“I could help you take the coats.”
“No, really, Minnie, you do enough for me as it is. Really.”
Minnie said, “Well, let me know if you change your mind. Drink your drink now.”
Rosemary looked at the glass in her hand. “I’d rather not,” she said, and looked up at Minnie. “Not this minute. I’ll drink it in a little while and bring the glass back to you.”
Minnie said, “It doesn’t do to let it stand.”
“I won’t wait long,” Rosemary said. “Go on. You go back and I’ll bring the glass to you later on.”
“I’ll wait and save you the walk.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Rosemary said. “I get very nervous if anyone watches me while I’m cooking. I’m going out later, so I’ll be passing right by your door.”
“Going out?”
“Shopping. Scoot now, go on. You’re too nice to me, really you are.”
Minnie backed away. “Don’t wait too long,” she said. “It’s going to lose its vitamins.”
Rosemary .closed the door. She went into the kitchen and stood for a moment with the glass in her hand, and then went to the sink and tipped out the drink in a pale green spire drilling straight down into the drain.
She finished the chupe, humming and feeling pleased with herself. When it was covered and stowed away in the freezer compartment she made her own drink out of milk, cream, an egg, sugar, and sherry. Shaken in a covered jar, it poured out tawny and delicious-looking. “Hang on, David-or-Amanda,” she said, and tasted it and found it great.
Five
For a little while around half past nine it looked as if no one was going to come. Guy put another chunk of cannel coal on the fire, then racked the tongs and brushed his hands with his handkerchief; Rosemary came from the kitchen and stood motionless in her pain and her just-right hair and her brown velvet; and the bartender, by the bedroom door, found things to do with lemon peel and napkins and glasses and bottles. He was a prosperous- looking Italian named Renato who gave the impression that he tended bar only as a pastime and would leave if he got more bored than he already was.
Then the Wendells came-Ted and Carole-and a minute later Elise Dunstan and her husband Hugh, who limped. And then Allan Stone, Guy’s agent, with a beautiful Negro model named Rain Morgan, and Jimmy and Tiger, and Lou and Claudia Comfort and Claudia’s brother Scott.
Guy put the coats on the bed; Renato mixed drinks quickly, looking less bored. Rosemary pointed and gave names: “Jimmy, Tiger, Rain, Allan, Elise, Hugh, Carole, Ted-Claudia and Lou and Scott.”
Bob and Thea Goodman brought another couple, Peggy and Stan Keeler. “Of course it’s all right,” Rosemary said; “don’t be silly, the more the merrier!” The Kapps came without coats. “What a trip!” Mr. Kapp (“It’s Bernard”) said. “A bus, three trains, and a ferry! We left five hours ago!”
“Can I look around?” Claudia asked. “If the rest of it’s as nice as this I’m going to cut my throat.”
Mike and Pedro brought bouquets of bright red roses. Pedro, with his cheek against Rosemary’s, murmured, “Make him feed you, baby; you look like a bottle of iodine.”
Rosemary said, “Phyllis, Bernard, Peggy, Stan, Thea, Bob, Lou, Scott, Carole . . .”
She took the roses into the kitchen. Elise came in with a drink and a fake cigarette for breaking the habit. “You’re so lucky,” she said; “it’s the greatest apartment I’ve ever seen. Will you look at this kitchen? Are you all right, Rosie? You look a little tired.”
“Thanks for the understatement,” Rosemary said. “I’m not all right but I will be. I’m pregnant.”
“You aren’t! How great! When?”
“June twenty-eighth. I go into my fifth month on Friday.”
“That’s great!” Elise said. “How do you like C. C. Hill? Isn’t he the dreamboy of the western world?”
“Yes, but I’m not using him,” Rosemary said. No.
“I’ve got a doctor named Sapirstein, an older man.”
“What for? He can’t be better than Hill!”
“He’s fairly well known and he’s a friend of some friends of ours,” Rosemary said.
Guy looked in.
Elise said, “Well congratulations, Dad.”
“Thanks,” Guy said. “Weren’t nothin’ to it. Do you want me to bring in the dip, Ro?”
“Oh, yes, would you? Look at these roses! Mike and Pedro brought them.”
Guy took a tray of crackers and a bowl of pale pink dip from the table. “Would you get the other one?” he asked Elise.
“Sure,” she said, and took a second bowl and followed after him.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Rosemary called.
Dee Bertillon brought Portia Haynes, an actress, and Joan called to say that she and her date had got stuck at another party and would be there in half an hour.
Tiger said, “You dirty stinking secret-keeper!” She grabbed Rosemary and kissed her.
“Who’s pregnant?” someone asked, and someone else said, “Rosemary is.”
She put one vase of roses on the mantel-“Congratulations,” Rain Morgan said, “I understand you’re pregnant”-and the other in the bedroom on the dressing table. When she came out Renato made a Scotch and water for her. “I make the first ones strong,” he said, “to get them happy. Then I go light and conserve.”
Mike wig-wagged over heads and mouthed Congratulations. She smiled and mouthed Thanks.
“The Trench sisters lived here,” someone said; and Bernard Kapp said, “Adrian Marcato too, and Keith Kennedy.”
“And Pearl Ames,” Phyllis Kapp said.
“The Trent sisters?” Jimmy asked.
“Trench,” Phyllis said. “They ate little children.”
“And she doesn’t mean just ate them,” Pedro said; “she means ate them!”
Rosemary shut her eyes and held her breath as the pain wound tighter. Maybe because of the drink; she put it aside.
“Are you all right?” Claudia asked her.
“Yes, fine,” she said, and smiled. “I had a cramp for a moment.”
Guy was talking with Tiger and Portia Haynes and Dee. “It’s too soon to say,” he said; “we’ve only been in rehearsal six days. It plays much better than it reads, though.”
“It couldn’t play much worse,” Tiger said. “Hey, what ever happened to the other guy? Is he still blind?”
“I don’t know,” Guy said.
Portia said, “Donald Baumgart? You know who he is, Tiger; he’s the boy Zoe Piper lives with.”
“Oh, is he the one?” Tiger said. “Gee, I didn’t know he was someone I knew.”
“He’s writing a great play,” Portia said. “At least the first two scenes are great. Really burning anger, like Osborne before he made it.”
Rosemary said, “Is he still blind?”
“Oh, yes,” Portia said. “They’ve pretty much given up hope. He’s going through hell trying to make the adjustment. But this great play is coming out of it. He dictates and Zoe writes.”
Joan came. Her date was over fifty. She took Rosemary’s arm and pulled her aside, looking frightened. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Rosemary said. “I’m pregnant, that’s all.”
She was in the kitchen with Tiger, tossing the salad, when Joan and Elise came in and closed the door behind them.
Elise said, “What did you say your doctor’s name was?”
“Sapirstein,” Rosemary said.
Joan said, “And he’s satisfied with your condition?”
Rosemary nodded.
