The Slipper (41 page)

“Bye, Jim! Thanks for the racers.”

“Bye, tiger. I'll call you later, Julie.”

After Jim left, Julie helped Danny put away his new toys, and then she sat in the large gray velour chair that matched the sofa and looked at the liquor cabinet and decided no, she wouldn't have another glass of wine. She hadn't eaten a bite since lunch—Hannah had fed Danny before she brought him down—but she was much too weary to go back into the kitchen and cook something. How she used to love to cook for Doug. How she had dreamed of lavish meals on fine china while she warmed a can of soup or prepared tuna salad. Doug was dead now, his life snuffed out in an instant. She remembered that virile young prince who had stepped into the McCanns' bathhouse wearing only a brief red swimsuit and his black horn-rims. Something seemed to snap inside, something that had been there like a tight, hard knot ever since she saw the article and the picture in the newspaper. Julie started as Danny caught hold of her legs and pulled himself into her lap. She held him very close, very tight.

“I love you, Mommy,” he said sleepily.

“I love you, too.”

“I
like
the clothes.”

“I'm glad you do, precious.”

“You gotta go to the television tomorrow?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“I thought maybe you could stay home and we could play with them tin soldiers Auntie Carol sent me.”

“I wish I could.”

“Hannah's no fun. Guess I'll have to play with 'em by myself.”

He yawned and, nestling his head against her bosom, was soon fast asleep. Julie held him close, her lower lip trembling. The crepe paper streamers and clusters of balloons bobbed gently overhead. There was a muted rumble as the elevator doors opened, closed, laughter and footsteps in the hall. The tears Julie had been fighting all day long finally fell now, sliding down her cheeks in glistening trails. It was a long, long time before she finally carried her son to his bedroom and put him to bed.

Nora left Sunday night, taking the red-eye to Los Angeles, and the following Saturday Jim and Julie took Danny to a puppet show in the village, then had a festive hot dog lunch on a bench in Washington Square, undeterred by the cold. Jim took them back to the apartment and left for his matinee performance, and a weary, fretting Danny protested noisily when Julie told him it was time for his nap. She finally subdued him and a few minutes later he was sleeping peacefully, cheek on pillow, knees drawn up, derriere elevated, a soft blue blanket covering him. Julie settled down on the couch with the script of a new play Sonia had sent her. It was to be produced off Broadway, Sonia knew the director and he happened to be a fan of
This Life of Ours
and thought Julie would be perfect for the part of Cassie. She was to read for him, the writer and the producers next Tuesday.

A dark comedy,
At the Robert E. Lee
was set in a sleazy, decrepit hotel on the Lower East Side run by a dotty old southern gentlewoman who is very fond of her pink gin fizzes and has no idea the young ladies renting her rooms walk the streets for a living. Her nephew, a shy, awkward, straitlaced youth from Virginia, comes to put his aged, certifiable aunt into the funny farm and sell the hotel to a firm that wants to tear it down and build a parking lot. The ladies of the evening are determined to prevent this, and Cassie, a raucous blonde, is their ringleader. Jake is smitten with her, wants to reform her, and antic complications ensue before the inevitable happy ending. The play was biting, witty, full of satire and social commentary, and Cassie was a dream part. She was tough, tart and, of course, had a heart of gold, with a tender and moving scene toward the end of the play when a drunken Lavinia is about to be carted off and the girls evicted. Though it owed much to Albee and Joe Orton,
At the Robert E. Lee
had brassy energy and a wonderfully gritty good humor. Julie fell in love with it immediately. What a joy it would be to play something besides the long-suffering Meg, she thought, putting the script aside.

She could play Cassie, she knew she could, and if she got the part and the play was successful she might even be able to leave
This Life of Ours
. Her contract was up for renewal on April 1, and there was already talk about a considerable raise in salary. How glorious it would be to bid them adieu and let the writers have Meg mowed down by Chinese gangsters or run over by a beer truck or something equally preposterous. Pouring a glass of white wine, lighting a fresh cigarette, Julie thought about how nice it would be to work in front of a live audience instead of a mute camera. And if she was in a successful play, if she could give up the soap, there would be plenty of time during the day for Danny. He would only have to stay with Hannah during the evenings when she was at the theater and Hannah would probably be willing to keep him down here so he could go to sleep in his own bed.

Loud knocking on the door startled Julie out of her revery, and she got up and crushed out her cigarette, wondering who it could possibly be. They had a buzzer, a doorman below, and, with the exception of Jim, who was always allowed to come right on up, all visitors were announced. It was barely four. Jim was still at the theater. Perhaps it was a delivery boy. Julie opened the door. She stared at Gus Hammond in stunned amazement.

He looked smaller, as though he had shrunk with age, a grizzled little man with squint lines around icy slate-blue eyes and a face weathered by the fierce Oklahoma sun. His hair was completely gray now. He must be in his mid-sixties, she thought, and he looked it. He wore tooled leather boots and a beautifully tailored tan suit and a black string tie with a silver-and-turquoise tie holder at the throat, Oklahoma attire, strangely incongruous here in New York. The expensive clothes somehow only emphasized the wizened face and the nut-hard quality of the man who wore them. Julie remembered that terrible scene in his study when he had slammed his fist into Doug's jaw and knocked him down and called her a little slut and told Doug he was going to have to marry her. It was like a nightmare still, in memory.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“It took weeks. I hired a private detective. He finally tracked you down for me.”

The man with the newspaper. She understood now.

“Aren't you going to ask me in?”

His voice was as harsh and gravelly as she remembered, a voice acquired in the oil fields, shouting orders at roughnecks. She moved aside and he stepped into the foyer and she closed the door and led him into the living room. There was a framed photograph of Danny, taken three months ago, standing on top of the liquor cabinet. Hammond spotted it at once and went over to examine it. Julie picked up her glass of wine and finished it. Although she knew he had no power over her, no possible means of harming her, Julie was still apprehensive. What could he possibly want with her after all these years? Why had he hired a private detective to track her down? Hammond finally turned away from the photograph. His eyes were misty. She realized that he was a lonely, miserable old man, and all his millions were little solace to him now.

“How did you get up here without the doorman announcing you?” she asked.

“I told him I was your father-in-law. I said I wanted to surprise you. I gave him a very generous tip.”

“I see.”

“I was afraid you wouldn't let me come up.”

“I probably wouldn't have.”

“I wonder if I could have something to drink?”

“Certainly. Scotch?”

He nodded. Julie poured the drink and handed it to him. He drank it down in three rapid gulps. She lighted another cigarette. She could see the disapproval in his eyes. Nice girls didn't smoke. Nice girls didn't keep liquor in their living rooms. To hell with his judgments. She was no longer a pathetic little fifteen-year-old girl. What could it possibly matter what he thought about her now?

“He looks exactly like Doug,” he said, indicating the photograph.

“He does indeed,” she said coldly.

“I didn't know—I wasn't sure—” His voice seemed to crack and he took a moment to compose himself. “Af—after my son died I found out through his divorce lawyer that you were pregnant when Doug left you. He told me you'd moved to New York. I—I had to find you. I had to see if—if it was true, if my son had indeed had a child.”

“I had a child,” she said. “Your son didn't. Your son wanted nothing to do with it. Your son never even inquired to see if I had given birth. He died without knowing, or caring, whether or not he was a father.”

“You have a right to be bitter, Julie.”

“I suppose I do.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm extremely busy, Mr. Hammond. I have several things I need to do this afternoon. What do you want?”

“I want to—” Again his voice seemed to crack. He looked very uncomfortable. “I—I'm a harsh man, Julie. I fully realize that. I'm crude and uneducated, a tough son of a bitch who just happened to hit it lucky and make a fortune. I never had any illusions about myself, but—I wanted something better for my boy. When he let me down, I—because of my disappointment and in the heat of anger I did him a grave injustice. I did you an injustice, too. I had second thoughts later on, but I had too goddamned much pride to—to make amends for my action. I let my boy walk out of my life and now he's gone, and I have to—I have to live with what I did.”

Julie said nothing. She remembered, and she refused to feel sorry for him now.

“I can never make it up to Doug,” he said. “It's too late for that. If you'll let me, perhaps I can make it up to you—and to my grandson.”

“You want to give us money?”

“I—yes. I've got millions, Julie. Millions and millions, and I have no one. I'm all alone. I'm sixty-six years old and the second richest man in the whole goddamned state and I live in a huge monster of a house with thirty rooms and no one to talk to except servants. I—I'm lonely,” he confessed, and she knew that confession cost a great deal to a man with his thorny pride.

“I'm sorry about that,” she said.

“Let me—”

“Danny and I want nothing from you, Mr. Hammond. Some of your money might have been welcome when Doug was struggling to get his law degree and I was working eight hours a day as a waitress to help him through, when we were living in a dingy basement with exposed pipes in the living room and not enough money for decent clothes or—or sometimes not even enough food, but—no, thank you, Mr. Hammond. I managed to support your son until he no longer had need of me, and I'm making a very good living for my own son now. We don't need you. We don't need your millions.”

“You're very hard,” he said harshly.

“Perhaps I am. Perhaps I've had to become that way in order to survive.”

“This place, this neighborhood—” Hammond made a sweeping gesture, taking in the whole West Side. “This is no place for my grandson to grow up in. When the limousine stopped in front of this building I saw niggers and Puerto Ricans and I happen to know you share this apartment with a Jew.”

Julie made no reply. She lighted another cigarette.

“The kind of work you do, the people you associate with—” His face hardened, the lonely old man supplanted by the harsh, angry Hammond she recalled so vividly. “It's not a decent atmosphere for a child. This actor you're sleeping with, he's little better than a hoodlum. I don't intend to see my grandson grow up in—”

“I think you'd better leave, Mr. Hammond.”

“I intend to see my grandson.”

“Danny's taking a nap. I have no intention of disturbing him. Will you leave quietly, or shall I buzz the lobby and have them send up a security guard to escort you out?”

Gus Hammond glared at her, his blue eyes blazing with hostility, his hands balled into fists, fists planted on his thighs, his stance that of a cocky bantam pugilist. Julie emitted a plume of smoke, took another drag on her cigarette, gazing at him with level violet-blue eyes that belied the nervous turmoil within. She wasn't intimidated by him, she told herself. She wasn't going to let him bully her as he had bullied everyone else for most of his life. He had no legal rights whatsoever, and when it came to her son's welfare she was ready to fight like a veritable tiger.

“I intend to see my grandson,” he repeated.

“You wrecked your son's life, Mr. Hammond,” she told him, and even as the words left her lips she realized their cruelty. “I'm not going to allow you to wreck Danny's. I'm not going to allow you anywhere near him.”

“You fucking little tramp. You're not
fit
to bring up my grandson!”

Julie stepped over to the buzzer, her finger poised over the button. “Are you going to leave, Mr. Hammond?”

“You're going to regret this,” he promised.

Hammond stormed out then, slamming the door so savagely that Nora's framed
Publishers Weekly
cover tumbled to the floor. Shaken, her legs trembling, Julie collapsed into the large gray chair. Danny came toddling sleepily into the room, awakened by the noise. He rubbed his eyes and looked around in alarm and Julie smiled at him and held her arms out. He climbed up into her lap, and she told him there was nothing to be alarmed about and told him a story to distract him. Later on, after she had calmed down, she took him into the kitchen and he helped her make cookies, stirring the batter himself, slopping only a fourth of it onto the counter. No one's ever going to take you away from me, my darling, she promised silently. I'd kill before I'd let that happen.

On Tuesday afternoon, after she left the studio, Julie read for Hank Stevens, the director, and Aaron Vinton, the author of
At the Robert E. Lee
, and the three men and one woman who were to produce it. Standing on the bare, darkened stage, only one light making a hazy pool stage center, she did the scene toward the end of the second act where the raucous, tough-as-nails Cassie tearfully informs Jake that the Robert E. Lee is Lavinia's life, that she will die if taken away, that the Robert E. Lee is the only home she and the other girls have ever known and begs him to reconsider. She gave a good reading, she knew that, and she wasn't really surprised when Sonia, who was also her agent, phoned two days later to tell her they had unanimously decided to give her the part.