Now, Cass returned, with her hair recombed and new make-up on and with her eyes bright and dry. She seated herself in the booth again and picked up her drink. “I’m ready whenever you are,” she said. Then, “Thank you, Vivaldo. If I couldn’t have found a friend to talk to, I think I would have died.”
“You wouldn’t have,” he said, “but I know what you mean. Here’s to you, Cass.” And he raised his glass. It was twenty minutes to eight, but, now, he was afraid to call the restaurant. He would wait until he and Cass had separated.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I think I may break — is it the sixth commandment? Adultery.”
“I mean, right now.”
“That’s what I thought you meant.”
They both laughed. Yet, it crossed his mind that she meant it. “Anyone I know?”
“Are you kidding? Just think of the people you know.” He smiled. “All right. But please don’t do anything silly, Cass.”
She looked down. “I don’t think I will,” she murmured. Then, “Let’s get the bill.”
They signaled the waiter, and paid him, and walked into the streets again. The sun was going down, but the heat had not lessened. The stone and steel and wood and brick and asphalt which had soaked in the heat all day would be giving it back all night. They walked two blocks, to the corner of Fifth Avenue, in silence; and in this silence something lived which made Vivaldo oddly reluctant to leave Cass alone.
The corner on which they stood was absolutely deserted, and there was very little traffic.
“Which way are you going?” he asked her.
She looked up and down the Avenue — up and down. From the direction of the park there came a green and yellow cab.
“I don’t know. But I think I’ll go to that movie.” The cab stopped, several blocks from them, waiting for a red light. Cass abruptly put up her hand.
Again, he volunteered. “Would you like me to come with you? I could act as your protection.”
She laughed. “No, Vivaldo, thank you. I don’t want to be protected any more.” And the cab swerved toward them. They both watched it approach, it slowed and stopped. He looked at her with his eyebrows very high.
“Well—” he said.
She opened the door and he held it. “Thank you, Vivaldo,” she said. “Thank you for everything. I’ll be in touch with you in a few days. Or call me, I’ll be home.”
“Okay, Cass.” He made a fist and touched her on the chin. “Be good.”
“You, too. Good-bye.” She got into the cab and he slammed the door. She leaned forward to the driver, the cab rolled forward, downtown. She turned back to wave at him and the cab turned west.
It was like waving good-bye to land: and she could not guess what might have befallen her when, and if, she ever saw land again.
At Twelfth Street and Seventh Avenue she made the driver carry her one block more, to the box office of the Loew’s Sheridan; then she paid him and walked out and actually climbed the stairs to the balcony of this hideous place of worship, and sat down. She lit a cigarette, glad of the darkness but not protected by it; and she watched the screen, but all she saw were the extraordinarily unconvincing wiggles of a girl whose name, incredibly enough, appeared to be Doris Day. She thought, irrelevantly, I never should come to movies, I can’t stand them, and then she began to cry. She wept looking straight ahead, this latter rain coming between her and James Cagney’s great, red face, which seemed, at least, thank heaven, to be beyond the possibilities of make-up. Then she looked at her watch, noting that it was exactly eight o’clock. Is that good or bad? she wondered idiotically — knowing, which was always part of her trouble, that she was being idiotic. My God, you’re thirty-four years old, go on downstairs and call him. But she forced herself to wait, wondering all the time if she were waiting too long or would be calling too early. Finally, during the heaviest of the wide screen’s technicolored stormy weather, she walked down the stairs and entered the phone booth. She dialed his number and got the answering service. She crawled back upstairs and found her seat again.
But she could not bear the movie, which showed no signs of ever ending. At nine o’clock, she walked downstairs again, intending to walk and have a drink somewhere and go home. Home. And she dialed the number again.
It rang once, twice; then the receiver was picked up; there was a silence. Then, in an aggressive drawl,
“Hello?”
She caught her breath.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Eric?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s me. Cass.”
“Oh,” and then, quickly, “How are you, Cass, it’s good of you to call me. I’ve been sitting here trying to read this play and going out of my mind and feeling suicidal.”
“I imagine,” she said, “that you may have been expecting this call.” For never let it be said, she thought, now really in the teeth of irreality and anguish, that I don’t lay my cards on the table.
“What did you say, Cass?” But she knew, from the rhythm of his question, that he had understood her.
“I said, ‘You may have been expecting this call.’”
After a moment, he said. “Yes. In a way.” Then, “Where are you, Cass?”
“I’m around the corner from your house. Can I come up?”
“Please do.”
“All right. I’ll be there in about five minutes.”
“Okay. Oh, Cass—”
“Yes?”
“I haven’t got anything in the house to drink. If you’ll pick up a bottle of Scotch, I’ll pay you for it when you get here.”
“Any special kind?”
“Oh, I don’t care. Any kind you like.”
A stone, miraculously enough, seemed to rise from her heart for a moment. She laughed. “Black Label?”
“Crazy.”
“In a minute, then.”
“In a minute. I’ll be here.”
She hung up, staring for a moment at the shining black instrument of her — deliverance? She marched into the street, found a liquor store and bought a bottle; and the weight of the bottle in her straw handbag somehow made everything real; as the purchase of a railroad ticket proves the imminence of a journey.
What would she say to him? What would he say to her?
He called, “Is that you, Cass?” She called back, “Yes!” and ran clumsily up the steps, like a schoolgirl. She reached his doorway out of breath, and he stood there, in a T-shirt and a pair of old army pants, smiling and pale. His reality shocked her and so did his beauty — or his vigor, which, in a man, is so nearly the same thing. She might have been seeing him for the first time — his short, disordered red hair, a rather square forehead with lines burned into it, heavier eyebrows than she remembered and darker eyes, set farther back. His chin had a tiny cleft — she had never noticed it before. His mouth was wider than she remembered, his lips were fuller, his teeth were slightly crooked. He had not shaved and his red beard bristled and gleamed in the weak yellow light on the landing. His trousers had no belt and his hare feet were in leather sandals. He said, “Come in,” and she brushed quickly past his body. He closed the door behind her.
She walked into the center of the room and stared about her, seeing nothing; then they stared at each other, terribly driven, terribly shy, not daring to imagine what came next. He was frightened, but very self-contained. She felt that he was studying her, preparing himself for whatever this new conundrum might prove to be. He had made no decisions at all as yet, was trying to attune himself to her; which placed her under the necessity of finding out what was in his heart by revealing what was in hers. And she did not yet know what was in her heart — or did not want to know.