“Yes, well you tell the guest in 109 that my radio is off.”
“Yes, sir, if you say so.”
“Thank you. This is some hotel,” he said, and hung up. Boy, he thought, how do you like that? How the hell do you like that? I’m standing here in my undershorts, minding my own business, and some fat old bastard with a cigar begins having auditory hallucinations and calls the desk to tell me to turn off my radio which isn’t even on, boy this is some hotel all right, I’m telling you.
Angrily, he walked back to the counter, plugged in the steam iron, picked up the half-filled glass of scotch, and drained it. Boy, he thought. Next door, he heard the phone ringing. That would be the desk clerk from Choate who would be calling 109 to report that 108 said his radio was not on. The phone stopped ringing. 109 had answered it. Arthur stood silently with the steam iron in one hand and tried to hear the conversation next door. He could not hear a word, some hotel. Well, I’d better press my pants, he thought, and get the hell out of here before they call again to say the wild party in my room has simply got to stop. He ran the iron over his trousers several more times, held them up to examine them, and then pulled them on. They were nice and warm, they made him feel very cozy. He went to the closet for his jacket, studied it when he took it off the hanger, and decided it did not need pressing. He poured himself a very tiny shot of scotch, drank it down, figured he’d have just one more tiny one before leaving the room, and was pouring it over the cubes in his glass when his telephone rang again.
Choate again, he thought. He decided to turn up the radio full blast before answering the telephone, and then did not do it. “Hello,” he said into the receiver.
“Mr. Pitt? This is the desk clerk again.”
“Well, this is a surprise,” Arthur said.
“Mr. Pitt, I wanted to apologize. I spoke to the young lady in 109, sir, and apparently there was some mistake. Apparently what she heard were the loudspeakers around the pool, sir, and she thought it was the radio in the room next door. I’m terribly sorry if I inconvenienced you, sir.”
“That’s quite all right,” Arthur said, “no inconvenience at all. Where’d you go to school?”
“Sir?”
“What prep school?”
“I didn’t go to any prep school, sir. I went to a high school in downtown Los Angeles.”
“Oh. Did you ever hear of Choate?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you ever hear of the Beverly Hills Hotel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That just goes to show,” Arthur said, and hung up. He was smiling. He was having a very good time. So the guest next door in 109 was a young lady, huh? Well, good. Maybe he’d just give her a ring on the telephone and they’d have a little laugh together over the misunderstanding. Why not? This was going to be one hell of a birthday party, and he was going to enjoy every goddamn minute of it until it was over. He did not like to think of it as ever being over, especially now when it had just really started, so instead of thinking about it he went back to the counter and poured himself the drink he had promised himself, though not as tiny as he had promised. He drank it down, said, “Ahhhhh,” and was putting on his jacket when the telephone rang again.
“Hello,” he said into the receiver. “Just a minute, I forgot to unplug the iron.”
He went back to the counter, unplugged the iron, poured himself another drink while he was there, and then carried the glass back to the phone with him.
“Yes?” he said.
“This is the bell captain, sir.”
“Yes, hello, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve got a bottle of champagne for you, sir.”
“You have?” Arthur said, astonished. “Who’s it from?”
“I don’t know, sir. It was delivered just a few moments ago.”
“Well, that’s very nice,” Arthur said. “Put it in an ice bucket and send it on over, why don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” the bell captain said, and hung up.
Still astonished, Arthur sat on the edge of his bed, certain that the champagne had been ordered by the hotel management who, in their haste to set things right after the recent misunderstanding, were now outdoing themselves lavishly. Well, never look a gift horse, he thought. A party is in progress, and we need all the champagne we can get, not to mention several satin slippers from which to drink it.
The telephone rang again.
He stared at it unbelievingly, thinking the hotel management was really going a bit too far, really, and wondering what they had up their sleeves this time. Gardenias? A basket of California oranges? He would flatly refuse. He would say Thank you, your apologies are accepted, but if you send any further gifts, I will have to consider us engaged.
Giggling, he lifted the receiver. “Hello?” he said.
“Is this Mr. Pitt in room 108?”
“Yes, this is he,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Pitt.”
“That’s quite all right, no need to apologize.”
“This is the bell captain again, sir. I’m sorry about that bottle of champagne, sir, but it isn’t for you, after all.”
“Oh?”
“It’s for the young lady in 109, sir. I rang the wrong room, sir, I’m terribly sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you,” Arthur said, and hung up.
He felt suddenly demolished. The idea that the champagne was not for him at all but rather for the young lady in 109, the idea that a gift had been extended to him and then just as abruptly withdrawn filled him with a despair that was unbearable. I’d better call Fran, he thought, what the hell.
He picked up the phone receiver.
He was studying the holes in the dial, trying to decide which one would connect him with the long-distance operator, when he heard the splash outside his window. He thought at once that someone had fallen into the pool; it was still winter in his mind, and people did not voluntarily jump into a swimming pool on Christmas Eve. He immediately replaced the receiver and ran to the sliding glass door, peering through at the pool and the lanai area. At first, he couldn’t see anyone either in the pool or around it. Soft recorded violin music was being piped over the loudspeakers. He could see the muted lights illuminating the palms surrounding the pool, and the single immense white Christmas tree in the pocket formed by the U of the hotel’s wings — but no one in the pool or around it. And then a head burst through the water and a blond girl surfaced and swam to the side of the pool, swinging herself up over its tiled lip, and gracefully walking toward the diving board. She was wearing a black, two-piece bathing suit, not a bikini, but cut very low on her waist, the halter top scarcely containing her breasts. She flicked her head to one side, the long mop of blond hair flapping soddenly away from her face, and then continued walking with that peculiar graceful flatfooted stamp of athletes and dancers, one hand cupping thumb and forefinger over her nose to clear it, the other tugging the seat of her trunks down over the partially-exposed white swell of her buttocks. She mounted the ladder to the diving board and walked to its end where she stood with her hands on her hips and stared down at the water.
She stood that way for the longest time, absorbed, her head bent, one hip jutting. He had no idea who she was, could not in fact see her face too clearly in the muted light surrounding the pool. But she was tall and blond and poised, and he could think of only one person in all of Los Angeles who was tall and blond and very poised. It seemed entirely possible to him that she, who else could it be, had come directly to this fine hotel where after her long and tedious flight she had attempted to take a nap only to be awakened by the poolside music — whereupon she had instantly ordered herself a bottle of champagne, of course, and decided on a midnight swim instead. The girl standing still and serene on the end of the board could not conceivably be anyone but Miss Iris Radley, a strange name for a Swedish girl, and what a pleasant surprise, even though he could not yet see her face, who else could she possibly be?