"Wham, bang, thank you, Ma'am," of course. But nothing enduring. The Marine Corps equivalent of "We must lunch sometime. I'll call you."
At first she'd been angry, then ashamed, then angry and ashamed, and then shameless. And on The Day That Will Live In Infamy, after hearing from her mother, who'd heard it from Pick's mother, that Pick had been commissioned and was in Washington, she'd gone down there to ask Pick to help.
There Pick had explained that it was not her freedom with her sexual favors that was bothering Ken McCoy; it was her money.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"After a lot of solemn thought," Pick had replied, "I have concluded that he is afraid that you regard him as an interesting way to pass an otherwise dull evening."
"That's just not so!"
"That the minute he lets his guard down, you're going to make a fool of him. There was a woman in China who did a pretty good job on his ego."
"A Chinese woman?"
"An American. Missionary's wife. He had it pretty bad for her, the proof being that he was going to get out of the Marine Corps to marry her. For him, the supreme sacrifice."
"What happened? What did she do to him?"
"What he's afraid you're going to do to him," Pick told her. "Humiliate him."
"Goddamn her," Ernie had said. And then: "Pick, it's not that way with me. I've got to see him."
"It'll be a little difficult at the moment," Pick had said. "He's in Hawaii right now, on his way to the Philippines."
"Oh, God!" she'd waited.
"But he'll be back," Pick had said. "He's a courier. Sort of a Marine Corps mailman."
"When?"
"A week, maybe. Ten days."
"You'll let me know when he's back?"
"I will even arrange a chance meeting under the best possible circumstances," Pick had said. "Here. He's living here with me. You can be waiting for him, soaked in perfume, wearing something transparent, with violin music on the phonograph."
"You tell me when," she'd said. Things were looking up.
When she'd walked through the lobby of the hotel, on her way to the station, NBC was broadcasting the bulletin that the Japanese had attacked the U.S. Naval Station at Pearl Harbor.
And a week after that, Pick had called her and told her that there had been word from the Philippines that Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, was missing in action and presumed dead.
Ernestine Sage's reaction to that was not what she would have thought. She had not screamed and moaned and torn her hair. She hadn't even cried. She'd just died inside. Gone completely numb.
And then, a week later, Pick had called again, his voice breaking. "I thought you might like to know that our boy just called from San Francisco. As Mark Twain said, the report of his death is somewhat exaggerated."
She'd been waiting in Pick's suite at the Foster Lafayette Hotel when McCoy returned. Not soaked in My Sin, or wearing a black negligee, which had been her intention; but, because he was an hour early, she was in a cotton bathrobe with soap in her ears and her hair shower-plastered to her head.
He hadn't seemed to notice. They'd turned the Louis XIV bedroom into the Garden of Eden, and she'd wept with joy when she felt him in her. And as perverse as it sounded, with joy again when she'd changed his bandages, for it seemed proof that she was a woman who had found her mate and was caring for him.
That had been the result of her father's phone call on Thanksgiving Friday. Now he was on the line again, and there was no doubt in Miss Ernestine Sage's mind that he had on his mind now the relationship between his daughter and her Marine officer; her mother had gone to him and told him that she knew for a fact that their daughter had left her own bed in the middle of the night so that she could get in bed with Ken McCoy.
"Are you free for lunch?" Ernest Sage asked his daughter.
"Sure," she said.
"Could you come here?" he asked. "It would be better for me."
She wondered how he meant that; was his schedule tight? Or did he just want to have his little talk with her on his own ground?
He picked up on her hesitation.
"Anywhere would be fine, honey," her father said.
"Twelve- fifteen?" Ernie Sage said.
"Would you like anything in particular?" her father asked. "I think Juan's making medallions of veal."
"That'll be fine, Daddy," she said.
"Look forward to it," he said, and hung up.
The hell you do. Daddy.
At five minutes to twelve, Miss Ernestine Sage put on her overcoat and galoshes and left her office. She walked the two blocks from JWT to Madison Avenue and then the half block to the American Personal Pharmaceutical Products Building. This was a nearly new (1939) fifty-nine-story, sandstone-sheathed structure, the upper twenty floors of which housed the executive offices of APP.
She walked across the marble floor and entered an elevator.
"Fifty- six," she told the operator.
The APP building's top formed a four-sided cone, with each floor from fifty-nine down to fifty-two somewhat smaller than the floor below, from which point the walls descended straight to the street level. The fifty-sixth floor was the highest office floor, the top three floors being dedicated to various operating functions for the building itself.
Her father's office was on fifty-five. Fifty-six was the Executive Dining Room, something of a misnomer as there were actually four dining rooms on that floor, plus the kitchen and a bar. APP, like JWT, had a hierarchy. Individuals attaining certain upper levels of responsibility received with their promotions permission to take their lunch on fifty-six, on the company, or to stop by fifty-six for a little nip, also on the company, at the end of the business day.
Fully two-thirds of the floor was occupied by the Executive Dining Room itself. That establishment looked like any good restaurant in a club. And then, in addition to the Executive Dining Room, there were Dining Rooms A, B, and C. Of these, Dining Room C was the smallest, containing but one table and a small serving bar. Its use was controlled by Mrs. Zoe Fegelbinder, executive secretary to the chairman of the board of APP. And it was reserved for special occasions.
When Ernie Sage got off the elevator, the maitre d'hotel spotted her right away and walked quickly to her.
"Good afternoon, Miss Sage," he said. "How nice to see you again. You're in 'C.'"
She was not surprised. This was a special occasion. The chairman of the board of APP did not want to show off his daughter in the Executive Dining Room today.
Today, the chairman of the board wanted to be alone with his daughter, so that he could talk to her about her screwing a Marine, or words to that effect.
As the maitre d' ushered her across the lobby, a path was made for her and people smiled, and she heard herself being identified. She had often thought that it must be like this for Princess Elizabeth; for around here, she was sort of like royalty.
Her father was not in 'C,' but Juan was, in his chef's whites.
"Hallo, Miss Ernie," he said, smiling, apparently genuinely pleased to see her.
"Hello, Juan," she said.
She remembered now that Juan was a Filipino. As in invaded by the Japanese. As in the place where Japanese artillery had damned near killed Ken.
"Your poppa say veal medallions," Juan said. "But I think maybe you really like a little steak… with marchand de vins sauce?"
"Yes, I would," she said. "Thank you, Juan."
"Pommes frites? Haricots verts? And I find a place sells American Camembert, not bad. You try for dessert?"
"Sounds fine," she said.
"You wanna little glass wine, while you wait? Got a real nice Cal'fornia Cabernet sauvignon?"