open and his fingers lost their grip on the windowsill.

  Jack Beaumont spilled through the air, straight down.

  Then there was just Woolf, on his hind legs, panting happily in the window, waiting for more hors d’oeuvres.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JACK’S FALL WAS broken by an awning of the apartment terrace two flo
ors below Libby’s. Jack’s collision with the awning knocked the breath out of him. He slid down the slanted coarse striped fabric and was nearly pitched out into the air again, had he not, at the last moment, caught at the scalloped edge of the awning. It tore off with a loud ripping noise, but Jack swung ’round and managed to drop to the stone floor of the terrace.

  “Thank G—” he whispered, but didn’t finish the involuntary thanksgiving because when he fell, he landed on his head.

  Susan stared down out the window of the maid’s room. She didn’t scream. She brushed Rodolfo out of the way and rushed to find Libby, who was surrounded by people in the middle of the living room.

  “Who lives in the apartment with the striped awning a few floors below you?” Susan demanded, jerking on Libby’s arm.

  “A perfectly awful couple,” replied Libby. “Truly ghastly—actually, they’re right here,” she interrupted herself, tapping the shoulders of a man who looked like a banker and a woman who was holding on to him very tightly as if afraid he was going to run away with one of the maids.

  The banker and his wife turned. The banker stared at Susan as if he thought she were about to ask for a cash loan, without collateral, of a hundred thousand dollars. The wife stared as if she thought Susan were having an affair with her husband and was about to demand his release from the bonds of marriage on account of youth and love. Libby looked at Susan as if she believed both these things at once and wasn’t a bit surprised at it.

  Susan took a breath, and in the course of that breath she wondered how to begin. It wasn’t, she decided, the sort of situation that required—or needed—a whole lot of leading up to, so Susan plunged right in: “Libby’s fiancé just fell out the window of the maid’s room and he landed on your terrace.”

  Libby screamed. Not once, but three times. She spilled her drink onto the wide bosom of the banker’s wife and probably would have slipped down to the floor in the extremity of her emotion had not her skirts kept her upright.