'Yes, I did. Practically. You live with your brother?'
She shook her head. 'We did for a while, but then we took an apartment-my mother and I. And I got a job.' She put her empty cup down, and I got up and filled it. I was glad of the chance to contribute something.
'If you can stand any more,' Lily said, 'what kind of a job?'
'I can stand it if you can. Reading manuscripts for a publisher. It was terrible-you would never believe what some people think is fit to print. Then I got a job at the UN, a desk job. The job was about as bad, but I met a lot of different people, and I realized how silly I was to do dull paying jobs when I didn't need the pay. It was a girl I met at the UN, a colored girl, who gave me the idea of the ROCC, and I went and asked if I could do something.' She drank coffee.
'Absolutely fascinating,' Lily declared. 'Don't you think so, Mr. Goodwin?'
'No,' I said flatly. A business adviser should be tough. 'It depends on what satisfies a person, that's all. You ladies both have all the money you need, and in my opinion you're both rather selfish. You could make a couple of men secure and happy and comfortable, but you won't take the trouble. Neither of you is married. At least-you haven't been married, Miss Brooke?'
'No.'
'And don't intend to be?'
She laughed, a soft little laugh. 'Maybe I will. After what you've said, I'll feel selfish if I don't. I'll invite you and Miss Rowan to the wedding.'
'I'll accept with pleasure. By the way, which publisher did you read manuscripts for? I had one rejected once, and it may have been you.'
'Oh, I hope not. The Parthenon Press.'
'Then it wasn't you. Another by the way, this will amuse you. When Miss Rowan got the idea of making a contribution to the ROCC she asked me to check a little, and I asked around, and one man said there was probably some Communist influence. Of course people say that about any outfit they don't like, but he mentioned a name. Dunbar Whipple. He had no evidence, just hearsay. But Whipple might like to know about it. I'd rather not name the man who said it.'
No flush or fluster. She even looked a little amused. 'I hope,' she said, 'this isn't a new way of asking me if I'm a Communist.'
'It isn't. I'm plain and simple. I would just say, are you?'
'And I would just say no. At first, when people tried to ask me if I was a Communist without really asking it I got indignant, but I soon saw that was silly. I handle it better now. Are you a Birchite, Mr. Goodwin?'
'I refuse to answer. I'm indignant.'
She laughed a little. 'You'll get over it. As for Dunbar Whipple, he's special. He's young and he has a lot to learn, but he'll be the first Negro mayor of New York City.' She turned. 'I warn you, Miss Rowan, some day I may ask you for a different kind of contribution-to the Whipple for Mayor campaign fund. Would you vote for a Negro?'
Lily said it would depend, that she voted for Democrats only, in respect to the memory of her father. I arose to pour coffee, but Miss Brooke looked at her watch and said she had an appointment. Lily gestured toward the terrace and said it was a day to ignore appointments, but Miss Brooke said she couldn't, it was a meeting about a school boycott. She gave Lily a healthy thank-you handshake, but not me, which was proper, since I hadn't said definitely that I wasn't a Birchite. As Lily convoyed her to the foyer I filled my cup and took it to the glass doors to admire the weather.
Lily came to join me. 'Quite a gal,' she said. 'Fighting her way through that to talk school boycott. If she's fascinating, it's lucky for me I'm not.'
'It's one of your best points,' I said, 'that you're not fascinating.' I put the cup on a plant stand.
'And that I'm rather selfish. Look me in the eye, Escamillo. Take that back about making you secure and happy and comfortable.'
'Not me. I merely said a man.'
'Name one.'
'Nero Wolfe.'
'Ha. What will you bet I couldn't?'
'Not a dime. I know him, but I know you too. No bet.'
'You would have to move out.' She had a look in her eye, I would say the look of a tiger stalking a herd of deer if I had ever seen a tiger stalk deer. 'We would fire Fritz, and of course Theodore. He would read aloud to me. We would ditch the orchids and take out the partitions in the plant rooms and have dancing parties, and you wouldn't be invited. For lunch we would have peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and-'
I clapped a palm over her mouth with my other hand at the back of her head. With no effort to break away, she tried to bite. I said, 'When you're ready to discuss the subject, shut your right eye.'
She shut her right eye, and I took my hands away. 'Well?'
'I stand pat,' she said. 'She's fascinating.'
'To you. It's perfectly simple. She's a status-seeker. She wants to be the mayor's wife.'
'Uhuh. I always laugh at your cracks to make you secure and happy and comfortable, but may I skip that one? You're trying to get something on her that will keep that colored man from marrying her. Right?'
