Chocolates for Breakfast Read online

  One of the policemen said something to the policeman next to him. They both looked at Courtney and Janet and chuckled. The man smiled when he brought the juice and coffee.

  “Do you suppose,” Courtney whispered conspiratorially to Janet, “that they know we’ve been on a party all night?”

  “No,” said Janet. “We’re too sober. I wish they did,” she said wistfully. “I like to shock people.”

  “So do I,” said Courtney.

  When they left the drugstore their spirits were considerably higher. It was a lovely morning late in June, and a church across the street was ringing its solemn chimes.

  “What shall we do?” said Courtney.

  “Can’t go home now. Only quarter to eight, and the elevator man will know we’ve been out all night and Daddy will raise hell. Cut my allowance or something. It’s much better if we come in around nine thirty and say we stayed overnight with some girl.”

  “Where shall we kill the time?”

  “Let’s go to the park,” said Janet. “There’s a nice lake near here where my governess always used to take me on Sundays. Let’s sit there.”

  “Okay,” said Courtney. She nudged Janet. “Look at this woman in front of us, in the little white hat. I bet she’s going to church.”

  “Let’s shock her,” Janet said.

  Courtney grinned.

  “I always think,” Janet said in a loud voice, “that there’s nothing wrong in going to bed with boys.”

  “No,” said Courtney. “And they take you to dinner, and buy you things.”

  “Yes, and you don’t really pay any price for it, it’s so enjoyable.”

  “You don’t have to look at them, really, so it doesn’t make any difference what they—”

  The woman turned quickly and gave them a fleeting glance, and continued walking with a purposeful step. Courtney and Janet grinned at each other. This was great sport for a Sunday morning.

  “—look like,” Courtney finished.

  “No, it’ s really a great life,” said Janet.

  The woman turned very obviously and cut diagonally across the street toward the church. Courtney and Janet laughed triumphantly until they came to the entrance to the park.

  It was a lovely lake, very quiet and empty on the Sunday morning. A man was walking his dog and whistling. Courtney picked a furry bud and rubbed it against her cheek.

  “Reminds me of a pussy willow,” she mused. “I always loved pussy willows, when I was a little girl.”

  It was funny that she should think of it now, that she could remember the morning as though it were this morning, and she was once again the little girl of ten in her first year at boarding school, about to go to the plane that would take her to California to meet the stranger who was her new father. She had known so much since then; she had known a lover, she had known fear and the desire to escape. And yet this early morning in Central Park could almost be that morning, seven years ago.

  She was frightened that morning. She wondered what he would be like, and whether she would like him. She wondered whether he and her mother loved each other, and if they did, she wondered what it would be like to share her mother’s love with this stranger. Before she left for the airport she had gone for a long walk around the school grounds, because she was frightened and she felt very alone. It was very early in the morning, and the mist hung heavy on the stubble of winter grass. She even walked off bounds that morning, because she figured that no one would be up that early to report her. She walked across the street and down the hill to the rusty field, and then she saw the pussy willows. She had always loved pussy willows. She picked one and rubbed it against her cheek because it was very soft. Then as the thin winter sun began to displace the mist she walked back to school to get her bags ready for the taxi.

  When she got off the plane in Hollywood it was warm, and the palm trees and the bright, blue sky made the airport look unreal to her, so soon after she had left the rusty field and the thin winter sun. As she walked across the airfield she still held the pussy willow in her hand, vestige of a world that was real. Even when they got into the car she did not let go of it. Finally, on the long drive from the airport to Hollywood, she fell asleep on her mother’s shoulder and the pussy willow dropped to the floor.

  She was silent and thoughtful in the soft morning sunlight, fingering the bud and remembering. It was Janet who finally broke the stillness.

  “You know,” she said, “it’s funny, the different times I’ve come here, to this lake.” She had been remembering, too. “When I was little my governess used to take me here to play with the other little children. And when I was in elementary school we used to be taken on walks past the obelisk and the teacher would tell us how it was brought from Egypt. And last year a friend of mine and I used to come here from school on our lunch hour with a bottle of Scotch, and go back to history class slightly bombed, because it was such a bore.” She threw a stick into the water and watched it float away. “I wonder what the lake thinks of me, watching me grow up. I wonder what it would say to me this morning if it could talk.”

  “It must be nice,” Courtney mused, “to spend most of your life in the same place, and have associations with physical things like lakes and buildings. And go out with boys you’ve grown up with, that you used to play with in Central Park.”

  “Yes,” Janet said, “it is nice. That’s how I know most of the boys I go out with. It’s too bad you didn’t grow up in New York, so you could have a group like that.”

  “I really appreciate the way you’ve introduced me to so many boys,” Courtney said. “I’d have gone out of my head this summer if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “Well, sweetie,” said Janet, “you’re about my only good friend, and I couldn’t just sit around and let you be lonely. I always said, even in Scaisbrooke, that what you needed was to go out more.” She picked a thistle from her cocktail dress. “You know,” she went on, “that reminds me. There’s this boy I know—he’s not one of the crew, he’s a very unusual person. Awfully charming, and very intelligent—rich, too; he doesn’t even bother to work—and I was telling him about you. He keeps saying he wants to meet you.”

  “Is that the boy you told me about, the one who owns that island off Florida and the villa on the Riviera?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. Well, I was thinking, those boys won’t wake up until just about the time they pick us up for the deb party tonight, which will be around ten. So what about going by the Pierre, where he stays, and meeting him? We could have a drink with him and our dates could meet us downstairs at the bar.”

  “Well, that sounds great, sweetie.”

  “I really think you two will get along—I’m afraid. But he insists on meeting you”—she grinned—“so I really have no way of keeping him to myself. But prepare yourself,” she added. She threw a pebble into the lake and watched the circles grow. “He’s really a madman, so be prepared for anything.” She smiled to herself. “I really couldn’t describe him to you.”

  Chapter 16

  Mr. Anthony Neville was fortunately to be found at home that evening, at his suite in the Pierre. When he opened the door, Courtney understood immediately why Janet had said with a smile, “I really couldn’t describe him to you.” He stood at the door, a pale young man in his early twenties, with delicate features, an abundance of black hair, and challenging, brooding dark eyes. He was wearing a white terry-cloth robe, and in his left hand he held absently a single long-stemmed rose. He bowed deeply and theatrically to the two girls.

  “Anthony darling,” Janet said. “Isn’t this a new pose?” She smiled. “And didn’t Oscar Wilde use a sunflower?”

  Anthony ignored her, his expression unchanged.

  “This, of course, is Courtney. How marvelous of Janet to bring you to me. Courtney’s enchanting,” he said to Janet, who had walked past him and was taking off her coat.

  Courtney, who was accustomed to the staccato Ivy League speech of Janet’s friends, was surpris
ed by the quiet languor of the young man’s voice. His speech seemed, like the red rose, cultivated to defy categorization. He took her coat.

  “Anthony,” Janet said abruptly, “we can’t stay long. Our dates are meeting us downstairs to take us on to a deb party.”

  Janet’s matter-of-fact voice temporarily dispelled the aura of eccentricity which the young man had cast upon the room.

  “Here,” he said, walking to the oversized bed, “lie down.”

  He cleared a silver tray with two wine glasses from the bed and sat on the window sill.

  “Wretched heat,” he commented, opening the window. “I’ve been lying here pretending I was on the Island, and feeling terribly Byronesque.” He set the rose upon the tray. He didn’t bother to explain the second wine glass. “Do you know,” he said suddenly, “Byron watched from a carriage while they burned Shelley on the Beach at Via Reggio. Royal Road. I like that. And watching from a carriage until stench and grief overwhelmed him, and he left. That appeals to me. Such a death makes burials seem terribly prosaic.”

  “Anthony,” said Janet, “my tongue is hanging out for a drink.” She straightened her evening dress beneath her on the bed. “I’m hung over as hell.”

  Anthony sighed and walked over to the telephone.

  “Two Chivas Regals on the rocks,” he ordered. He looked over at Courtney. “Scotch?” he asked. She nodded. “Make that four. And a half bottle of Pommard. André knows what I want. Mr. Neville.” He hung up and sat on the bed beside Janet.

  “Jan,” he said, “you’re heaven. We really should see each other more often. Why do you insist upon going to that deadly deb party?”

  He rested his hand on Janet’s hip. Courtney looked uncomfortably at a print on the opposite wall.

  “I asked you to a party last week,” he continued, “but you never showed up.” He stared nostalgically at the tray of wine glasses. “It was a marvelous party,” he said wistfully. “Hordes of girls naked above the waist, and mass fornication.”

  Courtney looked sharply at him. He pretended not to notice.

  “You really should come to one of my parties,” he said with a slight smile which was his only recognition of Courtney’s stare. “Courtney should come, too.” He looked over at her. “Irish girls have such lovely skin,” he said. “You look so terribly Irish,” he said to her. “Those enchanting green eyes.” He turned to Janet. “You’re marvelous to bring Courtney. I’m sure we shall get on famously. She sits there so silently.” He leaned toward Janet with a conspiratorial air. “Do you suppose,” he said to Janet, “that your friend is shocked by me?”

  Courtney smiled uneasily.

  “No, not at all. No,” she said.

  Anthony sighed. “What a pity. I do so love to shock people.”

  He rose and sat again on the window sill, leaning moodily against a corner of the window.

  “I’ve been writing a story,” he announced. “It’s about two lesbians who are married by a homosexual priest—” He paused and looked at Courtney. “You’re Catholic, of course.” She nodded. “—by a homosexual priest in a terribly floral ceremony in Switzerland. Up to this point they have been living quite happily in sin, but now their idyll has been destroyed. One of the lesbians develops a pathological jealousy of the priest . . .”

  What am I doing here, Courtney thought, listening to him. Why does he assume he can say these things to me. But I mustn’t seem to be shocked. It would seem so childish to be shocked, and I mustn’t let him realize that I am that young, that I know so little.

  “Of course,” he was saying, “the priest is defrocked, and is wretched because—”

  Courtney studied him, leaning languorously against the window in a careful pose. He had an arresting face. He might have been an actor. He might have been a great many things. She wondered what he was. Janet had talked about him while they were on their way to his hotel. He was legendary among her friends. They played at dissipation, theirs was a child’s game. His was not. Courtney glanced quickly at Janet, who was enjoying his story. He had been her lover, this extraordinary young man who was a symbol of decadence even to Janet’s friends, a young man whom every one knew of and no one knew. And yet he had asked to meet her, he had asked Janet to bring her to him.

  “And the lesbians go to live”—he smiled reflectively—“in Denmark.” He broke his pose and stood before them, pleased with himself. He looked triumphantly at Courtney. “Did you like it?”

  “It’s ridiculous,” she said defiantly. “Wallowing in childish perversion.”

  “Oh,” he said, offended. “You feel perversion is childish.”

  “No,” Courtney said with a studied nonchalance. “But your idea of it is.”

  “My dear girl,” he said patiently, “I have been accused for years of being homosexual. Actually,” he said, rearranging a fold of his robe, “homosexuality bored me. But I am by no means a child when it comes to perversion.”

  Courtney was spared further comment by a knock at the door. He answered it and took the tray from the boy. Courtney watched him. They were playing a game now, a game of sophistication, and she must hold her own. She was a little frightened, but she could not let anyone know that. She could have backed out by letting him know that she felt like a child beside him. The stakes were high, she sensed that without knowing why. She knew so little, and this decadent world of his was a dangerous one. Yet somehow it was a point of honor not to withdraw. She scorned herself for feeling afraid. So she couldn’t handle this after all, she was still a child. No. No, she couldn’t admit that. This was her world, a world she wanted without knowing why. Janet excused herself as he set down the tray, and as the bathroom door closed Courtney remembered what Janet had said to her as they got out of the elevator. “Don’t be surprised by anything he says or does,” she had said. She must remember that. He looked at the closed door and then at Courtney, and lay beside her on the bed.

  “I like you,” he said quietly. “You’re rather of a challenge, lying there so silent and so voluptuous.”

  He rested his hand easily on her breast, and his breath was warm against her ear. My God, she thought, and she was frightened as the emotion she could not control built up inside her, as she felt his challenge and answered it without being able to do anything about it. She felt so helpless, at the mercy of his sophistication and her own body.

  “Why do you insist” he murmured, “on going to the foolish deb party? Stay here and go to bed with me instead. I know you want to, darling. As much as I want it.”

  Desperately, she tried to rise out of herself. Why isn’t there a little door, she thought, that closes on our emotions when we can’t close them off ourselves, a little door of morality? Suddenly she thought of Janet who would come out in a moment. Thank God, she thought, and in remembering Janet she was able to rise out of herself.

  “No,” she said. “Our dates are meeting us.”

  He was annoyed. “Why didn’t you come earlier?”

  “We were out all night last night,” she explained. He was looking very steadily at her. “My birthday,” she added.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen. My God.”

  “And we fell asleep around ten this morning,” Courtney continued. “The maid didn’t wake us until seven, and we had to eat. We were hung, you see. That’s why we had to eat, to feel better.”

  “When are your dates meeting you?” he said. She could feel that he had withdrawn from her. It was not so tense now, and she was glad.

  “In about fifteen minutes. At nine thirty.”

  “They’re”—he spat out the word—“Yalies, I assume. Most of Janet’s friend are.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Ex-Yalies.”

  “Very well, then.” He rose, petulant. “Go on, then. Leave me here to seek lesser forms of amusement. I hope I have gotten you”—he paused and looked at her—“so that you will lay your little Yalie in the woods somewhere.”

  So I
have won this round, Courtney thought. I refused him and he is not used to being refused. She was pleased with herself. She had met the challenge and won; she did not need to be afraid of him now. Janet came out and quickly surveyed the situation. Courtney was lying on the bed, the white skirts of her evening dress spread out around her. Anthony was pouring himself another glass of wine. Janet was pleased. She went over to him.

  “Anthony, darling,” she said with an air of triumphant possession, “I’m awfully sorry that we have to go so soon.”

  “So am I,” he said wryly. He put his arms around her and kissed her on the neck. Courtney got up and put on her long white gloves. He walked over to her, and held out his arms.

  “Good night, angel.”

  He kissed her lightly and softly on the mouth.

  “Toy kiss,” he murmured, looking steadily and appraisingly at her. “Before you go,” he continued, “I want your address. It has been many years since I asked for a girl’s address and phone number,” he informed her. He looked at Janet for corroboration. She watched them silently. Courtney took a piece of paper from her evening bag and wrote her phone number for him. He wrote her name above it. He looked at her suddenly.

  “Where did an Irish girl get a name like Courtney?”

  “My parents read it in a magazine serial,” Courtney said drily.

  “Yes, I do like you,” he said, putting the paper into the pocket of his white robe.

  “Now, sweetie,” Janet said with a smile, “don’t fall in love with Courtney.”

  “Jan,” he said softly. He walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Promise me one thing—that you will never, never get jealous. Because if you do, it will be all over between us.” He turned to Courtney. “Janet is the most marvelous girl,” he said. “Never jealous or possessive. That’s why I love her.”

  Their dates had been waiting only a short time in the bar, but long enough for them to have a drink to ease their hangovers. They were in high spirits as they drove out to Long Island. Courtney was in the back seat and her date, Eric, put his arm around her.