Three Women (3 page)

Phil hadn't expected her to agree so quickly. He sat on the edge of his chair, his long-winded efforts to convince her further abruptly interrupted.

"But if I were you," she added more brightly, "I'd stock some art supplies for Paula. She may be wanting to experiment one of these days."

Phil found himself. He came out of the chair and filled Byrne's glass again. "Oh, you're a pal. You're a real pal." He couldn't find an expression big or grand enough. "I love you!"

Not knowing what to do, he bent over and kissed Paula. She moved back from his touch, self-conscious in the presence of this woman.

She wants me to paint, she thought. Without knowing whether I can do anything or not, she's interested in me.

Paula looked past Phil, intensely wanting Byrne to say something more.

Byrne smiled at her, more with her eyes than with her lips, and said, "You are going to try it, you know."

"I'd make a terrible pupil." Paula flushed. She realized that she had practically asked Byrne to teach her.

"Perhaps." Byrne's eyes slowly closed and opened again, changing the grey-green depths to clear emerald. "Perhaps not." Paula felt a tightening thrill at the somehow unnamed implication in Byrne's voice.

To be polite Phil talked on for another fifteen minutes, exuding energy and success, the dimple flitting in and out of his cheek. He stood taller, filling the room with his dark massive physique. He told Byrne pieces of family news. She listened, obviously without interest, nodding occasionally or making some brief comment that showed Paula just how little she really cared about her family. She wondered what this woman did care about. Not money, certainly; not ambition. Without knowing why, Paula wanted this strange person to care about something, anything, to care very much.

Finally, Phil picked up Paula's coat and helped her into it. She buttoned it slowly. Byrne walked with them to the door.

"I'm glad I met you," Paula said in a low voice.

"Are you?" Byrne closed one button she had missed and held her hand there for a moment.

Paula held her breath till the woman released her. She took Phil's arm and moved backward through the doorway.

* * *

In the cold darkness of Phil's Ford, Paula shook herself, realizing that every muscle in her legs ached intensely. She shook herself and tried to stretch out the knots.

"Oh, baby," Phil whispered. "This is it."

"I'm so happy for you." She let him lean across to her and put his mouth on hers. Through the coat she felt the pressure of his hand against her breast.

"It's all right," he said. "It's good. I want to marry you. I'm going to love you forever and we'll have all the good things. No struggling like our folks, honey. And lots and lots of loving."

He moved his head down and rested his cheek against her chest. She looked past him at the lights on the avenue and his voice when he spoke, seemed to come to her from a long distance.

"I'm asking you to be my wife," he whispered.

She put her lips into his hair and the sweet male smell of hair tonic came to her nostrils. "Oh, yes," she murmured. "Oh, yes."

I'm going to be Mrs. Carson, she thought. I'm going to be the wife of this boy. But her feeling was not the fantastic delight she had always expected. With a touch of fright, she realized that this was like seeing a play by sixth graders after having been to Broadway.

She decided that she was tired, that her brain must be as numb as her body. Tomorrow she would know the full meaning of his words and her whole being would burst into the sky in overwhelming celebration.

They stayed quietly together in the darkness until she felt the cold beginning to creep back into her limbs. "Please start the car," she said, "and turn on the heater."

"You're so practical," he replied, sitting up and turning the key in the ignition. "Where's your romance? We've been going together so long that you must think we're married already."

"That's true," she agreed. And maybe that's what it was, actually. She hoped so. With all her heart she hoped so.

"It's still early," he said. "We can go up to Jack's place. I told him not to be home tonight."

"You what?"

"That's right. I knew I was going to ask you tonight, Byrne or no Byrne. I love you so much, Paula. You know how much I love you. But I've never really touched you. Not all the way. And I can't stand it. Not tonight, I can't. Even with all the world so good to me, the one thing that will make it really important is having you. And since we're getting married..."

Wildly she thought: I'll go with him. Ill give him everything he wants. Ill make him happy because I love him and need him.

He swung the car around and stepped hard on the gas. With a free hand he switched on the radio but static jumbled the music and he turned it off again.

They reached Jack's place. Wordlessly she followed him up the musty hallway to the furnished room. Phil got the key from the ledge above the door and let them in.

He kicked the door closed and, standing in the darkness, grabbed her in his arms. She heard the soft thud as one of Jack's cats leaped off the radiator to the floor. Phil reached under her coat and pulled her to him, and his hands were warm, to her flesh. Her own senses began to swim and she released the mounting desire she felt. Her body went limp against the insistent force of his needing. He lifted her up, carried her to the bed, and gently put her down. She felt the weight of his body on her own and soon the touch of his flesh against her skin.

"I love you," she murmured. "Love you... love... you."

Her words merged with passion and the silent darkness was soon witness to their union.

In her own bed at last, Paula tossed fitfully, yearning for a sleep that would not come. It's all right, she kept insisting. It's all right because we're getting married. But it wasn't what she and Phil had done together that made her anxious. It was the insistent thought that soon she would have a husband, then children, and the routine of life would be carved out for her leaving her nothing she could do to change it.

Just early yesterday, there had been nothing in the world more wonderful than to be Mrs. Carson. But suddenly it had become important to discover who she—Paula Temple—really was. Her life, her individual self, seemed terribly precious now. Could she paint? Could she dare to be ambitious for an existence different from being Phil's wife? If Byrne hadn't looked at her like that, if Byrne hadn't said with her eyes that Paula Temple might be a person worth considering...

Byrne must have seen plenty of people in her time. She couldn't have looked at all of them the way she had looked at Paula.

The night dragged on. Paula sought refuge in far off stars that glittered in the eternity of the black heavens. If only she had one particle of the time those stars seemed to have!

No, she had to think of Phil.

She would be crazy not to marry him. How could you have a man one day and the next day want to run madly around the world without him? Marriage had suddenly become a trap. And that was foolish. A woman was made to get married and bear her husband's children. That was maturity, that was being an adult. The rest of life was child's play.

Then I'm a child, her mind screamed. I don't want to get married. Not yet! Not yet! I'm just beginning to live. And once again, Paula saw those slanting eyes that ever changed color and meaning as you looked at them. Dawn crept in. She heard Mike stir and his pillow fall to the floor. She sighed, grateful to know that soon she could get out of bed and not be alone with her thoughts for a while. Phil would call her. What would she say to him? What could she say that he would understand? She didn't understand herself what was driving her now.

But Paula didn't care. She would let whatever it was force her on until some knowledge came, until she knew something that would make some sense out of this new and frightening fascination she had never felt before. And she understood that she could not marry Phil until that had happened.

She waited until seven o'clock and then got out of bed. She tiptoed into her parents' room and put on her mother's robe. If only she were a kid again and could sit in that warm and comforting lap. But Paula knew that this was one problem she must solve completely alone. She pulled the bathrobe tighter around her body, wishing that it could give her the wisdom that all mothers seemed to have.

In the kitchen she sat near the stove. The peacefulness of Sunday seemed to spread itself through the world. Families would sleep until late, then read the papers and watch television in the-afternoon. Some would go to church, maybe to confess their troubles. Others would visit grandparents and stuff themselves on a hearty dinner. Oh, none of it was for her now. Not for her. If only she could rip off her skin and dig out the trouble. How good it would be not to think, not to fight, not to wonder.

Her father shuffled in on his way to the bathroom, sleep still heavy in his eyes. "You up?" he mumbled. "Fight with Phil?"

"No, Pa. Just up early."

He closed the bathroom door and she heard him belch painfully.

I can't sit here all day like this. I've got to get out. Then she thought once more of Phil calling. He would tell her folks about their getting married and everyone would worry about where she had gone. No, she had to stay home until he called.

One by one, Ma and Mike and Pa got up for the day. She listened to the yawning and the brushing of teeth while she sat on the hard wood of the chair.

By eleven o'clock she was washing the dishes, letting the water scald her hands and turn the skin red. She scrubbed the plates with all the bottled-up energy surging from inside her.

Mike, too skinny for his height, his shoulders stooping awkwardly, commented to her, "You're a strange bird today."

Paula didn't answer.

Ma put on her grey Sunday dress and combed brilliantine into her hair that was supposed to smell of rose petals. "Leave your sister be," she said with merciful tuition. She smiled anxiously at her daughter and told her not to bother drying. "They can drain," she said, "if you have better things to do."

"It's all right, Ma. I'm all right"

"Of course you are."

She wished she could reassure her mother. Convince her that nothing was really wrong. But she wanted to throw her arms around that neck and cry and cry. "It's really okay, Ma," Paula insisted as she picked up the towel and started to dry. "Phil asked me to marry him last night. I guess I just don't know."

Gratefully she watched her mother's concern relax.

"Baby," she said and hugged Paula with relief. "My little baby."

She felt her mother's tears wet against her cheek and her own tears came furiously burning from somewhere deep inside.

"What the hell's goin’ on in here?" Mike's disgust rang through the house.

"Oh, pipe down." His father pushed him out. "Go build yourself a hot rod."

"Aah, women!" He zipped up his jacket and slammed out of the apartment

The old man wandered uncomfortably around the kitchen and pretended to interest himself in polishing his shoes. He brushed the tips with violent concentration.

Paula pulled herself away from her mother, aware of a throbbing in her temples. No use to cry. It solved nothing. With a paper napkin, she wiped her mother's cheeks and then her own. "I really didn't sleep much, you know. Maybe that's why things look so big this morning. I’ll take an aspirin and go for a walk."

Her father said, "You want company?"

"No, Pa, thanks. I just want to clear out this head."

She found some aspirin in the medicine cabinet, bundled the scarf around her neck and pulled on her heavy mittens. She didn't much care what she looked like, even if it was-Sunday. "If Phil calls, tell him—Oh, tell him anything.''

She ran out and down the steps as if bursting out from under smothering blankets.

* * *

The dreary Sunday lay heavily on all the closed stores with their awnings flapping and whipping in the wind. She strode down Third Avenue, coat collar turned up and head bent into the wind. The grey sky, heavy with its burden of snow, stretched endlessly above her. She walked and walked, not thinking, not wanting to think, hoping perhaps she might outrun her crazy thoughts and return to the familiar nest of long-known living.

She knew where she was walking; her legs moved without her brain's direction. I can't go there, she thought. It's nerve. It's gall. I wasn't invited. Her legs insisted, moving her block after block, seeming to gain energy and purpose as she progressed. When she had come twenty blocks to Forty Second Street, she forced herself to stop in the Woolworth doorway. If I knew her last name, she thought, I could look up her telephone. She went into a bar and searched for Byrne Carson. The name wasn't listed.

Her legs drove her outside again. They stung with the cold, but the stinging felt good as a land of match for her rushing turmoil. She wanted to speed, to fly, to dash herself against windows. Her lips were dry with breathing through her mouth, chapped and cracked. The restless fury she felt would not let her ride the bus or take a subway. She half-ran, half-walked to Fourteenth Street, not seeing, not caring, breathing rapid painful breaths, shaking with the pounding in her heart.

At Fourteenth Street she caught sight of herself in the window of a dress store. Tangled hair and burning red cheeks stared back at her. She suddenly realized that she was in her old worn coat. Her shoes were muddy with slush. Mixed relief and horror struck her. She can't see me like this!

She had a ready-made excuse just to stand across the street from Byrne's house and watch the window. Maybe she would come to fix a curtain. Paula considered this, and the idea became increasingly appealing. She hurried to Eleventh Street, practically convinced that she had an appointment to glimpse Byrne at the window.

When she spotted the house, her pace slowed. To see the building better she stayed on the opposite side of the street. At last she stood directly across. She glutted herself with staring at the strange but so familiar door. A glow spread inside her as she realized that somewhere, right behind this thin piece of glass, was that gold hair splashed with fire—that vibrant voice that could laugh and softly caress at the same time. She leaned against the ice-covered bricks, feeling warm and touched with peace.