At the end of the spring semester, when Evie acquired a boyfriend, Helen acquired two. When Evie was promised a horse as a reward for good grades, Helen was promised a car. It became as difficult for Evie to accept these lies as it was for Helen to keep on inventing them, and the two girls began to avoid each other.
There was trouble about it at home, but Helen had anticipated it and she was ready.
“Why didn’t you bring Evie with you for the weekend?” her father asked.
“I invited her to come. She didn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
She hesitated just the right amount of time to rouse his curiosity. “I promised not to tell.”
“I’m your father, you can tell me.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Well, is it anything we’ve done?”
“Oh no. It’s just — she’s busy, she wanted to stay at school and study for the Latin test.”
“That doesn’t sound like Evie to me, staying at school when she could be here having a good time.”
“Oh, she”ll be having a good — I mean, she likes to study.”
“You mean she’s not going to be studying, isn’t that it?”
“I promised not to tell.”
“This sounds like the kind of thing I’d better get to the bottom of, right here and now. Where is Evie?”
“At school?”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you. I made a solemn vow.”
“I want an immediate and truthful answer to my question. Do you hear me, Helen?”
“Yes. But...”
“And no buts, ifs and whens, please.”
“She... she has a boy friend.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“She doesn’t want her parents to find out about him because he’s a Mexican.”
“A Mexican.”
“He works on a lemon ranch near the school. She climbs out of the window after the lights are out and meets him in the woods.” She began to cry. “I didn’t want to tell. You made me. You made me a liar!”
Miss Clarvoe lay in bed with her right arm across her face as if to shield herself from the onslaught of memories. The ceiling pressed down on her, the walls contracted, until they fitted her like a coffin, tight, airless, sealed forever. And locked in with her were the mementos of her life: “Your punishment is being you and having to live with yourself.” “What a pity we didn’t have a girl like Evie!”
Chapter 8
The house was set in the middle of a tiny walled garden on Kasmir Street in Westwood. An engraved card in a slot above the doorbell read, Mrs. Annabel Merrick, Miss Evelyn Merrick.
The house needed paint, the woman who answered Blackshear’s ring did not. She looked like a farmer’s wife, plump and tanned and apple-cheeked, but her clothes were city clothes, a smart black-and-white striped suit that hinted at severely disciplinary garments underneath.
“Mr. Blackshear?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Annabel Merrick.” They shook hands. “Come in, won’t you? I’m just making breakfast. If you haven’t had yours, I can pop another egg in the pan.”
“I’ve eaten, thank you.”
“Some coffee then.” She closed the front door after him and led the way through the living room into the kitchen. “I must say I was surprised by your early phone call.”
“Sorry if I got you out of bed.”
“Oh, you didn’t. I work, you know. In the flower shop of the Roosevelt Hotel. Sure you wouldn’t like an egg?”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ve been divorced for several years, and of course alimony payments don’t rise with the cost of living, so I’m glad to have a job. Somehow it’s not so much like work when you’re surrounded by flowers. Delphiniums are my favorite. Those blues — heavenly, just heavenly.”
She brought her plate of eggs and toast to the table and sat down opposite Blackshear. She appeared completely relaxed, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to entertain strange men before eight o’clock in the morning.
“Blackshear, that’s an odd name. Do people ever get mixed up and call you Blacksheep?”
“Frequently.”
“Here’s your coffee. Help yourself to cream and sugar. You didn’t tell me what business you were in.”
“Stocks and bonds.”
“Stocks and bonds? And you want to see Evelyn? Heavens, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Neither of us is in a position to invest a nickel. As a matter of fact, Evelyn’s out of a job right now.”
“It won’t hurt to talk to her.”
“I guess not. As I told you on the phone, she’s not here at the moment. She’s spending two or three days with a friend whose husband is out of town. The friend hates to stay alone at night and Evelyn’s always anxious to oblige. She’s that kind of girl, she’d do anything for a friend.”
Her tone was proud and maternal and Blackshear deduced from it that Mrs. Merrick was as blind about her daughter as Verna Clarvoe was about her son. He said, “May I have this other woman’s name and address?”
“Certainly. It’s Claire Laurence, Mrs. John Laurence, 1375 Nessler Avenue, that’s near U.C.L.A. Evelyn won’t be there during the day, she’s looking for a job, but she’ll arrive around dinner-time, I expect.”
“What kind of job is she looking for? I might be able to help.”
“I’m afraid stocks and bonds aren’t in Evelyn’s line.”
“What is her line, Mrs. Merrick. Is she stage-struck? Does she want to be a model, or something like that?”
“Good heavens, no! Evelyn’s a sensible and mature girl. What on earth gave you the idea she might want to be a model?”
“A lot of pretty girls do.”
“Evelyn’s pretty enough, but she’s not vain, and she has far too many brains to enter a profession that’s so temporary. Evelyn wants a future. More coffee?”
“No, thank you.” But she didn’t seem to hear him. She poured more coffee into his cup, and he noticed that her hand was trembling.
He said, “I hope I haven’t upset you in any way, Mrs. Merrick.”
“Perhaps you have. Then again, perhaps I was upset to begin with.”
“Are you worried about Evelyn?”
“What else does a mother worry about, especially when there’s only one child? I want Evelyn to be happy, that’s all I ask for her, that she be happy and secure.”
“And isn’t she?”
“I thought she was, for a while. And then she changed. Ever since her marriage she’s been different.” She looked across the table with a bleak little smile. “I don’t know why I should tell you that. You said on the phone you didn’t even know Evelyn.”
“I don’t. I’ve heard of her, though, through the Clarvoes.”
“The Clarvoes are friends of yours?
“Yes.”
“You know about the marriage, then?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you’re here? Did Verna send you to make amends?”
“No.”
“I thought perhaps... well, it doesn’t matter now. It’s over. Spilled milk and all that.” She took her empty plate to the sink and began rinsing it under the tap. “My own marriage failed. I had high hopes for Evelyn’s. What a fool I was not to see.”
“See what, Mrs. Merrick?”
“You know what.” She turned so suddenly that the plate fell out of her hands and crashed in the sink. She didn’t even notice. “My daughter married a pansy. And I let her. I let her because I didn’t know it, because I was blind, I was taken in, the way Evelyn was, by his gentleness and his pretty manners and his so-called ideals. I thought what a kind and considerate husband he would make. Do you begin to see the picture Evelyn had of him?”