U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [452]
-334-Schrafft's and had chickenpatties for lunch al by herself in the middle of the crowd of cackling women shoppers. She already had a date to meet Mr. A that evening at a French speakeasy on Fiftysecond Street where they often ate dinner. When she got back from having her hair
washed and waved it was too early to get dressed but she started fiddling around with her clothes anyway because she didn't know what else to do, and it was so quiet and lonely in the empty apartment. She took a long time doing her nails and then started trying on one dress after an-other. Her bed got al piled with rumpled dresses. Everything seemed to have spots on it. She was almost crying when she at last slipped her furcoat over a paleyel ow eveningdress that had come from Piquot's but that she wasn't sure about, and went down in the shabby elevator into the smel y hal way of the apartmenthouse. The ele-vatorboy fetched her a taxi. There were white columns in the hal of the oldfash-ioned wealthy family residence converted into a restaurant, and a warm expensive pinkish glow of shaded lights. She felt cozier than she'd felt al day as she stepped in on the thick carpet. The headwaiter bowed her to a table and she sat there sipping an oldfashioned, feeling the men in the room looking at her and grinning a little to herself when she thought what the girls at Piquot's would have said about a dame who got to a date with the boyfriend ahead of time. She wished he'd hurry up and come, so that she could tel him the story and stop imagining how poor old Piquot must have looked slumped down in his bathtub, dead from cyanide. It was al on the tip of her tongue ready to tel .
Instead of Mr. A a freshlooking youngster with a long sandy head and a lantern jaw was leaning over her table. She straightened herself in her chair to give him a dirty look, but smiled up at him when he leaned over and said in a Brooklyn confidential kind of voice,
"Miss Dowlin'
-335-. . . excuse it . . . I'm Mr. Anderson's secretary. He had to hop the plane to Detroit on important business. He knew you were crazy to go to the Music Box opening, so he sent me out to get tickets. Here they are, I pretty near had to blackjack a guy to get 'em for you. The boss said maybe you'd like to take Mrs. Mandevil e." He had been talking fast, like he was afraid she'd shut him up; he drew a deep breath and smiled. Margo took the two green tickets and tapped them
peevishly on the tablecloth. "What a shame . . . I don't know who I could get to go now, it's so late. She's in the country."
"My, that's too bad. . . . I don't suppose I could pinchhit for the boss?"
"Of al the gal . . ." she began; then suddenly she found herself laughing. "But you're not dressed."
"Leave it to me, Miss Dowlin'. . . . You eat your sup-per and I'l come back in a soup an'
fish and take you to the show."
Promptly at eight there he was back with his hair
slicked, wearing a rustylooking dinnerjacket that was too short in the sleeves. When they got in the taxi she asked him if he'd hijacked a waiter and he put his hand over his mouth and said, "Don't say a wold, Miss Dowlin' . . . it's hired." Between the acts, he pointed out al the celebrities to her, including himself. He told her that his name was Clifton Wegman and that everybody cal ed him Cliff and that he was twentythree years old and could play the man-dolin and was a little demon with pocket bil iards.
"Wel , Cliff, you're a likely lad," she said.
"Likely to succeed?"
"I'l tel the world."
"A popular graduate of the New York School of Busi-ness . . . opportunities wanted." They had the time of their lives together. After the
-336-show Cliff said he was starved, because he hadn't had his supper, what with chasing the theatertickets and the tuck and al , and she took him to the Club Dover to have a bite to eat. He surely had an appetite. It was a pleasure to see him put away a beefsteak with mushrooms. They had home drinks there and laughed their heads off at the floorshow, and, when he tried to get fresh in the taxicab, she slapped his face, but not very hard. That kid could talk himself out of anything.