Evan Hunter: Candyland

This is now twenty past seven. His darling daughter has known since twelve noon that her grandmother had a heart attack early this morning L.A. time, and that her mother is frantic with worry. But she has not called since Ben spoke to her earlier today. Perhaps she's been too busy barbecuing hamburgers and hot dogs in her back yard.

He dials the New Jersey number now, hoping he won't get Charles the First, as he refers to him in private to Grace, the implied hope being that one of these days Margaret will move on to a second, more desirable mate. He is happy when his granddaughter picks up the phone.

"This is the Harris residence," she pipes in her three-year-old voice.

"Hi, Jenny," he says.

"Is this Grandpa?"

"This is Grandpa. Is this Jenny?"

"Hi, Grandpa. Are you watching television?"

"No. Are you?"

"They're still talking about John John."

"Yes, darling, I know."

"I want to go put flowers at his building."

"Maybe Mommy will take you."

"She says no. Will you take me, Grandpa?"

"I can't, honey. I have to go back to L.A."

"Ask her to take me, okay?" she says, and is suddenly gone. He waits. He does not like being a grandfather. He is only forty-three years old, and he blames his present premature senior-citizen status on his daughter, who married at the age of seventeen and delivered Jenny a scant ten months later. A man of forty-three — well, almost forty-four — should not be a grandfather. He does not enjoy being called Grandpa, or Gramps, or as Charles the First is fond of putting it, "Papa Ben." He is Benjamin Thorpe, Esquire, famous architect whose multilevel concept echoes the very precepts of the law, exalted justice on high, abject supplicants below — and not anybody's damn grandpa.

"Grandpa?"

"Yes, Jenny."

"She's coming. Ask her," she whispers, and puts down the phone with a clatter.

His daughter comes on, high-pitched and frantic as usual. He cannot imagine how he ever spawned such a nervous individual.

"She's dead, right?" she says at once.

"No, Margaret, she's not dead."

"Everybody's dying," she says. "Isn't it awful, what happened?"

"Honey, if Jenny wants to go put flowers. "

"I can't take her into the city just for that, Dad."

"It's important to her," he says.

"All the way down in TriBeCa, no less," she says, dismissing it. "What's Grandma's condition?"

"She's all right for now. They'll be doing.

"What do you mean for now?"

"She's resting quietly. They'll be doing a bypass tomorrow morning. Provided the numbers are right."

"What numbers? Numbers?"

He sometimes wishes she'd gone to college instead of becoming an instant nervous mother. Why did she have to turn him into a grandfather so soon?

"They do various tests to determine whether it's all right to operate.,

"What tests?"

"I don't know, I'm not a doctor, Margaret. They know what they're doing, they do a dozen bypasses every day of the week."

"Well, I hope so."

"Don't worry, she'll be all right."

"I hope so."

"She will."

There is a long silence on the line.

He never seems to know what to say to his daughter these days. His own daughter.

"Why don't you call Mom?" he suggests.

"Maybe I will," she says.

Which means she won't.

"Well, I have to go now," he says.

"What time is your flight?"

"Eight tomorrow morning. Margaret?"

"Yes, Dad?"

"These things are important to children."

"I know, Dad, but. "

"I was only eight when his father got killed in Dallas. I still remember it."

"Charles doesn't think it's a good idea," she says.

"Well."

There is another long silence.

"Do you want to come here for dinner?" she asks.

"I thought I'd get something near the hotel."

"You're always welcome here," she says.

"Thank you, darling, but I really don't think so."

"Well… call me later, okay?" she says.

What the hell for? he wonders.

"I'll talk to you in the morning," he says.

"Dad?" she says. "Do you remember when you used to read to me on Christmas Eve?"

"Yes, darling."

"“It was the night before Christmas.” Do you remember?"

"Yes," he says. "I remember."

"So do I," she says.

She sounds almost wistful.

His personal telephone directory is written in a code only he can understand. In order to decipher it, he depends largely on his own very good memory; he can recall the plot, and also lines of dialogue, from every movie he's ever seen. He can tell you which movie won the Academy Award in 1946. He can tell you who said, "Beware, Saxon, lest you strike horse!"

Heather's last name is Epstein. She is a twenty-year-old architectural student whom he met in April, when he was doing a guest lecture at Cooper Union. Ben has her listed in his directory as Stein, Ephraim. Her area code is 212, of course, she lives right here in Manhattan. But to throw off the bloodhounds, whenever or if ever they decide to go sniffing through his book, he lists the area code as 516. So if anyone dials 516 and then the phone number in an attempt to get Ephraim Stein who is in reality Heather Epstein, he will instead get some stranger in Nassau County who never heard of Benjamin Thorpe.

He dials her number now.

Nine for a local call…

He has just come out of the shower, he is still wearing only a towel.

Two, six, oh…

Heather Epstein. Five-feet seven-inches tall, long blond hair, blue eyes, a wide-shouldered, big-breasted Jewish girl who knelt before him, three hours after they met and asked him to touch her hair while she sucked his cock.

He feels himself becoming faintly tumescent under the towel.

The phone is ringing.

Once, twice.

"Hello?"

Her little girl voice.

"Heather?"

"Yes?"

She sounds sleepy. She always sounds sleepy. He visualizes her in a baby doll nightgown. Wide hips, full thighs, long splendid legs.

"It's Ben," he says. "Ben Thorpe."

At the lecture that night in April, she was wearing a long tan skirt, her beautiful legs came as a delightful surprise. Peach colored blouse, silken to the touch. That was the only time he went to bed with her, that one night here in New York. Ever since, it's been phone sex. She sometimes calls him collect at the office and says, "Hi, what are you doing?" Which means, "Would you like to jerk off with me?"

"Guess what?" he says now.

"What, Ben?"

"I'm here in New York."

"Oh?"

"Alone," he says.

There is a silence.

"I haven't heard from you in a while," she says.

"I've been very busy."

"I thought you'd forgotten all about me."

"How could I forget you?"

"How do you know I haven't got a boyfriend by now?"

"Have you?"

"How do you know I haven't?"

"I hope you haven't."

"Married man, can't ever see me unless he's in New York giving a guest lecture."

"I'm in New York now," he says.

"When did you get here?"

"I came in on the Red Eye this morning."

"So what took you so long to call?"

"I've been busy all day."

"You should have called earlier. I'm going to a party. I was just about to shower."

"I'm already showered," he says.

"So what would you like to do?" she asks, her voice lowering.

"What would you like to do?"

"What do you think I'd like to do?"

"I mean tonight. What would you like to do tonight? Heather, I'm here alone."

"What does that mean?" she asks.

"it means we can spend the night together. The way we did that other time."

"A hundred years ago."

"Only this past spring."

"A hundred years," she says, and hesitates. "Anyway, how do you know I want to spend the night with you?"

"Don't you?"

"Maybe. How do you know I haven't already made plans to spend the night with someone else?"