He turned to her; they were face to — the image persisted, it seemed to him — evil face. She seemed faded, even coarse, the smile on her lips complacent. This is the way of an adulterous woman,/ She eateth and wipeth her mouth and sayeth,/ I have done no wrong... He felt sick at heart, and he was glad of the excuse to turn away and tinker with bottles and ice cubes.
From time to time Sheila received other telephone calls — twice in her office while he was with her, twice more in her apartment — which, he assumed from her guarded tone, were also from his father.
One night at the end of August they attended an old movie in an art theater on the Lower East Side; it was almost 3 A.M. when they emerged. In the car he put his arm around her. She slipped away. “I don’t believe in one-arm driving. Isn’t this safer?” She put her arm around him.
In spite of himself, Dane felt a shiver. “Shall we stop somewhere? How about Ratner’s and a glass of borsht?”
“That pink soup with sour cream in it?” Sheila pursed her lips. “I think I’d prefer a nightcap. Let’s have it at my place.”
“All right.”
It seemed natural. Entering the apartment building lobby was, as always when he was in Sheila’s company, something of a shock — knowing that his parents lay asleep overhead — but he had steeled himself by this time; he did not dwell on it. He did not dwell on much of anything these days.
“Come in, Dane.”
“I’m suddenly reminded,” Dane said, following Sheila into the penthouse apartment, “of the experience of a friend of mine. He accepted the offer of a tropical-looking beauty he met at a party to come up and have a nightcap in her apartment, and when they walked in, lo, there pacing the floor was an economy-size ocelot. Arthur swears it was as big as a leopard. Needless to say, all he got that night was a drink, and he spilled half of that on the rug.”
“Well, my ocelot got the evening off,” Sheila said, “so don’t spill yours. Not on this rug. Handwoven in Jutland, I’ll have you know. Name your poison, pardner.”
The living room, furnished in Scandinavian Modern, was dimly lighted. Always peaceful-looking, it seemed extraordinarily so on this occasion. A feeling of contentment invaded Dane, in the van of which marched a wiry little excitement. It was the queerest thing. Sheila mixed their drinks at her bar, humming to herself the absurd tune to an absurd W. C. Fields song they had heard at the art movies; she reached for the ice, and he caught a quiet smile on her face.
So it happened — not by calculation, not with his father standing aghast and outraged in the living-room archway, not as part of a created plot, but as naturally as breathing. Dane put his arms around her. Sheila turned with the same smile, lifted her perfect face and half closed her eyes, and they kissed.
Her lips, her body, were sweet and soft and full. He had never thought of her body before except in a repellent image, lying in his father’s hairy arms.
Dane heard her say, “I’m glad you waited, darling,” saw her hand him his drink, raise her own. They drank in silence, looking into each other’s eyes. Then Dane set his glass down and took her hand, her strong white little hand with the smudge of violet India ink on the palm, and he kissed it, a brush of his lips; and left.
As he undressed for bed, the thought occurred to him for the first time that night: I’ve accomplished my purpose. I’ve got her. Now all I have to do is arrange the pay-off.
But it’s gone all to pot.
And the horrifying thought: I’ve fallen in love with her.
He was in love with his father’s mistress. It was not as if the kiss symbolized a beginning; it was an ending, a climax of days and nights of exploration and intermingling of ideas and attitudes and laughter and close silences; a seal to a compact they — he — had never suspected they were making. I’m glad you waited, darling... It was the same with her; she had experienced the special quality of their relationship, sealed with the kiss. If there was a beginning at all, it was not the beginning of an affair; it was the beginning of a lifetime.
Suddenly the whole incredible structure crashed about his head. Whom was he punishing? His father, yes; but his mother more. Himself most of all.
It was not supposed to be that way. It was all wrong, twisted out of any semblance to the shape he had been fashioning. Everyone was going to be hurt — mother, father, himself... and Sheila.
He tossed for most of what was left of the night.
Dane awakened to a sense of purpose, almost recklessness. That was the way it had worked out. The hell with everything else.
But with breakfast came caution. Think it over, he told himself, don’t rush it, perhaps you’re reading a fantasy into what could have been a mere kiss of the moment, as meaningless to you as to Sheila. He did not really feel that way, and he was sure that Sheila did not; still, it had to be taken into account. Take a day or so to simmer down, to let matters adjust themselves to some realistic yardstick.
As the day wore on he found himself hungering for her voice. Work was out of the question. Suppose by his silence he made her think he was having second thoughts? She mustn’t think that, mustn’t. Besides... that voice, that deep and husky telephone quality it did not have at other times...
“Sheila! Dane.”
“I know.”
It was like warm honey, that voice.
“I’ve got to see you. Tonight? This afternoon?”
“No, Dane, I want to think.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I love you, Sheila.”
She did not reply at once, as if she were fighting him, or herself. “I know, Dane,” she finally said. “Tomorrow.”
She came straight into his arms. There was a nerve in the hollow of her throat that jumped when he kissed it. It was some time before he said anything. Then he held her close and said, “Sheila, I want you to marry me.”
“I know, Dane.”
She knew!
“Then you will?” he cried.
“No.”
It was like setting his foot down where a step should have been, but was not. A scalding wave of humiliation washed over him; and suddenly he thought of his father. This was how his father would feel; this was his punishment for having planned the whole dirty thing. Was she laughing at him? Had she seen through him from the start?
He looked at her wildly.
“Darling, I’m not refusing you,” murmured Sheila, and she took his head between her hands and kissed him on the lips.
“I guess I’m too thick-witted to get it.”
“I love you, Dane. You can have me right now. But not as your wife.”
Not as my wife? “Are you married?” She was married...
“Heavens, no!” She laughed at that. Then she looked into his face and without a word went to the bar and splashed brandy into a snifter and held the glass to his lips. He took it from her roughly.
“You mean you’ll sleep with me,” he said, “but you won’t marry me.”
“That’s right, darling.”
“But you just said you love me.”
“I do.”
“Then I don’t understand!”
She stroked his cheek. “I suppose you considered yourself a thoroughly seasoned old rip, and here you have to discover that you’re just a sweet old square. No, not yet, Dane. I must get this over to you. It’s important to both of us.”
What she went on to say was not at all what he was expecting. She made no reference to Ashton McKell; she was not, after all, rejecting a new love in favor of the incumbent. She had known for some time, she told Dane, that she loved him.