Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“But Jack — I was never so embarrassed in my life as when I blew into his office just now, over there at the Jergins Trust Building, just to say hello and ask how things were going, and he was standing there talking with this girl, and come to find out it was his wife, and she’d been here a week, and they’ve gone and taken a place on Willow Avenue, and I hadn’t even been around to see if there was something I could do. Good God, Jack — is that making him like us? Is that saying bonus in a big loud tone of voice?”

“I tell you I couldn’t guess it.”

“Yes, but that’s the whole point. When I actually did get him off by himself for a minute, and put it up to him what was the big idea, I couldn’t even get him to talk then. He said you’ve acted so queer about the whole thing he supposed you’d prefer he said nothing about it, and so they did it this way. Jack, what are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

“There must be something.”

“There is absolutely nothing, except what I’ve told you.”

“Look at me, Jack.”

“Listen, if you’ve got a shut-off valve, close it.”

“O.K., but they’re coming to dinner.”

“So all right, count me out.”

“No!”

“Then count me in.”

“Jack, they’re due at seven. I want you there at a quarter of, shined up and pretty, and I want you to take over the champagne, and see that she—”

“Suppose she likes gin?”

“Champagne!”

“All right, but stop yelling.”

The house in Beverly had a big entrance hall, with stairs rising out of the far end, a living room the size of Grand Central off on the left, and a little sitting room, with a table I used for a bar, off to the right. I didn’t see the dinner rated all the whoopdedo that Hannah gave it, but I checked everything I needed, the whisky, brandy, and gin, for whatever cocktails they might want, with the cherries, olives, lemon peel, and orange on little saucers, and the champagne she doted on, well chilled. Irene, who had been brought up from Long Beach, came in with a tray of canapés, and right on the dot of seven the bell rang and she went out to answer. But Hannah was coming down the stairs, and said she’d go. I took out the champagne and began twisting off the wire. Denny came in, and I said the nicest welcome for anybody was champagne with the cork popping out of the bottle just as they came in the door. He seemed to like the idea, and I said why the hell hadn’t he let somebody know he had a new arrival coming. He said getting settled first seemed the simplest way, so that was how they did it. I noticed how well he looked in his dinner coat. Like everybody else that comes to California he’d gone in for the salad-and-citrus diet, and it had slimmed him down, and for the sunshine, so he’d picked up color. Then I heard voices, and nudged the cork with my thumb and shook the bottle a little, so I could pop it when ready. Then I turned to the door so I could see the grand effect. Well, it popped all right, and it must have been a grand effect too, because I stood there with the champagne slopping all over the rug and up my sleeve, till Denny grabbed it and turned it into the ice bucket to get it still enough to pour — and still I stood there, with my mouth hanging open and my feet rooted to the floor.

Who came through the door was Margaret.

After a while, when I got so I could speak and had the champagne wiped off my fingers, I shook hands and reached for whatever I had in the way of gags, while Hannah looked at me in a queer sort of way from the door. Then at last I got a glass in everybody’s hand and we said here’s how, and I looked Margaret over. She had on a dark-green velvet dress, gold shoes, and a gold fillet around her hair, and looked better than I had ever seen her. She was a little older than I, but I think anybody would have said she was ten years younger. Hannah had on her usual gold lame, but she seemed to like Margaret all right, specially as Margaret smelled like money, and if there was one thing Hannah went for it was that. So after five or ten minutes we settled down and things eased. So then I said: “Well, for God’s sake, when did this happen?”

“Oh — couple of years ago.”

She looked at Denny, but he was looking at me. “Jack, goddam it, what are you trying to hand me? Do you mean to say you didn’t know it?”

“Until now, I hadn’t the least idea of it.”

“But the papers carried yards about it.”

“I haven’t seen a Baltimore paper in eight years.”

“And from all I had to say about the Leggs, and Margaret, and everything you never guessed it? You didn’t tumble at all?”

I wanted to say if I’d had the slightest suspicion of it he’d never have been sent for, but all I said was no.

Hannah said: “Well, I do wish you’d catch me up on things.

Mrs. Deets, you and Jack seem to have known each other — was it something, shall we say, serious?”

“Oh, heavens no. We all grew up together, that’s all.”

At least it cleared the air, so we could talk. But there was none of that remember-the-time-when that people generally have if they’re holding a reunion, which told me Denny knew everything, and didn’t want to talk about it any more than I did. But that easy feeling, once we had it, began to get a little too easy, anyway on Margaret’s end. I mean, Hannah began asking about her family, and Margaret told about her father and mother and “little sister,” and said she was doing everything she could to get them to come out here, as she knew the California climate would do wonders for them, especially her father, who hadn’t been well, and pretty soon her family, and how comfortable they would be in Santa Monica, and stuff like that, seemed to be all she knew to talk about. After dinner I saw Hannah hide a yawn, and fact of the matter it was getting pretty dull. It was dull because you could see that Margaret and Denny were nuts about each other, and I guess that’s about the dullest thing in the world to be around, a happy couple.

Pretty soon Margaret said: “Jack, do you ever sing any more?”

“Not to people I like.”

“He was a boy soprano, Mrs. Branch.”

“Oh, and you heard him?”

“Heard him? I used to play for him.”

“What’s this?”

“Oh, we were in vaudeville together, me with a white dress with a blue sash, Jack in a Buster Brown collar and flowing black tie. Remember, Jack? Or have you forgotten?”

“I’ve been trying to forget it, don’t worry.”

Then Margaret began telling stuff about our tour together. She even remembered the woman that got to bawling over my singing out there in Loew’s State on Broadway, and how we had folded up in the wings from laughing about it, and even remembered the name of the song. It was The Trumpeter, and pretty soon she remembered how it went, and sat down to the piano and transposed it to a low key and I sang it. Hannah sat there listening, then got up and switched off the overhead light, then camped off in a corner with the firelight shooting through her eyes. When I got through she said: “Well, goddam it, you don’t have to make me cry.”

We all laughed and had another drink.

“What was between you, Jack?”

“Me and Margaret?”

“Yes. There was something — more than music.”

“Kid romance was all. I took her to dances, or at least a few dances, when I’d be home from college. On vacation. Stuff like that.”

“Denny knows about it?”

“I imagine so.”

“And still he said nothing? About marrying her?”

“Not a word. And I had no idea of it.”

“Then it was queer.”

“I don’t get it at all.”