They crossed an intersection under a street light and he stole a direct look at her. He thought of the cliché of the oblivious boss who has never really looked at his adoring and beautiful secretary before. Like all clichés it was worthless because it oversimplified reality. He had never been blind to Ronnie’s sexual attractions. He wouldn’t have hired her if she hadn’t caught his eye. That was the way he had always been: he liked to surround himself with decorative women. Angie had known that and Angie had never held it against him: in her own way she took a certain pride from the fact that of all the attractive women in his life she alone had held him. Now and then she had made a tart joke about it and he had composed a ritual reply: “Just because a man’s on a diet doesn’t mean he can’t read the menu.” They had laughed the way healthy people laugh who are sure of themselves and of each other. Angie had been complete in her femininity, men had always given her a second look, and he had enjoyed it as much as she had: it had confirmed his proprietary pride, which took pleasure from other men’s envy.
He caught Ronnie’s short half-smile when they turned the corner. He was intensely aware of her electricity; aware, as well, that she liked him and was pleased by his attentions. She hadn’t tried to rebuff his interest by displays of indifference: she gave off none of the signals of misogamous frigidity he had discovered in otherwise coquettish women; still, curiously, she had surrounded herself with tensile barriers and by setting limits she had challenged his masculine determination. He felt like a small boy confronted by a new mechanical device: he would not be willing to quit prying it apart until he found out what made it work.
“Here we are.” She handed him the keys. He unlocked the door for her and went around to the driver’s side and slid in under the wheel. “Why a station wagon?”
“I paint,” she said, and it was only after a moment that she seemed to realize it required further explanation. “I’m a Sunday painter. Oils—landscapes, mostly. I like to drive out in the country. I need the space in back for my easel and canvases and paintbox and palette—all the impedimenta of the amateur dauber.”
He drove west toward the freeway, moving against the incoming tide of Saturday-night traffic. “I often wondered what you did with your off time. Not that you seem to have much of it. I’ve caught you in the office on the phone at ungodly hours some nights.”
“You have a bad habit,” she said lightly. “You always forget the difference in time zones between here and Washington.”
It was a casual remark and he almost let it go by but then the significance of it struck him. He shot a glance at her. He couldn’t make out her expression; the light was poor. He said, “Do you mean to tell me you wait around the office every night of the week on the off-chance I might telephone from Washington?”
“Well, it’s not only for that. We’re understaffed; usually it takes me till eight or nine to clear the decks for the next day’s action.”
“Why in hell haven’t you said so? We can hire another secretary.”
“It didn’t seem important,” she said vaguely. “I haven’t had anything better to do, anyway. You can’t paint at night.”
“But what about your social life?”
“I lead a very quiet social life,” she said, and added nothing to it.
He made the turnoff and followed the flyover ramp up onto the freeway. He pushed the accelerator down and moved out into the left lane to pass the slower traffic. The station wagon was a big one, heavy and no better designed than most of its kind: everything rattled slightly, the steering and braking controls were not precise, and at high speed it tended to wag its tail and bounce with a lunging seasick sway. Forrester liked to drive; he had behind him a youth filled with the roar of sports cars, the memory of rallies and gymkhanas.
He said, “Les Suffield asked you if you’d be willing to come to Washington and run my office there. Have you thought about it?”
“I’m still thinking about it. I imagine I’ll do it, at least until November. If you decide to run again and they put you back for another six years, I may decide to come home. I’ve been in Washington before. I don’t like it very much.”
“It’s a one-company town,” he said. “If you don’t like the company it’s not much of a place.”
“That kind of social whirl doesn’t appeal to me, I’m afraid.”
He found the turnoff, corkscrewed down under the highway and drove north toward the base. The white stripe of the road ran as straight as an architect’s line. “You said you lead a quiet life. Forgive me if I’m prying, but is that because you’re a widow?”
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the rest?”
“It’s hard to put into words.”
“When Angie died I didn’t want to face people either—nothing seemed worth the effort.”
“Because you had no one to share it. I know.” She turned in her seat—she was far over against the door. “I knew what you were going through last year when she died but there wasn’t anything I could say that would have helped. You understand? But it’s been eleven years since my husband died. I’m not still carrying a torch.”
“Then it’s something else.”
“Really, I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Another time then.”
She put her feet flat on the floor and looked straight ahead and the next time she spoke it was to say, “We must be almost there.”
The air-base gate was an open entrance—there were AP’s on duty but passage was not restricted and they drove through it slowly. Somewhere ahead was an interior perimeter beyond which unauthorized visitors could not go. Forrester had been here before on various occasions and knew the general area he sought, but he had to stop and ask a woman pushing a stroller where the base commander lived. Most married officers lived off-post in civilian houses but the base commander was on twenty-four-hour call and had to live on the base. The best the Air Force had done by way of privacy was to put his house behind a dusty hillock away from the other buildings. The last piece of road was indifferently paved and the wheels churned up a gritty dust that quickly got into Forrester’s nostrils and teeth but he didn’t mind; he had grown up on the taste of it. Beyond the hill he turned into the graded circular drive.
It was an ultramodern house of glass, open to the space about it, not especially large; one of those Southwestern houses without basement or attic, temporary-looking because it was temporary.
The front door of the house opened, throwing a splash of lamplight across the steps, and Colonel Bill Ryan came out beaming.
Ryan had always been big and now he was a big man with a belly on him. He had thick shoulders and a deep chest; a square head anchored on a wide neck. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt, white tapered slacks, white loafers, no socks. He was crowding fifty but he had the kind of durably boyish face often discovered on mercenary soldiers and airplane pilots. The hair on top, sandy and going thin, was combed carefully over the pink scalp.
“About God damn time you remembered to call on your old friends.” He marched forward to pump Forrester’s hand and clap him violently on the bicep.
Ronnie was getting out of the car and Forrester saw the way Ryan’s unsubtle grin widened with the quick shift of focus that bracketed them both in the single frame of his vision. “Yes indeed,” Ryan said, full of approval, bowing over Ronnie’s hand with an amusingly courtly gesture. Ronnie smiled pleasantly and said she had heard a lot about him. Ryan’s laugh expanded his throat. “That’s a shame—I was hoping we could be friends.”
There was a shriek of lusty delight from the house and Forrester wheeled in time to see Alice Ryan rush breathless down the steps. “Why didn’t you tell me they were here? Alan, darling, it’s been so long!” She planted a warm wet kiss full on his mouth. Her assault almost knocked him back against the car and he laughed, untangling himself, but when he caught Ronnie’s glance he felt color flood his face. Alice Ryan stepped back and looked him up and down, and then Ryan cleared his throat and introduced her to Ronnie. Forrester saw the way Alice’s expression changed immediately, became speculative, the assessment of the predatory female for one who might prove to be a competitor. Alice was a small fluffy blonde, husky and pneumatic, with a sun-whacked face that tended to pout. Her aura was frankly sexual; she gave an. impression of greedy appetites and single-track intentions. She wore a pleated black skirt and a bolero half-jacket, bare at the midriff, with slinky black sleeves that covered her plump arms. She was slightly overweight but it hadn’t gone to her waist; it only emphasized the roundness of her hips and buttocks, the ripe thrust of her breasts. She had the hoarse breathy voice of the casual alcoholic.