“Try it on. Let’s see what it looks like.” He gave her the dress. She took it and went into the bedroom because there was a full-length mirror there on the back of a closet door. She had made the bed neatly before leaving the house, but the bedcover was mussed. Willie had taken a nap after lunch. They had been living together only a little over two months but she had amassed a private treasury of Willie’s habits. His clothes were strewn all over the room. His corset was lying on the floor near the window. Gretchen smiled as she took off her sweater and skirt. She found Willie’s childish disorder endearing. She liked picking up after him.
She zipped up the dress with difficulty. She had only put it on twice before, once in the shop and once in Boylan’s bedroom, to model it for Boylan. She had never really worn it. She looked at herself critically in the mirror. She had the feeling that the lacy top exposed too much of her bosom. Her reflection in the red dress was that of an older woman, New Yorkish, certain of her attractions, a woman ready to enter any room, disdainful of all competition. She let her hair down so that it flowed darkly over her shoulders. It had been piled up in a practical knot on top of her head for the day’s work.
After a last look at herself she went back into the living room. Willie was opening another bottle of beer. He whistled when he saw her. “You scare me,” he said.
She pirouetted, making the skirt flare out. “Do you think I dare wear it?” she said. “Isn’t it a little naked?”
“Dee-vine,” Willie drawled. “It is the perfectly designed dress. It is designed to make every man want to take you out of it immediately.” He came over to her. “Suiting action to the thought,” he said, “the gentleman unzips the lady.” He pulled at the zipper and lifted the dress over her head. His hands were cold from the beer bottle and she shivered momentarily. “What are we doing in this room?” he said.
They went into the bedroom and undressed quickly. The one time she had put on the dress for Boylan they had done the same thing. There was no avoiding echoes.
Willie made love to her sweetly and gently, almost as though she were frail and breakable. Once, in the middle of love-making the word respectfully had crossed her consciousness and she chuckled. She didn’t tell Willie what had caused the chuckle. She was very different with Willie than with Boylan. Boylan had overcome her, obliterated her. It had been an intense and ferocious ceremony of destruction, a tournament, with winners and losers. After Boylan, she had come back into herself like someone returning from a long voyage, resentful of the rape of personality that had taken place. With Willie the act was tender and dear and sinless. It was a part of the flow of their lives together, everyday and natural. There was none of that sense of dislocation, abandonment, that Boylan had inflicted upon her and that she had hungered for so fiercely. Quite often she did not come with Willie, but it made no difference.
“Precious,” she murmured and they lay still.
After awhile Willie rolled carefully on his back and they lay side by side, not touching, only their hands entwined, childishly, between them.
“I’m so glad you were home,” she said.
“I will always be home,” he said.
She squeezed his hand.
He reached out with his other hand for the package of cigarettes on the bedside table and she disentangled her fingers, so that he could light up. He lay flat, his head on the thin pillow, smoking. The room was dark except for the light that was coming in through the open door from the living room. He looked like a small boy who would be punished if he were caught smoking. “Now,” he said, “that you have finally had your will of me, perhaps we can talk a bit. What sort of day did you have?”
Gretchen hesitated. Later, she thought. “The usual,” she said. “Gaspard made a pass at me again.” Gaspard was the leading man of the show and during a break in the re-hearsal he had asked her to come into his dressing room to run over some lines and had practically thrown her on the couch.
“He knows a good thing when he sees one, old Gaspard,” Willie said comfortably.
“Don’t you think you ought to talk to him and tell him he’d better leave your girl alone?” Gretchen said. “Or maybe hit him in the nose?”
“He’d kill me,” Willie said, without shame. “He’s twice my size.”
“I’m in love with a coward,” Gretchen said, kissing his ear.
“That’s what happens to simple young girls in from the country.” He puffed contentedly on his cigarette. “Anyway, in this department a girl’s on her own. If you’re old enough to go out at night in the Big City you’re old enough to defend yourself.”
“I’d beat up anybody who made a pass at you,” Gretchen said.
Willie laughed. “I bet you would, too.”
“Nichols was at the theater today. After the rehearsal he said he might have a part for me in a new play next year. A big part, he said.”
“You will be a star. Your name will be in lights,” Willie said. “You will discard me like an old shoe.”
Just as well now as any other time, she thought. “I may not be able to take a job next season,” she said.
“Why not?” He raised on one elbow and looked at her curiously.
“I went to the doctor this morning,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”
He looked at her hard, studying her face. He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette. “I’m thirsty,” he said. He got out of bed stiffly. She saw the shadow of the long scar low on his spine. He put on an old cotton robe and went into the living room. She heard him pouring his beer. She lay back in the darkness, feeling deserted. I shouldn’t have told him, she thought. Everything is ruined. She remembered the night it must have happened. They had been out late, nearly four o’clock, there had been a long loud argument in somebody’s house. About Emperor Hirohito, of all things. Everybody had had a lot to drink. She had been fuzzy and hadn’t taken any precautions. Usually, they were too tired when they came home to make love. That one goddamn night, they hadn’t been too tired. One for the Emperor of Japan. If he says anything, she thought, I’m going to tell him I’ll have an abortion. She knew she could never have an abortion, but she’d tell him.
Willie came back into the bedroom. She turned on the bedside lamp. This conversation was going to be adequately lit. What Willie’s face told her was going to be more important than what he said. She pulled the sheet over herself. Willie’s old cotton robe flapped around his frail figure. It was faded with many washings.
“Listen,” Willie said, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “Listen carefully. I am going to get a divorce or I am going to kill the bitch. Then we are going to get married and I am going to take a course in the care and feeding of infants. Do you read me, Miss Jordache?”
She studied his face. It was all right. Better than all right.
“I read you,” she said softly.
He leaned over her and kissed her cheek. She clutched the sleeve of his robe. For Christmas, she would buy him a new robe. Silk.
II
Boylan was standing at the bar in his tweed topcoat, staring at his glass, when Rudolph came down the little flight of steps from Eighth Street, carrying the overnight bag. There were only men standing at the bar and most of them were probably fairies.
“I see you have the bag,” Boylan said.
“She didn’t want it.”
“And the dress?”
“She took the dress.”
“What are you drinking?”
“A beer, please.”
“One beer, please,” Boylan said to the bartender. “And I’ll continue with whiskey.”