me you’ve forgotten last night?” I was on the verge of tears. It would’ve been too much if Allison had been like those drunks Banner, Perry Matthews and Herb Talman…if her passion had come from a bottle and was a thing that meant no more to her than a hangover the next day.
“I remember what I felt last night. My emotions, most of the action and that it was divine. The exact continuity of events is a little mixed up in my mind. I do know that we were both pretty frenzied and that things were done by both of us last night that we’d never gone in for before. As I recall, it seems to me that we made love all over this apartment. However, I don’t remember the exact sequence of events. No, I couldn’t give a detailed plot outline of last night. Is that important?”
“No, of course not. I don’t think I could either. There is one thing that will bother me if I don’t ask about it now, though. Last night, when we started making love, you know, when you danced to the phonograph music…well, what happened after that worries me. You were sort of, well, hard like. I’m not referring just to your actions. There was a lack of your usual loving warmth and tenderness. I’m talking about an emotional quality that wasn’t there. It was somewhat like the difference between love and lust.”
Allison breathed a deep sigh and bit down on her lower lip. “I know. I’m always that way. When I’m hurt, I withdraw. Because of the way I feel about you I couldn’t just keep away from you. Instead, something inside me shut off. I suppose you’ve got those bruises because, and I assure you I wasn’t conscious of it, I wanted to hit back at you for hurting me so much.”
I had been standing like some kind of idiot with the sopping wet towel held before me, dripping puddles onto the floor. I started to speak but a gurgling croak came out…I hadn’t remembered to close my mouth before speaking, it had been agape all through Allison’s reply.
“Baby,” I finally managed, “I don’t know what I did but if I hurt you, I’m sorry, genuinely so. But I can’t imagine what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t give me your decision about coming to California with me. It was our last night together and I expected you to say something. Even if you had said no, it would have been kinder than not saying anything. You acted as if whether you came with me or not was an unimportant matter. I wasn’t going to force you to put anything into words. I’ve got a little pride left. Not much, I admit, but enough to keep me from humiliating myself any more than I had already. I suppose your silence meant that you’ve decided not to go to the Coast. Is that right?”
“Just a little old minute. I mean no such thing. What’s the rush? ‘The Singer Show’ isn’t leaving for two more weeks. I could get plane reservations by calling in a week in advance. It’s a big decision. I wanted as much time as possible to think it over. I didn’t think you’d mind if I didn’t let you know until next week. What’s this bit about last night being our last night together. Why, for God’s sake?”
“Because of yesterday’s new development. I got in touch with you just as soon as I knew about it myself.” Allison must have seen the complete bewilderment on my face because she looked at me incredulously and asked, “You got my message, didn’t you?”
“What message?”
“The one I asked Judy to give you. I called while you were out to lunch. I was going to be busy the rest of the afternoon and couldn’t call back so I dictated a message for you to Judy. She said she’d give it to you as soon as you came back to the office. I made everything clear in that message. That’s why your acting as if everything was just the same hurt me so much.”
“Allison, I swear to you, Judy didn’t give me any message yesterday. She didn’t even tell me you had called.” Damn that freak Judy! That wasn’t the first time she had “forgotten” to tell me about personal calls that had come in for me when I was away from my desk. Don’t tell me her memory had been bad. If anyone called Happy, Judy would remember it all right. She could be dying and she’d gasp it out with her last breath. She didn’t have the gumption to tell me she didn’t like my getting personal calls at the office so she let me miss about half the calls she answered for me. I guess I was supposed to interpret this to mean that I shouldn’t use the phone except for business. I knew what she was getting at but I hadn’t let it stop me. The messages I hadn’t gotten probably weren’t all that important. If someone urgently needed to talk to me, they’d call back. But this time Judy had gone too far. This was being malicious, not just petty. “It’s the truth, Allison. This is the first I’ve heard of your calling the office yesterday.”
She collapsed against the sink, weak with laughter. “It’s too incredible,” she gasped. “I thought things like this only happened in Restoration comedies. The crucial message that goes astray and the ensuing farce scene where the boy and girl meet and insult each other because they don’t know what’s happened and each of them is talking about something different. Oh-oh, this is too rich. Somebody ought to have said that they’d never darken the other’s door again. That’s all we would have needed to make this period piece complete.” She broke up in helpless laughter again.
I waited until she had subsided to giggles before asking, “Just what was it you asked Judy to tell me?”
“I called you right away because the Crystal soap people want me to start filming those spot commercials Monday of next week. That means that I’ve got to fly out to the Coast in four days. No, three days. It was four yesterday. Anyway, they’re going to keep me busy for the two weeks until ‘The Singer Show’ arrives and I have to start rehearsing for that. I won’t have a chance to come back to New York. When I leave a few days from now it’ll be for good. At least, for the next three years. So, you understand now why last night was the last one I could spend with you? I have only three days and nights to do a mountain of packing, close out my bank account, say good-bye to all my friends, buy a load of new clothes, return the books and records I’ve borrowed from friends, take care of ten thousand business matters. I’m going to be too busy to blow my nose for the next three days. Coming here last night was allowing myself a luxury which I really couldn’t afford. Now, do you understand why I was hurt? Remember, I had no idea that you didn’t know it was our final chance to be alone.”
“Allison, now that I know, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had told me to go to hell in a wheelbarrow.”
“Thank the Lord I didn’t do something like that. Then we would never have straightened this out.”
“Yeah. Well, frankly I’m so taken off guard by this that I don’t know what to say. Would you hate me very much if I didn’t let you know until tonight? I could call or maybe come over and help you with your packing.”
“It’s all right, darling,” Allison said. “I’ll wait for your call tonight. In the meantime, I’ll be praying to every god, saint, angel, prophet and holy man I can think of from every religion known to me that you will be on the plane to California with me. Look out the office windows during the day. If you see a girl doing what looks like a demoniac mazurka around one of the trees in Central Park, it’ll be me. I think I’ll try invoking the Druid deities too, I’m afraid to leave anything out.”
I finally got to the office a few minutes before eleven. Happy was giving dictation to Judy in his office. They both looked up as I got off the elevator. I stared down anything they were about to say. There was blood in my eye that morning, I tell you. To rub things in a little more, I disappeared into the john for ten more minutes. By the time I finally sat down at my desk Judy was ready to have apoplexy.
She brought some work out for me to do and lingered in my office, waiting for me to give some excuse for my tardiness. I didn’t say a word. Instead, I pointedly got out an ebony and silver cigarette holder that I had never before used. It was a real classy thing that a client had given me, six inches long and mucho impressive. I stuck a cigarette into it, lighted it and waved the thing around affectedly. Hip Judy was not but she got my message that time. She went back to her own office like a whipped puppy.
Happy