Флетчер Флора - Wake Up With a Stranger

He drank some of his Maritini. Then placing the glass on the table, he laced the fingers of his hands above the glass in an odd kind of pose.

“Have you thought of trying to acquire the shop for yourself?” he said.

“I’ve thought of it, but I don’t see how I could manage it. I estimate that it will sell for around two hundred thousand dollars, which is to me an incredible amount of money.”

“Your estimate is pretty accurate, certainly, and it’s a very large amount of money to anyone. Well, I only mention this as a possibility, although a remote one, because I am convinced from Aaron’s comments and my own observation that you could make a big thing of it. The initial investment, I concede, is a problem. If you decide, however, to try to swing it, I suggest that you talk with Bill Tyler at the Security Bank and Trust Company. He is a client of mine, and I would be glad to speak to him in your favor.”

“Thank you. You are very kind.”

“Not at all. I believe you have real talent and could make a success of the business, that’s all. Or perhaps that’s not entirely all, either. The truth is, I like you very much — as Aaron did — and I would like to see you do as well as he wanted you to do.”

She looked down at her folded hands in her lap, presenting in the posture an effect of demureness that seemed to him all the more appealing because she usually appeared so deliberately sophisticated. To his generosity she felt an intensity of gratitude that clotted her throat and choked her. When the feeling had diminished, her throat clearing so that her breath passed through it easily again, she looked up from her hands and smiled.

“You see? Regardless of what you say, it returns to kindness. You are under no obligation at all to be concerned about me.”

“All right. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just say that my concern, whatever the basis, is genuine, and I would like to help you if I can. Do you think you could handle a loan sufficiently large to buy the shop?”

“I’m sure that I could successfully pay it off in a reasonable time, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t see why anyone should accept my confidence as security for so much money.”

“Have you no security besides your talent and your confidence?”

“No. I own nothing except my personal things, which are of little value.”

“You could mortgage the shop itself, of course.”

“Would that be sufficient? I know so little about these things.”

“Ordinarily it wouldn’t, I’m afraid. However, if you could impress Bill Tyler as favorably as you have impressed Aaron and me, it might. I doubt that he would risk bank funds in that amount, but he has a large personal fortune, you know.”

“You mean he might be willing to loan me the money personally on a mortgage?”

“If you can convince him that it’s a good investment. There’s another angle, too, that I’ve thought of. He might be willing to buy the shop himself and put it under your management. Much the same sort of arrangement you wanted Shirley Burns to agree to. This wouldn’t be as big a thing for you, but it would possibly be more appealing to him because he’d stand to make a much larger profit than interest on a loan.”

“I see. I hadn’t thought of that. Do you suppose he would be interested? Why do you suggest Mr. Tyler?”

“It would be up to you to make him interested, with what help I can give. I have suggested him because I know him well, because he’s a millionaire who can afford to consider such investments, and because he has the kind of imagination that just might be intrigued by a different sort of venture like this.”

She looked down at her hands again. Now it was excitement instead of gratitude that she felt, but it had the identical effect of clotting her throat and making it difficult and a little painful to breathe. Before she could look up and respond, the waiter arrived with their dinners. She was glad to see he had ordered capon, which she liked, for she was conscious all at once of being much hungrier than she had realized. His thoughtfulness and wisdom in anticipating her hunger seemed to be, on top of everything else, another subtle claim upon her. They began to eat and to talk of other things, when they talked at all. A few minutes before ten, while they waited for coffee, he looked at his watch and said he had a telephone call to make. Excusing himself, he went away, and she sat and watched him go, wondering idly, without real interest, whom the call would be to — a client or a friend or his wife. Then she realized that she did not even know if he had a wife or not, and had not even thought to find out. The combo finished one number and began another, and the one they began seemed quite familiar, something she should recognize. She followed the rhythm and tried to identify it, but she could not. Then a voice spoke her name at her shoulder, and the voice sounded as familiar as the music, something she should also recognize, but couldn’t. She looked up at the face of a young man, a rather handsome young man with dark and slightly curly hair, and the conviction of familiarity remained. Then, when he smiled in a hesitant way that seemed to suggest an inner uncertainty regarding his welcome, she recognized him, with an emotional reaction which she would not have expected and for which she was in no way prepared. She had not thought to see him again, and had felt no desire to see him again, but now seeing him, she could not understand why she had been so indifferent.

“Enos Simon,” she said, and held out a hand.

He took her hand and bent over it slightly, and his smile widened and strengthened and gained assurance.

“Hello, Donna,” he said. “Did you have trouble remembering me? If you hadn’t, I was going to kick you under the table as a reminder.”

“I confess that I had trouble for a moment. You must admit, however, that you have reappeared rather suddenly. Won’t you sit down?”

“No, thanks. I know that you are with someone. The truth is, I’ve been watching you for at least half an hour. Earl Joslin, isn’t it? You must be doing well for yourself these days.”

“I met him through my work, and he has become my friend. I’m sure he would be happy to have you join us.”

“I am with someone myself and can only stay a minute. I’ve thought of you often, Donna. It’s wonderful seeing you again.”

“I have often thought of you too,” she lied. “Are you living here again?”

“Yes. I came back in January of this year.”

“That long ago? Why haven’t you looked me up? Are you married?”

“No, I’m not married. Actually, I don’t quite know why I haven’t tried to see you before. Perhaps I was afraid you would not want me to. I wouldn’t want to presume on something that happened when we were little more than kids.”

“Oh, nonsense. I’d like to talk with you and learn what’s happened to you.”

“Well, it covers quite a bit of time and takes a while to tell. More than we have now, at any rate. May I see you again?”

“If you like.”

“When?”

“Suppose you suggest a time.”

He stood looking down at her, and she felt in him again, as if it were a tangible substance that projected and touched her, the kind of intermediate mood she had felt in him frequently during the summer after she had graduated from high school. He was, somehow, both withdrawn and supplicating, expressing mutely an appeal he feared would be rejected, and she remembered suddenly that he had openly expressed his dread of rejection more than once. It was really impossible, she thought, after so many years to read so much into an expression, a hesitation, hardly anything at all. But she felt it anyhow, as she had before, and responded to it now, as she had then.