Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

When she hung up she was hysterical, and Mr. Wilmer, Steve, and I all had to take turns calming her. But at last she was quiet and said, “It wasn’t myself I was thinking of, but of us, Ben, and our marriage. Because if he starts shooting his mouth off, even if not one word of it’s true, I can’t go home anymore. Oh, dear God, beat some sense in his head!”

Mr. Wilmer begged me to stay with him and Mother there in the suite at the hotel, where they decided to spend the weekend, or part of the next week, until things would be settled in Baltimore. He said the suite could be enlarged by unlocking the door to a bedroom, and then I would be there with them. And I have to omit I was tempted to stay again in that hotel, with my own color TV and all, wearing Mother’s nighties and having lunch in the coffee shop. But even more I wanted to be with Steve and thank him for what he had done, on account that at last I had a father who took up for me. So I drove home with him in his car, a Chevy, the way we had come over. On the way, we had dinner in a new place near Laurel, and I told him how I felt. I said: “It’s so funny, here a week ago I was mad, at you and also at Mother, and sure that Vernick was the answer, that he would take me in. And now it’s all come opposite. You’re my father at last, and Mother’s my mother at last, and Vernick’s just a rat. How can that be?”

“Well, look at me. I was ready to jump off the roof. I mean I wanted to die, ’stead of which I drunk me some beer. Then when I opened my eyes you were there.”

“It’s all backwards.”

“OK, and I’m glad it’s that way.”

“Steve, you mean it’s all for the best?”

“I hope it is. We don’t know yet.”

“You’re talking about Rick?”

“He’s the wild deuce in our deck.”

“But they’ll get him, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but will they get the money?”

“And that’s important?”

“It’s the whole story, Mandy.”

“Anyhow, tomorrow should tell the tale.”

“Or next week, looks like.”

He said if Rick surrendered and still had most of the money, “maybe they decide he was forced and panicked afterward, and they let him up easy so he pleads guilty to some minor charge, like accessory, and gets a suspended sentence, something like that. With immunity for you, that ends it.”

“Funny, when he ducked out on me, I hated him something awful. Now I don’t. Now I feel sorry for him. It’s all backwards.”

“Mandy, life is like that.”

I was looking forward, I guess, to another visit from him to me in my bed as I lay there and he would kiss me good night. But that wasn’t to be for a while yet. We were no sooner home than the phone rang, and when he took it he said: “That was the Washington Post. They’re sending a man out, and he’ll have a photographer with him. So get yourself fixed up.”

“Well? Isn’t this all right?”

I motioned to the dress, and he said, “For me, perfect. Anything you put on always looks perfect to me, but if it’s what you want, I don’t know. That’s all I meant. Don’t change it for me.”

“I bought a pantsuit in Baltimore.”

“OK, put it on.”

So I went upstairs and did, and as I came down he yelped to come quick, I was on TV. It was the evening news, and sure enough there I was, in a picture taken of me the summer before at the beach in a bikini which they dug up heaven knows where. And, brother, was I showing all I had. There was also a picture of Rick that didn’t look like him, as it showed him wearing short hair, with a little grin on his face that gave him a queer expression. But what was said wasn’t too bad, and in fact was halfway funny, as the announcer kidded the cops, the Baltimore police that is, for “the thorough and diligent way they’ve been following false leads.” When it went off Steve kissed me, and I had trouble calming him down, as he was acting the least bit balmy.

Then the doorbell rang, and he let in the Post reporter, with the photographer he had. So he began putting questions to me, and I answered as well as I could, trying to small things down so nothing amounted to much. When Vernick was mentioned I just started to laugh and acted like it was all a joke. But it brought up the coat, and I had to get it out and pose for my picture in it, sitting and standing and walking around. So while that was going on, the doorbell rings again, and it’s a guy from the Baltimore Sun, and he had a photographer too. So I had to do it all over again. Then the doorbell rings again, and it’s a girl from the Washington Star, also with a photographer, to do a “feature” on me, though what a feature was I didn’t know then and don’t know now. So I do it again for her. And when we’re just about finished up, the phone rings and it’s for the man from the Baltimore Sun, with instructions to get dope on Mother’s marriage. So I tell what I know about that, strictly sticking to it that she was so upset at me running off that way, that Mr. Wilmer wanted to make it up to her by having a wedding. I felt I did all right, and then at last they all went. Steve fixed us a couple of drinks, beer for him, Coke for me, and then we went to bed. Then, sure enough, here he came, being himself once more, to kiss me good night again and tell me that he loved me. So I kissed him and told him the same.

In the morning we got up real early, me still in my kimono, to grab the paper and see what it had about me. But it wasn’t at all bad, except for what Rick’s father, mother, and sister said about me, that I was a “Junior Jezebel” who had led a good boy astray “in a flagrantly immoral way.” They said he’d led an exemplary life, not giving any trouble “until this girl came along.” Why they’d put him out, why he had no home, that they didn’t say, but the paper did, putting in about his arrests. Vernick was let out with a line: “No comment. Absolutely no comment at all” was all that he had to say and all that they put in. On page one were two pictures of me, one in the bikini, the other modeling the coat, but on the page that the story jumped to was a whole picture layout: Mother, in the green linen suit; Rick, the same shot as had been on TV; and me, more shots in the coat, another in the bikini, and one in a leotard, when I was twelve years old, from gym class in junior high, the cheesecakiest one of all. And under it: JUNIOR JEZEBEL? Still and all, none of it was too bad.

I made coffee and toast for us, and while we ate on the breakfast room table, we read the paper, taking turns. Then Steve said get dressed, we were going to Baltimore to get there quick for whatever was in the works for me. So we rode over feeling close, but when we got to the hotel he didn’t go up to the suite. He said he’d finish his breakfast and wait in the coffee shop. So when I went upstairs Mr. Wilmer looked kind of funny and said I’d better go in and see how my mother was doing. I knocked on the door of the bedroom, and when she told me come in I did and found her in bed, with papers all over the covers, not only the Baltimore Sun but the Washington Post and another Baltimore paper. And when she saw me she held out her arms and gathered me in and kissed me. She was in a beautiful black nightie, with a black bow in her hair and looking prettier than I’d ever seen her. She kissed me all over the face and back of the ears, and asked, “Have you seen them?” meaning the papers.

“I saw the Post. I thought it was pretty OK.”

“OK? OK? It was perfect. That Ed Vernick, I shut him up! Did you see what he had to say?”

“He had nothing to say, just ‘no comment.’”

“Keeping his head down from my brick!”

“You’re just a sweet, crazy goof!”