It would take more than a shower to wash away these thoughts. She turned the water off and, between both hands, pressed out her streaming hair.
On the way out to shop she rang the Castevets’ doorbell and returned the cups from the mousse. “Did you like it, dear?” Minnie asked. “I think I put a little too much cream de cocoa in it.”
“It was delicious,” Rosemary said. “You’ll have to give me the recipe.”
“I’d love to. You going marketing? Would you do me a teeny favor? Six eggs and a small Instant Sanka; I’ll pay you later. I hate going out for just one or two things, don’t you?”
There was distance now between her and Guy, but he seemed not to be aware of it. His play was going into rehearsal November first-Don’t I Know You From Somewhere? was the name of it-and he spent a great deal of time studying his part, practicing the use of the crutches and leg-braces it called for, and visiting the Highbridge section of the Bronx, the play’s locale. They had dinner with friends more evenings than not; when they didn’t, they made natural-sounding conversation about furniture and the ending-any-day-now newspaper strike and the World Series. They went to a preview of a new musical and a screening of a new movie, to parties and the opening of a friend’s exhibit of metal constructions. Guy seemed never to be looking at her, always at a script or TV or at someone else. He was in bed and asleep before she was. One evening he went to the Castevets’ to hear more of Roman’s theater stories, and she stayed in the apartment and watched Funny Face on TV.
“Don’t you think we ought to talk about it?” she said the next morning at breakfast.
“About what?”
She looked at him; he seemed genuinely unknowing. “The conversations we’ve been making,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The way you haven’t been looking at me.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been looking at you.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I have so. Honey, what is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, don’t say that. What is it? What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah look, honey, I know I’ve been kind of preoccupied, with the part and the crutches and all; is that it? Well gee whiz, Ro, it’s important, you know? But it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, just because I’m not riveting you with a passionate gaze all the time. I’ve got to think about practical matters too.” It was awkward and charming and sincere, like his playing of the cowboy in Bus Stop.
“All right,” Rosemary said. “I’m sorry I’m being pesty.”
“You? You couldn’t be pesty if you tried.”
He leaned across the table and kissed her.
Hutch had a cabin near Brewster where he spent occasional weekends. Rosemary called him and asked if she might use it for three or four days, possibly a week. “Guy’s getting into his new part,” she explained, “and I really think it’ll be easier for him with me out of the way.”
“It’s yours,” Hutch said, and Rosemary went down to his apartment on Lexington Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street to pick up the key.
She looked in first at a delicatessen where the clerks were friends from her own days in the neighborhood, and then she went up to Hutch’s apartment, which was small and dark and neat as a pin, with an inscribed photo of Winston Churchill and a sofa that had belonged to Madame Pompadour. Hutch was sitting barefoot between two bridge tables, each with its typewriter and piles of paper. His practice was to write two books at once, turning to the second when he struck a snag on the first, and back to the first when he struck a snag on the second.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Rosemary said, sitting on Madame Pompadour’s sofa. “I suddenly realized the other day that I’ve never been alone in my whole life-not for more than a few hours, that is. The idea of three or four days is heaven.”
“A chance to sit quietly and find out who you are; where you’ve been and where you’re going.”
“Exactly.”
“All right, you can stop forcing that smile,” Hutch said. “Did he hit you with a lamp?”
“He didn’t hit me with anything,” Rosemary said. “It’s a very difficult part, a crippled boy who pretends that he’s adjusted to his crippled-ness. He’s got to work with crutches and leg-braces, and naturally he’s preoccupied andand, well, preoccupied.”
“I see,” Hutch said. “We’ll change the subject: The News had a lovely rundown the other day of all the gore we missed during the strike. Why didn’t you tell me you’d had another suicide up there at Happy House?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Rosemary asked.
“No, you didn’t,” Hutch said.
“It was someone we knew. The girl I told you about; the one who’d been a drug addict and was rehabilitated by the Castevets, these people who live on our floor. I’m sure I told you that.”
“The girl who was going to the basement with you.”
“That’s right.”
“They didn’t rehabilitate her very successfully, it would seem. Was she living with them?”
“Yes,” Rosemary said. “We’ve gotten to know them fairly well since it happened. Guy goes over there once in a while to hear stories about the theater. Mr. Castevet’s father was a producer around the turn of the century.”
“I shouldn’t have thought Guy would be interested,” Hutch said. “An elderly couple, I take it?”
“He’s seventy-nine; she’s seventy or so.”
“It’s an odd name,” Hutch said. “How is it spelled?”
Rosemary spelled it for him.
“I’ve never heard it before,” he said. “French, I suppose.”
“The name may be but they aren’t,” Rosemary said. “He’s from right here and she’s from a place called-believe it or not-Bushyhead, Oklahoma.”
“My God,” Hutch said. “I’m going to use that in a book. That one. I know just where to put it. Tell me, how are you planning to get to the cabin? You’ll need a car, you know.”
“I’m going to rent one.”
“Take mine.”
“Oh no, Hutch, I couldn’t.”
“Do, please,” Hutch said. “All I do is move it from one side of the street to the other. Please. You’ll save me a great deal of bother.”
Rosemary smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do you a favor and take your car.”
Hutch gave her the keys to the car and the cabin, a sketch-map of the route, and a typed list of instructions concerning the pump, the refrigerator, and a variety of possible emergencies. Then he put on shoes and a coat and walked her down to where the car, an old light-blue Oldsmobile, was parked. “The registration papers are in the glove compartment,” he said. “Please feel free to stay as long as you like. I have no immediate plans for either the car or the cabin.”
“I’m sure I won’t stay more than a week,” Rosemary said. “Guy might not even want me to stay that long.”