“Wait until you have children of your own.”
“Someday you’ll meet a nice girl.”
“I’ve saved my wedding veil for you.”
“You want to plan for the future.”
The double talk of subliminal direction, which, when translated from the English, always added up to the same four words: when you get married.
Gillian had been subjected to the same subtle dunning approach, perhaps more so because she was a girl and marriage was the dangling carrot of successful womanhood. The training, she supposed, was as much a part of her as her liver or her heart, and although she accepted her relationship with David, accepted her role in the honesty of an unquestioning love that she felt was real and enduring, she admitted to herself that she was sometimes uneasy about it. Somewhere inside this uninhibited girl, there was a girl quite different, a young child who listened to and heeded the words of mother and God, who reeled back in shock at her own impropriety. Perhaps this was why she chose not to meet Julia Regan.
She could remember the first time David had asked her to accompany him to Talmadge on a weekend. She had hesitated a moment before answering, and then had said, “No, I don’t think so, David.”
“But why not?”
“It isn’t that... David, I’d love to meet your mother, really I would.” She shook her head. “But not now, not yet.”
She had turned away from him, avoiding his eyes, suddenly shy and embarrassed. But she knew she could not meet his mother yet, not this way, not the way things were.
She looked at the clock again.
Come on, she thought, think of the character in the play.
She turned her attention back to the script, read two speeches with forced concentration, slapped the page suddenly, and looked back at the clock again.
He should have been here by now. Or, lacking that, he should have called. He should have known she’d be on tenterhooks waiting for word one way or the other. The appointment had been for a five-thirty drink, she had made the appointment herself, she had called Curt personally the moment she heard about the job opening.
“I’m sorry, Gilly,” he’d said. “This isn’t an acting job. And besides, I’m looking for a man.”
“That’s why I’m calling, Curt. A friend of mine might be right for it.”
“Who? Anybody I know?”
“I don’t think so. His name is David Regan.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Nobody ever heard of you, either, Curt. Until Westport in 1946, and it was my agent who got you the job because I told her you’d—”
“Hey, what is this?” Curt asked. “Blackmail?”
“Not at all,” Gillian answered. “I’m refreshing your memory. Now that you’re a big-shot television magnate, maybe your memory—”
“Has he ever worked in television before?”
“No, but who has, Curt?”
“Well, Gillian, to tell you the truth...”
“Curt, darling, don’t snow old friends. This is primarily an administrative job, and hasn’t got at thing to do with television techniques. Will you talk to him, please?”
“Where do you get all your information, Gilly? What do you do, run at spy system in New York?”
“I simply keep track of old friends,” she said.
“Yeah, go ahead. Hit the ‘old friends’ theme one more time.”
“If you don’t like him, you don’t have to hire him.”
“I wouldn’t hire your father if I didn’t like him.”
“But you will talk to him, Curt?”
“What else are old friends for?” Curt asked sourly.
“You’re very sweet-oh,” Gillian said. “Can you make it this afternoon? Five-thirty?”
It was almost seven now, and no word from David. She sat on the living-room couch and looked through the open kitchen door to the clock on the wall, her legs tucked under her, hating the clock, and hating David for not having called, and hating Curt Sonderman, too. She couldn’t concentrate on the script, it was impossible. She picked up an emery board and began frantically filing her nails. She felt as excited as if she were applying for the job herself. She knew instinctively that it would be something good for David, and she desperately wanted him to have it. She would not allow herself to consider its ramifications, the possibility that if once he found a good job, a job he liked, a job that offered a challenge and a future, then he might... no, she would not allow herself to think in terms of a stupid shopgirl waiting for a man to make her honest, what the hell am I, Bertha the Sewing Machine Girl? She looked at the clock again and frowned. How inconsiderate of that oafish lout, she thought, not to call me when he surely knows I’m waiting. That big fool knows I’m sitting here sandpapering my fingernails down to the bone and beginning to resemble Venus de Milo, but does he care? He and that other idiot Sonderman are probably drunk in a Third Avenue bar discussing their conquests while I sit here like Elaine the fair guarding the sacred shield.
When the knock sounded on the door, she leaped to her feet instantly, rushed to it, and threw it open.
“Did you get it?” she asked.
“Hold it, hold it,” David said.
“Hold it! It’s seven o’clock! Didn’t you pass a telephone? Haven’t you got a nickel? I’ve been sitting here—”
“Now hold it, just hold it.”
“Did you get it, or not?”
“Good old Gillian, straight to the point.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do, you moron? Beat around the bush for an hour? Did you get the job or did you not get the job? If you don’t tell me right this minute, David, I’ll—”
“I think so.”
“You got it,” she said.
“Now wait a minute. I only think so. I didn’t say—”
“You got it,” Gillian said again, and she collapsed onto the couch. “I knew you’d get it.”
“I’m not sure I got it. He said he’d call me later tonight. There was someone else he promised to see.”
“If he’s going to call you later tonight, you got it. Tell me what happened. Tell me all about it.”
“Well, I walked in, and this portly guy at the bar—”
“Portly? Curt Sonderman? He was as thin as a rail when I knew him.”
“Well, he’s portly now.”
“That’s because he’s rich now.”
“Yes, the rich are always fat. Stereotype number six-four-five-three-one.”
“Don’t be such a smart-oh. He came from the bar, yes, go on?”
“And he said, ‘Mr. Regan?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘I’m Curt Sonderman. Nice to know you.’”
“Yes, yes?”
“So we sat down at a table and began talking about the job. Do you know what it is, Gilly?”
“I have some idea. But tell me.”
“Well, he produces two or three television shows, all of them live variety-type programs. The commercials on these shows, for the most part, are live too.”