When Charlie came back to New York, I said that I was extremely busy,
the three times he telephoned.
After that, when we met occasionally at parties, we smiled at each other
in passing on to territory not already explored. Several successors to
Charlie went the same way, during weeks that slipped past as swiftly
paced as moods.
* * * * *
Moods—of anguish about Peter, that lessened, and was bitterest in its
lessening, for hope about Peter lessened with it—of fatigue, when the
effort to work, to dress, to think of things to say to people was just
less than the effort necessary to face an evening or a day alone. Gay
moods, when New York was glamorous from the jungle sweat of Harlem dance
halls to the cool lights on boats beyond the Battery, glimpsed as one
drove through empty echoing downtown streets at dawn. Moods of
tranquillity, when a sense of unreality slipped between myself and any
aching, and the people and happenings of crowded days were people and
happenings of an unimportant dream, and my whole life with Peter was a
dream fading, growing remote as the remembrance of sunsets over snowy
marshes, watched through a window, when I was a child.
There were men. When, as occasionally, their desire was sufficient to
break through the defence of my indifference, I was neither glad, nor
very sorry. Hoping sometime to wake and find I had slept beside a lover
and a friend, I slept to wake beside a stranger exigent, triumphant, or
exasperated, or perhaps as bored and as polite as I.
Spring passed, and I wrote ads about clothes to take vacationing; and
bought a few of them; and went for a fortnight with Lucia to Maine—two
weeks spent swimming and sleeping, and feeling healthy, comfortable
enough lying on sand in the sun, without thinking.
Midsummer heat enclosed New York like a fog. In printed silk frocks
that, damp and mussed and dusty, I flung into a hamper to go to the
cleaner’s at each day’s end, I wrote ads about Apparel for the Beaches,
and the August Sale of Furs. In flowered chiffons and pastel-coloured
slippers, Lucia and I danced on hotel roofs, or drove out to dine at
Long Island roadhouses.
One day, when a sketch of a diving figure, drawn for me by an artist to
illustrate an ad of men’s bathing suits, made me remember, suddenly,
vividly, a day two summers past, when I sat on the edge of a raft
swinging my legs and watching Pete do swan dives, I telephoned him.
“Oh, hello, Pat. Anything special on your mind?”
“I thought you might think of somewhere cool, and take me there to
dinner.”
“There isn’t anywhere cool. I’m pretty busy this week. Suppose I call
you Monday or Tuesday?”
“All right. That will be nice.”
He did not call.
One night at the Bossert roof overlooking the harbour, Lucia and I saw
Pete and Judith dancing. We were not dancing, we were with Sam and
another somewhat fat banker, a friend of his. We were both very tired,
and not in form, and just said bright things to entertain the bankers,
intermittently, sipping cool drinks and letting them talk about who
would float loans to meet German reparation payments, most of the time.
Lucia noticed Judith first, and asked me if that was Peter, with her. I
said “yes” and felt, for an instant, sick with jealousy of Judith
looking gay, dancing gracefully if amorously; and then that passed and I
did not look at them any more, just bowed as we walked by their table
when we were leaving, and thought that Peter was looking rather white
and tired.
The next week I met Judith in front of the Library at noontime. It was a
fairly cool day, and I was celebrating by wearing a silver fox that was
my most recent and best-beloved extravagance. Of course I had bought it
wholesale, but I would be paying for it for three months more, at that.
My first feeling, on seeing Judith, was just relief that I had worn the
gorgeous scarf, because I could not bear to meet her in anything but the
best-looking clothes I owned. Judith did wear clothes well. And I
considered what else I had on, and compared it as to _chic_ with
Judith’s clothes (it was all right, both had dresses of imported prints,
but mine was a copy of a recent Vionnet, and hers of an early Spring
Chanel—my wide black Milan hat was as fine a straw as hers, and we came
out even on slippers—they were the same model as a matter of fact)
before I realized that it was all quite funny.
“Hello,” she said, “where are you going?”
“Luncheon,” I said, “are you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Will you lunch with me?”
“Love to,” I said.
We went to the Vanity Fair tea-room on Fortieth Street.
She took off her hat, as soon as she sat down, saying she was hot. I
noticed there was a light over her head, and remembered what Lucia said
about Judith never losing an opportunity to let light shine across her
auburn hair.
Then I knew that I was being stupid. She _was_ smartly dressed, just as
smartly as I. She was not as pretty as I, but for all I knew she might
be cleverer, and have a better disposition, and so on. Yet because she
stood in my way with Peter, I could not think about her, estimate her,
calmly—judge her fairly.
I gave up struggling to be civilized about her, and ordered some fruit
salad, and wondered whether she felt about me as I did about her, or
whether, because I was Peter’s past and she was Peter’s present, she
could be detached and contemplate me as just a sort of relic.
We talked about how hot it had been and what clothes for Autumn would be
like, and where we had spent our vacations. She mentioned Peter first,
when we had reached the iced coffee and sherbet stage.
To be precise, she did not mention him. She implied him.
“I suppose you’ll be getting your divorce this Fall, Patricia?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m in no hurry.”
She hesitated. I did not help her out. So she generalized. “Not much
sense hanging on when a man’s through.”
I thought for a second. She did not know me well enough to be personal.
I could shift the subject and she could not go back to it. But, if I let
her go on, I might find out how things were going with Peter and her. I
did not know what good that would do me, if any, to be sure. Still— I
sipped my iced coffee. Then I said:
“How do you know Pete’s through, Judith?”
“You’ve been separated nearly six months, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Pete’s taking an apartment, September first?”
“All by himself, Judith?”
“He and I are taking adjoining apartments in a house on East Tenth
Street.”
She had courage, or she was desperate, which?
“How very nice for you both.”
She tried again. “Patricia, I’m not trying to be catty. I mean, I
thought you and I might both be better off if we talked this out.”
“What? Where you live? That’s your affair, Judith.”
“You know perfectly well that Pete and I are in love with each other.”
“I know nothing of the sort, Judith.”
But why should I be unduly disagreeable? She was making something in me
hurt, about Peter, as it had not hurt in months. But she might not know
that. And she was being candid, to a degree. Candid about herself, and
optimistic about Peter, probably. Well—I was optimistic about Peter
myself, with less reason, nowadays, than she had.
“Are you asking me to get out of your way, Judith?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I?”
“Why not? Pete will never go back to you, anyway.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
Her expression was suddenly anxious.
And I was sorry for her, and myself, simultaneously. She was playing her
hand, I was playing mine; what was the difference?
“Listen, Judith, I’m still crazy about Pete, myself.”
“Oh. I thought you were getting over it. You go about a lot.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.
“Judith, Pete hasn’t asked you to marry him, you just think he might, if
he had a divorce.”
“All right. Put it that way.”
We were talking round and round the thing, and I was feeling worse every
minute. Better finish it.
“I don’t know any more, why I want Pete back. But I do. I’ll divorce
him, if and when he asks me to—we’ve had that arrangement for months.
Until then, I’ll play for time.”
“That’s that, then.”
She picked up her gloves. I felt a little apologetic, somewhat as if I
had bumped into someone going through a door.
“Sorry, Judith. But after all I didn’t cut in on you, you cut in on me.”
“Not on you, on Hilda.”
That was casuistry, but maybe she believed it, so I let it go.
We walked down the Avenue together, talking about clothes again, and I
left her at the door of Franklin Simon’s. It occurred to me afterward
that it was a curious conversation.
It seemed matter-of-fact enough at the time.