“I got a cool reception.”
“Pay no attention to it. He’s a crusty old curmudgeon until he’s had his coffee, and then he’s a dear. I wish you could have heard the way he was treating me.”
That was all hooey, but somehow my face didn’t feel red any more, and besides that, I liked the way she laughed. “You make me feel better.”
“Forget it. I judged from what you said that you were anxious for a competent opinion on your wife’s singing.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Well, I dropped in at that recital. Would you like to know what I thought?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“Then why don’t you come over?” She gave the name of a hotel that was about three blocks away, on Lexington Avenue.
“I don’t know of any reason why not.”
“Have you still got on that cutaway coat?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Oh my, I’ll have to make myself look pretty.”
“You had better hurry up.”
“... Why?”
“Because I’m coming right over.”
3
She had a suite up on the tenth floor, with a grand piano in it and music scattered all over the place, and she let me in herself. I took her to be about thirty, but I found out later she was two years younger. Women singers usually look older than they really are. There’s something about them that says woman, not girl. She was good-looking all right. She had a pale, ivory skin, but her hair was black, and so were her eyes. I think she had the biggest black eyes I ever saw. She was a little above medium height, and slim, but she was a little heavy in the chest. She had on a blue silk dress, very simple, and it came from a good shop, I could see that. But somehow it didn’t look quite right, anyway to somebody that was used to the zip that Doris had in her dresses. She told me afterward she had no talent for dressing at all, that a lot of women on the stage haven’t, and that she did what most of them do: go into the best place in town, buy the simplest thing they have, pay plenty for it, and take a chance it will look all right. It looked just about like that, but it didn’t make any difference. You didn’t think about the dress after you saw those eyes.
She had a drink ready, and asked me if I was a musician. I said no, I was a contractor, and next thing I knew I had had two drinks, and was gabbling about myself like some drummer in a Pullman. She kept smiling and nodding, like concrete railroad bridges were the most fascinating thing she had ever heard of in her life, and the big black eyes kept looking at me, and even with the drinks I knew I was making a bit of a fool of myself. I didn’t care. It was the first time a woman had taken any interest in me in a blue moon, and I was having a good time, and I had still another drink, and kept right on talking.
After a while, though, I pulled up, and said well, and she switched off to Doris. “Your wife has a remarkable voice.”
“Yes?”
“... It keeps haunting me.”
“Is it that good?”
“Yes, it’s that good, but that isn’t why it haunts me. I keep thinking I’ve heard it before.”
“She used to sing around quite a lot.”
“Here? In New York?”
“Yes.”
“That couldn’t be it. I don’t come from New York. I come from Oregon. And I’ve spent the last five years abroad. Oh well, never mind.”
“Then you think she’s good?”
“She has a fine voice, a remarkably fine voice, and her tone is well produced. She must have had excellent instruction. Of course...”
“Go on. What else?”
“... I would criticize her style.”
“I’m listening.”
“Has she been studying long?”
“She studied before we got married. Then for a while she dropped it, and she just started up again recently.”
“Oh. Then that accounts for it. Good style, of course, doesn’t come in a day. With more work, that ought to come around.”
“Then you think she ought to go on?”
“With such looks and such a voice, certainly.”
With that we dropped it. In spite of all she said, it added up to faint praise, especially the shifty way she brought up the question of style. She tried to get me going again on concrete, but somehow talking about Doris had taken all the fun out of it. After a few minutes I thanked her for all the trouble she had taken and got up to go. She sat there with a funny look on her face, staring at me. A boy came in with a note, and left, and she read it and said: “Damn.”
“Something wrong?”
“I’m singing for the American Legion in Brooklyn tonight, and I promised to do a song they want, and I’ve forgotten to get the words of it, and the man that was to give them to me has gone out of town, and here’s his note saying he’ll give me a ring tomorrow — and no words.”
“What song?”
“Oh, some song they sing in the Navy. Something about a destroyer. Isn’t that annoying?”
“Oh, that song.”
“You know it?”
“Sure. I had a brother that was a gob.”
“Well for heaven’s sake sing it.”
She sat down to the piano and started to play it. She already knew the tune. I started to sing:
She got up, walked over to the sofa, and sat down, her face perfectly white. I had forgotten about that rhyme, and I began to mumble apologies for it, and explain that there was another way to sing it, so groan would rhyme with moan. But at that I couldn’t see why it would make her sore. She hadn’t seemed like the kind that would mind a rhyme, even if it was a little off. But she kept staring at me, and then I got a little sore myself, and said it was a pretty good rhyme, even if she didn’t like it. “To hell with the rhyme.”
“Oh?”
“Borland, your wife’s no good.”
“She’s not?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Well — thanks.”
“But you have a voice.”
“I... what?”
“You have a voice such as hasn’t been heard since — I don’t know when. What a baritone! What a trumpet!”
“I think you’re kidding me.”
“I’m not kidding you... Want some lessons?”
Her eyes weren’t wide open any more. They were half closed to a couple of slits. A creepy feeling began to go up my back. It was time to go, and I knew it. I did not go. I went over, sat down, put my arm around her, pushed her down, touched my mouth to her lips. They were hot. We stayed that way a minute, breathing into each other’s faces, looking into each other’s eyes. Then she mumbled: “Damn you, you’ll kiss first.”
“I will like hell.”
She put her arms around me, tightened. Then she kissed me, and I kissed back.
“You were slow enough.”
“I was wondering what you wanted.”
“I wanted you, you big gorilla. Ever since you came in there this morning with that foolish song-and-dance about getting Hertz to go to the concert. What made you do that? Didn’t you know any better?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I had to.”
“... You mean she made you?”
“Something like that.”
“Couldn’t you say no?”
“I guess I couldn’t.”
She twisted her head around, where it was on my shoulder, and looked at me, and twisted my hair around her fingers. “You’re crazy about her, aren’t you?”