CHAPTER THREE

They were to continue to see a great deal of each other, as Grace was not the sort of old-fashioned spouse who is swallowed up by her husband's life. And at first she did manage to meet Anita often, usually when she was troubled and wore what Anita had begun to think of as her "bird of prey" aspect, the signal for some new worry or some new need. She couldn't make any dates, she confided in a tone which tried to be humorous while her eyes exhibited her very real concern. Admirers, both long-established and potential, had suddenly vanished. Or, if she chanced upon one, as she did several times on the street and in restaurants when Anita was with her, their withdrawal was obvious enough to embarrass Anita. They were glad to see Grace; they looked at her with pleasure. Then, when, on leaving, Grace fixed her eyes on them and said, "Why don't you--call me up--sometime?" or, with a measured insistence, "Let's have--a date soon--shall we?" their uneasiness became apparent in the wandering of their eyes and the hasty indefiniteness of their replies.

"Do you see? They couldn't run from me worse if I had the plague!" exclaimed Grace.

Another time, at a dinner party, she sat next to a one-time boy friend who had not been entirely tractable in his day because of doubts as to her status. Such overtures as she cared to make now, however, had been circumspectly passed by. "My Gawd! You ought to have seen the _respect_ with which he treated me," said Grace, with some alarm in spite of her satisfaction.

She applied to Anita: "Letty says it's because I've just been married and they think I can't want to make dates with other men, that I'm only--kidding them." Her eyes implored Anita for serious consideration.

Anita thought it might be so.

"If they only knew!" wailed Grace.

"Blake has a girl now," she said disconsolately. "A nice little chorus girl. He has quite a crush on her. He says it's such fun to use the old line and tell the old stories to some girl who drinks them in as if they were new." An indulgent smile hovered about her mouth. "I know--just how he feels."

After a pause she was struck by a thought which, it occurred to Anita, probably had been in the back of her mind all the time. She raised her eyes and tested the ground with her phrases. "I thought--I might even start something--with Dennis," she said. "I'm that desperate!" She added, "That is, if you don't mind."

Anita could not help chuckling. "You'd better apply to Dennis."

"Oh, Dennis!" said Grace confidently.

But Anita was not so sure, since Dennis was in the throes of the very fate Grace had foreseen. The very girl of her prophecy apparently, a sweet, firm little creature, whose tactics Anita noted with admiration, had Dennis in tow, or so nearly in tow that it didn't matter. He went about proclaiming over convivial tables, "To think that a sweet little girl like that should care for a bum like me!"

However, it was not long before Grace came to call on Anita in a happier frame of mind; she had a job, a better job than the old. She wanted to borrow Anita's house in order to entertain a new swain that evening. Blake had planned to stay in and work, thus making her own home unavailable.

"It feels so strange to have to borrow apartments again," she complained. "Ironic, isn't it? For the first time since I left Ma I haven't--even a nook--I can feel is quite my own."

She looked around Anita's room with the disappointment with which it always filled her. The house stood in the old Chelsea district on a block that was still pimpled with tenement houses. Though it shone to the point of bedizenment with varnish and fresh paint, it was a rickety, meager little house. And Anita's home was so bare--bare floors, nearly bare walls, painted furniture and not much of it that seemed stripped to the bone; color, charming and harmonious color, that decorated instead of softening. The vague, comfortable, and comforting quality in a room that makes one sink into it and wish to stay in it, the quality meant by "lived in," which has nothing to do with taste, which means only perhaps that the room is accustomed to people, needs them, is ready to adapt itself under their eyes to whatever they require of it--this quality was missing here. Grace was always a little on the verge of leaving in Anita's home.

The second summer of their marriage, the Andrews' went to London to put on one of Blake's shows. Grace's return was heralded by such a vigorous determination to get Anita to go apartment hunting with her and by such a mound of worries in connection with her father and mother-in-law, who had moved East with Blake's child, that the mere sound of her voice began to bring to Anita the immediate, warning reflex, "What does she want now?" By the following year, Anita barely knew that Blake had thought of taking a house in Great Neck, buying a house, perhaps, as Grace informed her dejectedly in the course of a sudden telephone call. This overture brought the same reflex with it, had the sound of a distress call from a proud liner to a humble little tramp steamer which never would have got the least attention otherwise. Anita had long ago resolved not to make initial advances to Grace because, unless these came at the propitious moment, Grace did not trouble to disguise their inconvenience. A remnant of gratitude still caused her to feel that she ought to come when whistled to, but she was so disinclined that Grace had been compelled to offer inducements other than that personal company which is usually considered sufficient for old friends.

"Well, since you can't have dinner with me," she had said at last incredulously, "if we do take the house, you must come out for a week-end. I'll let you know."

Nor did Grace forget. Anita was an assistant now, instead of a secretary, and one day, in the absence of the chief, the employment bureau's press agent "hung" a story on to her. The afternoon that story appeared, Grace called up to congratulate and to give a definite invitation. It seemed more than a coincidence to Anita. What a perfect scent for success Grace had! Nevertheless she felt ashamed almost at once of so cynical an appraisement and scolded herself. It was kind of Grace to ask her out; it was indeed a long time since they had seen each other. She agreed to call for Grace on Saturday afternoon.

Grace was working for a theatrical producer and had her name on the elevator directory, her name on the door, a stenographer and a room almost to herself, concrete evidences of her rise which she felt she ought to acknowledge ironically so that no one could think she was proud of them or that they really meant anything to her.

A new musical comedy was being cast and, as Grace shared her office with the man who "saw" people for it, she with her appurtenances was almost swamped by a collection of show folks who stood, sat, chatted, were quiet, yet nevertheless had all the same attitude and the same expression--the patient attitude, the waiting face. The man who saw people, of course, had not yet returned from lunch, might not return at all that day, as Anita heard Grace reply a dozen times within the few minutes. At the same time, she was carrying on a telephone conversation with the press agent for a charity ball who wished her to urge the cast of _We Are Three_ to attend for the good of the firm--and the ball. While Anita waited, she concluded the talk, scribbled some notes on her date pad, and declared, "That's all I'm going to do for Sweet Charity _this_ bright Saturday afternoon." She picked up a large, pale blue silky straw hat from her desk and made for the door, only to be summoned back by a fresh ring of the phone. It was the dramatic editor of the Weehawken, New Jersey, High School _Gazetteer_, demanding free tickets to review _We Are Three_. Grace rolled her eyes in despair and said politely that she was sorry but this was impossible as the show was selling out. "You see," she confided gravely, "I would be glad to--oblige you but I am not even allowed tickets for the daily paper people.... Yes.... Later perhaps.... Good-bye. Come along," she gasped to Anita, "before any more pests call up."

Once outside, she tucked her hat over her hair, using the glass of the elevator shaft as a mirror, and heaved a great sigh of relief.

"I can't bear to be around when there's casting," she said. "All this week I've been grabbing my hat at odd hours and dashing out of the office. They're so--pitiful! It's no good telling them Mr. Whoozis won't be in, probably'll _never_ be in. They won't believe. And they won't go. I don't see how you can stand having people come to you for jobs day in, day out."

"Oh, well... It's rather nice anyhow when you have the jobs to distribute," said Anita. "You ought to know. You've found work for plenty of people."

Grace sniggered. "Yes. Blake says I ought to open--an employment bureau on the side. I've even got into the bad habit of suggesting girls I run across for his shows."

She was wearing a pale blue silk blouse and skirt, minutely tucked and pleated by way of flaunting its simplicity. The color, so unusual for her, had by its novelty the effect of emphasizing anew the hazy glow which her skin shed under the summer sun, the gentle fullness which her cheeks now had. She looked lovelier than ever, Anita thought, and said so.

"That's a nice dress you have on, too," said Grace, scrutinizing the green of Anita's summer jersey. "The nicest I've ever seen on you. I suppose it's--by way of celebration?"

The warning signal jerked in Anita's brain while she hated herself for it. She was liking Grace so much at the moment.

"And that reminds me," went on Grace, "speaking of jobs and all. You wouldn't need--a stenographer--would you? My little cousin is looking for work."

"No. We've already got one," said Anita shortly. After a moment she amended: "It's not exactly in my line; we're only supposed to get work for adolescents or the handicapped. But I run across all kinds of jobs. I'll--I'll watch out for her."

"I'll let you know," were words Anita had sworn would never, never pass her lips.

They had still to call for Blake at a theater where he was rehearsing a road company of his last show--he now staged his own shows, Grace explained.

They walked a few blocks which seemed surprisingly gay and sunny. White structures had sprung up everywhere, taking the place of the squat old tortured frontages--a slender and glittering generation, slimly arrogant, flaunting a hard chastity of line in a sunlight that, striking full on every revealed angle, could not abash but only made them more shining. The theater was new and also white. The asphalt in front of it had but just been laid and returned to the sun a million infinitesimal sparks, as if it were set with diamantes.

They went around by the stage entrance and found some chorus girls issuing brightly and, just within the open door, talking to Jerry Barker, a man of whom Anita could observe at first solely the crease made by fat above the pink-striped collar of his shirt. Coming nearer, she was disconcerted to recognize Blake. She had seen less of him than of Grace and had not met him at all these last months. Hitherto, a slight expansiveness in his bearing and appearance, an ease of flesh and movement due to prosperity, had been attractive. But all Anita could think of now was how the flesh had finally spread and filled every inch of his fine gray suit. Her expression must have been obvious. Blake said almost at once, in the unconscious avowal of one who knows just what the fault is for which he desires to forestall blame, "I'm going to reduce." However, at the same time he looked at Anita hopefully, as if trying to judge from her face whether, after all, it would really be necessary to reduce. To Anita's surprise, he remarked, "You look well yourself" (the first time she had attracted so much of social amiability from Blake), and asked them to wait with Jerry while he fetched his car from the garage.

They were waiting thus when the principals tripped out. All of them greeted Jerry and several greeted Grace. Then followed a few chorus men and finally a last relay of chorus girls. A few of these also knew Grace and waved to her as they walked into the street. One girl left her companion for a moment and dashed over.

"How nice you look, Grace!" she exclaimed, running her eyes over the large hat and the pale blue of the dress.

"Thank you."

"You look so stylish!" added the girl. "Real up-to-date," she pronounced with an approving nod of her head, and sped away.

There had been a frigid note in Grace's voice which did not quite accord with the quizzical glance she gave Anita. "I suppose I'm just another little-wife-in-navy-blue-georgette to them. Probably because I wear sleeves in the daytime," she murmured.