Only last night that Holly had left his apartment, only a matter of hours since she had left his life forever. He not only had no idea where to look for her, he had no idea of her last name.
What a fool, he muttered and poured sugar and milk into his steaming coffee. To think he had only worshipped her wild, hot body, and had not had the guts to realize he had fallen desperately in love with her.
He took a tentative sip of the scalding coffee, and told himself that now he had no reason to worry about Holly's messing up his future. Now he was left free to marry Julie and be subject to her every whim and to work and grovel for her father.
Nick had just managed to swallow some of the coffee and feel it warming his chilled body when the phone rang. He put the cup down and hurried into the living room and jerked up the receiver and prayed that it was Holly. "Nick, this is Sally Lewis," the tense, tired voice said. "Do you know what's happened to me?"
"Well Miss Lewis, uh, Sally, yes, I was going to call you," Nick said. "Now about your being transferred to another executive, well…"
"Transferred, hell," she said. "I've been fired. Effective at five this afternoon. Nick why did you let them do this to me? You know how unfair it is."
"Christ, I had no idea," he said. "I thought you were simply being transferred. Who the hell told you you were being fired? I'll have his rear end." Her laugh was harsh. "Miss Julie Connors told me Nick," she said. "And she made it quite clear what kind of a girl she thought I was."
"I don't believe it," Nick said, but he knew perfectly well that Julie was capable not only of having the girl fired, but of taking pleasure in delivering the blow herself.
"Nick please don't let this happen," she said. "Without a reference I'll never be able to get a decent job. And I've worked hard for you. You know that. And I've covered for you."
Nick detected the urgency in the girl's words and her tone and he squeezed the receiver and told himself he had become a vehicle for causing suffering for people that he liked and who helped him.
"Don't worry, Sally," he said, after a moment. "I'm going over to the Connors apartment right away and I'll take care of you."
"Oh Nick, I hate to put you to all this trouble," she said. "But I'm desperate. And Nick there's something you should know. Something that gives an absurd and unfair twist to this whole thing."
"What, Sally?" he asked.
"Well Mr. Connors has propositioned me several times, Nick," she said. "And a couple of times when I was working late, he's really mauled me. And he told me he would fire me in a minute if I didn't work for you."
"Listen, Sally, try to take it easy," Nick said. "I'm going over there now, and I'll call you as soon as I can."
"Gee thanks," she said. "I knew I could count on you Nick."
Nick hung up and a feeling of outrage coursed through his hung over body. Yet, he shuddered at the thought of storming over to the Connors apartment. He had lost Holly, and if he did this, he might lose everything else.
Nick went back into the kitchen and finished his coffee. Then he poured a second cup and walked into the living room and sat down at his desk. He sipped the steaming coffee and stared out at the cold, grey, snow-filled morning.
Dennison Beer, he muttered. He put his cup on the desk and bent over and took a pile of material on the Dennison account out of the carton that had been sent over by the agency. He drank the coffee and studied the previous ad campaigns that had been devised by the agency, and he knew that he was only stalling his trip to the Connors apartment.
The campaigns were all directed at sportsmen and had a heavy masculine tone, and Nick told himself that they resembled so many other ads directed at men. He finished the coffee and stared at the grim, snowy day through the window, and thought of Holly and her golden, glowing warmth and her youth and her enthusiasm and the way she made the apartment seem alive and exciting.
Nick stood up and went into the kitchen and poured himself a third cup of coffee and returned to his desk. Dennison Beer advertising could use an infusion of Holly's youth and aliveness, he told himself and drank the coffee.
He sat and stared at the snow and finished the coffee. Then he went into the bedroom and started dressing. He had pandered to Julie on the phone and told her he would be over later. By the way he gave in to her, he should have said crawl over later, he reminded himself. And now he had promised Sally Lewis he would storm over and save her job.
When he left the apartment and walked down to the street, he felt funny, and as he shoved the door open and stood in the sidewalk, he realized that somehow he simply did not care any longer about Marshall Connors and his agency and his daughter.
He had to wait ten minutes for a cab and he was shivering with cold when he finally climbed into the taxi. And as the taxi hummed along the street, he thought how warm he had always been with Holly.
The cab hummed faster and Nick shivered and his stomach seemed to be contracting. Holly, he repeated, and again he thought that he would never see her again.
And he stared out at leafless trees whose slim, black limbs were hung with ice and he thought of Dennison Beer. And he thought of Holly and of warmth and of honey.
As the cab slid to a stop for a red light, Nick suddenly thought of a beer advertising campaign based on a girl like Holly. Youth and sunshine and a glowing, honey-smooth idea. Nick leaned forward and remembered that for the past few years, beer sales were decreasing in bars and increasing in supermarkets where women did their shopping.
As the cab hummed forward again, Nick thought how the population was steadily shifting downward and how, in a few years the majority of the population would be under thirty.
He thought of the heavy, dull, middle-aged-men campaigns that had been devised by Connors and Ross for Dennison Beer. The market was going down in years and toward the opposite sex but the advertising kept plugging along the same, losing rut.
When the cab stopped in front of the Connors building, Nick dropped several coins as he hurriedly paid the driver. He did not even bother to pick them up. He nearly ran up the sidewalk and into the building and tried to picture the grin of pleasure on Marshall Connors face when he told him the campaign he had in mind.
Yet in the elevator he thought of Sally Lewis, and he thought of Julie and thought of his life as her husband and of his future at her father's agency. He knew if he were careful, he could have it all now with this Dennison thing he could take the whole works.
But he got out of the elevator and moved over the soft thick carpeting, and he knew he could not do it now. He had fought long and hard for something that could be his. But he had lost Holly and he felt cold and he no longer cared. He paused in front of the Connors apartment and realized that since he no longer cared, since he no longer had to please Julie and her father, that he felt more like a decent human than he had felt in a longtime.
Hanson answered the bell and bowed and scraped and showed Nick to the living room. The room was empty and Nick wandered about and looked, as he always did, at the elaborate furnishings and thought of his desperate ambitions.
And yet, he turned to stare into the fireplace and watch the liquid flow of golden-red coals, and he knew that not only would he probably never realize his ambitions, but that in a few minutes he would very likely be out of a job.
"Nickie, darling," Julie called and he turned as she came into the room.
She wore black silk lounging pajamas beneath a thin white robe, and Nick thought instantly how Julie always seemed tones of black and white and grey, while Holly was always golden and copper and blue.
"My secretary just called me," Nick said. "What the hell is this about her being fired? And about you firing her?"