“Isn’t this party a dog?” Teddy Pope said.
We all smiled at one another. I could think of nothing to say. Beside Pope sat Marion Faye, looking small and bored. He only nodded at me.
“Do you know roulette?” the tennis player asked. “Teddy’s an aficionado.”
“I’ve been trying to get a system,” Teddy said. “I had a theory about the numbers. But mathematically it was too much for my low intelligence. I hired a statistician to try to figure it out.” He grinned at me again. “You a weight-lifter?” Teddy asked me.
“No. Should I be?”
This turned out to be very amusing. Pope and the tennis player and Marion Faye shared a long run of laughter. “I can bend an iron bar,” Teddy said to me. “That is, if it’s a slim enough iron bar. I just stay in weight-lifting to keep from getting fat. I’m getting so fat now.” He pinched his belly to give a demonstration and was able to show an excess of flesh no thicker than a pencil. “It’s disgusting.”
“You look in good shape,” I said uncomfortably.
“Oh, I’m pudgy,” Pope said.
“Weight-lifting ruined your forehand,” the tennis player said.
Teddy Pope made no answer. “I can see you’re a flier,” he said. “Is it true that most of you live for drinking and sex?” He leaned back and smiled at the sky. “Oh, there’s a beauty,” he said as a girl passed. “Would you like to meet her? Marion says you’re a little, shy.”
“I’ll make out.”
“Why don’t you help him, Teddy?” Marion jeered.
“I would just be a drag,” Pope said.
“Sit down, Sergei,” said the tennis player.
“No. Well, you see,” I said, “I promised to bring a drink to somebody.”
“Come back if you get bored,” Teddy said.
I was approached beneath another yucca tree by a little bald-headed man in a sky-blue tropical suit who had a tall redheaded girl by the hand. “Ah, there you are, I missed you before,” he said briskly. “I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Bunny Zarrow, you may have heard of me. Actor’s representative.” I must have looked at him with surprise, for he added, “I see you were talking to Mr. Teppis. May I ask what you were talking about?”
“He wanted my advice on a movie.”
“That’s interesting. That’s unusual. And what is your name?”
“John Yard,” I said.
“You’re under contract, I take it?”
“Of course.”
“Well, a contract can sometimes be bettered. I wish I could place your name. I will say this is neither the time nor the opportunity, but you and I must have lunch to discuss it. I’ll call you at the studio.” He pointed to the girl beside him. “I’d like you to meet Candy Ballou.” The girl yawned and then tried to smile. She was very drunk.
Bunny drew me aside. “Let me give you her phone number. She’s a charming outgoing girl.” He blinked his eyes. “I’m glad to do you a favor. If I weren’t so overworked, I would keep her number, but it’s a shame to keep such a girl to myself.” He returned me to Candy Ballou and placed our hands together. “Now, kiddies, I’m sure you two have a great deal in common,” he said, and left us looking at one another.
“Would you want to dance?” I asked the redheaded girl.
“Don’t panic, love-bucket.” She said this as if it were a password, and then opened her eyes to focus on me. “What studio you at?” she blurted.
“That’s just a joke, Candy,” I said.
“A joke on Zarrow, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“No dough. I might have known.” She swayed her body to the rhythms of the rumba music and yawned fiercely. “Oh, honey,” she said in a little broken voice, “if you had class, you’d help me to the ladies’ room.”
On my return from that errand with no more for company than a new highball, I saw Eitel come in at last. He was with a girl. Elena, I knew.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE WAS A NEAR-BEAUTY. Elena’s hair was a rich red-brown and her skin was warm. She walked with a sense of her body, and I had always been drawn to that in a girl since my first year in the Air Force when like every other fly at an enlisted man’s dance, I would cock my hat and try to steal prizes like Elena with my speed. Although she wore a lot of lipstick, and her high heels would have satisfied a show-girl, there was something delicate about her and very proud. She carried herself as if she were tall, and her strapless evening gown showed round handsome shoulders. Her face was not exactly soft, but it was heart-shaped, and above a tender mouth and chin, the nares of her long narrow nose suggested ample aptitude to me. Munshin’s description seemed passing poor.
Except that she was obviously not at ease. As I watched Eitel lead her into the mouth of the party she reminded me of an animal, ready for flight. Their appearance at the party had set off a ripple of confusion, and very few of the people who saw him knew what to do. There were several who smiled and even said hello, there were some who nodded, and even more who turned away, but I had the feeling they were all frightened. Until they knew the reason why Eitel had been invited, they could only feel the panic that whatever they did could be a mistake. It was grim the way he and Elena were left to cross the floor of the party without catching anybody to accompany them, and I saw Eitel stop finally at an empty table near the pool, set out a chair for Elena, and then sit down himself. From a distance, I had to like the way he succeeded in looking bored.
I went up to their table. “Can I join you?” I said clumsily.
Eitel gave me a quick grateful smile. “Elena, you must meet Sergius, he’s the best person here.”
“Oh, shut up,” I told him, and turned to her. “I’m awfully sorry, I didn’t catch your last name,” I said.
“It’s Esposito,” Elena muttered, “an Italian name.” Her voice was just a little hoarse, and surprisingly deep, which made it considerably less useful to her than her face, but it was a voice which had muffled strength in it. I had heard accents like that since I was a kid.
“Doesn’t she look like a Modigliani?” Eitel said enthusiastically, and then added, “Elena, I know you’ve been told that more than once.”
“Yes,” Elena said, “that is, someone once told me. As a matter of fact it was your friend.”
Eitel passed over the reference to Munshin. “But where did you get those green eyes?” he teased her. From the angle where I sat, I could see his fingers tapping restlessly on his knee.
“Oh, that’s from my mother,” Elena said. “She’s half Polish. I guess I’m one-quarter Polish and three-quarters Italian. Oil and water.” We all worked a little to laugh, and Elena shifted uncomfortably. “What a funny subject,” she said.
Eitel made a play of studying the Laguna Room and said, “What do you think this party needs?”
“What?” I asked.
“A roller coaster.”
Elena burst into laughter. She had a nice laugh which showed her white teeth, but she laughed too loudly. “Oh, that’s so funny,” she said.
“I love roller coasters,” Eitel went on. “It’s that first drop. Like the black hole of death. There’s nothing to compare with it.” And for the next two minutes he talked about roller coasters, until I could see by the look in Elena’s eyes how alive he made the subject seem. He was in good form, and to draw him out, Elena was a good listener. I found myself thinking that she was not stupid, and yet she would only answer with a laugh or some little remark. It was the style of her attention. Her face gave back the shadow of everything he said, until Eitel was carried away. “It proves an old idea of mine,” he said. “One gets on a roller coaster in order to feel certain emotions, and I wonder if it’s not the same with an affair. When I was younger, I used to think it was ugly, even unclean I suppose, that a man who thought he was in love would find himself using the same words with one girl after another. Yet there’s nothing wrong about it really. The on
ly true faithfulness people have is toward emotions they’re trying to recapture.”
“I don’t know,” Elena said. “I think a man like that wouldn’t be feeling anything for the woman.”
“On the contrary. At that moment, he adores her.”
This confused her. “I mean,” she interrupted, “you know, it’s … oh, I’m not sure.” But she could not let it pass. “A man like that isn’t relating to the woman. He’s detached.”
Eitel looked pleased. “You’re right,” he reversed himself. “I suppose it’s the proof of how detached I am.”
“Oh, you can’t be,” she said.
“I certainly am,” he smiled, as though to flag an advance warning.
It must have been hard to believe. His eyes were bright, his body leaned toward her, and his dark hair looked charged with energy. “Don’t judge by appearances,” Eitel began, “why I can tell you …”
He broke off. Munshin was coming toward us. Elena’s face lost all expression, and Eitel began to smile in an unnatural way.
“I don’t know what it is you got,” Collie boomed, “but H.T. told me to come over and say hello. He wants to talk to you later.”
When none of us answered, Munshin contented himself with staring at Elena.
“Collie, how are you?” Eitel said finally.
“I’ve been better.” He nodded his head. “I’ve been a lot better,” he said, continuing to look at Elena.
“Aren’t you having a good time?” she asked.
“No, I’m having a rotten time,” Munshin answered.
“I was looking for your wife,” Elena said, “but I don’t know who she is.”
“She’s around,” Munshin said.
“And your father-in-law? He’s here, I heard you say.”
“What difference does it make?” Munshin asked with a moist look as if he were really saying, “Someday you won’t hate me any more.”
“Oh, yes, no difference at all. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you,” Elena said, her voice all but out of control. It gave a hint of how badly she would act in a quarrel.
“I met Teddy Pope tonight,” I interrupted as best I could. “What is he like?”
“I can tell you,” Eitel said nimbly, “he’s been in several of my pictures. And do you know, I think he’s really sort of decent as an actor. Some day he may be very good.”
At that moment, a beautiful blond girl in a pale-blue evening gown came up behind Munshin and covered his eyes with her hands. “Guess who?” she said in a throaty voice. I had a glimpse of a little turned-up nose, a dimpled chin, and a pouting mouth I had seen before. At the sight of Eitel she made a face.
“Lulu,” Munshin said, half rising from his chair, and not knowing if her interruption had helped the situation or made it worse, he hugged Lulu with fatherly arms, smiling at Elena and Eitel, while with his free hand visible only to me, he patted the small of her back as though to tell her she might do worse than to hug him again.
“Miss Meyers, Miss Esposito,” Eitel said smoothly, and Lulu gave a passing nod to Elena. “Collie, we have to talk,” Lulu said, “I have something I definitely want to tell you about.” Then she gave a sweet smile to Eitel. “Charley, you’re getting fat,” she said.
“Sit down,” Eitel offered.
She took a chair next to him, and told Munshin to sit on the other side. “Isn’t anybody going to introduce the Air Force?” she asked directly of me, and when that was done, she made a game of studying my face. I forced myself to stare her down but it took something out of me. “What a pretty boy you are,” said Lulu Meyers. She could not have been much more than twenty herself.
“She’s great,” Munshin said. “What a tongue.”
“Would you like a drink?” I asked Elena. She hadn’t said a word since Lulu had come, and by comparison she did not seem as attractive as I thought her before. Maybe aware of this herself, she picked nervously and savagely at the cuticle on her nail. “Oh, yes, I’d like a drink,” Elena agreed, and as I started away, Lulu handed me her glass. “Get me a small Martin, will you?” she asked, turning violet-blue eyes on me. I realized she was as nervous as Elena, but in a different way; Lulu made herself sit easily in the chair—I had learned the same trick in flying school.
When I came back, she was talking to Eitel. “We miss you, old ham,” she was saying. “I don’t know anybody I’d rather get drunk with than Eitel.”
“I’m on the wagon,” Eitel said with a grin.
“You’re on the wagon as far as I’m concerned,” Lulu said with a glance at Elena.
“I hear you’re going to marry Teddy Pope,” Eitel answered.
Lulu turned on Munshin. “You tell H.T. to lay off the drums,” she said, and flipped her cigarette to the floor, grinding it out with a quick impatient motion. I had a peep at her legs and of little feet covered by silver slippers. Those legs were as familiar as the contour of her mouth, each drawn on one’s memory by a hundred photographs, or was it a thousand? “Collie, this propaganda has got to stop, I tell you.”
Munshin gave his sheepish smile. “Now, you relax, doll. Who’s forcing you into anything?”
“I approve of Lulu marrying Teddy,” Eitel drawled.
“Charley, you’re a troublemaker,” Munshin said quickly.
Elena and I looked at each other. She was trying very hard to be a part of this, her eyes following everyone who spoke, her smile forced as if she didn’t want to seem ignorant. Probably I was acting the same way. We sat at opposite flanks of the conversation, no more than social book-ends.
“I’m serious,” Lulu said. “You can tell Mr. T. I’ll marry this pretty boy first,” and she inclined a finger toward me.
“You haven’t proposed yet,” I said.
Elena laughed with enough pleasure to have said it herself. Again her laugh was too loud, and the others stared at her.
“Don’t panic, love-bucket,” Lulu said with an authority the redheaded girl, Candy Ballou, had not been able to muster. She held her empty glass up for us all to see, and poured its last drop on the floor. “I’m sad, Collie,” she announced and laid her head on Munshin’s shoulder.
“I saw your last picture,” Eitel said to her.
“Wasn’t I just awful in it?” Lulu made a face again. “They’re ruining me. What did you think, Eitel?”
He smiled noncommittally. “I’ll talk to you about it.”
“I know what you’ll say. I was performing too much, wasn’t I?” She raised her head and pinched Collie on the cheek. “I hate acting.” And with hardly a pause she leaned forward to ask a question. “What do you do, Miss Esposo?”
“Esposito,” Eitel said.
Elena was uncomfortable. “I’ve been … not exactly, a dancer, I guess.”
“Modeling now?” Lulu said.
“No … I mean, of course not.…” Elena was not altogether helpless before her. “Different things,” she finished at last. “Who wants to be a skinny model?”
“Oh, I’ll bet,” Lulu said, and spoke to me again. “You the latest tail on Eitel’s old tattered kite?”
I could feel myself turning red. Her attacks came so fast that it was a little like waiting for the sound to stop in musical chairs. “They say you’re through, Charley,” Lulu went on.
“They certainly do talk about me,” Eitel said.
“Not as much as you think. Time passes.”
“I’ll always be remembered as your second ex-husband,” Eitel drawled.
“It’s a fact,” she said. “When I think of Charley Eitel, I think of number two.”
Eitel smiled cheerfully. “If you want to put on the brass knuckles, Lulu, just give the word.”
There was a moment, and then Lulu smiled back. “I’m sorry, Charley, I apologize.” She turned to all of us, and in that husky voice which went along so nicely with her blond hair and blue eyes, she said, “I saw an awful picture of me today in the papers.”
“Lulu,” Munshin said quickly, “we can rectify that. The
photographers will be working soon.”
“I won’t be mugged with Teddy Pope,” Lulu declared.
“Who’s forcing you?” Munshin said.
“No tricks, Collie.”
“No tricks,” Munshin promised, wiping his face.
“Why are you perspiring so?” Lulu asked, and then broke off to stand up. “Jay-Jay!” she cried aloud, and opened her arms. Jennings James, who had just walked toward us, wrapped her to his skinny body in a parody of Munshin’s bear-hug. “My favorite girl,” he said in his high Southern voice.
“That was a bitchy release you had on me day before yesterday,” Lulu said.
“Honey, you’re paranoidal,” Jennings James told her. “I wrote it as a work of love to you.” He nodded to all of us. “How are you, Mr. Munshin?” he said. The trip to the men’s room seemed to have revived him.
“Take a chair, Jay-Jay,” Munshin said, “this is Miss Esposito.”
Jennings James bowed formally to her. “I love the dignity of Italian women, Miss Esposito.” His freckled hand smoothed his red hair. “Are you going to stay with us long in Desert D’Or?”
“I’m going back tomorrow,” Elena said.
“Oh, you’re not,” Eitel said.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Elena corrected herself.
A waiter brought ice cream. It was melted on the plates, and only Elena took a dish. “This is soft ice cream, isn’t it?” she said. “That’s the expensive kind, I’ve heard.” When everybody looked puzzled by the remark, Elena became a little desperate in the attempt to prove it. “I don’t remember where I heard, but I did see it advertised, soft ice cream, I mean, or maybe I was eating it, I don’t know.”
Eitel came to her aid. “It’s true. Duvon’s in the city features a sort of melted ice cream. I’ve had it myself. But I don’t think this is Duvon’s, Elena.”
“Oh, no, I know it isn’t,” she said quickly.
Jay-Jay turned back to Lulu. “Honey, we’re ready for the pictures. Those photographers have finished grossifying themselves, and it all waits on you.”