Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Pat climbed up on a chair, phone and all, and winked at her. “How will I know this armory?” she said to Larry.

“It’s as big as a castle,” he said, “with a great wide awning over the door. Will you remember the number?” And he gave it to her. Pat called it out so her mother could write it down on a piece of paper for her. “I’ll be seeing you then,” she said, and ran inside just to take one more look at herself in the glass. But when she asked her mother for the number, Pat found she hadn’t written it down at all.

“I didn’t have any pencil,” her mother said, “but I kept it in my head for you. It’s 240.”

“I think he said 420.”

“If it isn’t one, it’s the other,” her mother said. “That’s easy enough.”

“Sure it is,” Pat said sarcastically. Her mother didn’t know very much about taxi fares. And Pat was going to take one because this was one night she was dressed the way she would have liked to go looking all through life, even if the total outlay was only about $18.50. She borrowed half a dollar from her mother and a dollar and a half from her big brother (who told her not to buy a Packard with it), bringing the total expense up to $20.

“Stop at 420 if it has an awning over it,” Pat told the driver. “If it hasn’t, go right on to 240.”

He looked at her to see if she really meant it, but she said, “You may proceed!” in her haughtiest manner, which took him so much by surprise, coming from anyone at 68th Street and Ninth Avenue, that he didn’t dare say another word.

When they got to 420, it had an awning over it, sure enough, and there were people going in dressed in furs and velvet.

“How do those girls do that on twenty a week?” Pat wondered. “Well, some of them may be making twenty-five; that explains it all. Stop here; this is the place,” she said to the driver, and saw by the meter that her money wouldn’t have lasted until the next address anyhow. And when an individual with gold buttons and braid all over him held the door open for her, she knew it was the armory, because she remembered that armories have something to do with men in uniform.

She didn’t see Larry standing anywhere so she went on in to look for him. And first there was a big glass spinning-door, with someone to turn it for you, and then there was a flight of marble steps to be climbed, and after that came miles of velvet carpet with palms growing along the side. But no Larry anywhere. Pat was afraid she couldn’t find her way back to the street by now anyway so she just kept on walking. Until a velvet rope stopped her. And still no sign of Larry.

Then a young man wearing a flower in his buttonhole stepped up to her and said, “Your invitation, please?”

Pat didn’t at all like his speaking to her without a proper introduction, so she decided to become very haughty once more. “My invitation was by wire,” she said. “Laurence asked me down.” Before she had time to give him Larry’s last name, he had let down the rope and passed her on to a lady wearing black beads and eyeglasses.

“A friend of Laurence’s,” the young man said. “Invitation by telegram.”

Pat hadn’t meant telegram at all, she had meant telephone, but the lady said, “Oh, of course. Come with me, my dear. I’ll show you where Laurence is,” and took her to a room full of mirrors and girls powdering their noses. Pat looked at each one in turn, but their gold and silver and crystal dresses didn’t seem to matter so much after all because none of them were eighteen any more and the only way to look eighteen is to be it. So Pat decided all she must do was not to stand too near a very bright light in her organdy dress.

When she had left her wrap behind, the lady with the eyeglasses said: “Now I will bring you over to Laurence, and then I must hurry back on the receiving line. There he is, over there.”

Pat didn’t see him, but she followed her across a room nearly as big as the Roxy where dancing was going on, and suddenly she was standing in front of someone Pat had never seen before in her life and saying: “This is a good friend of yours, Laurence. See that she has a good time.” And without even waiting to be introduced, the lady walked off and left them. And the band played “Here we are, you and I, Let the world hurry by.”

For a minute he was as surprised as she was. “It isn’t Florence, is it?” he said. “No, she was blonde. It can’t be Bernice — she was shorter than you are. Or are you the girl I taught to dive at Miami last winter?” He was young and nice, but his eyes were a little sad as if he always expected to be disappointed and always got what he expected.

Pat stamped her foot decisively. “It’s me, that’s who!” she told him. “And where’s Larry?”

“I’m Larry.”

“You are not! Don’t try to fib!” she cried.

“Yes I am,” he said. “Laurence Pierce.”

Pat nearly fainted. “Why, I must be in the wrong place,” she said. “Isn’t this an armory?”

He seemed to think that was very funny. He could hardly stop laughing. “I must tell that to mother,” he said. “It ought to hold her for a while.”

“Do you mean to say you live here?” Pat gasped.

“Yes,” he said apologetically. “Just forty rooms but it’s home.” And he seemed kind of unhappy about it.

“I didn’t know,” Pat said. “Excuse me! I wouldn’t have walked in here like this for the world.” And she turned around to go, but he followed her and took her by the arm.

“Can’t we pretend just for a little while that this really is the place you were going to — and I really did invite you?”

“No,” said Pat firmly.

And she walked away a few steps farther, and again he came after her.

“Won’t you stay if I invite you here and now? I’m afraid I’ve been rude to you. Won’t you stay and let me make up for it?”

“Oh, I couldn’t—” Pat started to say. But she was already standing still and not moving any nearer the door.

“There’s something so real about you. Most of these girls here are just like dolls.” He looked down at the floor and said in a low voice: “No one that was real ever came near me before. And then you walked in the door.”

“The wrong door!” she said.

She should have gone while she still wanted to. But she didn’t want to very much any more. She thought of Larry Cogan waiting for her at the armory. But he could wait a little longer. His eyes had never looked as sad as this, so he could wait just a little longer for her tonight. He’d see her every other night in the year.

“Please stay,” he said. And he looked at her and she knew she would.

He called the orchestra leader over to them and he said: “Lower the lights and let’s have a waltz.” Then he looked at Pat’s dress that wasn’t gold or silver or crystal at all and added: “Play Alice Blue Gown.”

And then they were dancing and it all seemed a dream.

At eleven he said: “You haven’t told me who you are yet.”

Pat said: “I’m Patty Moran of 68th Street and Ninth Avenue.”

“I’m going to like 68th Street and Ninth Avenue,” was all he said to that.

At twelve she said: “I’ll have to go now.”

At one she was still saying she’d have to go. Finally at two she went.

He went with her as far as the spinning glass door, and she saw a big car waiting outside.

“I can’t go with you,” he said, “because it’s my sister Agatha’s coming-out party and she’ll scratch and bite. But Bob will see that you get home safe.”

“Goodnight, Law.”

“Goodnight, Pat.”

That was all they said. They didn’t have to say much. Pat lifted up the speaking tube and said, “Sixty-eighth Street and Ninth Avenue,” and she took a rosebud from the crystal holder and held it in her fingers and looked at it for a long time. “Little flower,” she said finally, “what am I going to do about this?” But the flower didn’t answer.