4
Prin did not feel her usual responsible self where Coley Collins was concerned. When she was with him she felt cooperative with, if not dedicated to, his unoriginal designs. This was all the more remarkable because she had been with him, on and off, for only about two weeks — the entire duration of their acquaintanceship. Sometimes, in fairness to herself, she felt she ought to insert in the Cibola City Daily Views a variation of one of those little ads that disclaimed responsibility for someone else’s debts: Miss Princess O’Shea hereby and henceforth will not accept responsibility for any folly she may commit while in the company of Mr. Coley Collins. She did not suppose that such a public announcement of her feelings would exempt her from their consequences, but at least it would be decent warning to the community of how things were between them.
Prin was on the whole a rational young woman. She had tried hard to delve into the possible sources of her curious response to Coley Collins, with a view to coming up with an answer that made sense. She had found herself floundering in the sloughs of “body chemistry” and other such nonexplanatory explanations; and the one hard conclusion she reached — that Coley Collins ought to be someone she could take or leave at will — proved more convincing in theory than in practice. The fact was, she could not leave Coley alone. Since Coley was enjoying the same disease, they had decided to make the best of whatever was ailing them — and the best of it was pretty wonderful. Even the worst of it had its moments.
They had met in the taproom of the Coronado, Cibola City’s only “good” hotel. Nice girls do not appear unaccompanied in hotel taprooms without raising questions about their niceness; however, Princess O’Shea was the sort of nice girl who turned her nice nose up at questions to which she had answers that satisfied her. So it was an inevitable encounter. Because once Prin decided she wanted a daiquiri in the Coronado taproom, she had to meet Coley, Coley being the bartender on duty. They had not met in the Coronado taproom before because Coley had not been the bartender on duty there during Prin’s last solo, having acquired the job in the interim. But on this particular evening there he was, a few minutes past five, dressed in a white mess jacket, the kind that makes almost any young male look like a soldier of fortune who ought to be in Maracaibo or Darjeeling or some place drinking — instead of making — gin slings. Coley was a kind of soldier of fortune, being lost in a way — having knocked about here and there, in the course of which he had acquired odd skills, like bar-keeping, and never having accomplished much; never, indeed, having known what if anything he would like to accomplish. This was a great pity, as Prin came to see it, for Coley had superb equipment for the accomplishment of almost anything, if only he could have made up his mind what it should be.
On this evening, two weeks or so before, Prin had settled her nice little bottom on a stool at the taproom bar — thinking how delicious a cold tart daiquiri was going to taste after her odious afternoon constructing obscene sundaes at the soda counter of Free’s Drug Store — and when she looked up, there Coley was. Nothing was quite the same ever after. He had crisp cropped dark hair and a lean dark disturbing face and dark eyes that always seemed to be laughing, sometimes at and sometimes with, depending on what or whom they were looking at; and now, looking at Prin, it was with, at once, and for good and all.
“Good evening,” Coley said softly. “Your pleasure, Miss?”
“Good evening,” Prin said back, and immediately felt that they had exchanged intimacies. “I believe I’ll have a really frigid daiquiri.”
She watched him as he did things swiftly and expertly. The daiquiri, when she tasted it, met her specifications so perfectly that she felt it only fair to say so.
“This daiquiri is quite superior,” she said.
“A daiquiri, when properly made, merits praise indeed,” he said, leaning over the bar. He had a dark sort of voice that went with his hair and skin and eyes, and it made Prin want to wriggle all over. “It is, in fact, a drinker’s drink, one might say. I have never been able to grasp the greater popularity of, for example, the martini, even in our supposedly cultivated circles. Are you aware that the late Ernest Hemingway drank daiquiris by the gallon? Not all at once, of course.”
Prin was enchanted. “Perhaps that was because he lived in Cuba. A rum country.” She waited for this delightful young bartender to laugh appreciatively at her play on words; but he did not, and she felt somehow that it had been unworthy of her. “I mean, environment and all that.”
“I doubt it,” said Coley indulgently, and she knew he had forgiven her momentary lapse from good taste. It made her feel better. “I consider it much likelier that it was the esthetic instinct. In serious matters like the gustative arts, writers — serious writers, of course — tend to be connoisseurs.”
“You mean that all serious writers drink daiquiris?”
“Well, no, they don’t. I admit it’s an egregious fallacy in my syllogism. Some drink whisky, some gin, some vodka — I’ve heard that the late Bernard Shaw drank carrot juice or some such incredible fluid.”
“Do you always use words like gustative and egregious and syllogism?” Prin said. “If you do, I shan’t be able to talk to you. I’m almost over my depth already.”
“I’m only showing off.” Oh, that grin. “It’s the grown-up substitute for boyhood handsprings when a pretty girl is watching. Please go on talking with me. I promise to use only one-syllable words.”
“It’s not necessary to go to extremes,” Prin retorted, a little nettled, but pleased at the same time by the adjective he had used before the word girl. “Anyway, there are too many one-syllable words that are not quite gentil, if you know what I mean.”
“I do indeed,” said Coley. “I’ll keep everything proper, at least for the nonce. Which reminds me. We haven’t been properly introduced.”
“Since when does propriety require a bartender to be introduced to a customer?” Good grief, Prin thought, I’m being arch.
“Since right now. My name is Coley Collins.”
“I’m Princess O’Shea, and if you say ‘Hello, Your Highness,’ I’ll get off this stool and you’ll never see me again.”
“Hello, Prin.”
“You know my nickname!” Prin said.
“Then you are related to Mr. Slater O’Shea. He’s spoken to me about you in glowing terms. I see now that he didn’t glow brightly enough.”
“If you’ve met Uncle Slater professionally,” said Prin, “you must know he can glow like the working end of a Titan taking off from its pad. Yes, I’m Uncle Slater’s niece. We all live with him — me, Aunt Lallie, my cousins Twig and Peet, and my brother Brady. We’re freeloading, although I’m not doing quite so much of it as the others.”
“Damn it to hell!” said Coley Collins; and then he said, “Don’t go, please. I have to get rid of this goddam customer.”
He sprang away, mixed a drink like Merlin, and was back practically before Prin could think of how to prolong the conversation.
“Where were we?” murmured Coley. “Oh, yes. Your Uncle Slater. Very fine man. Exquisite taste. Bourbon chiefly, and when he does seek contrast, it’s the best Irish whisky, which I definitely approve. He takes his bourbon sometimes straight, sometimes with a dash of water, sometimes — when he feels sentimental — with vermouth and a cherry.”