Ghost Story

'I'm speaking from the anthropological point of view. I've been studying the behavior of male chronologically- related interaction groups. The ritual content is always very strong. Do you, uh, members of the Chowder Society actually wear dinner jackets when you meet?'

'Yes, I'm afraid we do.' Ricky looked to Stella for help, but she had mentally abstracted herself, and was gazing coolly at both men.

'Why is that, exactly?'

Ricky felt that the man was about to pull a notebook from his pocket. 'It seemed like a good idea a hundred years ago. Milly, why did John invite half the town if he's going to let Freddy Robinson monopolize Miss Moore?'

Before Milly could answer, Sims asked, 'Are you familiar with the work of Lionel Tiger?'

'I'm afraid I'm abysmally ignorant,' Ricky said.

'I'd be interested in observing one of your meetings. I suppose that could be arranged?'

Stella laughed at last, and gave him a look which meant, get out of that.

'I suppose differently,' Ricky said, 'but I could probably get you into the next Kiwanis meeting.'

Sims reared back, and Ricky saw that he was too unsure of his dignity to take jokes well. 'We're just five old coots who enjoy getting together,' he quickly said. 'Anthropologically, we're a washout. We're of no interest to anyone.'

'You're of interest to me,' said Stella. 'Why don't you invite Mr. Sims and your wife to the next meeting?'

'Yeah!' Sims began to show an alarming quantity of enthusiasm. 'I'd like to record for a start, and then the video element-'

'Do you see that man over there?' Ricky nodded in the direction of Sears James, who more than ever resembled a stormcloud in human form. It looked like Freddy Robinson, now separated from Miss Moore, was trying to sell him insurance. 'The big one? He'd slit my throat if I did any such thing.'

Milly looked shocked; Stella lifted her chin and said, 'Very nice meeting you, Mr. Sims,' and left them.

Harold Sims said, 'Anthropologically, that's a very interesting statement.' He regarded Ricky with an interest even more professional. 'The Chowder Society must be highly important to you.'

'Of course it is,' Ricky said simply.

'From what you just said, I'd assume that the man you just pointed out is the dominant figure in the group-as it were, the honcho.'

'Very astute of you,' Ricky said. 'Now if you'll forgive me, I see someone I must have a word with.'

When he had turned his back and gone away only a few steps, he heard Sims ask Milly, 'Are those two really married?'

5

Ricky stationed himself in a corner, deciding he'd wait things out. He had a good mostly unobstructed view of the party: he'd be quite happy just watching things until it was time to go home. The record having come to an end, John Jaffrey appeared beside the portable stereo and put another one on the turntable. Lewis Benedikt, drifting up beside him, seemed amused, and when the sound began to issue from the speakers, Ricky heard why. It was a record by Aretha Franklin, a singer Ricky knew only from the radio. Where on earth would John Jaffrey have obtained such a record, and how long ago had he done it? He must have bought it specifically for the party. This was a fascinating concept, but Ricky's deliberations on it were interrupted by a succession of people who joined him, one by one, in his corner.

The first person who found him was Clark Mulligan, the owner of the Rialto, Milburn's only movie theater. His Hush Puppies were unaccustomedly clean, his trousers pressed, his belly successfully contained by his jacket button-Clark had spruced himself up for the evening. Presumably he knew that he had been invited for his relation to show business. Ricky thought it must have been the first time John had had Clark Mulligan in his home. He was glad to see him; he was always glad to see him. Mulligan was the only person in town who shared his love of old movies. Hollywood gossip bored Ricky, but he loved the films of its golden days.

'Who does she remind you of?' he asked Mulligan.

Mulligan squinted across the room. The actress was standing demurely across the room, listening to something said by Ed Venuti. 'Mary Miles Minter?'

'She reminded me of Louise Brooks. Though I don't suppose Louise Brooks's eyes were green.'

'Who knows? She's supposed to be a damn fine little actress, though. Cropped up just out of nowhere. Nobody knows anything about her.'

'Edward does.'

'Oh, he's doing one of his books, isn't he?'

The interviewing is nearly done. It's always difficult for Edward to say good-bye to his subjects, but this time it will be especially traumatic. I think he fell in love with her.' And indeed, Edward had jealously joined Ed Venuti, and managed to interpose himself between the banker and the little actress.

'I'd fall in love with her too,' Mulligan said. 'Once they get their faces up on the screen, I fall in love with all of them. Have you seen Marthe Keller?' His eyes rolled.

'Not yet, but from the photos I've seen she looks a lot like a modern Constance Talmadge.'

'Are you kidding? How about Paulette Goddard?' And from there they went happily on to speak of Chaplin, of Monsieur Verdoux, of Norma Shearer and John Ford, Eugene Pallette and Harry Carey, Jr., Stagecoach and The Thin Man, Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd, John Gilbert and Rex Bell, Jean Harlow, Charlie Farrell, Janet Gaynor, Nosferatu and Mae West, actors and films Ricky had seen as a younger man and had never ceased youthfully to cherish, and the fresh memory of them helped to dampen the recollection of what a young man had said about himself and his wife.

'Wasn't that Clark Mulligan?' His second visitor was Sonny Venuti, Edward's wife. 'He looks terrible.' Sonny herself had changed over the past few years from a slender, pretty woman with a lovely smile to a bony stranger with an uneasy, dazed expression permanently fixed in her eyes. A casualty of marriage. Three months before she had come into Ricky's office and asked what she had to do to get a divorce: 'I'm not sure yet, but I'm definitely thinking about it. I have to find out where I am.' Yes, there was another man, but she would not name him. 'I'll tell you this, though, he's good-looking and intelligent and he's as close to sophisticated as you can get in this town.' She had left no doubt that the man was Lewis. Such women always reminded Ricky Hawthorne of his daughter, and he had led her through all of her options gently, outlining all the steps, explaining everything carefully and succinctly, though he knew she would never return.

'She's beautiful, isn't she?'

'Oh, entirely.'

'I talked to her for a second.'

'Yes?'

'She wasn't interested. She's only interested in men. She'd love you.'

At the moment, the actress was talking to Stella, not ten feet away, which seemed to undercut Sonny Venuti's statement. Ricky watched the two women conversing without hearing their words; Sonny went on at some length to explain why the actress would love him. The subject of these remarks was listening to Stella, she responded, both women were lovely, cool, amused. Then Miss Moore said something that visibly confounded Stella: Ricky's wife blinked, opened her mouth, snapped it shut, patted her hair-if she had been a man, she'd have scratched her head. Ann-Veronica Moore, trailed by Edward Wanderley, went off.

'So I'd watch myself,' Sonny Venuti was saying. 'She might look like a little angel, but that kind of woman loves to turn men into hash.'

'Pandora's Box,' said Ricky, reminded of his first impression of the actress.

'What? Oh, never mind, I know, it's an old movie. When I came to you that time you mentioned Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy twice.'

'How are things now, Sonny?'

'I'm trying again, Jesus, how I'm trying. Who can get a divorce in Milburn? But I still want to find out who I am.'