Evan Hunter: Romance

“Okay,” she said from the door frame, “what would you like to drink?” and came striding into the room, long-legged stride, he liked that about her, the fact that she was almost as tall as he was, just a few inches shorter, he guessed, five-nine, five-ten, in there. “I’ve got Scotch and I’ve got Scotch,” she said.

“I’ll take the Scotch,” he said.

“Water, soda, neat?”

“Little soda.”

“Rocks?”

“Please. You look beautiful,” he said, not expecting to say what he was thinking, and surprised when he heard the words leaving his mouth.

She looked surprised, too.

He immediately thought he’d said the wrong thing.

“Thank you,” she said softly, and lowered her eyes and went swiftly to a wall unit that looked like a bookcase with a built-in television and stereo but that turned out to have a drop-leaf front that revealed a bar behind it. He watched as she poured the Scotch — Johnnie Red — over ice cubes in two shortish glasses, added a little soda to each, and then carried the glasses, one in each hand, to where he was standing uncertainly near the sofa.

“Please sit,” she said. “I should have brought you a towel.”

“No, that’s okay,” he said, and immediately touched his wet hair, and then — seemingly embarrassed by the gesture — sat at once. He waited for her to sit opposite him, in a plum-colored easy chair that complemented her suit, and then raised his glass to her. She raised her own glass.

“Here’s to golden days,” he said, “and…”

“… and purple nights,” she finished for him.

They both looked surprised.

“How do you happen to know that?” he asked.

“How do you?”

“Someone I used to know.”

“Someone I used to know,” she said.

“Good toast,” he said. “Whoever.”

“So here’s to golden days and purple nights,” she said, and grinned.

“Amen,” he said.

Her smile was like sudden moonlight.

They drank.

“Good,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Long week,” he said.

“I hope you like Northern Italian,” she said.

“I do.”

“You know, I really wish you hadn’t insisted on coming all the way…”

“First date,” he said.

She looked at him. For a moment, she thought he might be putting her on. But, no, he was serious, she could see that in his eyes. This was a first date, and on a first date, you went to a girl’s house to pick her up. There was something so old-fashioned about the notion that it touched her to the core. She suddenly wondered how old he was. All at once, he seemed so very young.

“I also checked movie schedules out here,” she said. “Do you like cop movies? The one about the bank heist is playing near the restaurant, the last show starts at ten after ten. What time do you have to be in tomorrow?”

“Eight.”

“Me, too.”

“Where?”

“Majesta. Rankin Plaza. That’s where…”

“I know. I’ve been there a lot.”

“What for?”

“Well, once I got shot, and another time I got beat up. You have to check in at Rankin if you’re applying for sick leave. Well, I guess you know that.”

“Yes.”

“Eight’s early.”

“I’ll be okay if I get six hours sleep.”

“Really. Just six hours?”

“Habit I developed in medical school.”

“Where was that?”

“Georgetown U.”

“Good school.”

“Yes. Who shot you?”

“Oh, one of the bad guys. That was a long time ago.”

“Who beat you up?”

“Some more bad guys.”

“Do you enjoy dealing with bad guys?”

“I enjoy locking them up. That’s why I’m in the job. Do you enjoy being a doctor?”

“I love it.”

“I love being a cop,” he said.

She looked at him again. He had a way of saying things so directly that they seemed somehow artfully designed. Again, she wondered if he was putting her on. But no, he seemed entirely guileless, a person who simply said whatever was on his mind whenever it occurred to him. She wasn’t sure she liked that. Or maybe she did. She realized she was studying his eyes. A greenish brown, she guessed they were, what you might call hazel, she guessed. He caught her steady gaze, looked puzzled for a moment. Swiftly, she looked down into her glass.

“What time do you leave for work?” he asked.

“I can make it in half an hour,” she said, and looked up again. This time, he was studying her. She almost looked away again. But she didn’t. Their eyes met, locked, held.

“That’d be seven-thirty,” he said.

“Yes.”

“So if the movie breaks at midnight…”

“It should, don’t you think?”

“Oh, sure. You’ll easily get your six hours.”

“Yes,” she said.

They both fell silent.

He was wondering if she thought he was dumb, staring at her this way.

She was wondering if he thought she was dumb, staring at him this way.

They both kept staring.

At last she said, “We’d better get going.”

“Right,” he said, and got immediately to his feet.

“Let me get your coat,” she said.

“I’ll put these in the sink,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, and started out of the room.

“Uh… Sharyn?” he said.

“Yes, Bert?”

Turning to him.

God, she was beautiful.

“Where’s the kitchen?” he said.

Michelle Cassidy was telling her agent all about the dumb lines she had to say in this stupid damn play. Johnny was listening with great interest. The last really good part he’d got for her was in the touring company of Annie, when she was ten years old. She was now twenty-three, which made it a long time between drinks. Johnny had landed her the leading role in the musical because she had a strong singing voice for a ten-year-old — the producer said she sounded like a prepubescent Ethel Merman — and also because the natural color of her hair was the same as the little orphan’s, a sort of reddish orange that matched the adorable darling’s dress with its white bib collar. Johnny knew the natural color of Michelle’s hair because he’d begun sleeping with her when she was just sixteen.

What happened was Michelle had toured the Annie role until she began developing tits at the age of twelve years and eight months, a despairing turn of events for all concerned, especially Johnny, who at the time represented only two other clients, one of whom was a dog act. Johnny figured that suddenly blossoming into a dumb curvaceous teenybopper was the end of Michelle’s career as a waif. But the red hair still shone like a traffic light, and it certainly didn’t hurt that he could tout her as the former star of Annie, even though her voice was beginning to sound a bit strident — wasn’t it only boys whose voices changed during adolescence? He auditioned her for a dinner theater production of Oliver! figuring she’d had experience as an orphan and maybe they could bind her chest, but the director said she looked too much like a girl, no kidding. So Johnny got her an orange juice commercial on the strength of the fiery red hair, and then a string of other commercials where she played a variety of bratty budding thirteen-year-olds in training bras and braces. When she was fourteen, he got her into an L.A. revival of The King and I as one of the children, even though by that time she was truly beginning to look a trifle voluptuous in those flimsy Siamese tops and pantaloons.

Truth was, Michelle’s voice had changed to something that now resembled the bleat of a sacrificial lamb — which she was soon to become, in a manner of speaking, although as yet unbeknownst to herself. She’d never been a very good actress, even when she was Tomorrow-ing it all over the stage, but during her television years she had picked up a barrelful of mannerisms that now made her look hopelessly amateurish. Too old for kiddy roles, too young for bimbo roles although she certainly looked the part, Johnny figured she would have to mature into her body, so to speak, before he could get her any decent adult roles. Meanwhile, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, he seduced her when she was sixteen, in a motel room in the town of Altoona, Pennsylvania, three miles from the dinner theater where she was playing one of the older children in Sound of Music.