Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Oh, I don’t really drink,” Amanda said, smiling.

Gillian studied her for a moment. “You seem changed.”

“Do I? How?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged and then smiled. “I guess you’re older.”

“I’m almost twenty-one, Gilly.”

“Do I seem very young to you?” Gillian asked.

“You never did.”

“No, that’s true,” Gillian said, somewhat sadly. “Not even to myself.”

“What?”

“Tell me what’s new. How’s your music coming along?”

“Fine. Just fine.”

“Have you written anything new?”

“Well, you know. The usual. Nothing special.”

Gillian nodded. The room was very quiet. From the phonograph, a scratchy record intoned “Silent night, holy night...”

“I have to get a new needle,” Gillian said.

“That is bad for the records,” Amanda said.

They were quiet again, listening to the music.

“Where did you get the advertisements?” Amanda asked.

“For The Skin of Our Teeth and the others? A boy I know. In the Count’s class.”

“The Count?”

“Yes, my teacher. The Russian. I wrote you about him, didn’t I? He used to be a Count before all those Reds marched in. Do you know what he told me, Amanda? He told me the stories about Catherine the Great are all true.”

“But how would he know? She was so long ago.”

“Court knowledge,” Gillian said seriously. “Passed from generation to generation. Can you imagine doing it with a horse?”

Amanda burst out laughing, and suddenly the strain was gone, suddenly there was no longer any tension in the room. “I can barely imagine doing it with a person ,” she said, still laughing.

“You have changed,” Gillian said, laughing with her. “You never would have said that six months ago.”

“Maybe not,” Amanda said. She finished her drink and put down the glass.

“Are you still a virgin?” Gillian asked, lowering her voice.

“Yes.” Amanda paused. “Are you?”

“Yes. Isn’t it disgusting? I feel like some sort of cripple. Do you want another drink?”

“All right.” She followed Gillian to the long table. “Just a little, please.”

“Okay. Amanda, do you really like the apartment?”

“I think it’s lovely.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Because sometimes I think I’m a little loony, you know, leaving home and coming to live all the way down here. This is a terrible neighborhood, Amanda, it really is. I’m scared to death when I come home late from rehearsals. There are all sorts of suspicious characters lurking around.” Amanda laughed again, suddenly and spontaneously. “I mean it, Amanda! I think my landlady is a drug addict or something. She’s always got a glazed look in her eyes, even when I’ve paid her the rent.” She handed Amanda the drink. “And there’s a sort of vagrants’ club that meets on the street corner. I think they were on their way to the Bowery and got lost — don’t laugh, Amanda, I’m in terrible danger every minute of the day, now don’t laugh, you. silly, you’ll make me spill my drink.”

“I’m so glad to be here,” Amanda said suddenly.

“Yes, oh isn’t it good?” Gillian answered instantly. “Amanda, why in the world did you check in at a hotel?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Amanda said. “I’m about to be unwell, and you know how I get, all moody and fidgety. I didn’t want to impose.”

“But that isn’t the real reason, is it?”

“No,” Amanda said. She paused. “I was afraid.”

“That we wouldn’t like each other any more?”

“Yes.” Amanda nodded.

“But we still do,” Gillian said simply.

“Yes,” and they smiled.

“Amanda, I didn’t buy you a Christmas present.”

“I didn’t buy you one, either.”

“I was going to, and then I thought suppose Amanda doesn’t buy me one, she’ll be very embarrassed. So I didn’t.”

Amanda laughed and said, “That’s exactly why I didn’t.”

“Well, good. Who needs presents? I’m so glad you’re here. You know, there’s nobody to talk to in this entire city. Would you believe it? I was born here, and I feel like a stranger. It’s the weirdest thing ever.” Gillian shook her head unbelievingly. “Talk to me, Amanda. Tell me about Talmadge. Is there a lot of snow up there?”

“Not too much.”

“I always loved that campus. It’s too bad I wasn’t learning anything there.”

“Morton Yardley... do you remember Morton?”

“Yes. what about him?”

“He was drafted, and he objected.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a conscientious objector. They took him away, Gilly.”

“Away where? What do you mean, away?”

“I don’t know. An army prison, I guess. I talked to him before he left, Gilly. He said he simply couldn’t kill another human being. ‘Can you understand that, Amanda?’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t be responsible for another person’s death. I’m not a coward, Amanda, but I couldn’t kill.’ He made me want to cry, Gilly. I’ve always liked him so much.” She paused, her head tilted to one side. “Do you know what I found out?”

“What?”

“I found out why Morton always wore that hood. Gilly, he was going bald, poor thing. He’s only twenty years old. And he was terribly ashamed of it, and so he wore that silly hood all the time. Oh, Gilly, I could cry when I think of him. He’s so sad. He makes me so sad.”

“Do you love him, Amanda?” Gillian asked.

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “Oh, not that way. No, I could never love Morton that way. But I do love him, in a very special way, and I guess I always will love him. He’s the first person I met at Talmadge, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. Gilly, I hope they treat him all right. I can’t imagine Morton inside an army jail, can you?”

“No, I can’t.”

They fell silent for a moment. Then Amanda said, “Do you remember Ardis Fletcher? You know, the sweater girl.”

“Yes?”

“She got married. The girls all say she had to, but I don’t know.”

“Who’d she marry?”

“A boy in the diner. At the crossroads. Charlie Something-or-other. She quit school, and they’re living in town now, over near the gun factory. I saw her once, and she’s as pregnant as a goose, so maybe what the girls say is true. Oh, and Mr. Connerly, do you remember him?”

“No.”

“In the philosophy department? Did you take any philosophy courses?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The short man? With white hair? He always wore those checked vests. Do you remember, Gilly?”

“I don’t think I know him.”

“Well, he made a pass at one of the girls, promised her an A if she... well, you know.”

“Did she?”

“No, no, she reported him. He’s been suspended.”

“Wow,” Gillian said. She wiggled her eyebrows. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left Talmadge!”

“Also, they’ve banned pledging,” Amanda said anticlimactically, and both girls laughed again.

The doorbell rang suddenly.

Gillian looked up and said, “Here’s the party.” She rose and put her hand over Amanda’s. “If I don’t get a chance later,” she said, “Merry Christmas,” and she went to open the door.

There was music in everything, real or imagined.

Music in the steady ring of the doorbell, and the gentle clink of ice in tall glasses, and the pleasant pretty hum of party chatter, and the counterpoint of laughter, the front door opening, feet stamping into the room, shaking away the cold of New York in December, pretty girls in party dresses, and young boys in suits and ties, and older boys in uniform, a music of sound and color, music too in the gentle swirl of liquor in Amanda’s glass. She had never drunk so much in her life, but somehow she didn’t care tonight. She felt warm and protected and loved, and so the drinks passed steadily into her hand, and she drank them and laughed with the other guests, all wonderful people, all Gillian’s friends, and she danced, and there was always another drink waiting for her, and she sounded very witty and felt ravishingly beautiful, and she was very proud of her good friend Gillian and her lovely apartment and the marvelous people she knew.