It was strange and irrational how the feeling came over her. One moment she was doing things to herself to pass the time until she could do what she really wanted to do, and everything was all right and getting better, and the next moment everything was all wrong and getting worse, and there didn’t seem to be any reason for it or anything she could do to stop it. She had experienced the same feeling before, however, the sudden terrible conviction of imminent disaster that had no apparent relationship to circumstances as they were at the time, and a doctor at one of the parties where she got most of her spiritual and psychiatric guidance had told her, after an intimate consultation in a corner over several cocktails, that it was a kind of free-floating anxiety that occasionally attached itself to a specific incident or person. This was nice to know, of course, but it wasn’t very effective as therapy and did little or nothing to alleviate matters whenever the free-floating anxiety attached itself afterward to something or someone specific, as it was now attached to Oliver at the door.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Wrong?” He straightened and walked three steps into the room. “Nothing’s wrong, my dear. What makes you think there is?”
“I don’t know. I just had a feeling when you came in that something was.”
“You’re mistaken. Everything is fine. Are you planning to go somewhere tonight?”
“I was thinking that I might. I went to bed early last night, you know, and now I’d like to go somewhere and do something.”
“Do you have something definite arranged?”
“Oh, no. Nothing special at all. There’s always somewhere to go that doesn’t require special arrangements.”
“That’s good. It’s good, I mean, that you haven’t committed yourself to anything definite, for I’ve planned a little surprise for you.”
“Surprise? What kind of surprise?”
He smiled, tracing with the tip of an index finger the thin scar along his mandible, and she watched him with a conviction of personal peril growing stronger and stronger in her morbid certainty of all things going wrong, It was surely a kind of minor revolution when Oliver disrupted his schedule for anything whatever, and it raised the question of whether the disruption was a sign of a change in their relationship which he intended to be good or was, on the other hand, a development of the danger she had sensed and believed, and in either case it threatened to spoil the night she had planned and was therefore bad.
“Dinner and dancing to begin with,” he said. “Afterward I have something rather unusual in mind. I think it will amuse you.”
“What is it?”
“If I told you now it would spoil the surprise. I want you to anticipate it, my dear.”
“Well, I know you don’t really like to do things like this and are only doing it now for my sake. It’s very kind of you, I’m sure, but it isn’t necessary.”
“On the contrary, I’m quite enthusiastic about it. Do you think I’m incapable of enjoying anything out of the routine?”
“You’ll have to admit that you always plan things ahead very carefully and hardly ever deviate from them.”
“That’s true. I like an ordered life, as you say, but I’ve been thinking that perhaps you should be included more often in the order. I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you shamefully, my dear, and you’ve been exceedingly generous and understanding about it.”
This remark seemed to indicate that he was only trying to alter their relationship with good intentions, which was a relief from fear but would certainly become a great nuisance if she permitted it to continue, for it would prevent her from going places and doing things as she pleased, or at least as frequently as she pleased. It was extremely unlikely, however, that Oliver would deviate from his established order for any length of time, and the acute problem now was tonight, how she could possibly go to Joe Doyle while Oliver was imposing himself upon her in this extraordinary way, and her going, which had up to now been no more than desirable, became imperative as it became imperiled.
“Thank you very much,” she said, “but I don’t think I’d care to become part of an order. I prefer to do things more spontaneously.”
“I know. We are quite different in that respect. An adjustment will demand concessions from us both. Is that a new gown on the bed?”
“Yes, it is. I bought it yesterday, and it was delivered this afternoon.”
“It’s nice. I’m sure you’ll look charming in it. Were you planning to wear it tonight?”
“Yes. I was trying it on before you came.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. No matter, though. I’ll see it on you later when we go out together.”
“Are you certain you want to go? If you prefer, we could go another night when you have more time to prepare for it.”
“No, no. It’s all arranged. We’ll go to the Empire Room for dinner and dancing, and later we’ll have our little surprise.”
He moved toward her suddenly and took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the mouth with a lightness and tenderness that were rare and would have been deeply moving in the kiss of anyone else. In his, they were somehow frightening, the qualities of mockery. She was ravished by the kiss as she had never been by his occasional brutality, and at the same time, paradoxically, she felt far more rejected than all his customary coldness had ever made her feel. Worst of all, she was compelled to recognize with an exorbitant sense of loss and despair that he was determined to take her with him to the Empire Room and wherever else afterward he had planned, and there was nothing, nothing at all, that she could do to prevent it.
“We’ll leave at a quarter to eight,” he said.
He released her and went out, and she sat on the edge of the bed in her despair and tried and tried to think of something she could do to save the night, to make it possible still to go to Joe Doyle, but she could think of nothing, and she knew that there was nothing to be done by her or anyone else in the world. It would be necessary, then, to call Joe and tell him that she couldn’t be there, and why she couldn’t, and how terribly sorry she was, and that she would surely come as soon as she could, which would be tomorrow if she could possibly manage it.
Having decided to call, she tried to remember if there was a telephone in his room, and she couldn’t remember any. If there had been one she would certainly have remembered it, and so she concluded that there wasn’t, which meant that there was a house phone in the hall that would probably be listed under the name of whoever owned the house, and the trouble was that she didn’t know who owned it. Then it occurred to her that he might be at Duo’s already, where he worked, and that she could at least leave word for him there if he wasn’t actually there himself to be talked to.
She turned in the classified directory to the nightclubs and found Duo’s number and dialed it, and while she was doing this she kept hoping very hard that Joe would be there to be talked to, for she wanted to tell him personally how much she wanted to come and how sorry she was that she couldn’t. It was imperative that he understand this and believe it, for he was inclined to lack faith in her anyhow, and he might decide that she had simply had enough of him, which wasn’t, surprisingly enough, yet true. After she had finished dialing, she waited and waited while the phone rang in long bursts at the other end of the line, and she had about concluded in despair that Duo’s was one of those places that absolutely ignored telephone calls whenever it suited them, but then, just as she was preparing to cut the connection, someone answered. It was Yancy.