“It’s twelve o’clock,” Caroline said to Mr Murphy. “I think I’ll go out to lunch, if that’s O.K.”
“Yes, yes, Caroline.”
She thought he looked rather pale. She was about to ask him how he felt but she stopped herself, remembering how he disliked talking about his health. She had noticed that during the last year he had been taking a lot of medicine. Perhaps he was going to die. Caroline began to compose a little drama to herself. Mr Murphy had just collapsed across his desk and she had been the only one to keep a clear head....
“You coming, Caroline?” It was Robert Holton.
“Be right there.” She arranged the papers on her desk, shut the drawers and joined Robert Holton outside the gate of the railing.
“Where’ll we eat today?” asked Holton.
“At the restaurant, of course. Where did you think we would?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He was smiling now and she wondered if he could have been trying to be funny; she could never be sure.
“Sometimes you don’t make sense,” said Caroline.
They were almost through the door when one of the secretaries called to Holton. “Phone, Bob.”
She waited for him at the door. He went over to his desk and answered the phone. He seemed excited, she noticed, and he talked very quickly. She wished she could hear what he was saying. Finally, he finished and joined her.
“Who was that?”
“An old friend of mine.”
“Man or woman?”
“A guy I used to know. He just got in town. He comes from out West and I haven’t seen him for a couple of years.”
“You knew him in the army?”
“Yes.”
They walked through the offices to the elevator and Holton pressed the button.
“What’s he doing in town?”
“He’s just visiting. I’m going to see him this afternoon. He’s coming over here after lunch.”
“That’ll be nice. What does he look like?” She asked this gaily, hoping to have some effect on him. She didn’t, though.
“I don’t know. He looks all right, I guess.”
“You certainly are good at description. Be sure to let me meet him.”
“I will.”
The elevator stopped for them and they pushed into the lunch-going crowd. With a rush they descended to the street floor.
Outside the sun shone brightly above the street. The sky was a vivid blue and the air smelt clean in spite of the exhaust fumes and the people of the city. The day was warm.
They walked along the crowded street. Men of affairs with brief cases walked in and out of swinging glass doors. Younger men of affairs, wearing bowler hats and dark coats with darker velvet lapels, marched solemnly in the parade of business. The white-faced clerks squinted at the bright sun. Women secretaries walked together, admiring themselves in the windows. As they walked they talked to each other and to themselves.
“What a nice day,” said Caroline, breathing deeply and coughing as the exhaust fumes tickled her throat.
“Must be nice in the country,” commented Robert Holton.
“Not you too?” Caroline laughed. “First Murphy and now you want to go out in the country.”
“I don’t want to go. I just said it must be pleasant there.” They crossed a street and he looked carefully to left and right and when they finally crossed the street the crowd had gone around them and the light was beginning to change again.
“Why do you take so long?” said Caroline disagreeably.
“Just careful, that’s all.”
They walked in silence then. She was very conscious of his being beside her, of her arm being in his. This troubled Caroline, this awareness. She looked at Holton’s face as they walked down the crowded street. There was nothing in his face that she would like to have seen. This made her feel better because he was not the right person.
Over the high gray buildings was a narrow section of bright blue sky. It was almost too bright and contrasted strangely with the dingy buildings and the dark streets. Caroline watched the blue sky suspended upon the buildings. No clouds were in the sky but from time to time a bird would circle in it. And, as she watched the sky, a large air liner, like a rigid bird, moved straightly eastward.
Caroline breathed deeply again, careful this time not to get the exhaust fumes too far down in her lungs. She coughed anyway.
Marjorie Ventusa looked through the plate-glass window at the street. She had been watching off and on for half an hour, waiting for Robert Holton to come.
Some days he would come in at twelve and other days at twelve-thirty, and then there had been certain days when he’d not come in at all and those were bad days for Marjorie Ventusa.
It was a few minutes after twelve when she saw him walking down the street, pushing through the crowd, a man different from all the others walking in the street. She frowned when she saw the pretty secretary with him. Marjorie hated this girl but she was helpless and could only hate all the others who seemed close to Robert Holton.
She pretended to be busy cleaning a table when they came in.
“Hello, Marjorie,” said Holton and he and Caroline came over to her table.
“Oh, hello, it’s you again.” She made herself sound matter-of-fact and bored, but her throat was suddenly full and she had to clear it before she could speak again. “What you going to eat today?”
“I don’t know,” said Holton and he and Caroline sat down at the table, across from each other. “What do you want, Caroline?”
“I’d like to see a menu, I think,” said Caroline in a voice that Marjorie Ventusa would like to have choked out of her.
“Here,” said Marjorie and she handed them two white menus.
They studied the menus.
Many people were coming in and going out of the restaurant. All the tables were full now and there were people standing and waiting for tables. Some of her customers were beginning to look at her, waiting for her to take their order. She hoped Mrs Merrin would not notice how long she was taking with Robert Holton.
“I think,” said Caroline, frowning a thin hair-wide frown, “I think I will have some tomato juice, and a lamb chop....”
“No more lamb chops,” said Marjorie, trying to keep the triumph from her voice.
The hair-wide frown became a scowl. “Then I’ll have the veal.”
“Any vegetables?”
“Yes, the spinach.”
“You can have one other.”
“That’s all.”
And Marjorie thought, “the” spinach indeed. Why was it that when these people wanted to sound elegant they would talk about everything as “the”?
“What do you want, Mr Holton?” She wished that she had the nerve to call him Bob, the right to call him that.
“Oh, I think I’ll take the same.”
“Coffee, tea, or milk?” She said the words as though they were one word.
They both asked for coffee and Marjorie went quickly out of the dining room and into the kitchen.
There was much more steam in the kitchen now than there had been at breakfast; as the day passed the kitchen got hotter, and steamier, and the cooks got more irritable and Mrs Merrin more nervous and Marjorie Ventusa would become tired and sad.
She called the new orders to the cook. Then she picked up two small glasses of tomato juice and put them on her tray. She fingered one of them a moment, thinking that soon he would be drinking from it. She enjoyed thinking of this, though it only made her desire stronger and her sadness greater.
She didn’t want to go back yet. She hoped Mrs Merrin would not come into the kitchen for a while.
But one of the swinging doors opened and Mrs Merrin walked into the kitchen. Quickly Marjorie picked up her tray and went back to the dining room.
Caroline and Robert Holton were talking seriously and Marjorie, because of the noise of voices in the dining room, couldn’t hear what they were saying.
They stopped talking as she came up to them.
“Here you are,” said Marjorie Ventusa brightly, putting the glasses of tomato juice on the table.
Robert Holton smiled at her, showing his white even teeth.
“Have you got a date for tonight?” asked Robert Holton.
“You know I always do.”
“A sailor maybe?”
“I’m not saying.”
“Get one who’ll take you to Italy.”
This was cruel but Marjorie smiled and forgave him. She had not been joking when they spoke of Italy. She did not think it fair of him to say this in front of the pretty girl, but Marjorie forgave him because he was young and because she felt about him in a certain way.
“Maybe we’ll go to Capri together,” she said. “Is it nice there?”
Holton nodded. “Beautiful.”
Caroline said, “I’m sure you don’t want to take up any more of her time, Bob. She’s got a lot of things to do.” Caroline gave Marjorie a brilliant smile. A man from the table next to theirs said loudly, “When are you bringing me my soup?”
“In just a minute, sir.” Marjorie looked at Robert Holton once again, tried to catch his eye but he was talking now to Caroline and Marjorie Ventusa had been put quietly from his mind. She went back to the kitchen.
Outside the restaurant Richard Kuppelton and the receptionist Ruth were wondering whether anybody they knew would be in the restaurant; otherwise they would have to wait for a table.
Kuppelton looked through the window. He blinked nearsightedly. Then he saw Robert Holton and Caroline.
“Caroline’s in there,” he said.
“With Bob?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s go on in.” Ruth liked Robert Holton.
“Hello, hello,” said Kuppelton heartily when they were inside.
Caroline and Robert Holton appeared glad to see them.
“My gracious, it certainly is crowded,” said Ruth, pointing to the people standing.
“Lucky you people were here,” said Kuppelton.
“I don’t,” said Ruth, “see how the town stays so crowded all the time. I could understand it during the war but now ... well, it’s just impossible to go anywhere or do anything.”
“I know,” said Holton. “Took me months to get a room.”
“Is it nice?” asked Caroline.
He shook his head. “It’s very depressing.”
“I guess I’m lucky to be living with my family,” said Kuppelton. “It’s real nice out where we are and there aren’t so many people. I’d hate to have to live in the city.”
They talked of the places where they lived and then they started to talk of the places where they would like to live.
Kuppelton watched Holton as he talked and he tried to learn, by concentrating intensely, what he was thinking; to learn if Mr Murphy had said he would promote him. Holton’s smooth forehead, however, was a wall and Kuppelton could not pierce it, could not discover the dreams behind it.
Marjorie came over to their table and put two plates of veal in front of Caroline and Robert. The veal was a uniform tan color, floating in a sea of red sauce. Two saucers of dark-green spinach floating in water were put beside the plates of veal.
“Looks good, doesn’t it?” commented Marjorie.
“Sure, sure,” said Holton, looking at his plate with distaste.
Kuppelton ordered veal and Marjorie left.
Kuppelton looked at Ruth. She was dark, with a big nose and with self-pitying eyes. Her complexion was oily and she wore too much make-up. Ruth liked all men; she was sitting very close to Robert Holton now.
“Any interesting people come into the office?” asked Holton, turning to Ruth: as receptionist she was always able to tell them about celebrities.
Ruth nodded. “Laura Whitner was in to see Mr Heywood.”
Caroline was interested. “She’s the movie star, isn’t she?”
Ruth nodded again, a birdlike motion. “Why, she used to be one of the biggest stars. I used to go see all her pictures. My gracious, they were wonderful.”
Marjorie Ventusa returned with veal for Kuppelton and the ham and eggs for Ruth.
“Oh, thank you,” said Ruth. “I love ham,” she added.
Richard Kuppelton looked at Ruth with disapproval. She was an aggressive woman and he was tired of aggressive women. His mother was that way. Caroline was more what he wanted. She had spirit but was not aggressive. There was a difference between spirit and aggressiveness. He could not quite define it but still there was a difference. Caroline could act irritated with him and he would not mind. And she always smiled, even when she was angry; he could not feel that a woman who always smiled was aggressive. She had a mind of her own but then he could handle that. Eating veal, Richard Kuppelton felt he could handle anything.
Robert Holton finished eating. He sat back in his chair and yawned.
“Bored?” asked Caroline.
He shook his head. “No, not very. Just sleepy.”
“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Ruth. “You’d think we weren’t good enough for him.” She said this in a way to let him know she was being humorous.
Kuppelton decided, however, to develop what she’d said. “Sure, he’s a good friend of Mr Heywood.”
Ruth was impressed. “I certainly wish I had your contacts then. I sure wouldn’t be working in this lousy job.”
Robert Holton wanted to know what was wrong with her job.
“Oh, you know how it is. Doing the same thing day after day. It makes me sick. I’d like to do something exciting.”
“Like what?” asked Richard Kuppelton. These were his secret wishes, too, but he would never have put them into words. He was delighted to hear someone else say them.
Ruth was not sure just what she wanted. She decided she would like to travel. Richard Kuppelton admitted, then, that he would like to travel. Caroline thought a moment and agreed with them that to travel would be the best thing anyone could do, the thing she wanted to do.
Robert Holton, who had traveled, said that he didn’t care to leave New York again: not for many years at least.
“You’re not adventurous,” said Caroline sadly.
Ruth protected him. “After all, he’s had some adventures. He was in the war.”
Richard Kuppelton was glad that Holton did not talk about the war. It made too great a difference between them and the women might have called attention to this difference.
He disliked Robert Holton because he was afraid of him. It was more than the threat to his job, much more than that. Caroline, whom Kuppelton wanted, seemed interested in him. He flattered himself that she was no more interested in Holton than she was in himself; still he was a threat.
Ruth was moving closer to Robert Holton now. Her thick curved lips, heavily painted a dark red, looked unpleasantly moist. Kuppelton had a desire to dry her mouth. He was amused, though, at the way she was playing up to Holton. She liked him now because of his influence, not because he was good-looking. Although Kuppelton, for one, couldn’t see his handsomeness. Holton was well-built but not much better than he was; of course, Kuppelton had a slight stomach and Holton didn’t, but a few days of exercise and he could be as slim. He made a mental note to do some exercise.
Marjorie Ventusa arranged her hair in front of the steamy mirror. It didn’t look too bad when she wore it over her ears. She pinned it back carefully. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to get a snood after all.
She put some other people’s orders on her tray and left the kitchen. The crowd waiting to be seated was beginning to thin and soon the lunch rush would be over.
She waited on the customers whose orders she had and then she moved over to the table where Robert Holton was sitting. He was very handsome, she thought. She looked at the others with him and she envied them all. They didn’t understand what he was, how important he was.
The girl with the blue eyes and slim legs she could not like. This was her rival—one of her rivals, anyway. She was glad that he never seemed particularly interested in this girl and, for that matter, the girl didn’t seem interested in him. Still she was near, worked with him probably: she was a danger.
Then Marjorie Ventusa did not like the dark-haired girl with the big nose who sat so close to him, but at least she was not a danger. She almost pitied this girl who had moved her chair so close to his that their legs were touching.
The other man was dull-looking and obviously interested in the girl with the blue eyes. Marjorie Ventusa wished him luck. Then, having thought these things about her customers, she walked over to their table.
“Ready for dessert?” asked Marjorie Ventusa cheerfully, trying not to look at Robert Holton.
They were ready.
Everyone decided to have vanilla ice cream. Slowly she cleared the table. This was a hard thing to do, because she had to act as if she were in a hurry.
They talked at the table as though she weren’t there. She was, naturally, used to that: she had been a waitress a long time, but today she was almost angry at being treated like a piece of furniture. She could do nothing about it, though. She picked up her tray and went into the kitchen.
Marjorie ordered the ice cream. As she waited she wondered if there was any way she could ever see Robert Holton in his other life: the mysterious important life he had in the brokerage firm. She tried to think of some way she could get to know him in this other life. She could think of nothing.
The ice cream was ready and she took it back to the dining room.
She gave them their dessert and only Holton said thank you. She tried to expand this one phrase into a conversation but it was too difficult. So she walked over to the next table which was now empty. Slowly she placed dishes on her tray. She was near enough to them to hear what they were saying.
Robert Holton was talking about his job: “I don’t mind being in an office all day. I can’t see why people mind that so much.”
The dark girl with the big nose disagreed: “It’s much more natural to be able to wander around like you want to do. It’s natural to travel, I think.”
He laughed. Marjorie liked his laugh. He said, “You should get married, that’s what you should do.”
The dark girl became coquettish. “But I haven’t had any offers yet. Of course, I’m open to any.”
The bitch, thought Marjorie Ventusa, disliking her now.
“You shouldn’t have any trouble,” said Holton gallantly and Marjorie liked him for saying this.
“You’re just saying that.”
Then the girl with the blue eyes and the dull man began to talk together and their voices blended into the ocean-like sound of many voices in the restaurant.
They finished the ice cream.
Marjorie walked over to the table. “Will there be anything else?” she asked officially.
There was nothing else.
“We’ll have our check, please, Marjorie,” said Robert Holton and she liked the way he said her name.
“Certainly.” She went to the cashier and had the four checks totalled. Then she came back.
They paid her.
“Back to work,” said the blue-eyed girl with a sigh.