Chocolates for Breakfast Read online

  “Marie, I shall want another cocktail. I will be in in about fifteen minutes.”

  Marie nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Farrell. I didn’t mean to hurry you.”

  Fortunately, her mother was soon off on the subject of herself, and her television work. Courtney breathed easily. Life was going to be a little difficult for the next two weeks, that much was obvious.

  The phone rang, and Courtney rushed to answer it, thinking it might be Anthony.

  “I’m not in,” her mother announced. “I refuse to be bothered with agents and business during the cocktail hour,” she explained to Janet. Courtney smiled to herself as she picked up the phone.

  “Is Courtney in?” said a deep, self-assured voice.

  “This is she.”

  “Courtney, this is Charles Cunningham. I’m terribly sorry to call you at the last minute like this, but I called you from the office several times and you weren’t in. I wondered if you were free this evening.”

  “Well, I had—” Courtney looked toward the living room, where her mother and Janet were sitting “—as a matter of fact I am free this evening.”

  “Wonderful! I was so afraid you wouldn’t be. Could I pick you up around seven thirty then?”

  “Yes, that would be fine. You have the address?”

  “Of course I do! I’ll look forward to seeing you, then.”

  “Thanks for calling, Charles.”

  Janet certainly was succeeding in screwing up her life, Courtney thought as she hung up. She had determined not to see Charles, but his coming in while Janet was there would be ideal. Janet seldom saw Charles, and this would be a convenient name to use when Courtney wanted to see Anthony. Well, his coming over this evening would be all that was needed—then maybe a couple of more times to reassure Janet, and the rest of the time she could see Anthony. Charles might turn out to be convenient.

  “Jan, you did say you had a date tonight, didn’t you?” Courtney said as she came out.

  “Yes, with Pete. We’re going to the Bird.”

  “That’s what I thought. Good, I won’t be walking out on you then.”

  “You have a date after all, darling?” her mother asked.

  “Yes, Charles Cunningham. You remember him, don’t you?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” her mother answered.

  “I guess you’ve never met him somehow,” Courtney said. “That’s odd.”

  “Have you been going out with Charlie?” Janet asked.

  “Yes, for quite a while now,” Courtney answered.

  “We’d better go in to dinner,” her mother announced. “You may take your drinks in with you, children.”

  Pete arrived first, and when Charles came, Janet suggested that they all go to the Stork. Courtney was delighted; she was determined that Charles should remain unimportant to her, and a double date made her feel less that she was betraying Anthony by seeing someone else and enjoying herself, as she knew she would.

  “You know,” Charles said to her as Janet and Pete left the table for the dance floor, “I really didn’t want to come here. I can’t stand the place.”

  “Why?” Courtney smiled. “Filled with children or something?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “This is a real obsession with you, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Charles frowned. “I’m just more interested by people who are doing things, who are out working and living. I enjoyed prep-school kids when I was in Andover, and college kids when I was in Yale. One simply progresses, you know,” he smiled.

  “I adore the Bird,” Courtney said haughtily.

  “You know you don’t,” he grinned.

  “Well, all right, I don’t really, but your attitude annoys me. Tell me, haven’t you any weaknesses, are you totally self-sufficient and impregnable?”

  “People often ask me that. Of course I do,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “I just don’t choose to display them, that’s all.”

  Janet and Pete returned, interrupting them.

  “God,” Janet laughed, “that was a crazy number. Hey, what happened to my drink?”

  “You finished it,” Pete smiled. “Here, take mine while I get you another.”

  Charles looked up and studied Pete a moment.

  “Double Scotch on the rocks,” Pete said to the waiter, “and a Scotch and water for me.”

  With no change of expression, Charles lowered his eyes and flicked the ash off his cigarette. A noisy group of white-jacketed young men and their dates came in, and Janet looked up.

  “Hey, Count,” she called. “Come on over.”

  The Count looked up and headed to their table, detaching himself from the group.

  “Hiya, sweetie,” Count said as he unsteadily dropped his arm around Janet’s shoulders. “We’ve been at Our Club, but Third Avenue didn’t appreciate us, so we came over here. Slugged some guy,” he explained, “and they threw us out. I was sitting over there getting horny, anyway.” He leaned down over Janet. “Hey, sweetie,” he grinned, “what about getting laid tonight?”

  Janet laughed.

  “Stop bird-dogging my date,” Pete said.

  “Oh,” Count said, raising his eyebrows. “Possessive, aren’t you?”

  “Go to hell,” Pete said.

  “Say, Count,” Charles said hastily, “what about a drink?”

  “I’d love a drink,” Count said.

  “What about it, Court?” said Charles. “Shall I buy Marcel a drink?”

  “Sure,” Courtney said. “Buy the Count a drink. It can’t make any difference.”

  “Y’know,” the Count said proudly, “I was rejected by the army for cirrhosis? Funny as hell, the reaction that doctor had when I told him I was only twenty. Funny as hell.”

  Courtney looked up at the Count, and studied his aristocratic features, the hair brushed back from his face in a European manner, except for a loose strand that escaped and fell on his forehead. He looked even younger than twenty.

  “Count,” she said, “why do you drink so much, anyway?”

  “Hell,” he shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a comfortable way of life.” Then, as though suddenly becoming aware of the question, he turned angrily to Courtney. “What’s the matter, you turning straight-arrow, too? You’re with a goddamn moralist, you know. Cunningham. He’s out of it. You’re a pair.”

  Courtney didn’t answer, not wanting to provoke him. Charles broke the silence as the waiter came over.

  “Count, what can I buy you?” he asked quietly.

  “Double gin on the rocks. I’ll pay you back some day, C. Cunningham. You’re a good man after all, God damn.” Solemnly, Count shook Charles’s hand. He took a chair from the other table and sat down next to Janet.

  “Hey, Jan darling,” he grinned. “Let’s make it, hmm? Really, baby, I know you’re great in the hay—”

  Pete shoved out his chair and stood up.

  “Count, for Chrissake, shut up. We’ve had about enough of you.”

  “What’s the matter?” Count said, still grinning coolly. “You’re getting real possessive. You’re not the only guy who’s slept with her.”

  As Pete lunged for the Count, who was still composed, waiting for Pete, expecting his anger and enjoying it, Charles got up and held Pete’s arms to his sides. A headwaiter looked up, from across the room, watching them anxiously.

  “For Chrissake, Charlie,” Pete said, “will you let go of me? Let me shut this bastard up. Count, I’m not sleeping with her and you know it. You’re just sore as hell because you’re always so bombed you never make it, that’s all. You sonuvabitch, Charles, let go of me.”

  Count’s expression still had not changed. With his slim, graceful hand, still smiling, he slapped Pete twice.

  “I don’t take that crap from anybody,” he smiled.

  “Look, Count,” Charles said, looking steadily at the head-waiter who was coming toward them, “will you get the hell out of here before they throw you out? You want to get thrown out of here, too,
you want to get thrown out of every bar in town?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s it, that’s just it. I want to get thrown out of every bar in town, I want to get thrown out of every lousy corner of the goddam world. That’s just what I want.”

  As he felt Pete’s body relax, Charles let go of him. Janet stood up. The headwaiter, reassured, turned to a group that was coming in the door.

  “How many abortions are you going to have,” Count said to her, “before you finally get married, darling?”

  Pete put his arm around Janet’s shoulder.

  “Good night, Charlie. Court,” he said steadily.

  Janet smiled at Courtney. “I’ll be in later, sweetie. Just leave the door open.”

  “Thanks, Charlie,” Pete added as they turned to leave.

  Charles sat down. There was a silence. The waiter came over.

  “Here’s your drink, Count,” Charles said. “Courtney?” He held out her chair for her. Charles paid the check and they left the Count staring moodily at his double gin on the rocks.

  “I wish we had gone out with Janet,” Courtney said as they went out. “She was really upset; usually a drunken incident like that doesn’t bother her.”

  Charles looked up the street into the night, and turned back to Courtney.

  “Maybe you don’t know her so well, sweetie,” he said. “Where they’re going, we would hardly be welcome.”

  Courtney looked sharply at him.

  “We were at a party once,” he said. “The second time I’d seen her. I don’t know whose date she was,” he said musingly, not looking at her, “but if she had a date he had either passed out or faked out. Somehow we were maneuvred into one of the bedrooms. She sat on the end of the bed and put her hand on the bed, and looked up at me.”

  “Don’t say things like that, Charles,” Courtney said angrily.

  “It’s very true, darling. I didn’t, though,” he continued. “I took here out of there, and took her to dinner. I talked to her for a long time, trying to shape her up, straighten her out.” He looked at Courtney. “It didn’t do any good, of course. I suppose you’ve tried.” She nodded. “Ever since then she has disliked me,” he said. “Straight-arrow.” He smiled. “It’s like the Count, who used to be a hell of a good guy. I’ve known him for many years. He started drinking at thirteen, just like Janet. The liquor was in the house, and like a kid wearing her mother’s high heels, they emulated the parents. Count’s father was a good man, though, a fine lawyer. Died when Count was ten, and Count was man of the house to his mother. I don’t know how it begins.”

  He turned to her and smiled, folding her arm in his.

  “But it’s not up to us to solve the problems of the Lost Generation. We’ve lost so many of them,” he smiled. “What’s one more here and there. Let’s go someplace decent and conservative for a drink. Like Twenty One. Speakeasy to the last generation, symbol of convention to us.”

  “You’re getting awfully philosophical,” Courtney smiled.

  “I know. That’s why it’s time for a drink.”

  “No,” said Courtney wearily, “I really don’t want a drink. You know what I want? I want to go home. I know that’s odd, and I know it’s only ten o’clock. But all I want to do is go home, for some unfathomable reason.”

  “Not so unfathomable,” he smiled. “All right, little girl, I’ll take you home—on one condition.”

  “What’s that—that I give you a drink at home?”

  “No, I understand the way you feel—even if you don’t. My condition is that you let me take you to dinner and the theatre tomorrow night.”

  “All right,” Courtney said without enthusiasm.

  “I think I had better get you home,” Charles said, and hailed a taxi. “And tomorrow night I promise,” he said as he opened the door for her, “we will steer clear of the Lost Generation.”

  Chapter 21

  The steady August rain was incessant and depressing, even though it brought relief from the heat. Courtney lay in bed, smoking a cigarette and looking around her at the disarray of her room. In the two weeks that Janet had been staying with her, Courtney’s life, like her room, had been thrown into confusion. As she smoked the first cigarette of the day, the before-breakfast cigarette which always tasted awful and which, therefore, Courtney enjoyed more than any other, Courtney looked at the still-empty bed beside her and at the clothing and perfume bottles which littered her room, and wondered when she would be able to put her life back into the careful order which Janet had destroyed.

  Janet had certainly raised hell with her love life. She had been seeing more of Charles than she had ever planned to. Janet knew that she saw Anthony occasionally, and almost deliberately, it seemed, she was always proposing that Courtney and Charles accompany her and whatever date she had. Courtney enjoyed being with Charles, but—she mused as the smoke of her cigarette rose to meet the gray, damp air of the morning—when she did allow herself to see Anthony, something seemed to be missing. It was as she had feared, the fragile structure which they had created could not be exposed to the threatening reality outside. Inadvertently, Courtney had allowed herself to venture a little into another life, and was startled to find that it was not as stark and terrifying as she had made herself believe. Despite herself, she enjoyed the calm, almost protective maturity of Charles, and when she did see Anthony she felt almost ashamed at having enjoyed herself away from him; she felt almost as though she were betraying Anthony. But that, she thought as she ground out her cigarette and lit another, would all be changed when Janet finally left, and she and Anthony could return to their secret garden.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Courtney said listlessly. Perhaps it was Janet, finally getting back from that party. It was nine o’clock.

  “Courtney, this room,” her mother exclaimed as she opened the door.

  “I know, Mummy, I’ll clean it up after breakfast.”

  “You’re always cleaning up after Janet,” her mother said angrily. “She isn’t in yet, is she?”

  “No,” Courtney said.

  “Look, I just can’t have that girl disrupting the household like this. She comes in at all hours of the morning and sleeps through most of the afternoon, so Marie can’t clean the room. She leaves her clothes all over this room, it looks like a pig’s pen.”

  “It’s my room,” Courtney said.

  “Yes, but it’s my house,” her mother replied. “And I am sick of seeing it filthy all the time. It’s all well and good for you to say it is your room that is filthy, and your life that is complicated, and that Janet is your guest. But as long as you’re living under my roof I am going to have some say. I won’t have you living like this.”

  “I said I’d clean the room after breakfast,” Courtney said wearily.

  “That’s not your responsibility, Courtney. I refuse to have my daughter act as a personal maid to Janet Parker. Tell her to clean her own mess. Don’t let her walk all over you.”

  “But, Mummy,” Courtney said patiently, “I do tell Janet to clean it up. But you know how she is, she feels everything should be done for her. She can’t help that, really—she doesn’t mean to be a nuisance.”

  “I don’t see how you can even find your own clothes in this mess,” her mother continued. “Did you ever find those two bras and the slip you asked Marie about?”

  “Yes,” Courtney said. She didn’t want to tell her mother that she had found them in Janet’s open suitcase beside the dresser. The clothes weren’t that important; Courtney didn’t want Janet to know that she had discovered the theft. Courtney knew that Janet had a far larger clothes allowance than she, but Courtney had determined not to meddle and blunder in Janet’s psychological problem. She let the clothes go.

  “I still don’t see how,” her mother said wearily. “Look, Courtney, I really can’t stand this any longer. I’m not a very easy person to live with—two husbands can attest to that—and I have hesitated to say anything about thi
s because I am aware that I am too demanding. But I must draw the line; I refuse to live like this and I refuse to have it inflicted on you. Janet may do what she likes, but there is no necessity for you to live with her sleeping around and never getting in and making your room unfit for human habitation. Janet simply must leave.”

  “Oh, Mummy.” Courtney sat up. “I can’t—”

  “I won’t have any argument. This is not the way I want my daughter to live, and that’s all there is to it. I’m fond of her, too, but I happen to care a little more about you. If Janet at least were appreciative, I might hesitate. But there is no reason to put up with this. And unless you ask her to leave, you know, she’ll stay forever. I know I can’t ask her to be considerate, because she isn’t capable of it. There’s no alternative. She can’t conform to our way of living, and you must ask her to leave.”

  “But she can’t go back to her father and all that—”

  “You’ll have to demand that she show a little courage, that’s all. It’s not up to you to assume the burden of her home life.”

  “All right,” Courtney said finally. “When she comes in, I’ll ask her to leave. But I hate to have her feel that I’ve let her down, too, the way everyone else does.”

  “Put the blame on me,” her mother said. “Tell her that I am unbearably temperamental or whatever you want. As long as she goes.”

  With finality, Sondra turned and shut the door behind her, ending the discussion. Courtney felt almost relieved that the decision had been made for her. Now her life could be the way it was. The only reservation was Courtney’s fear that Janet would go back to Marshall. She had spent the night there, Courtney knew. But perhaps the many discussions Courtney had had with her since that first evening would help. Courtney had to wait and see; the outcome depended on Janet. For once, there was nothing Courtney could do; for once, her mother had made the decision for her.

  Janet was strangely depressed when she came in half an hour later. She took off her red cocktail dress and put on her bathrobe and sat on the unmade bed in silence. She lit a cigarette.

  “Do you want some breakfast?” asked Courtney. “I’ve eaten, but I’ll have some coffee with you.”