Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [40]
But when his letters came they did not match her mood. Discontent and some petulance, and though she snatched at the love passages, she had to be honest with herself and admit that they read more like postscript material. She blamed the heat of New York and Reading and felt sorry for him and said so in her replies. He was the man all during her first trip to Europe whom she missed, with whom she wanted to share the fun of her discovery of foreign lands. And she missed him very much. Then she got a letter from him that soured her trip, or at least divided it into two phases. He wrote and wrote, for pages, but it all boiled down to one thing, which in subsequent days she recognized to be true: ... The truth is, darling, some kind of fate threw us together, but the same fate kept us apart the night before you sailed. Those people were fated to come and take you away from me that night. I have a feeling that if they hadn t, you would have put into practice that theory that you spoke of the night we went swimming. But they did come, didn’t they? That being the case, you went away without putting your theory into practice and since then I have spoiled it as far as we re concerned with another girl. So I suppose this ought to be quits. I feel like the devil ...
She didn’t believe the words, and then she wanted to cable him that another girl couldn’t make a difference. She loved him, and she regretted as much as he did that she had not spent her last night in New York with him. If only she could have talked to him. But that was impossible, and letters or cables were no good. Late in the afternoon of the day she got the letter she groped through to an explanation for the shock of his letter (which, however, did not make her any less unhappy): he had jolted her by being, so far as she knew, the first man who had tried to be honest with her. Reason did that for her, and then for the first time in her life she made up her mind to get drunk. And that night she did get drunk, with a handsome young Harvard Jew, who turned out to be something fancy in her sex life; he took her by easy stages down the scale of Paris entertainment, ending with a circus. She didn’t remember about that until the next afternoon, when the memory, which she knew she could not have dreamt, came through her hangover. Then and there she wanted to pack and go home, but Is Stannard saved her sanity. When Lib McCreery had gone out to do some shopping Is came in and sat on Caroline s bed. Where did Henry take you last night?
Oh, God. If I only knew.
Were you that blotto?
Oh, Lord, said Caroline. Don t you remember anything?
Very little.
Did he do you remember going to a place where a man and a woman you know?
I think so. I m afraid so.
That s where he took me, too. I thought I d die when I went with him. I don t understand him. I wasn’t nearly so drunk as you were. I remember. Every detail. But I can t understand Henry. He never touched me. All he did was to keep watching me. He didn’t watch them, just me. I think he must have got pleasure out of the effect it had on me, those people. I don t think we d better see that crowd again, that he goes around with. He wants me to go again and he wants you to come.
God, I feel so terrible. Do you think he did anything to me? said Caroline. Oh, no. I m sure he didn t. He gets some kind of pleasure out of watching us. There are people like that. You never went the limit, did you, Callie?
No.
Neither did I, and I think someone like Henry can tell that just by looking at you. I really do.
Then why does he oh, I wish I were home.
Don t worry. You notice he didn’t ask Lib. I ve thought for years that Lib had an affair, probably more than one. So you and I are together on this. Just don t say anything about it to Lib, and if Henry becomes too insistent we can leave Paris. Can I get you some aspirin or something?
Caroline had had her scare, and she got drunk no more. For the rest of her trip she traded nothing but her dancing ability for the attentions of the English-speaking young men who were attracted to her; and for a year after that the frightening experience with Henry What s His Name, and the disillusioning and humiliating experience with Joe Montgomery dictated her preference in men: they had to be clean, preferably blond, and not in the least glamorous or unusually attractive. Back home, she had nothing to do in Gibbsville except to play bridge with the girls in the afternoon bridge clubs, and the mixed clubs in the evening; to take a course in shorthand and typewriting at the Gibbsville Business College, with vague notions of a winter in New York in the front of her mind; to turn out for the Tuesday women s golf tournament-and-luncheon; to wheedle contributions on the various tag days; to act as chauffeuse for her mother, who could not learn to drive a combustion-engine car; to give her share of parties. She kept her weight under 115 pounds. She bobbed her hair. She drank a little more than the sociable amount, and she grew mildly profane. She came to know herself to be the most attractive of the Lantenengo Street girls. Without getting the rush that the girls still in school would get at dances, she still was more universally popular; the boys in the school crowd danced with her and so did the males of all ages up to forty, and a few did who were more than forty. She never had to pretend that she was having a better time sitting with a highball than she did on the dance floor. The girls she knew liked her without calling her a good sport or trusting her too far with their husbands or fianc?. They really did trust her, but they did not trust their men. At the beginning of the summer of 1926 she recapitulated, and acknowledged that she was getting a little hard. She saw most frequently Julian English, Harry Reilly, Carter Davis, and a man from Scranton named Ross Campbell. Julian English was a habit, and she suspected that he went on seeing her because she never said anything about his Polish girl, who was reputed to be beautiful, but whom no one had seen. Harry Reilly was lavish and considerate; in his way, so crazy about her that he was almost self-effacing. Carter Davis was too predictable; she was certain she could tell how many years it would be before the day came when Carter stopped drinking and trying to pick up Irish girls after church Sunday night, and settled down and married a Lantenengo Street girl. But it won