Эд Макбейн - Barking at Butterflies and other stories

She stood that way for the longest time, absorbed, her head bent, one hip jutting. He had no idea who she was, could not in fact see her face too clearly in the muted light surrounding the pool. But she was tall and blond and poised, and he could think of only one person in all of Los Angeles who was tall and blond and very poised. It seemed entirely possible to him that she, who else could it be, had come directly to this fine hotel where after her long and tedious flight she had attempted to take a nap only to be awakened by the poolside music — whereupon she had instantly ordered herself a bottle of champagne, of course, and decided on a midnight swim instead. The girl standing still and serene on the end of the board could not conceivably be anyone but Miss Iris Radley, a strange name for a Swedish girl, and what a pleasant surprise, even though he could not yet see her face, who else could she possibly be?

More and more convinced, he watched her captured in reverie, her head and body motionless, her blond hair glittering with reflected light. At last, she heaved a long heavy sigh, her shoulders moving — he could almost hear that long mysterious sigh through the closed plate glass door — and walked back to the ladder. Her body was tight and slim and tanned, she glided through the soft California night and then turned a short pirouette and moved forward suddenly, not running, drifting, moving magically to the very end of the board. Her knee came up, she made a precise figure four with one taut straight leg, one bent, sprang and hung suspended, the board vibrating beneath her. Head back, body arched, arms wide, she hung against the night for an eternity, and then plummeted to the water below, her arms and hands coming together an instant before she disappeared. He watched. She surfaced some ten feet beyond and then swam in an easy crawl to the shallow end of the pool, executed a clean racer’s turn, swam to the deep end, turned again, and continued swimming back and forth tirelessly, effortlessly.

He watched her world.

There was in that world all the things he had never known, the burlesque queen he had not had in Buffalo that time, the birthday gifts that blended with Christmas gifts and left a strange aching void, the bottle of champagne offered and then withdrawn.

He wanted to call out to her, wanted to shout, “Hey, are you really Miss Radley who said my hands were cold? Are you really the girl in 109? Hey, how would you like to come to my party? How’s the water?”

Trembling, he looked at his watch. It was seven minutes to midnight in White Plains. He would be forty-two years old in seven minutes.

Go ahead, he thought. Call Fran.

He reached for the stem of his watch and pulled it out. Slowly and carefully, he set the watch back to ten fifty-three, and then nine fifty-three, and then eight fifty-three. He snapped the stem back into the case with a small final click, walked swiftly to the sliding door, and pulled it open.

The girl was just coming out of the water.

He knew goddamn well she was not Miss Iris Radley, and possibly not even the girl in 109. But his step was curiously light, and his heart was beating wildly as he hurried toward the pool to invite her to his party.

She had just come out of Mr. Mergenthaler’s office, and was heading for Cost when Jerry Schneider stopped her and said, “Nora, would you mind very much if I told you something?”

“What is it you want to tell me?” she asked. She was really in a hurry because Mr. Mergenthaler had said to get those invoices to Cost immediately, but Jerry was a nice high school kid of about sixteen who was only working for Mergenthaler and Harris during the summer, and she didn’t want to seem abrupt with him.

“I guess people have told you this a hundred times,” Jerry said.

“Told me what?”

“That you look like Kim Novak.”

“Oh, sure, Kim Novak.”

“I mean it.”

“Kim Novak is a blond.”

“That don’t make any difference,” Jerry said. “I know your hair is brown, Nora, but that don’t make any difference. You look just like her, I mean it. It’s the look right in here...” He raised his hand before her face and made a vague defining gesture. “Right in here, the eyes and nose and mouth.”

“My eyes are blue,” she said. “Hers are...”

“I know, but...”

“Hers are supposed to be lavender or something.”

“I didn’t mean the color,” Jerry said, “though the color is pretty close, too. I meant the look in her eyes, you’ve got the same kind of distant look she gets in her eyes. And your nose is hers exactly, Nora, I mean it. Exactly.” He paused. “Your mouth, too.”

“Oh, come on, Jerry,” she said. “Kim Novak is a beautiful girl.”

“Well, so are you, Nora. You could be her twin sister, I mean it.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.”

“You’d better have your eyes examined,” she said and shrugged. “I have to hurry. Thank you, anyway.”

She smiled, and then walked quickly down the corridor to Cost. She was still smiling when she entered the office. Marvin Krantz, who was the company’s cost accountant, looked up and said, “What’s the big grin for?”

“Oh, Jerry Schneider,” she said. “Here are some invoices Mr. Mergenthaler said I should get to you in a hurry.”

“What’d he do?”

“Who? Oh, Jerry, you mean?” She smiled again. “He’s a silly kid.”

“Yeah, but what’d he do?” Marvin asked.

“He said I look like Kim Novak.”

“Well, you do,” Marvin said immediately.

“What?”

“Sure. Didn’t you know it?”

“Oh, come on, Marvin. Stop kidding me.”

“Everyone in the office says so.”

“How come you never told me before?”

“Maybe I didn’t think it was very important,” Marvin said.

“Well, I mean, if a girl looks like Kim Novak...” She shrugged. “Oh, come on, you’re kidding me.”

“Nora, you’re a very pretty girl,” Marvin said solemnly.

“But Kim Novak is a movie star.”

“So? Does that make her not a person?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No. What do you mean?”

“She’s a movie star. She’s Kim Novak.”

“So? You’re Nora Feldman. I’ll tell you something, Nora. I think Kim Novak would be delighted to learn that she looks like you .”

“Oh, sure, I’ll just bet she would. Besides, we don’t look alike at all,” she said, and walked out of the office.

On her way to the subway that night, she bought three movie magazines. One of them had Kim Novak’s picture on the cover. She didn’t get a seat until the train reached 149th Street and the Grand Concourse, and then she studied the picture on the cover as well as several pictures inside all three magazines. Nora supposed she was as tall as Kim Novak, or at least as tall as she imagined her to be, since none of the magazines gave a height. Nora was five feet seven in her stockinged feet, and Kim Novak seemed to be at least that tall, if not taller. But that was exactly where the resemblance ended, she thought. Even so, she continued to look at the pictures all the way uptown to Mosholu Parkway.

The benches outside the park were crowded with the usual collection of fellows who would whistle and call every time Nora walked past. They always made her feel clumsy and exposed, she didn’t know why, as though they could somehow see through her clothes. She always wished she could walk past with her head high and her nose tilted, just ignoring them. That night, she suddenly wondered why she never wore high-heeled shoes to work. Because I’m too tall, she thought, and then immediately remembered that Kim Novak was at least as tall as she was. Yes, but she’s a movie star, Nora reminded herself, and walked quickly past the benches, looking down at the sidewalk.