I am in the room with her. When she comes out of it she will look at me in a sly way and wonder who the stranger is. Then she will suddenly smile and kiss me and get all girlish and flattering. I wish I did not enjoy it so much when she is sweet to me. Oh, my God, to love a woman who dreams about being rid of you. I live in hell.
SEPTEMBER IS THE INTOLERABLE MONTH. GRAY mornings and cool nights of early summer become memories of the improbable; soothing fogs are burned out by relentless sunshine. Heat as solid as metal strikes like a blunt instrument. Nerves are unsteady, energy unthinkable, lethargy ill-tempered. In the Strode house the tensions were aggravated by the presence of visitors.
Fletcher’s daughter and son-in-law had come to spend their summer vacation. This is how they wrote of it when they announced their intentions, and the way they spoke of it when they arrived in the white Jaguar. “My vacation,” said Cindy almost daily. Since nursery school she had been taught that special conditions—my graduation, my school, my holidays, my debut, our neighborhood, people of our sort, my engagement, my wedding, my vacation—deserved special privilege. Six years younger than Elaine she seemed, by contrast, a child, for she had never taken responsibility of any sort, never held a job, never even finished college. Before her engagement the great event of Cynthia Strode’s life had been a debut, along with fifty-nine other girls whose parents had contributed to a charity whose board of governors sponsored a dance at the Hotel Plaza in New York.
In her father’s house she accepted the double privileges of bride and visitor. “No maid?” she asked when Elaine went into the kitchen to prepare their first meal.
“Your father doesn’t like having anyone around. We have a cleaning woman once a week. She’s very thorough.”
“Doesn’t Daddy object to her?”
“We usually go out that day, drive someplace, or he plays golf. Your father loathes these women chattering at him. Besides,” Elaine hated herself for using the tone of apology, “there’s very little to do with only two of us in the house.”
As though bestowing a favor, Cindy offered to make the twin beds in the guest room. Often they were left unmade until late afternoon. Did it matter that she and Don liked to sleep late? After a very few mornings under her father’s roof, Cindy learned there was not much to get up for. No parties were given for the visitors, no introductions offered, no invitations sent by people who dutifully entertained friends’ houseguests. Instead, the young people endured long drives with Fletcher and Elaine, went on sightseeing trips to the few unexciting places that contrasted so drearily with the glowing advertisements of the California All-Year Club. Over endless dinners in overdecorated, overpriced, high-style restaurants, Fletcher sat dumb while Elaine made conversation, laughed at Don’s jokes, hastened to answer when Cindy forgot that she was not to ask Fletcher direct questions in public places.
“I think you’re hurting Daddy more than helping him with all this privacy stuff,” Cindy said when she was alone with Elaine. “In my opinion he’d be a lot better off if you’d make an effort to have some kind of social life.”
“He doesn’t want it.”
“He may tell you that, but believe me, a man of his sort, always so lively and social, with so many connections, I mean! Not even belonging to a country club.”
“He prefers the public course. He doesn’t want a lot of people getting chummy and compassionate.”
“The right sort of people wouldn’t make him feel so badly,” Cindy argued. “No wonder he’s so desperate, doing nothing but mooning around this gloomy old house. It’s not at all healthy, psychologically.”
“It’s the way he wants it.” Elaine despised herself for the tone of appeasement.
Cindy would never give up an argument. Even when she was proven wrong she exercised the right of reassertion. Elaine grew more and more strained in conversations, which she tried to keep Fletcher from hearing. Cindy’s voice, as modern as her tastes, was hard, emphatic, and loud.
One of the girl’s school friends was the daughter of a millionaire whose name was printed in gold on the plate-glass windows of loan and trust banks all over the city. Nan, who was exactly Cindy’s age, had been married for three years to Rex Burke, a young man who had become almost as famous as his father-in-law. When Don and Cindy arrived, the young Burkes were away on “a private yacht.” Cindy was sadly disappointed and could not help showing that she considered the first two weeks of the vacation a sad waste. When Nan returned, Cindy and her husband were invited to spend Sunday at her house at Newport Beach. Cindy’s rapture at the invitation was trivial in comparison with the ecstasy of her return.
“If I ever saw gracious living! Three in help, at the seashore.”
“They’ve got a honey of a cruiser, eighty feet,” Don reported with slightly less frenzy.
“Two Rollses. She and he both drive them.”
“It’s a deduction for Rex,” Don hastened to explain. “He’s executive assistant to Nan’s father.” Don’s eloquent dark eyes fixed themselves on his father-in-law’s face.
Cindy’s father did not need an executive assistant. She announced, reproachfully, “They’ve promised to introduce Don to their lawyers.”
“Anderson, Lord & James. You must have heard of them, sir.”
“Never did,” barked Fletcher. Having no business in California he needed no lawyers. Cindy tried to impress him by telling him how famous these attorneys were and how much they would, in Nan’s husband’s opinion, welcome a bright young man trained in New York. “And besides, Daddy, you owe it to yourself to have a legal representative in the city you live in.”
“Why?” croaked Fletcher.
“Everybody does, and especially a man of your standing. I mean . . . in a city like this there are all sorts of fabulous opportunities. I want you to meet Rex Burke, he’s a perfect darling and so successful—”
“Not interested.” Fletcher’s rejection came out like a belch.
“It’d be food for you. Psychologically, I mean. And if Don went into that law firm and you’d have a member of the family as a contact, you’d know your interests wouldn’t be neglected.”
“Cindy!”
Don Hustings’s nod and frown indicated that he and Cindy had an understanding about this subject. He had asked and she had promised not to bring it up crudely. Don did not want to be looked upon as the son-in-law in search of favors.
“My husband’s too much of a gentleman for his own good.”
Cindy’s laughter reminded Fletcher of his first wife, who had somehow believed that an inappropriate or unwelcome remark could be softened by the appearance of levity. Without bothering to excuse himself, he marched out of the room.
This was by no means the end of Cindy’s efforts to promote Don’s career. Nothing was said about his getting back to his job in New York. Either he had been given an extraordinary holiday or he had been fired. Fletcher became irritable. Behind closed doors he and Elaine discussed their visitors. The air of the house had become conspiratorial. “Please try to be patient,” begged Elaine. “After
