the other day that I’ve never been alone in my whole life-not for more than a few hours, that is. The idea of three or four days is heaven.”
“A chance to sit quietly and find out who you are; where you’ve been and where you’re going.”
“Exactly.”
“All right, you can stop forcing that smile,” Hutch said. “Did he hit you with a lamp?”
“He didn’t hit me with anything,” Rosemary said. “It’s a very difficult part, a crippled boy who pretends that he’s adjusted to his crippled-ness. He’s got to work with crutches and leg-braces, and naturally he’s preoccupied andand, well, preoccupied.”
“I see,” Hutch said. “We’ll change the subject: The News had a lovely rundown the other day of all the gore we missed during the strike. Why didn’t you tell me you’d had another suicide up there at Happy House?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Rosemary asked.
“No, you didn’t,” Hutch said.
“It was someone we knew. The girl I told you about; the one who’d been a drug addict and was rehabilitated by the Castevets, these people who live on our floor. I’m sure I told you that.”
“The girl who was going to the basement with you.”
“That’s right.”
“They didn’t rehabilitate her very successfully, it would seem. Was she living with them?”
“Yes,” Rosemary said. “We’ve gotten to know them fairly well since it happened. Guy goes over there once in a while to hear stories about the theater. Mr. Castevet’s father was a producer around the turn of the century.”
“I shouldn’t have thought Guy would be interested,” Hutch said. “An elderly couple, I take it?”
“He’s seventy-nine; she’s seventy or so.”
“It’s an odd name,” Hutch said. “How is it spelled?”
Rosemary spelled it for him.
“I’ve never heard it before,” he said. “French, I suppose.”
“The name may be but they aren’t,” Rosemary said. “He’s from right here and she’s from a place called- believe it or not-Bushyhead, Oklahoma.”
“My God,” Hutch said. “I’m going to use that in a book. That one. I know just where to put it. Tell me, how are you planning to get to the cabin? You’ll need a car, you know.”
“I’m going to rent one.”
“Take mine.”
“Oh no, Hutch, I couldn’t.”
“Do, please,” Hutch said. “All I do is move it from one side of the street to the other. Please. You’ll save me a great deal of bother.”
Rosemary smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do you a favor and take your car.”
Hutch gave her the keys to the car and the cabin, a sketch-map of the route, and a typed list of instructions concerning the pump, the refrigerator, and a variety of possible emergencies. Then he put on shoes and a coat and walked her down to where the car, an old light-blue Oldsmobile, was parked. “The registration papers are in the glove compartment,” he said. “Please feel free to stay as long as you like. I have no immediate plans for either the car or the cabin.”
“I’m sure I won’t stay more than a week,” Rosemary said. “Guy might not even want me to stay that long.”
When she was settled in the car, Hutch leaned in at the window and said, “I have all kinds of good advice to give you but I’m going to mind my own business if it kills me.”
Rosemary kissed him. “Thank you,” she said. “For that and for this and for everything.”
She left on the morning of Saturday, October 16th, and stayed five days at the cabin. The first two days she never once thought about Guy-a fitting revenge for the cheerfulness with which he had agreed to her going. Did she look as if she needed a good rest? Very well, she would have one, a long one, never once thinking about him. She took walks through dazzling yellow-and-orange woods, went to sleep early and slept late, read Flight of The Falcon by Daphne du Maurier, and made glutton’s meals on the bottled-gas stove. Never once thinking about him.
On the third day she thought about him. He was vain, self-centered, shallow, and deceitful. He had married her to have an audience, not a mate. (Little Miss Just-out-of-Omaha, what a goop she had been! “Oh, I’m used to actors; I’ve been here almost a year now.” And she had all but followed him around the studio carrying his newspaper in her mouth.) She would give him a year to shape up and become a good husband; if he didn’t make it she would pull out, and with no religious qualms whatever. And meanwhile she would go back to work and get again that sense of independence and self-sufficiency she had been so eager to get rid of. She would be strong and proud and ready to go if he failed to meet her standards.
Those glutton’s meals-man-size cans of beef stew and chili con carnebegan to disagree with her, and on that third day she was mildly nauseated and could eat only soup and crackers.
On the fourth day she awoke missing him and cried. What was she doing there, alone in that cold crummy cabin? What had he done that was so terrible? He had gotten drunk and had grabbed her without saying may I. Well that was really an earth-shaking offense, now wasn’t it? There he was, facing the biggest challenge of his career, and she-instead of being there to help him, to cue and encourage him-was off in the middle of nowhere, eating herself sick and feeling sorry for herself. Sure he was vain and self-centered; he was an actor, wasn’t he? Laurence Olivier was probably vain and self-centered. And yes he might lie now and then; wasn’t that exactly what had attracted her and still did?-that freedom and nonchalance so different from her own boxed-in propriety?
She drove into Brewster and called him. Service answered, the Friendly One: “Oh hi, dear, are you back from the country? Oh. Guy is out, dear; can he call you? You’ll call him at five. Right. You’ve certainly got lovely weather. Are you enjoying yourself? Good.”
At five he was still out, her message waiting for him. She ate in a diner and went to the one movie theater. At nine he was still out and Service was someone new and automatic with a message for her: she should call him before eight the next morning or after six in the evening.
That next day she reached what seemed like a sensible and realistic view of things. They were both at fault; he for being thoughtless and self-absorbed, she for failing to express and explain her discontent. He could hardly be expected to change until she showed him that change was called for. She had only to talk-no, they had only to talk, for he might be harboring a similar discontent of which she was similarly unaware-and matters couldn’t help but improve. Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk.
She went into Brewster at six and called and he was there. “Hi, darling,” he said. “How are you?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“All right. I miss you.”
She smiled at the phone. “I miss you, “ she said. “I’m coming home tomorrow.”
“Good, that’s great,” he said. “All kinds of things have been going on here. Rehearsals have been postponed until January.”
“They haven’t been able to cast the little girl. It’s a break for me though; I’m going to do a pilot next month. A half-hour comedy series.”
“You are?”
“It fell into my lap, Ro. And it really looks good. ABC loves the idea. It’s called Greenwich Village; it’s going to be filmed there, and I’m a way-out writer. It’s practically the lead.”
“That’s marvelous, Guy!”
“Allan says I’m suddenly very hot.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“Listen, I’ve got to shower and shave; he’s taking me to a screening that Stanley Kubrick is going to be at. When are you going to get in?”
“Around noon, maybe earlier.”
“I’ll be waiting. Love you.”
“Love you!”
She called Hutch, who was out, and left word with his service that she would return the car the following afternoon.
