Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

The next day Elaine beckoned for Janice to follow her into the large office studded with Elaine’s designs, calendars, and sketches for future projects.

“You don’t have the experience a lot of designers have,” Elaine said. “And maybe you’re a bit rusty on a few graphic techniques. But we get along awfully well, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes,” Janice agreed, her heart beginning to race.

“Then would you consider working here full time?”

“Would I? Oh, I’d love nothing better.”

“Now, I can’t pay you very much, but it would be a salary. You wouldn’t have to start worrying at the end of every project.”

Janice drew herself up proudly.

“Elaine,” she said, “there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do than work with you.”

Elaine laughed delightedly. “Splendid.”

At lunch, Elaine and Janice worked out the details of her job. Janice listened with a kind of rapture she had not known since the days when she first met Bill.

“And your husband?” Elaine asked after a while.

“What? What about my husband?”

“Is he going to mind your working full time?”

“No. He’ll be delighted.”

Elaine smiled enigmatically.

“You’ve never talked about your husband,” she said. “All I’m trying to do is to be fair about it. For some women, it becomes a problem.”

“I really and truly appreciate what you’re saying, Elaine, but I’m sure Bill will be very, very pleased. And the money will help.”

Elaine watched Janice growing slightly uncomfortable.

“You’ve never mentioned what your husband does,” she said.

“He worked for Simmons Advertising. He was the third vice-president. But he’s not been well. He suffered a nervous breakdown, and is hospitalized.”

“I’m sorry,” Elaine said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s all right,” Janice assured her. “It’s been a long haul, but he’s much improved now.”

Janice splurged recklessly and treated herself to a new raincoat, designed by Bill Blass, with a cape that extended out over her shoulders and left the arms free. The October chill was in the air, and the driving rain everywhere glimmered in the gloom, catching stray headlights beaming like lurid eyes out of the gutters.

That night Bill telephoned.

“Honey,” he said, “guess what? I’ve got a fever of a hundred and two degrees. Courtesy of that damned picnic.”

“Oh, Bill, what a shame.”

“The clinic doctor has been tapping on my chest and feeding me big yellow pills and I can’t stop throwing up.”

“Oh, Bill!”

Bill moved from the receiver to cough. It was a long, hacking cough that sounded painful.

“To make a long story short,” he said, a bit out of breath, “I won’t be there on Friday unless I can shake this.”

Janice sank down in her chair, the weight of disappointment nearly a physical sensation.

“It’s probably because you’d exercised that day,” she said.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I loved seeing you again. And thanks for the books. I really mean that.”

Janice, staring, brooding at the black windows, watched the long dribbles of gleaming water-drops, each trailing a splattered light out of the void.

“Although, if you stop to think about it,” Bill continued, “it doesn’t all add up.”

“What? What doesn’t?”

“That stuff you read to me. From the Bhagavad Gita, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, it doesn’t quite add up.”

Janice licked her lips. She sat up, partially out of the chair, on its edge, and held the receiver carefully.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Look. All that twaddle about the eternal soul going on and on, and all that. Even when the body dies.”

Janice closed her eyes. For a split second, a headache threatened to form, then it receded, more by an act of will than anything else. She almost wanted to hang up.

“Bill, I really don’t like talking about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he complained. “It’s loony. If there’s one great eternal soul, like a universal spirit, then what the hell happened to Ivy? Know what I mean? It could all have just flowed back, or whatever. Instead of that conflict—”

“Bill, please, I beg you—”

“I mean,” he added in a softer voice, “she sure as hell didn’t have to go through what she did. Christ, when I remember how she suffered—”

“Bill!” Janice yelled.

“What? What are you yelling for?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not yelling. I only was trying to say that — that it’s still not easy for me — to remember.”

There was a long silence.

“Frankly,” Bill said, “I’m surprised. You had a lot of time to work it out. More than I had, that’s for damn sure.”

“Yes, but it’s all so distant, so confused, I mean. Bill, I can’t think about it anymore. I tried. I tried for the longest time and never made sense.”

“Okay, okay,” Bill conceded. “I shouldn’t have said anything. This fever’s baked my brain anyway. But you got to admit that the Bhagavad Gita is a little naive after what happened to us.”

“All right, Bill. I’ll admit it. But tell me about your chest. You sound absolutely dreadful.”

“I always did have weak lungs. I think I’m out of commission for a while. Listen, honey, could you do me a favor?”

Janice smiled, tucked her feet up under her as she sat back into the soft folds of the chair.

“Anything, darling,” she said.

“This library here is pretty puny. All they’ve got are some encyclopedias and the Guinness Book of Records. Could you make a run to the library for me?”

“Sure. I’d love to.”

Holding the receiver against her collarbone with her chin, she reached into a drawer and coaxed a pencil and a note pad from it.

“What kind of books would you like?” she asked.

“Well, as I said, this Hindu stuff is pretty weak dishwater, from what I can gather. Now listen closely. There’s an older religion. It’s called Jainism. It goes back to even before the Hindus knew how to cross their legs and scratch themselves.”

Janice put the pencil and pad down on her lap.

“Bill,” she whispered. “Don’t—”

“Jainism,” Bill said. “You want me to spell that?”

“No, it’s not necessary.”

“Great. I really need this help on the outside. Right now, I feel like somebody pumped up a balloon inside my head. Are you there, Janice?”

“I’m here.”

“Okay. And if I’m not up to seeing you next week, just mail the books here, will you?”

“Yes,” she said without enthusiasm.

“Wonderful. Now take care of yourself. Keep warm. It’s really miserable all over the East Coast tonight.”

“I will,” she said dully. “And Bill—”

“Yes?”

“Be careful. And get your rest. Do what Dr. Geddes says.”

Bill chuckled, a familiar, warm kind of laugh that came from deep within his throat.

“I’ll be a model patient, sweetheart,” he said. “I love you. Now be a good girl and we’ll be together soon. I promise.”

She sensed he was about to hang up. There was so much more she wanted to say, to warn him in some obscure way, but none of it came to her.

“I love you, too,” she said softly. “Good-bye, darling.”

He hung up. Janice wrote the word Jainism on the pad, tore off the top sheet, and stuffed it into her purse. She threw the pad and pencil back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Outside, the night seemed to belch forth a cold, hard rain from its blackest interior.

Janice put off her trip to the library as long as possible. Finally, she went to the New York Public Library, asked for assistance, and found that the Jains occupied so small a segment of religious thought that they hardly merited a single book to themselves. With the librarian’s help, Janice plucked three volumes which seemed to have the most information, and she checked them out.