Флетчер Флора - Park Avenue Tramp

“I thought you were going to wear the new gown,” he said. “Or did you buy it for a special occasion?”

“No,” she said. “I decided it isn’t suitable for the Empire Room, that’s all.”

“Really? I thought it looked quite suitable.”

“No. It’s not suitable at all.”

“Whatever you think, of course. The gown you’re wearing is nice. You look lovely in it.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s time to leave now. Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

Edith let them out of the apartment and closed the door silently after them, and they went down to the Avenue and found Oliver’s Imperial, which had been ordered around, waiting for them at the curb. They drove on the Avenue to the Waldorf-Astoria and went immediately to the Empire Room and were shown to the table that Oliver had reserved. She should have known, of course, that he had made a reservation, but she had not considered the details of the situation that carefully, and now that they were exposed and she was compelled to consider them in spite of herself, she was possessed by a most terrible feeling of absolute impotence. Without consulting her or conceding anything whatever to her rights or wishes, he had reserved the table and the night and her, and all the time that she had been planning to make certain things happen, quite different things had actually been happening already and were still happening, and there had been nothing she could have done to change the order of events then, before she even knew about it, and there was nothing she could do to stop it or change it now. Nothing at all. What she had hoped and almost believed yesterday and earlier today, that Oliver’s unusual geniality was only a sign that he might become a nuisance and not a menace, she no longer hoped or believed in the least. She was resigned to disaster, and as her resignation increased, her fear diminished. She hardly cared what the form of disaster might be precisely, or when, exactly, it might come.

A waiter placed a menu before her, but she had no interest in it. She pushed it away with the tips of her fingers as if it were something contagious. Oliver watched her, smiling. He traced and retraced lightly the line of his scar.

“Will you order now, my dear?” he said.

“I don’t believe I care to order,” she said. “I’m only interested in having a very dry Martini immediately.”

“Would you like me to order for both of us?”

“If you wish.”

It was apparent that dinner was part of the established order in which she was involved and impotent, and it would be quite futile to say that she did not want it or to resist it in any way. While Oliver ordered from the menu, she thought of her Martini, which she wanted desperately, and looked around the room, which she did not like. She never came here voluntarily and would have been depressed, even if everything else were all right, at being brought here under compulsion. It was not that there was anything wrong with the place itself. It was only that she and the place were not compatible. It was always filled with people who were supposed to be important or interesting or both, and they always seemed to be working very hard at being whatever they were supposed to be, and she always had, watching them, a very strong feeling that there was actually no such thing as importance and that anyone who assumed it or pretended to it was a kind of imposter. It was her experience, moreover, that the most interesting people were usually found in places where no one expected to find them, and that these interesting people, when they were found, hadn’t the faintest idea that they were interesting. This experience had been supported by her study of bartenders in odd places, as well as by other contacts in other places she had gone to accidentally or on purpose, and it was her impression now that by far the most interesting person in this incompatible room was the attractive Negress who was singing sultry songs in a tigerish manner. Charity was sure that the singer was someone she ought to know, for anyone who sang songs in the Empire Room was bound to be someone that everyone ought to know, but she couldn’t think of the singer’s name, although she was positive it was a name she would recognize if someone mentioned it.

Her Martini was served and she nursed it with a kind of greediness because she knew that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get another before dinner. Oliver did not have a cocktail. She had never seen him have a cocktail or a drink of any kind in all the time she had known him and been married to him, which was about the same amount of time in either case.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he said.

“Yes,” she lied. “It’s very pleasant.”

“You don’t seem to be. You look bored.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t particularly care for this place. It depresses me.”

“Really? You just said it was pleasant.”

“I was only being agreeable. I would never come here if I had my choice.”

“I should have consulted you I suppose, but I wanted it to be a surprise. We’ve gone out together so seldom that I don’t know the places you like to go.”

“Well, you probably wouldn’t like the places I like, so it would make no difference anyhow.”

“Perhaps you could convert me.” He reached out and touched her right hand, which was lying palm down on the table, and his eyes glistened for the first time with overt malice. “As I said before, I’m feeling quite guilty for having neglected you. It might be amusing for both of us to become more familiar with each other’s habits.”

“I don’t wish to interfere with your life. It isn’t necessary for you to make concessions that you don’t really want to make.”

“You’re too generous. It only makes me more determined to emulate you.” He touched her hand again and laughed, and the malice in his eyes was in the laugh also. “However, here is our dinner, and I hope you are pleased with what I ordered. Afterward, we’ll dance. It has been a long time since I’ve danced with you, hasn’t it? I’m sure I’ll be awkward in the beginning, but you must be patient until I improve. The music is by Nat Brandywynne, I believe. Are you familiar with his orchestra? Do you like it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve beard it.”

“Well, no matter. To tell the truth, we are only killing time as pleasantly as possible until we can go to the special event I’ve arranged for you. However bored you may be by all this, I promise that you’ll not be bored by that. I promise that you’ll find it most interesting.”

He looked across the table at her, waiting for her to ask again what the special event was to be, but she did not ask because she was afraid to know, because she knew by feeling already that it was going to be, whatever developed specifically, the bad end of this bad night in which waiting and waiting and waiting was to be one of the worst of all bad things. Dinner was served, and the remains of dinner were taken away. Afterward they danced, and their dancing was a kind of cold and acceptable social sodomy. She refused after the first time to dance again, and so they sat and sat and did not even talk, and eventually it became eleven-thirty and time to leave.

In the Imperial, she shrank against the door and closed her eyes as a frightened child closes his eyes in the night, trading one darkness for another, the living and breathing outer darkness of a thousand threats for the sealed and solacing inner darkness secured by the thin membranes of the lids. She was conscious of moving, of riding for a long time on different streets, but she had no sense of direction, and when the car stopped and she opened her eyes at last, she had no idea of where she was, except that it was an incredibly dark and narrow and filthy street that turned out not to be a street at all, but an alley.