5:45 to Suburbia Read online

  And Charlie had never seen her cry except when she was terribly moved by something — a poem, a symphony, a gift, an orgasm.

  Joan, in contrast, threw vases, slammed and locked doors, got migraine headaches, used up entire Kleenex boxes over one slight spat, and was not at all disinclined to fetch her suitcases from the attic and call the depot for train information.

  In fact, up until that evening of March 6, 1939, Charlie and Marge had not really had a serious quarrel in the fifteen months they had been carrying on their affair.

  Although it had begun at The Gotham, once again Marge had managed to abate it temporarily, by taking a package from her pocketbook just as the waiter brought their Martinis. This occurred just as Charlie had decided to tell Marge he wanted to call the whole thing off — not just because of Joan, not because it wasn’t fair to Joan, but more because of Janie. He had Janie to think about She was growing up and ga-ga-ing over telephones, and before long she’d be asking him why he wasn’t coming home for dinner. And, finally she was his daughter; he had to be a decent father. “What’s this?” he said.

  “Open it, darling … Remember that Millay poem I read you the other night.”

  “Hmm? Millay?”

  “You know,” and she recited as he fumbled with the wrapping:

  This be our solace that it was not said

  When we were young and warm and in our prime

  We lay upon our couch as lie the dead

  Sleeping away the unreturning time….

  “Remember?” she repeated. “I read it to you while we — ”

  “Keep it down!” Charlie said. “The people next to us have run out of conversation.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlie.”

  “I remember the poem,” he said, taking the cover off the box. “I liked that poem. I remember it. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  He took the gift out of the tissues.

  “It’s an hour glass,” she said. “It’s a keyholder for your car keys. You needed a new one.”

  Charlie fondled it appreciatively. “Thanks, Marge. Thanks, honey.”

  “It’s supposed to sort of symbolize the unreturning time.”

  “It’s swell,” Charlie said.

  “Do you really like it, darling?”

  “I think it’s swell, Marge,” Charlie said, thinking now he’d have to stay with her at least until 9:30 or so. “Thanks,” he said, suddenly wanting her, wanting her in a surprisingly desperate way, wanting to cling to her woman’s body and feel the tears she gave him with love, there in the crease of his neck when she came against him. But in the months of their togetherness, Charlie had learned something. He couldn’t just go home to bed with her and not feed her afterwards — that was crude. He couldn’t do that to Marge, and tonight he hadn’t the time, so he couldn’t have her. And it was sad and maddening and frustrating, and he wasn’t at all sure he didn’t love her. In fact, he was very sure he did. And very sure he could blame Joan somehow for literally rushing him off his feet that summer and getting him married when he was too young for marriage. God, here he was just thirty-two and he had a wife and kid.

  “Cheers!” Marge said.

  Charlie clinked his glass against hers, aware that the people at the next table were now staring quite shamelessly, and had probably overheard the whole business between Marge and himself.

  “Cheers!” Charlie said, thinking: what the hell, what the hell, what the hell:

  as i caper and sing and leap

  i wake the world from sleep

  when i sing my wild free tune

  wotthehell wotthehell

  Where was that from anyway?

  archy and mehitabel.

  That’s what Marge did for him — made him remember lines from poems he hadn’t read since 1926. So he had a wife and kid; wotthehell!

  • • •

  But at dinner, over Oysters Rockefeller, Marge said: “Are you coming back with me afterwards, Charlie? For a little while?”

  “I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”

  “Oh … Well — if you can’t — ”

  “Look, it’s bad enough I’m coming home late on my birthday. She always plans things for me. I mean — special dishes.”

  “You’re going to eat again?”

  “Well, I didn’t plan on eating all this. I was just going to have plain oysters.”

  “Oh, I see. Sort of progressive dinner, hmm?”

  “Well what do you think? I mean, aren’t you glad I’m able to spend this much time with you?”

  “Yes, darling, I’m glad. I’d just be happier if you’d picked a night when you’d have more time.”

  “It’s hard enough as it is. Now I’ll have to eat two dinners tonight. One thing this affair will do for me is to make me fat as all get out.”

  “And the other, Charlie?”

  “What other?”

  “Or the others? The other things this affair will do for you?”

  “Let’s not spoil dinner, Marge.”

  “Well, you’re going to have two, after all.”

  “Yes, that’s right. On my goddam birthday I’m going to have dinner with my wife. Yes, that’s right.”

  “All right, let’s try to be calm. Let’s change the subject, Charlie. Okay, tell me more about your talk with Bruce this noon.”

  “I told you. He liked your ideas. He may even give me a raise, they’re so good.”

  “Charlie, do you realize that half those alleged ideas of mine are ideas you yourself think of when you’re discussing business with me?”

  “Come off it, Marge. We both know the score.”

  “I’m perfectly serious. The one about lowering the masthead, for instance. Remember that? We were sitting–”

  “Does it make you feel better to think I don’t pick your brains, Marge?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, then you don’t have to think that all I want from this affair is a raise in pay and a promotion.”

  “Charlie!”

  “Well, what are you trying to make me feel better for? Always trying to make me feel better! … Trying to make yourself feel better maybe!”

  She put her fork down and stared at him. “Charlie, I was telling the truth. They aren’t all my ideas. I wasn’t trying to make you feel better, and I didn’t feel bad at all — until you suggested a reason.”

  “It’s what everybody thinks, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “That I’m hanging around you to get ahead.”

  “Suddenly I don’t feel hungry.”

  “The day I walked into Cadence, you took me under your wing, didn’t you? It was ‘Charlie, watch out for this,’ and ‘Charlie, watch out for that.’ And it was, ‘Charlie, I think the better way of doing it would be this way,’ and ‘Charlie, one of Bruce’s weaknesses is this,’ and ‘Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.’ Wasn’t it?.. How could I have missed!”

  “It’s funny,” she said.

  “What’s funny? Tell me something funny.”

  “You have a guilty conscience.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Don’t be flip about this, Charlie. Please I never realized it … you actually doubt your own motivations, don’t you? You actually think sometimes that the reason for us is a raise in pay and a promotion … I wonder why I never thought of that.”

  “Oh, eat your oysters, Marge. For the love of God, eat your oysters.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not hungry … In fact, I think I’d like to go home … alone.”

  “Don’t make a scene,” he said as she reached for her purse.

  “I’m not going to. I’m just going home.”

  “Don’t go home. That’s silly. Eat your oysters and I’ll drop you.”

  “No, I’m going. I really want to go.”

  “Marge, look, I’m all keyed up. I don’t know — today when I called Joan to tell her I’d be late, she put Janie on the phone. It sort of annoyed me. I don’t know. Let’s keep our heads.�
��

  “Tonight wasn’t my idea, Charlie. I knew she’d want you home.”

  “Eat your oysters,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m going,” she said, getting up. “Don’t be silly, please. Look, wait until I pay the check.”

  “Good-by, Charlie,” she said.

  She turned and started out the door.

  Then Charlie suddenly realised something that surprised him, and he did a strange thing.

  He knew all at once that he didn’t love her — but at the same time he couldn’t let her go.

  He got up and ran after her, his napkin still tucked in his coat. Without paying the check, he ran out into the street where he found her hailing a cab.

  He grabbed her arm. It had begun to rain, and both of them were getting wet. A cab pulled up for her; the door was open; but he held her arm to keep her from getting in.

  “I love you, Marge,” he said. “I love you. Don’t go!”

  “And I love you. But I want to go home alone.”

  “Why? Listen, I’ll pay the check and come back and we’ll go to your place together for a while. Listen, let’s talk this out.”

  He wondered, even as he was pleading with her, why he couldn’t let her go; why he didn’t love her; why it was so necessary for her to wait for him, for him to convince her of the love he didn’t feel.

  “Will you wait?”

  “No,” she said. “And I’m getting wet.” The cab driver said, “You’re getting the inside wet too, lady. Make up your mind.”

  “Good night, Charlie,” she said.

  She pulled her arm free, got in, and the cab went away. Charlie stood in the rain. People passing looked at him, at the napkin, at the cab vanishing down East Fifty-seventh.

  Then Charlie walked back in, paid the check, and put his coat on.

  For about ten minutes he walked in the rain, trying to think what it all meant, but he couldn’t accept the idea that there really was anything at all mercenary in his relationship with Marge. And even if he wasn’t in love with her, he loved her, didn’t he? The way lots of men loved women who weren’t their wives. Sure he did. He had wanted her so badly in the Gotham, he had felt it through to his loins — and he had tried not to have her, out of consideration for her, so was that mercenary? He loved her as a woman, as a person. It had nothing to do with anything else; not his job; not Joan or Jane; nothing or no one else.

  At the corner of Sixtieth and Madison he realized he had left the gift, the key ring, back in the restaurant, and he thought of calling there and asking them to hold it for him. But when he hailed a cab to go home, he gave the address of the restaurant instead. He believed fully that that was further proof he really loved Marge Mann, as a person, as a woman … And he wished women wouldn’t get so goddam serious all the time.

  MARCH 6, 1957

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN Sandra Scott answered the telephone in her office, an instant reaction of annoyance came to her face, but she was careful to screen it from her voice before she replied, “Yes, Mr. Cadence will see Mr. Basescu.”

  Then, pressing the button to the intercom, she said, “Mr. Basescu is on his way up, Mr. Cadence.”

  “Basescu?”

  “The writer, Mr. Cadence. The one who did the lead article for the Vile dummy … You remember, he had an appointment with Mr. Keene, but Mr. Keene had forgotten his doctor’s appointment. You said you’d talk with him.”

  “What’s the matter with Wally, always running to the doctor?”

  “I think it’s a head doctor, Mr. Cadence. Shall I send Mr. Basescu in when he arrives?”

  “Yes, do that. And say, Sandy, any reaction from Charlie Gibson on the memo?”

  “None to date, sir.”

  “You sound worried or something.”

  “No, Mr. Cadence. I’m not worried.”

  “I don’t know … you sound different … Well, show him in when he gets there, won’t you, Sandy?’

  “I will,” she said.

  Sandra Scott had been his secretary for eight years. Their relationship was one of those peculiar secretary-boss ones in which he finds all he could ask for in a secretary, and she finds — a world.

  Sandra Scott’s mother knew the reason she was still unmarried at thirty-two was that she had compared every beau she had ever dated with Bruce Cadence — and found all of them wanting.

  Her father wanted to know what was so special about Bruce Cadence, anyway. He had met Cadence — a man over sixty shorter than Sandra, fat, married happily, a father, and bald. So how could she even think of him as anything special?

  “Since when has love had eyes?” Mrs. Scott would say.

  And invariably, Sandra would take a long walk after such talk, up near Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights where she lived; and she would wonder why they had to spoil it for her by insisting she was in love with Mr. Cadence. And she would promise herself for the 106th time that she would move out and get her own apartment. And invariably her broodings would end with the one thought: Why can’t they understand that it’s just a very deep feeling for a very fine person!

  Sandra Scott was a large girl, a horsey girl — good-natured, efficient, gentle. And if love had no eyes, it did have ears, very sensitive ears, and it could hear everything that was being said about Bruce Cadence.

  Once, she had even heard someone say something he had said about her.

  “The reason I’m a successful business man and a happy family man,” he had said, “is because I have a homely secretary.”

  That hurt more than anything had ever hurt.

  But usually Sandra Scott heard criticism of Bruce Cadence — not because he was disliked by the majority, but simply because no one praised him behind his back.

  She had grown accustomed to sifting out the distortions, and accepting the fact of his flaws. She had learned self-control in the face of both, but on the morning of March 6, 1957, Sandra Scott was hypersensitive to the office gossip.

  Perhaps the most persistent criticism of Bruce Cadence was that he always needed a crutch, and that the crutch carried the bulk of the weight. They used to say Charlie Gibson was his crutch, that all of Bruce’s editorial policies were Charlie’s, that Bruce was incapable of doing anything on his own.

  But Charlie Gibson, once he had put an end to his affair with Marge Mann, was well thought of by most everyone at Cadence and so there was nothing truly indignant in the criticism, and certainly little bitterness.

  Wally Keene, on the other hand, was not well liked; nor were his ideas, which Bruce Cadence was currently in the process of putting into effect, popular.

  Still, the employees at Cadence could forgive the idea of the Vile dummy, even if it was against their better judgment, for there was a chance that it would put Cadence Publications back on its feet.

  Yet few of them would be able to forgive Wally Keene’s decision about Marge Mann; and least of all, Sandra Scott.

  To her it seemed shameful and incredible and fantastically cruel. When she thought about it, she remembered how she had somehow known the sort of operation Marge Mann was having performed, that week before Marge went to the hospital without telling them what was wrong. Sandra knew — and the knowledge had a strange effect upon her, for while she had always found Marge amusing and agreeable, she had never felt a kindred feeling for her until then. She had never felt truly concerned and upset about anyone at Cadence, other than Bruce Cadence, until then. And she never understood why; why then?

  But it had depressed her to the point where she began to talk about it too much; until people noticed.

  Her mother had said: “You’d think it was happening to you. Besides, this woman’s almost sixty, isn’t she? What difference does it make?”

  Her father had said: “When are you going to stop worrying about other people and start worrying about yourself? I want to be a grandfather some day!”

  Even Bruce Cadence noticed. “Sandy,” he said, “you were never close to Marge, were you? Ho
w come all the interest?”

  And she had answered: “I can’t explain it. I just feel at a loss.”

  Then she had had the horrible nightmare about there being a mistake made, and instead of wheeling Marge into the operating room, she was being wheeled in. She was begging her mother to make them stop, while her mother said, “Well, you’ve only wasted your years anyway, being an office wife. What difference does it make?”

  That morning Sandra thought about it all, and then about Mr. Basescu coming up to talk to Mr. Cadence. She remembered the last time she had seen Basescu — how she had felt an instantaneous revulsion at the thin little white-faced man with the narrow nicotine-stained fingers, the nails of which were tapered and too long; at the faint odor of stale liquor on his breath, the pearl stickpin in the seedy brown-and-yellow striped tie, at the voice, barely a whisper, at the way he seemed to hover over her as he spoke with her.

  “You should be used to writers by now,” Bruce Cadence had remarked upon her reaction. “They’re a tacky lot. I think you’re just bothered because of the article he wrote.”

  When the door opened and Basescu entered, Sandra felt that revulsion a second time. She barely spoke to him. Then, quickly, she went to open Mr. Cadence’s door.

  Bruce Cadence rose to meet Elliot Basescu, and pointed to a deep brown leather chair beside his desk.

  “I’m sorry about the mix-up in Wally’s appointments,” he said, “but I know what he wanted to talk with you about. As a matter of fact, I called it to his attention.”

  Basescu fumbled for a cigarette, lit it, and leaned forward, clutching it between his fingers. “I didn’t get my check,” he said.

  “That’s routine. It’ll go through on the third Wednesday of the month.”

  “I was afraid you had found something wrong with the article.”

  “Not really wrong, but there’s one thing in it that I’m a little wary about.”

  Cadence paced as he talked, his arms behind his back: “That episode at college, the one in which he paid a fraternity brother to let him — ” Cadence fumbled for words “ — to let him, well, you remember that, eh?”