Fast Start, Fast Finish Page 3

  Charlie Lord, in the glass room, had not heard the peepers stop either. He was letting himself be fascinating to Alice Mayhew and was listening to her tell how once, years ago, she had been considered to have great talent as a comic actress. “Of course you’ve heard of the famous Hollywood producer, Sam Silberman,” she was saying. He nodded. “Well, he wanted me to have a screen test. He said I could be another Alice Faye.” He nodded, thinking, Time is running out all around me; isn’t it funny? But I am standing still or inching backward. I am dying by inches, he thought. But I have lived by miles. Where did those lines come from? Charlie Lord was not accustomed to having gloomy thoughts, and he tried to think of something that was not gloomy. When he was a little boy and his mother tucked him in at night, she used to say, “Think of tall things. Think of castles, think of things in the sky. Think of birds, think of airplanes. Then you won’t have bad dreams.” It was all Edgar Willey’s fault, asking him how old he was, reminding him of short runty little things, like time. “Alice Faye …” he said.

  “Yes, perhaps you’ve noticed the resemblance?” she asked, tilting her chin; and then, “Why are you smiling, Chuck?”

  “No, no,” he said, “go on with—”

  “Oh, I admit I may have aged.”

  “Tell me what else he said,” Charlie said in a heavy voice. “This—this Sam—”

  “Silberman. Well …”

  Outside, young Harold Garrett Lord, who was crossing the Lane from his house to the Willeys’ on an errand of reasonable urgency, did hear the peepers’ frail chorus come to a mysterious and sudden stop. And Harold paused briefly in the middle of the pavement, wondering whether his footsteps were what had frightened them. But it was probably just the dogs. The dogs had heard his footsteps and, behind the closed doors of the McCarthys’ house, had set up a muffled barking. He cracked the last pellet of a sourball between his teeth—he and his friend Bucky Holzer, who was waiting for him back in the car, parked in the driveway, had just put out cigarettes—and started on, shoulders hunched against the fresh chill of the evening, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his chino pants. Harold was a tall, but not outstandingly tall, one-hundred-and-fifty-pound youth with short, tightly curled blond hair and a straight nose. He had a good, long-legged stride and was just about to bound up the Willeys’ front steps and press the doorbell when he saw, through the tall glass doors of the side porch, the silhouette of his father standing face to face, and pretty closely face to face at that, with a woman with pink hair. From where Harold stood it looked as though the old man were just about to reach out and grab her left tit, which would be pretty fast work for the old man, considering he must have only just met her. But then Harold saw that they were only having a deep kind of conversation and that the hand was only raised to hold a cocktail glass. So he started across the grass to the glass doors.

  “And he said I had this innate sense of comedic values,” Alice Mayhew was saying, when there was a tap on the glass door behind her and she turned. “Well, who’s this?” she said.

  Stepping inside, Harold said, “Hi, Dad. Sorry to barge in on the party like this.”

  “Oh, hello, Harold,” Charlie said. “Harold, I want you to meet Mrs. Mayhew. My son, Harold.”

  “Well, so nice to know you, Harold!” Alice Mayhew said, clasping his hand. “Welcome to our Lane.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Harold said. “And how do you do?”

  “What can I do for you, Harold?” Charlie said.

  “Dad, I was wondering if I could have five bucks’ advance on my allowance. You think so?”

  “What’s the plan, Harold?”

  “Just go out, get a few pizzas.”

  “What’s the transportation?”

  “Buck’s got his car—”

  Alice Mayhew’s wild sobbing laugh rang out. “Can you really eat five dollars’ worth of pizza!” she cried.

  Harold grinned and said, “We’re growing boys, ma’am.”

  “Well—” Charlie began.

  But they were interrupted by Edgar Willey, who strode into the room, martini pitcher in hand, and said, “Well, whom have we here?”

  “Harold,” Charlie said, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Willey. Edgar, this is my son Harold.”

  “Well, it’s a pleasure, son!” Edgar Willey said.

  Harold gave Edgar Willey a good strong smile and held out his hand. “Very pleased to meet you, sir!” Harold said. They shook hands.

  Pride is always an embarrassment when it strikes you. At moments like this, such as watching his son shake hands with another man, Charlie could find himself suddenly struck from nowhere with a violent, heady sense of fatherhood. And it wasn’t really just a sense of pride, because a son who shook hands politely wasn’t doing anything much to make you proud. It was just watching your manly son do a simple thing like shaking hands. Charlie knew he was beaming inordinately, and so he said, almost gruffly, “Harold, I haven’t got a cent of cash on me, but I think your mother does—if you can find her.”

  “Well, if it’s a little loan a fella wants,” Edgar Willey said, digging in his pocket, “why not let me be your friend at the Chase Manhattan?” And Charlie Lord hated him even more.

  “Get it from your mother, Harold,” Charlie said.

  “I think she’s still upstairs with Genny McCarthy,” Alice Mayhew said, “taking the tour.”

  “Okay, Dad.” During the introductions Charlie had set his glass down, and now Harold reached for it, lifted it to his lips, and took a quick sip. Over the rim of the glass he winked at his father.

  “Enough of that, boy,” Charlie said.

  “Mostly ice water,” Harold said. “Nice meeting you folks. Sorry to barge in. So long.” And he was off, through the living room door.

  “Why, he’s just the handsomest thing I’ve ever seen!” Alice Mayhew gasped when Harold was gone. “I’ve got a sixteen-year-old daughter who would simply drool!”

  “Seems like a fine boy, Lord,” Edgar Willey said.

  “Harold’s a nice kid,” Charlie said.

  “And he’s the image of his daddy, Chuck!”

  “Most people think he looks like Nancy,” Charlie said.

  Nancy Lord and Genny McCarthy were just about to start down the stairs when Harold came leaping up them, two at a time. “Harold!” Nancy said. “What’s the matter? Is anything wrong?”

  “Dad said he’d advance me five bucks on my allowance, Mom. He said you had some cash.”

  “Oh,” Nancy said. “You startled me.” Then, turning to Genny, she performed the introductions. “Now,” she said, “where are you going? Are you going in Bucky’s car?”

  “That’s right, Mom. I won’t be late.”

  “Does Bucky have a license to drive after dark?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Well, don’t forget, you don’t have a license to drive after dark. If Bucky offers you, I don’t want you driving after dark.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Just because Bucky’s eighteen, you’re not,” Nancy said. “I don’t want you boys stopping for beers along the way.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Well, where did I leave my purse? Oh, it’s in there on the bed—run get it for me, will you, dear? You know my brown-suede bag.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  While they waited for him Nancy said nervously, “I always worry about the driving thing. This Bucky’s a new friend. We don’t know him very well.…”

  When Harold appeared with the brown bag and handed it to her, Nancy opened it and fished inside. “Here you are,” she said and handed him a five-dollar bill. “Now, remember tomorrow’s school. Eleven o’clock at the latest.”

  “Sure, Mom. And thanks, and nice to meet you, Mrs. McCarthy. Well—so long,” and Harold ran down the stairs.

  In her dry voice, Genny McCarthy said, “They’re just like puppies, aren’t they? It takes a while to housebreak them.” They started down the stairs to join the party.

  Outsid
e, Harold Garrett Lord ran straight across the dark lawn, vaulted a boxwood hedge, crossed the street in three swift steps, and pulled open the door of the waiting car. He snapped the five-dollar bill in his friend’s face and said, “Move over.” Bucky Holzer slid over across the front seat and Harold slid in behind the wheel. He slammed the door shut and began patting the dark area of seat beside him. “Where are the fucking cigarettes?” he said.

  It was almost eight o’clock, and several conversations later, when Charlie Lord saw his wife. He always felt better, at a party like this, when he had his wife in view. For some reason, at a cocktail party, he always felt adrift, cut off, abandoned, when she was not in sight. And it was even nicer to see her, at a party like this, when it was almost time to go home. He excused himself from the person he was talking to and walked toward the little group where Nancy stood, hearing her say in her gay, enthusiastic, party voice, “… and terribly important, because all the top art critics will be there, and the officials from all the museums, and all the important collectors …” He put his arm around his wife’s waist.

  “Oh, Mr. Lord,” Jane Willey said, “your wife’s been telling us about the show you’re going to have in New York. It’s so exciting.”

  “I’m pretty pleased about it,” Charlie said.

  “Charlie, look at this thing,” Nancy said. For Jane Willey had just been showing her friends the gift that Edgar had given her for St. Valentine’s day—an electric letter opener. Jane demonstrated it again for Charlie, inserting envelopes from her desk into the machine; their tops, with a rasping sound, were quickly sheared off.

  Smiling, Charlie said, “Isn’t it easier to just rip them open?”

  “Well, now,” Jane said seriously, “that is exactly what I thought, Mr. Lord—at first. But I’ll tell you. Once you get in the habit of using an electric letter opener—well, I just couldn’t live without it now.” She smiled at Charlie and said, “Oh, but you artists—I know you like the simple, uncomplicated life. All you artists are so bourgeois. Oh, I mean bohemian. Not bourgeois—bohemian.”

  “Nancy and I have an artists’ masked ball every year,” Charlie said. “It’s very bohemian—uniquely bohemian, you might say. The men wear nothing but codpieces, and the women come naked to the waist. We dance, put on acts. We’ll ask you to our next one.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Jane Willey cried. “Why—yes!”

  Following Jane Willey’s outburst there was one of those odd, sudden silences that sometimes fall on a roomful of people. It was followed by a certain amount of nervous laughter and throat clearing.

  Nancy Lord broke the silence. “Jane, this is such a handsome desk,” she said. “I used to have one almost like it in our house in Bel-Air, but there just didn’t seem to be any spot for it in this house, so I sold it.”

  “Bel-Air?” someone asked. “I thought Charlie said you were living in Encino.”

  “Encino—practically in Bel-Air,” Nancy said.

  There was another, shorter silence. “Honey,” Charlie said, “we really had better be getting home.”

  As they walked slowly, hand in hand, across the dark lawn toward their own house, Charlie was giving Nancy an imitation of Edgar Willey—talking in a low, gravelly Middle Western voice, gesturing in the air with his free hand. “Now, the most uniquely unique thing—is we all have overweight wives. We did, that is, until your wife came along. But—ha-ha—don’t worry, Lord, we’ll whip her into shape so she matches the others, just keep feeding her electric meatballs. Now, Lord, I noticed your garage door was open about a foot and a half this morning. There’s a rule against that on the Lane, you know. But we won’t fine you for it this time—just so it doesn’t happen again. Want to join our liquor pool? I’d join it if I were you. How much do you make in a year, Lord? If it’s none of my business just say so.… Jesus!” Charlie said.

  Beside him in the darkness Nancy said, “Oh, they aren’t so bad.”

  “Bad? Heck no. Why the Willeys were elected Consumers of the Year by Con Edison! Westinghouse is giving Jane Willey an award for being the first woman in America to get into the electric-letter-opener habit! The Appliance Manufacturers Association—”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “I meant—I meant maybe he was a little pompous, but she was very sweet. Their hearts are in the right place.”

  “Oh, absolutely. In fact, Edgar Willey has an electric heart—installed just last week; he showed it to me. It’s in the right place, naturally.” He bent quickly and kissed her ear. “I love you,” he said. “I love your eyes. Your eyes are like twin pools of liquor.”

  “Can’t you ever be serious?” They walked on across the damp grass. “He’s a vice-president of some big corporation, Jane told me.”

  “Vice-president in charge of sales, I bet.”

  “In charge of production.”

  “Character analysis wrong again. With that sheepy face I was sure he was a salesman.”

  “I think they liked us,” Nancy said.

  “Jesus, Nancy, do you really care?”

  “Of course I care. A little. After all, we’re going to be living here.…”

  “They’re ants,” he said. “We’ve moved into an ant city. If we’re not careful, they’ll sting us, paralyze us, and drag us right into the anthill with them.”

  “You didn’t exactly help things, talking about naked dancing.”

  “And, boy, didn’t you see old Jane’s eyes light up at that idea? Ah,” he said, “ah, I was only trying to be funny.”

  “I know. But they don’t understand that kind of being funny.”

  “I admit it laid an egg. All evening long I kept thinking about what Cathy would have said about that party. She probably would have got an enormous kick out of it. But it depressed me, it really did.”

  “Well, I had a nice time.”

  “Didn’t we just leave a neighborhood like this? Not the same, but similar.”

  “Then why does it seem so foreign to you?”

  “But haven’t we made some progress? Didn’t we want to grow out of this somehow, you and I? Well, I don’t know.” They had reached their own lawn now, and they paused for a moment in the darkness beyond the reach of the porch light. “Anyway,” he said softly, “this land is our land. This land belongs to you and me.”

  “I made a friend tonight,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Genny McCarthy.”

  “The hatchet-faced one? She looked kind of tough to me.”

  “But she’s not. She’s nice. She’s terribly honest—one of the most honest women I’ve ever met.”

  “Her husband was too drunk to stand up when we left.”

  “She’s put up with an awful lot from him, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ve never seen a man go about getting drunk with such—such single-minded purpose,” he said. “He sat there belting down drink after drink, not talking to anybody, until he began to gradually stiffen up and finally achieved total rigidity. Which was his state when we left.”

  “She said a nice thing about you. She said she admired your guts for giving up a good job in California and coming here to paint. She said you must have a lot of courage, that you were quite a guy.”

  He laughed. “Didn’t you tell her that we moved here out of sheer desperation?”

  “Of course not. Because it isn’t true.”

  “Almost though, huh? Well, I guess I should be grateful I’ve been given the stamp of approval by Genny McCarthy.”

  “Why are you always so negative?” she asked him.

  “For God’s sake, Nancy, you’re not going to tell me you liked them!”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Wrong? Why, nothing—except that they’re stupid, mediocre, banal bores!” he said. “All of them,” he added, “except maybe Alice Mayhew. She’s just pathetic. But there’s something kind of gallant about her, though. Did you talk to her? She’s an old wreck, but she keeps all her flags flying, and I like that. And I like he
r face. She has a face like a marshmallow. Downy.” He smiled. “She was once mistaken for Alice Faye, she told me. A pathetic bore.”

  Nancy said nothing for a moment. Then she shivered, and hugged her arms around her sides. “It’s getting chilly,” she said. “Let’s go in.”

  They went up the steps and he held the door open for her. “Are the girls home?”

  “They’re at the movies. It gets out at ten,” she said.

  She turned on a light switch, and the unshaded globes threw the bare room into a sudden, harsh, almost blinding light. Charlie Lord squinted his eyes against the brilliance.

  Walking carefully in her high heels across the painters’ dropcloths, Nancy said, “There are a lot of things about these people that I like. There are some things that I actually envy.”

  “What things? Name me one.”

  She was looking at the bare walls. “Oh, their solidity, for instance,” she said. “Their sense of—settledness. Maybe it’s just the moving. And not being able to unpack anything. And having everything a mess like this—” She gestured around her. “But tonight I thought, oh, how nice it will be to be settled at last, the way these people are settled. With things, furniture, everything in its place. And to be settled people ourselves, with settled plans—everything settled. Sometimes—I don’t know—it seems to me we’ve never been settled, Charlie. Oh, I don’t mean that literally, of course. But in a sense, it seems we’ve always been drifting. Never—settled in anywhere.”