“You mean cussing?”
“I mean cussing and I mean—well, sometimes if you look at it you don’t say it. One whole hell of a lot that passes for talk is just running off at the mouth. I guess you’re about ready now.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Fauna?”
“Yes. I want you should repeat after me, ‘I’m Suzy and nobody else.’ ”
“ ‘I’m Suzy and nobody else.’ ”
“ ‘I’m a good thing.’ ”
“ ‘I’m a good thing.’ ”
“ ‘There ain’t nothing like me in the whole world.’ ”
“ ‘There ain’t nothing’—goddam it, Fauna, now my eyes’ll be red!”
“They look pretty that way,” said Fauna.
At seven o’clock Doc, dressed in an open-collared shirt, leather jacket, and army pants, rang the bell at the Bear Flag. He looked at Suzy and he said, “I’ve got to make a telephone call, do you mind?” And he ran back to the laboratory.
Ten minutes later he returned. He had on clean slacks, a tweed jacket, and a tie he hadn’t used in years.
Fauna saw him standing under the porch light.
“Honey,” she said to Suzy, “you win the first round on points.”
23
One Night of Love
Sonny Boy is truly the only Greek born in America named Sonny Boy. He operates a restaurant and bar on the wharf in Monterey. Sonny Boy is plump and getting plumper. Although he was born near Sutro Park in San Francisco and went to public schools, Sonny Boy has singlehandedly kept alive the mystery of the Near East. His perfectly round face hints Orient Express[86] and beautiful spies. His bushy voice is congenitally confidential. Sonny Boy can say “good evening” and make it sound like an international plot. His restaurant makes friends for him and supports him. Perhaps Sonny Boy, in one sense, wears a long black cape and dines with Balkan countesses where two seas kiss the Golden Horn—but he also runs a good restaurant. He probably knows more secrets than any man in the community, for his martinis are a combination truth serum and lie detector. Veritas is not only in vino but regularly batters its way out.
Doc stopped his old car in front of Sonny Boy’s, got out, walked around, opened the door, and helped Suzy out.
She was a little shocked but she remained silent. The sentence, “You think I’m a cripple, for Chrissake!” rose to her throat, but she followed Fauna’s advice—whispered it and pushed it back. The fact of his hand on her elbow did a magic thing to her, pushed back her shoulders and raised her chin. The gritty light of resistance went out of her eyes.
Doc opened the door of the bar and stood aside to let Suzy enter. The regulars on the stools turned to look. The eyes crept from pretty face to pretty legs, took in the martens on the way. For one second panic halted her, but she saw no look of recognition in the eyes of the regulars.
Sonny Boy turned sideways to get around the end of the bar. “’Evening, folks,” he said. “Your table is ready. Would you like to have a cocktail here, or shall I send one over?”
“Oh, let’s sit at the table,” said Doc.
Sonny Boy bowed Suzy through the door to the restaurant, and she strolled ahead with her nice walk. Sonny Boy, rolling along beside Doc, said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Your secretary called. It’s all fixed. You got a secretary, Doc?”
Doc overcame his surprise. “Part time,” he said.
“Who’s the lady? She new around here?”
“She’s new around here,” said Doc. He caught up with Suzy.
“This way,” said Sonny Boy. He led them to a round table in front of the stone fireplace. A pine fire crackled and sent out its fragrance. The table had a centerpiece of wild iris. The breadsticks stood like soldiers in their glasses. The napkins were folded to make little crowns. It was the best table in the house, private, but downstage and well lighted.
Suzy’s eyes darted around the room. No other table had flowers. Something wonderful happened in Suzy. She didn’t walk around the table and sit down. She waited, and when Doc held her chair she seated herself, looked smiling up at him, and said, “Thank you.”
Sonny Boy hovered over the table. “Good you telephoned,” he said. “I had trouble getting pompano, but I got it. How’s about a cocktail? The wine’s cooling.”
Doc said, “One time I had some kind of—”
“I remember!” said Sonny Boy. “The Webster F. Street Lay-Away Plan[87]—a martini made with chartreuse instead of vermouth. Very good.”
“Very effective, as I remember it,” said Doc. “Two doubles.”
“Coming right up,” said Sonny Boy. “I told Tony to be here to play piano like you said, but he’s sick.”
Doc looked at Suzy to see whether she knew Fauna had made the arrangements. She didn’t.
It is probable that if Doc hadn’t ordered the Webster F. Street Lay-Away Plans he would have got them anyway. They arrived with a speed that indicated they were already mixed.
The shock of a necktie was leaving Doc. He looked across the table and smiled at Suzy and he wondered, What is beauty in a girl that it can come and go? This Suzy did not faintly resemble the tough hustler who had screamed at him the night before. He raised the cocktail glass. “You’re pretty,” he said. “I’m glad you came with me. Here’s to both of us.”
Suzy swallowed a gulp, held back her tears, and waited for the spasm to pass.
“I should have warned you,” said Doc, “there’s a rumor that this drink is made of rattlesnake venom and raw opium.”
Suzy got her breath. “It’s good,” she said. “But I was watching its right hand and walked into a left hook!”
Her mind cried, I shouldn’t of said that! I forgot already. Then she saw Doc’s amusement and it was all right.
Suzy noticed a waiter drifting delicately within earshot. She had discovered something for herself. When in doubt, move slowly. Her head turned toward the waiter and he drifted away. She was delighted with her discovery—everything-in-slow-motion. She then lifted her glass slowly, looked at it carefully, then sipped and held it a moment before she put it down. S-lo-w-ness—it gave meaning to everything. It made everything royal. She remembered how all the unsure and worried people she knew jumped and picked and jittered. Just doing everything slowly, forcing herself, she felt a new kind of security. Don’t forget, she told herself. Don’t ever forget this. Slow! Slow!
Doc gave her a cigarette and held a match, and she leaned forward so slowly that the flame was touching her fingers before she had lighted it. A lovely warmth stole through her body. She felt bold, not defensively bold, but safe.
She asked, “Do they know—what I am?”
The Lay-Away Plan works equally on all. Doc said, “They know you’re with me. That’s all they need to know. Shall we have one more?”
It came before he got his finger raised for attention. If this was conspiracy, Sonny Boy wanted to be in on it. If felicity, he liked that too.
“I like a fire,” Suzy said. “Once we had a fireplace where I lived.”
Doc said, “You’re pretty. Yes, by George! You’re pretty!”
Suzy swallowed the first words that rose and swallowed the second ones and ended up by dropping her eyes and saying “Thank you” softly.
Sonny Boy personally escorted the waiter, who carried the ice bucket with the chilled Chablis. Then he stood back and surveyed the table. “How is everything, Doc?”
“Just fine,” said Doc.
“You ready to eat?”
“Any time,” said Doc.
And Suzy’s discovery continued to hold good: Take it slow and keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.
86
Orient Express: The Orient Express, which connects Calais, France, on the English Channel, with Istanbul, Turkey, on the Black Sea, is one of the most legendary luxury trains in Europe, and a symbol of exotic adventure.
87
Webster F. Street Lay-Away Plan: An inside joke: The drink was named for Steinbeck’s former Stanford classmate and Monterey friend, attorney Webster “Toby” Street (1899–1984).