CHAPTER FOUR

On the way out, Grace and Anita sat in the back seat, Jerry in front with Blake. Grace said that Letty had been asking about her and that soon they must "all get together." Only, it was difficult to arrange for week-ends; there were so many people one had to invite.

Anita was embarrassed, sensing a subtle apology which Grace, in fact, did feel that she owed. Grace had always declared that when she had a house Anita would be free to come and go in it. She had found, however, that a hostess who wishes her hospitality to be effective is like a producer who must choose his players for the contributions each can make to the success of the show. Anita was simply "not the type." Grace didn't believe Anita cared. She remembered that she had asked her up now and then for dinner when no other people would be present and Anita had not seemed very eager. Nor had Anita ever shown much interest in the crowd. But she certainly did not wish Anita to feel, because of the necessary gaps in their social relationship, that Anita had been dropped as a friend.

Anita turned the subject by inquiring after Letty.

Letty did not look so well, Grace said; her hair had a lot of gray in it. "She says all she seems to do now is take care of her child and sit around and watch 'us active people.' But Harold is getting to be--quite the ladies' man. He sends roses to Evelyn Linden whenever they have a date."

"To Evelyn Linden? I shouldn't think Harold would be interested in Evelyn Linden."

"Harold and Evelyn Linden?" said Grace, and took on her remote look of having and withholding secret information. "Is _that_ going on? Oh, my! Apace!"

Anita knew of old that Grace's omniscience demanded an audience. But there was a tinge of satisfaction, almost of malice, in her tone which took Anita by surprise. It was almost as if she enjoyed the advantage over people of knowing something about them--liked to "have something on them."

"Evelyn Linden as good as told Letty," went on Grace after a pause, "that if it weren't for their friendship the affair would be--serious."

"And what did Letty say?"

"Said it was all right with her. But I don't think she cares for the idea especially. I notice she and Evelyn don't see so much of each other. However--that is not why Letty looks as she does. It's because--she has no one now. She's hunting around, as it were. I've always said there was nothing like love to improve one's appearance," she concluded with unction.

Anita was aware that Grace glanced at her expectantly. She made no answer. She had begun to suffer from the same strange, harried tension in Grace's presence that she had felt at their last meeting, as if she were running a sort of race with Grace's troubles, flying before Grace's inevitable confidences, yet not being able to avoid glimpses of them out of the corner of her eye (as one subconsciously follows the movements of a pursuer) and at the same time being obliged instinctively to protect her own.

It was a relief anyhow not to be shown through the house, a temporary one and therefore, though lavish enough, not considered worth the showing. Anita had decided that the showing of houses was a mania inherent in suburbs, to which even people who would never dream of exhibiting a city apartment succumbed. She was grateful not to be forced to eulogize her surroundings. The living room was large and cool as a cave, with half-drawn shades and curtains of a thin beige silk through which the sun oozed yellowly, and the couch and armchairs, disposed about the brick fireplace, allowed one to sink as into feather beds. There was an enormous piano and an only slightly less enormous radio and a glossy phonograph from which Grace drew the melodious sorrows of a Negro spiritual. Grace had adopted "Water Boy" to be intelligently and critically ecstatic over as Anita recollected she had once adopted the plump little f's of a well-known illustrator, and she insisted on analyzing the effect of "Water Boy" upon her soul as she had once insisted on analyzing the effect of the little f's.

They ate Virginia ham and spinach and marshmallowed sweet potatoes and a pudding of a golden flakiness that had slices of rose gelatin tucked into it. There was a white-aproned Negro cook in the background and a red-cheeked youngster, a "mother's helper," who waited on table.

Blake had apparently turned over his child to Mother Andrews (Grace's name for her mother-in-law) as the result of an old agreement that he was to be relieved of all that harassed and be tendered only that which could be enjoyed. She was mild, pretty, faded, with thin lips, and she sat obscurely at table. The boy, Jamie, sat by her and received from her, in an undertone, the few corrections which he disregarded with an almost exact copy of Blake's manner of disregard. Grace had said that Jamie was just like Blake.

He was still a little shy with Grace, and she was not so foolish as to throw herself abjectly, sweating with the anxiety for approval, on a child's mercies. She had once explained to Anita that she believed the best way to get his affection was, with a child as with a grown-up, always to leave some concrete evidence of good-will. When Jamie had first come East, and she used to visit him with Blake, she had never appeared empty-handed. She still returned to the formula from time to time. To-day she had brought him a book of stories and pictures of pirates.

After dinner he came to her side in the living room and took her hand, looking sideways in embarrassment and flushing a little, in token of thanks. He wished to have the pictures explained. The two girls put their heads together to concoct suitable versions under the watchful eyes of Mother Andrews. She said nary a word. But Anita, as Grace had managed to convey while they stood for a moment by the piano and waited for the others to leave the dining room, had used the word "devil" at table in front of the child. It seemed that Mother Andrews had revised certain words for Jamie. A devil must not be termed a "devil" before him but suffered a saccharine change and become a "monkey."

The child listened with wide-open, clear blue eyes, across which a flash, caused by a deep breath, shot now and again. They knew he was pleased only because he offered, with his sideways look and flush, to show them how he "took falls." They went to the door and watched him in the fading light tumble down on the cropped lawn many times and regain his balance gracefully, swiftly. "You'll have to disown him," said Grace to Blake. "He'll turn into a hoofer yet." Blake made a face. Hoofers were people he professed most to detest. The child looked from one to the other avidly, not understanding but sensing another reserve that perhaps ought to hedge him in.

However, in spite of his outward detachment, Blake looked up when Jamie was sent to bed and waited and bent his cheek forward for the good-night kiss. The boy went on to Grace and kissed her, too, then lingered before Anita, who had lit a cigarette. It was the cigarette that held his attention. No doubt he had been told that every cigarette was a nail in one's coffin. He looked like that. At length he made up his mind not to notice her. He hastened by without so much as a murmur, turning and peering at her as he made his farewells to the others and sending her one last, clear-blue, reticent gaze from behind the banister at the foot of the stairs. Then he could bear it no longer and revealed the judgment which had been on the tip of his tongue. "Ladies don't smoke," he said.

Anita was irritated enough to ask, "Who told you that?" despite Grace's optic warning.

"It said so in a book," he replied securely.

"Is that so?" said Anita, less to the child than for the benefit of Mother Andrews. "There are a lot of other things in books. For instance, it says in a book, 'Children should be seen and not heard.' Do you believe that?"

They all laughed, even Mother Andrews, and the child himself saw the point and bent his head a little ruefully. But no one spoke. Blake wore an air of assent, rather than otherwise, to the child's prudishness.

Mother Andrews went up to bed soon after, making various tactful signals to her husband to remove himself also. She was very good about that, Grace whispered, in contrast to Dad Andrews, whom Grace liked better but whose delight in the company of young folks made him often far too stationary. He sat on for a long time that night, nice-looking, gentle, youngish, and rather wistful except when the numerous opinions he had formed about the theater and the traffic situation, even in so short a period, led him to inject himself into the talk. Blake set his chin and ignored the interruptions until the constant calls of his mother from above finally tore Dad away. Then Grace, sighing with relief, wished to know what they meant to do with the rest of the evening. "Marie Drum wants us to come over and see her house," she said, to Anita's alarm. The men debated whether or not they would work.

"Or we might go over to Olive Lytell's," added Grace. "I had to see her at the theater last night and she said she was giving a party."

"Well, why don't you and Anita go over while we work?" suggested Blake with unwonted kindness.

But Grace said decidedly that she would not think of going without him.

They went to the Drums' after all because Marie and Ted Drum burst into the house to fetch them. Ted Drum was--had been--a song-and-dance man and had been featured in one of Blake's shows. He was dark, curly-haired. Grace introduced him as "one of those freaks of Nature who can't read notes and never took a lesson in their lives but who can play any tune on the piano by ear." Marie Drum rhapsodized on the subjects of furniture, landscape gardening, the prices of trees, and the difficulties of getting in touch with their architect. "He's not at his office for weeks and he doesn't answer his telephone. Of course, they say he's a dipso and his private life is smeared all over the place, but I haven't found anyone to suit us so well. The only way to get him is to send him a night letter to his home, I've found. He's got to open a telegram."

"We must remember that," said Blake to Grace--and to the Drums, "I was thinking of getting him myself."

Finally, it seemed easiest to go and inspect the Drums' house.

All bungalows made of pink stucco were exactly like all other bungalows made of pink stucco to Anita. This pinkness stood against the sky, dark blue as it should be, and over the house a slim moon was poised, a wispy, silvery circlet. Marie Drum pointed to it with pride, as if it had been a stage property. Such a nice moon for a pink stucco house! Anita followed in resignation, observing the house from every angle, observing it from top to bottom, observing "cute" staircases and the patchwork quilt in the guest room and the Colonial furnishings of the bedroom and the polished purity of the kitchen and the rosy tiles and pink-embroidered towels of the bathroom, while Marie Drum tripped on feathery feet (she had been a dancer), in a huge black hat which never left her head even in her own home, tripped before them up and down stairs, opening doors and explaining antiques. Grace asked questions about the furniture, after which she made an excuse to Anita, "I may have to choose some myself soon." The Drums had overlooked no accessory that could contribute to their domestic pride. They had a dog and they even had a visitors' book.

The living room was strictly and stiffly Colonial. Balanced sedately on the high-bred chairs, one breathed one's thankfulness to catch sight of a grand piano--and then a radio--and then a ping-pong set. And the white bearskin before the fireplace, spontaneous effusion from the hearts of Ted and Marie Drum in the midst of glacial floor spaces, was like a dear, dear old friend.

While Ted sat down to the piano and strummed popular tunes without ever having taken a lesson, Marie fluttered about, coralling them to sign the visitors' book. Grace took up the pen first, unwillingly, and signed herself, "Grace Kline."

Marie objected. "Oh, no. Sign your full name. What do you want to join the Lucy Stone League for?"

"I _don't_ want to," said Grace. "I don't have to. I can't _get_ anyone to call me anything but Grace Kline. When the grocer says 'Mrs. Andrews,' I jump. Really."

She peeped toward Blake, who was listening. "Well, since you insist..." she remarked and put down an "Andrews."

Marie Drum stood over her. "And write something--write something bright under Remarks." Grace hesitated, then added a dash after "Grace Kline Andrews" and wrote "--By Request!" with a flourish. She watched Blake read it and handed him the pen. He set down firmly, "Blake Andrews," and in the Remarks column he wrote, with a snort, "--By Command!" and threw down the pen.

Marie Drum had to ponder over the comments for a few moments before she saw the point. Then she burst into surprised laughter, calling to the others to come and see. "You little eggs!" she cried. An elaborate smirk was pasted to Grace's face. She was neither abashed nor hurt. It was nothing, she knew. He was quite comfortable, perfectly satisfied. This was just a last obeisance, demanded by the convention of his youthful creed, toward an unattainable freedom which it had been part of the creed to yearn for, but which he had sagaciously never made any attempt to attain and which he would not know what to do with if it could be attained. She sat down by Blake on the bearskin and closed her two hands over his arm in an arch attitude of consolation. They still had moments of embracing in public, or rather of staging their carefully burlesqued yet absorbed caresses, but these were no longer so compelling to watch, no longer acted on the audience as reminders of a love which transcended all obstacles. The audience was even a little impatient; after all, Blake and Grace could very well now embrace in private.

Jerry, who was a good musician, pushed Ted off the piano stool and began to play a song from the show he and Blake were working on.

"What do you think of that?"

Ted nodded and asserted that it ought to be a hit. It made him think, he said, of "Your Kisses Are Blisses," which had been their biggest hit.

"Funny about that," said Jerry reminiscently. "We had every song in the show picked for a hit but that. Blake was all for 'Is There Anything a Little Girl Can't Do?'"

Blake disengaged himself. "I'm still for that," he called. "It's a good lyric and a good tune."

"Maybe it was too much for them to remember," suggested Ted. "A tune ought to be simple, that's my idea."

Marie interrupted to say that this didn't always follow, naming one composer of many hits whose tunes were often complicated. They turned on her in mockery.

"Yeh, but what tunes!" said Jerry. "That fella knows his classics."

They began a rapt discussion of lyrics, tunes, what the public likes, and of what exactly had made "Your Kisses Are Blisses" so popular. Grace kept still, with her eyes fixed on space. During a pause she raised them and articulated gravely, "There's--something I thought--to tell you, Jerry." They all watched her.

"There's one thing that all hit tunes have in common," she pronounced, "whatever the other ingredients may be. They may or may not have words of one syllable, though they usually have. But whatever else they are, they're all--_definite_. For instance, 'Who--Who stole my heart away?' Or, 'Your Kisses--Your kisses are blisses.' _One_ thing to settle in your mind."

There was a long silence while they all somehow felt that they should ruminate on this. Ted roused himself with an effort to prepare drinks. Marie Drum said, "We all go to bed early here," so they stayed only long enough to have some highballs and to play a few games of ping-pong. And then, since it was merely midnight, they trooped forth to a lunch wagon near the station to terminate the night life of Great Neck fittingly with sandwiches and coffee.