O You New York Girls

the adventures of a very young man in a jungle of lissome limbs

Charles corday might never have become a writer if his mother had not divorced his father. But she did and Charles took her side because she had always flattered and amused him; and Charles' father shocked them both by getting very very tough when it was too late to stop things. Charles and his mother had to live on a much smaller alimony than she had expected and Charles had to go to an obscure New England junior college in his freshman year, instead of to Yale. He had been expensively prepped and at first he was bitter about this comedown. But he had a pleasantly superior nature and besides, the New England college was coeducational.

Charles wrote his first story to impress a girl who wouldn't say yes and didn't want to let the matter drop, either. He was somewhat surprised when the undergraduate magazine printed his story; he was considerably surprised at the vehemence with which the girl said yes. But Charles was quick to learn. He wrote more stories and impressed more girls who said yes. Clearly, Charles thought, women were fools for a writer; and by the end of his second year at the college he felt that his career was established. There remained only the problem of money.

He was saved too much concern about that. Early in the summer his mother said: "Charlie, I think I'm going to get married again."

"But what about your alimony?" Charles said, thinking of his share of it.

"Mr. Dolson is a millionaire," his mother said.

"I know these millionaires," Charles said. "We had millionaires' kids at school. They threw dimes around like ten-dollar bills. One of them said his old lady made soap out of bacon fat."

"I wish you wouldn't imitate every uncouth writer you're reading," his mother said. "Now listen to me: Wouldn't you like to go to Yale, or Harvard? Or perhaps even to Oxford?"

"I want to go to New York," Charles said. "I want to write."

"You do seem to have a gift for it," his mother said. "I always wanted you to go into the world with a good university behind you as well as a good school but the school is more important after all and they do say that the literary cachet opens doors."

"It opens more than doors," Charles said.

"Charles!" his mother said. Then she began to smile dreamily and tap at her front teeth with one of her long fingernails. "Mr. Dolson is a self-made man," she said. "He loves to talk about how he started his business from nothing."

"Well, writing is a business," Charles said. "But you don't start businesses from nothing any more."

"Darling," his mother said, "we do think alike, don't we." She was still smiling dreamily. She was an exceedingly attractive woman, less than twice her son's age, and at this moment she looked like a young girl happily making up a guest list for a party. "Well," she said, "first I must catch my rabbit, as the cookbook says. We're spending a month in Maine with Mr. Dolson and his sister, that much is toward. And it's all going to be very proper and correct. You just be sure to be the kind of future stepson Mr. Dolson would love to send to New York and I think it will arrange itself very nicely."

Mr. Dolson's house in Maine was damp and big and the wind blew right through it. Charles had had hopes of, say, an acquiescent upstairs maid, but Mr. Dolson kept few servants, and they were all elderly. The house was well away from the popular beaches and towns and it was probably all just as well for Charles. Undistracted, he did a great deal of writing in one of the wooden towers that studded the house. Mr. Dolson was clearly infatuated with Charles' mother, their visit stretched to nearly two months, and by then Charles had sold two minor pieces to two minor publications and had placed a very serious story in a literary magazine. Mr. Dolson said he was impressed by Charles' industry and told Charles to call him Bill. For some reason this was embarrassing to Charles, but always after, he called Mr. Dolson Bill.

"You're sure you want to marry him?" he said to his mother.

"Darling," his mother said, "I was born with luxurious tastes and your father let me develop my tastes into necessities. Life is very hard for a woman, Charles." (continued on page 22)

O You New York Girls (continued from page 20)

So, at the end of the summer, Charles saw his mother into her second marriage and left for New York. He would have a regular remittance, Mr. Dolson said, so long as he behaved himself and continued to show improvement. Of course, the remittance could not go on forever, Mr. Dolson pointed out, but he was willing to be reasonable.

Afterward, Charles recognized Greenwich Village as a mistake, but then, settling there first certainly got any ideas he'd had about the Village into perspective. And Charles always remembered the Village kindly because right at the beginning the Village reaffirmed something for him that badly needed reaffirming.

He could sense things becoming operative the moment he went into the secondhand bookstore. An untidy girl with a madonna face was at the desk and she gave Charles a look of interest as he went in. Charles looked around until he found some dictionaries, and he began pulling these down and going through them.

"Perhaps I can help you," the girl said.

"Perhaps you can," Charles said. "I need a good desk book of usage."

"Usage?" the girl said. "You mean like a do-it-yourself book?"

"No," Charles said, "I mean something like Fowler. You know how it is," he said, "when you're working and you start wondering shall I, or shall I not, use the subjunctive. And things like that."

"Oh," the girl said, "you must be a writer. You've come to the right place," she said. "All kinds of writers come here. All of my friends are writers. I do quite a lot of writing myself."

"Oh," Charles said. Things didn't seem operative any more.

"Don't hurry away," the girl said. "You are a writer, aren't you?"

"Well," Charles said, "I've really only had a few things published."

"A published writer!" the girl said, and everything was operative again. "Oh," she said, "that's marvelous. What have you done?"

"It's rather a funny coincidence," Charles said, "but I happened to get one of them in the mail today." He took the literary magazine from the side pocket of his raincoat.

"Isn't this wonderful?" the girl said. "I don't suppose you'd want to come around to my apartment tonight and meet everybody?"

"I like to write at night," Charles said. "But I'd like to come around to your apartment too."

Certainly the bookstore girl's friends were an odd and raffish lot, but presently Charles, who was nursing a glass of terrible-tasting red wine, began to recognize a familiar pattern, the pattern of sophomore thought. At college he had passed through the intellectual phase quickly. It had seemed to him that the endless and involved discussing of life and art was like discussing sex: it was a postponement of reality, and probably an avoidance of it. Charles, touching his wine glass to his lips occasionally, was polite and pleasant; and he sat them all out. He sat out the young men in blue jeans and the young men in beards and the Harvard man and the Yale man, who had a feeble fight and fell into the bathtub, and the Englishman who was slumming. Charles sat them all out and when they were gone things became operative very quickly indeed with the bookstore girl. It simply went to show, Charles thought, that women were fools for a writer.

"Oh, you're different," the bookstore girl kept saying. "I've never known anybody like you. Are you going to put us in a story?" she said. "Will this inspire you?"

"Why," Charles said, "of course."

"I suppose you'll have to change my name," she said. "Please give me a beautiful name and when I read it I'll know it's me and it will be my secret." Then she said: "I wish I hadn't had all those people here tonight but I didn't know for sure. There won't be another soul here tomorrow night, though. Just you."

"Tomorrow night?" Charles said.

"Oh. Well this has been very very lovely, believe me," he said, "but you see, a writer really has to be an ascetic most of the time."

The girl was thin and dark-haired and she looked at him with sudden dark eyes. Then she drew a sheet up to her chin and turned away from him. "Go away, please," she said.

"Oh now look," Charles said. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"Didn't you," the girl said.

"After all," Charles said, "I was only confessing a personal weakness. I can't help it if I've only got so much creativity," he said.

The girl turned back to him. "I suppose I'm being selfish," she said. "Creativity, that's the important thing, isn't it."

"I have to make a lot of sacrifices for it," Charles said.

Of course a more experienced or more persistent girl would have topped that line easily but Charles was learning too and he learned a great deal that fall. He had started visting editors' and agents' offices, he met many girls and women, and not a few passed through Charles' cold-water flat in the Village. In the matter of terminating these affairs Charles' instincts were sound: sooner or later women started to make claims and to think of perpetuity. The trick lay in stopping things before they reached this stage and Charles found that if you fed a woman enough lines she would inevitably talk herself into an untenable position. There were, of course, some girls who were unable to recognize an untenable position: with these, Charles was very helpful.

But the cold-water flat began to seem dreary to Charles, and so did the Village. He wanted to live uptown, in the East Fifties, which was far beyond his means, but he might have delayed much longer in taking a step in the direction of the East Fifties if his mother had not called him from Boston.

"Well, well," Charles said, "honey-mooner. How was the cruise?"

"It turned out to be a third-rate Italian ship full of cockroaches and lechers," his mother said.

"Oh," Charles said.

"Including your stepfather," his mother said.

"As bad as that?" Charles said. He began to feel very nervous.

"Well perhaps not," his mother said.

"I just don't have anybody to talk to, darling. I'm bottled up, you know? But I just thought I'd better warn you: Bill's beginning to mutter about your allowance."

"I'd better look for a job," Charles said.

"If you find one don't tell Bill," his mother said. "At least not until you're on your feet."

"Why don't you come down for a few days, Josie," Charles said. "Let me show you the town. It's wonderful."

"Don't make me green, Charlie," his mother said. "It's impossible. Bill says that after that cruise we have to economize. Economize!"

"Wait till I get a decent place and some money of my own," Charles said. "I'll stand you the trip. Just don't do anything foolish though, Josie," he said.

"Darling," his mother said, "you sound so grown-up. Of course I won't do anything foolish. I just hope I don't have to learn how to make soap out of bacon fat, that's all."

Charles spent a day making up a scrapbook of everything he had written that had been printed and took it to an employment agency. Even then he did not fully realize that his taste in clothes and his mannered air were much in his favor in impressionable New York. He was offered a choice of jobs; naturally he first looked into one offered by a book publisher.

When he went to be interviewed by the publisher it seemed to him that the whole thing was a mistake. The reception room was large and dark, almost (continued on page 30) O You New York Girls (continued from page 22) dingy. Some old leather chairs and an old leather sofa were grouped around a fireplace. The receptionist's desk looked blackened with age. But the girl behind it was fresh and pretty.

"Mr. Stagg will see you right away," she said to Charles. "Will you come with me, please?"

"That would be a pleasure," Charles said.

Mr. Stagg's office had a worn oriental rug on the floor and a roll-top desk. Mr. Stagg was a big tall man, in his forties, Charles judged. His face was tanned and he wore a tan-colored suit and half-Wellington boots. He had hard hands and a gentle Southern voice.

"This job," he said, "I've had half a dozen bright young fellas in here asking about it. It's a job that wants the exact right man, Mr. Corday. Let's see if you're him."

Charles answered Mr. Stagg's questions respectfully and concisely. Mr. Stagg wanted to know much about Charles' New England family connections. It seemed to Charles that the diamonds in Mr. Stagg's cuff links were real and it occurred to him that old oriental rugs and roll-top desks could be collectors' items. There were two silver-mounted portrait photographs on the desk: one was of a beautiful woman and the other was of a beautiful young girl. They had the resemblance of sisters or mother and daughter, intriguing to Charles who was gathering his impressions obliquely.

Mr. Stagg started to talk about himself. "I'm like the man in the art gallery," he said. "I don't know anything about literature but I sure know what I like. My wife, she got me started on this business. Great one for writers, she was." He touched the photograph of the older woman. "Killed doing a hundred and twenty in her Cadillac outside of Fort Worth," he said, and shook his head. "I still can't believe it."

Charles smelled money, somewhere. Money that had been put into the publishing business, not taken out of it. "I need a sort of liaison man," Mr. Stagg was saying. "A man that'll get to know the business, and get to know me. I want my ideas to rub off onto him and I want him to be able to put them across. That can't happen overnight, so the money's according." He looked directly at Charles and Charles nodded.

Mr. Stagg's manner shifted. "You writing anything now, Mr. Corday?" he said.

Charles had decided that he wanted in. "Well, sir," he said, "I've got about half of a novel done."

"What's it about?"

"About life in a grammar school," Charles said.

"You'd know about that," Mr. Stagg said, "Where I come from," he said, "we size up a man quick. You size up good, Charles, real good. What do you think of my place, here?"

"The whole thing?" Charles said. "Why, it's very restful. Very easy. I'd think writers would like it. And I think it must have cost a lot to get the effect."

Mr. Stagg laughed and made a fist and rapped Charles on the shoulder. "You're a real smart one, Charles," he said. "You want to work for me?" He didn't wait for Charles to answer. "There's a little bit of an office for you just around the corner from the reception desk. It ain't much but it's like the money – up to you. And the receptionist, she's kind of new here too, you can have her whenever you need a girl."

The receptionist tapped at the door and came in, although Charles hadn't seen Mr. Stagg press any buttons. "See you tomorrow, Charles," Mr. Stagg said.

Charles followed the receptionist back through the carpeted hall, admiring her pretty bottom and the froufrou of her legs. "You can have her whenever you need a girl," his employer had said, but with the utmost seriousness; and Charles took note. Besides, there was a more immediate matter.

He called a girl he knew who was a junior editor on the staff of a women's magazine. "Tom Stagg?" she said. "Everybody knows about him. I know a lot of people who'd go into books if he'd give them a job."

"Well," Charles said, "why?"

"Because he's loaded, darling, that's why. He's one of those oil zillionaires, you know, rode around on one of his longhorns with no seat to his pants until he got the idea of digging holes in the arid ancestral acres. He married a Smith girl," the girl said, "since deceased, but Tom Stagg is still married to some of her aspirations."

"Good heavens," Charles said. "Does everybody in the publishing business know everything about everybody else?"

"Well," she said, "I'm not the only girl in the publishing business who knows where you've got the cutest mole, darling."

"Thanks for the information," Charles said. "All of it."

Even with his remittance still coming in, Charles' salary was not enough for a move to the East Fifties. But a few carefully placed gratuities bought him a sublessee for the cold-water flat and found him a pleasant garden apartment uptown, below the park. He furnished it with some good reproductions and with such stay-a-while items as television, a bargain monaural hi-fi, a beginner's collection of erotica. This last struck him as so ridiculous that he was about to write it off as a mistake when he discovered its real usefulness. A man who displayed more than passing interest in it would likely turn out to be a clod; women who had an overt interest in it were women to be avoided.

Charles knew something about foods and wines and he learned more; he began entertaining in a small and select way and he continued to exercise his selective taste in women. It was now winter, with days of smog and slush and gray skies; but to Charles Corday it was a season of brilliance and of generous everlasting time. It was necessary to work, of course, and it was necessary to write because writing was the keystone of it all. His unfinished novel had been assigned to one of Mr. Stagg's editors.

"We'll publish it, all right," the editor said, "and entirely apart from your being the fair-haired boy around here. If we didn't, somebody else would and the Old Man would cut off our heads," He looked at Charles curiously. "When I went to school," he said, "there were kids like these." He touched Charles' script. "They belonged to another world. They weren't kids at all, not really."

"Perhaps they thought being kids was a waste of time," Charles said.

"I see," the editor said. He began to look embarrassed. "Well," he said, "I comment on the state of contemporary society when I say there'll be a readership for this."

"Charles," Mr. Stagg said later, "I knew that book of yours was going to be all right. I reckon you want to get it finished."

"Yes sir," Charles said. "I certainly do."

"So do I. Sit down, Charles," Mr. Stagg said. "You're not thinking of quitting your job with me on the strength of this, are you?"

Charles didn't know what Mr. Stagg was working up to, but he did know that Mr. Stagg admired crisp decisions. "No sir," he said.

"Good," Mr. Stagg said. "I'm mighty glad to hear that, Charles. I like the way you put my ideas across. Them editors of mine, they pay attention to my directives, when you write them."

"And they'd like to murder me, Charles thought pleasantly.

"Now I've got a little proposition for you on that book, Charles," Mr. Stagg said. "Every writer needs a little practical help."

Money, Charles thought, at last. Tangible money.

"What'll you take, Charles," Mr. Stagg said, "a fifteen-hundred-dollar advance on your book, or banker's hours around here?"

Damn, Charles thought. "Banker's hours," he said, crisply.

"You look a long ways ahead, don't (continued on page 78)

O You New York Girls (continued from page 30) you, Charles?" Mr. Stagg said.

It was a time to be absolutely frank. "Yes sir," Charles said, "I do. But I want to finish my book too. I really want to be a writer."

"You are, Charles," Mr. Stagg said. "You are." Then he said: "I'm going to load you with work in this banker's-hours setup. You better have a nicer office and you better have a full-time girl. That Miss Chatsworth, she's just about right for you."

Virginia Chatsworth was the receptionist who doubled as Charles' stenographer. "I'll raise her fifteen," Mr. Stagg said, "and I'll let you break the good news to her."

Carefully evaluated, the whole thing was good news to Charles, too. But the best part of it was wrecked when his mother called him a few days later. "Charlie," she said, "I've got to tell Bill about your job. He's going to New York, something about business, and I've talked him into taking me. But he would have found out anyway. I think you'd better pretend you haven't had your job very long."

"All right," Charles said. "I don't think I want to meet your plane. I'd rather see you alone first."

"It's a train, darling, and I understand your feelings perfectly. Can I meet you at your office? And will you make me laugh, darling?"

Certainly Charles had much affection for his mother, but they had never been sentimental about each other and Charles was surprised at his upsurge of filial warmth when Miss Chatsworth brought his mother into his office. "Darling," his mother said, "you look so handsome, Charlie. You look just like your father, damn him."

"Well," Charles said, "you're more beautiful than ever. I was afraid you'd turned into a crone."

"It would take more than Bill Dolson to do that. And by the way, your allowance is cut off dear, I'm sorry, and let's please not even talk about it right now." She looked around Charles' office. "My," she said. "How dignified. And how rich. And what a pretty pretty little girl to attend your wants and needs. What's her name?"

"Temptation," Charles said. "I think."

"Darling," his mother said, "I don't know what to do with a subtlety any more."

"Well," Charles said, "Mr. Stagg is a very chivalrous man. He'd cut off his right arm rather than put it around the waist of a defenseless maiden. And I've an idea he wants to be damn sure I'm of the same persuasion. Hence the delectable Virginia Chatsworth."

"Virginia Chatsworth, how nice," his mother said. Then she said: "I think she's in love with you."

"Now Josie," Charles said. "Behave yourself. I've just explained to you that I can't afford to get involved with the female help here."

"Well you can someday," his mother said. "It seems to me that you've a future with this Mr. Stagg if he's testing you so carefully."

"It's the present that counts," Charles said. "I have a damn good job here and I want to keep it until I'm established as a writer."

"Darling," his mother said, "don't be short-sighted, not when he has all that money!"

"He's not a philanthropic institution, Josie," Charles said.

"I should hope not!" his mother said. Then she began to smile her dreamy smile and tap at her front teeth. "You said he has a daughter," she said.

"Charles laughed. "What a plotter you are, Josie," he said. "I've never even seen the girl. But you should hear him talk about her. She is beautiful, thoughtful, kind, witty, marvelous, a nonpareil, in fact. And she lives a carefully supervised life. No fortune hunter's going to get her, no sir. Tom Stagg will see to it personally that the right man marries his daughter."

"He tells you all this?" Charles' mother said.

"He tells me all kinds of things," Charles said. "I'm his boy Friday. It's my job to understand him."

"He must be a remarkable man," Charles' mother said.

"You should meet him," Charles said. "Say," he said, "there's no reason why you shouldn't. Would you like to?"

"It's about time you thought of it, darling," his mother said. "I'm only dying of curiosity."

Afterward Charles saw that there was nothing fortuitous about that day. It was inevitable that his mother should be curious about Mr. Stagg, it was in evitable that Mr. Stagg should buy them a lunch: and it was also inevitable that Mr. Stagg should use the occasion to introduce his daughter. Her name was Beth-Anne and she was waiting in a black limousine outside of the restaurant.

They were all events that were simply waiting to happen, but at the time Charles' mind was split between wondering how he was going to get along without Bill Dolson's allowance and an acknowledgment of his mother's rightness in the surroundings of that expensive restaurant. Mr. Stagg couldn't read the French menu and he didn't pretend trying. His conversation with the sommelier was intelligent but not knowledgeable. But he tasted with appreciation and he commanded superb service; and Charles, mulling his own problems, observed that Mr. Stagg had the rare gift of conveying the grace of good service to the women at his table. Charles had never seen his mother happier.

After lunch they strolled in Beekman Place, Mr. Stagg and his mother walking ahead. "Didn't you like your lunch?" Beth-Anne Stagg said to Charles.

"What?" Charles said. "Oh, yes. It was wonderful. I don't often get to places like that."

"You shouldn't worry when you're eating," Beth-Anne said. "My," she said, "but your mother is beautiful."

"Well," Charles said, "as your father pointed out when he introduced us, I'm not the only one with a beauty in the family."

Beth-Anne laughed. "I'll accept that, from you," she said. "Most men would flatter me if I looked like a toad, you know."

"I suppose so," Charles said. "It must be tough."

"Don't be nasty," Beth-Anne said. "I think I like you." She put her hand on his arm and Charles noticed, ahead of them, that Mr. Stagg had his mother's elbow cupped in his hand. "And you'll probably want to marry me," Beth-Anne was saying, "like all the rest of them." She glanced up at him and smiled with a kind of teasing maliciousness. "Would you like to marry me, Charles Corday?"

"Why yes," Charles said. "I think we've been engaged much too long, don't you?"

"What are you two laughing at?" Mr. Stagg said. He and Charles' mother had stopped and the black limousine had mysteriously appeared.

"I might ask you the same question, sir," Charles said.

Mr. Stagg looked out over the East River. "Isn't it fine to be alive," he said. "And a beautiful woman makes the whole thing make sense, don't you agree, Charles?"

The chauffeur had opened the door of the car and Mr. Stagg said: "Let me take you to your hotel, Mrs. Dolson."

For the first time that day Charles saw his mother at a loss, and it came to him that Bill Dolson had undoubtedly booked into a commercial hotel. "Why," she said, "thank you. But I'd really like to get out at Fifth or Madison and window-shop."

"Whatever you say, ma'am," Mr. Stagg said. "You stay with your mother awhile, Charles," he said. "And don't hurry back."

Charles went in and out of several specialty shops with his mother. She looked at things and kept turning them over and pushing them about in an irritable way. "What's the matter with you, Josie?" Charles said. "I thought you had a good time."

"I did and that's what's the matter with me," his mother said. She looked at the imported blouse that was being modeled for her. "Oh," she said, "if only I could spend and spend and spend. Why don't you run back to your office, darling." she said. "I'll get over this. And don't forget, you're having dinner with Bill and me tonight."

Dinner that night turned out to be at Bill Dolson's third-rate hotel. Bill Dolson had made some money that day. He drank a lot of old fashioneds and got himself into an expensive mood. "Let's do the town, eh Charlie-boy?" he said. "You know any good nightclubs?"

Charles named a few and Bill Dolson seemed to get soberer. "Now Charlie," he said. "I didn't make any million dollars today, you know."

"Well," Charles said, "you can always ask a taxi driver."

"OK," Bill Dolson said. "You do that little thing, Charlie-boy."

"No." Charles said, "I think you'd better do it, Bill."

Charles' mother shuddered when they went into the place and Charles patted her hand. "He has an instinct for these dives," she whispered to Charles. "An absolute instinct. Can you imagine him in Paris?"

It was not an evening that Charles cared to remember, but one incident stayed in his mind. A cigarette girl stopped at their table. She was nearly naked in a tatty costume, and she looked down at Charles with tired eyes. "Feet hurt, honey?" Charles said.

"God yes," the girl said.

Charles took a five out of his billfold and dropped it into her tray and turned his palm against her gesture of making change. "You must of had a fight with your girlfriend," the cigarette girl said, "but thanks anyway." She moved to Bill Dolson.

Bill Dolson had been watching Charles with amazement. "Well," he said to the cigarette girl, "I think our young friend here has bought me a pack, too, at least." One of his hands hovered over the tray. Charles didn't see the other hand but he saw the cigarette girl start suddenly. "He didn't buy you that, mister," she said. "You want something else for free? Like a free ride out on your ass?"

"Now girlie," Bill Dolson said, "Don't get above yourself."

Charles' mother was looking some-where else and smiling brightly, but the rims of her nostrils had turned white.

At the station the next day he had a few moments alone with his mother. "Well," she said, "I certainly made my bed, didn't I? And don't start telling me not to do anything foolish, dear, I'm not that foolish. Darling," she said, "you know I didn't try to sell you to your Mr. Stagg yesterday, don't you?"

"Of course," Charles said. "You didn't need to, Josie. You just made your own marvelous impression, as if you didn't know."

"Darling, I love bald flattery. I hope it doesn't mean I'm getting old. Well anyway dear, I'm worried about you and I'll certainly send you any loose money I can scrape up, but if I did make this impression on Mr. Stagg couldn't you just go and ask him for a raise?"

"No," Charles said. "I don't think it would be wise at all to let Mr. Stagg know I have any concern about small money."

But Charles was deeply concerned. His standard of living was about to be forced down. Walking across town to his apartment he thought of a television producer he had met and entertained once or twice. Charles decided to call him.

"Remember when you told me to stop wasting my time on serious writing and make some real money in television?" he said.

"Yeah," the producer said. "And remember you said you'd have to be starving before you'd think of writing such crap?"

"Well." Charles said, "I'm starving."

"Charlie." the producer said, "you'd better soak up some of these adult Westerns, but not too many. And go down to the Forty-second Street library and get yourself a working knowledge of sodbusters, diamond hitches, the Lincoln County War, the Chisolm Trail. Then let's see what kind of a script you can do."

It was the beginning of a period of very hard work. And Charles could not be single-minded about it. He wanted the prestige of a published novel, and he wanted a legitimate advance, and he set aside a period each day to continue writing the novel. Mr. Stagg had much for him to do. Charles stopped entertaining and sacrificed sleep. He became celibate. His nerves started to jump.

"Charles," Mr. Stagg said, "your mother is about the most charming and beautiful woman I've ever met."

And I wish you'd met her a year ago, Charles thought. "Yes, sir," he said, and laughed. "I agree with you completely." He might not have said any more, but he'd been up nearly all night with his television script. "She's also one of the bravest women I know," he said.

"Call me Tom, Charles," Mr. Stagg said. "And what's that about your mother?"

There was nothing like the truth. Charles decided, especially when you found yourself blurting things. "Well, sir," he said, "she made a terrible mistake in Mr. Dolson. And she has to live with it."

"Charles," Mr. Stagg said, "I want you to call me Tom. What kind of a mistake, Charles?"

"Tom," Charles said, "it's an unpleasant word, but Mr. Dolson has turned out to be a lecher," And hang on to yourself about the miser part, Charles advised himself: millionaires are sensitive.

Tom Stagg's face reddened a little. "I hate a skirt-chaser," he said, "just as much as you do, Charles."

Charles went back to his office. "Miss Chatsworth," he said, "you are the most beautiful and charming girl I have ever known."

"Why – –" she said, and her eyes opened and her lips trembled. "Why, Mr. Corday. I never knew you even noticed me!"

Charles sat at his desk. "Get me some aspirin, Miss Chatsworth," he said, "and get thee to a nunnery."

Charles sent the producer his script and went to see him a few days later. The producer seemed to be having a quarrel in his office with a stunning brunette girl, and he seemed glad to have Charles interrupt.

"I haven't a thing for you, Lorene," the producer was saying. "Why don't you let me call you."

The brunette's eyes were flaming and her mouth was set; but the producer's secretary was holding the door open. The brunette turned to go, her look softened somewhat as she faced Charles, and then she swept out.

"Actresses," the producer said, "if you could call that one an actress. I don't know how they leak through casting and get up here, but they do." He took Charles' script from his blotter. "This isn't bad, Charlie," he said. "Can you do a dozen or twenty more?"

"A dozen or twenty!" Charles said.

"Well I want a package, Charlie. All right, do three or four more and I'll put you in touch with somebody who'll show you how to whip them into shape. And try to get you some money too. You've got some real nice touches, Charles, but you have things to learn yet."

The brunette named Lorene was still in the reception room when Charles went out. "Did he throw you out too?" she said.

"What?" Charles said. "Oh no. I was just showing him a sample."

"So was I," Lorene said. "They'll always take a free sample."

Charles looked at Lorene and then at his watch. "Care to have lunch with me?" he said.

"Lunch!" Lorene said in a horrified way.

"All right," Charles said. "Dinner, then," Dimly, Charles had the thought that she was not his cup of tea at all. But Charles was tired beyond good judgment, and his celibacy was crowding him.

In the morning Charles said: "Good morning, Lorene. You're as smooth as cream, Lorene."

"For God's sake," she said. "It's the middle of the night."

"Up and at'em," Charles said, forcing himself to briskness. "You like coffee, I trust. A little juice and coffee before you start your daily rounds?"

"Charlie," Lorene said, "let me stay with you."

"Lorene," Charles said, "it was nice knowing you."

She got up and stretched, smiling. There was no doubt about her figure, it was terrific, and Charles felt really grateful to her: he felt like a human being again this morning. But the line had to be drawn, especially when they started talking like that.

Lorene was still smiling. She padded the length of the room, opened the French windows, and went into the garden. Charles pulled on a dressing gown and rushed after her. "What in the hell is the idea," he said, pulling her back inside. "Going out there in your pelt. Do you want the cops around here?"

She twined herself around him and Charles began to hold her in a different way. At once she slipped away from him and ran back to the French windows. Charles knew better than to chase her. "You win," he said, "temporarily. Just don't be here when I come back."

That morning Tom Stagg said, "Charles, I've got a problem I want you to help me on. This time it's a personal one."

"Yes, sir," Charles said. "Sure, Tom."

"It's Beth-Anne. I can't keep these young fellows away from her completely. She's over eighteen. But there's a lot of snakes, as I told you before. Trouble is, we don't belong up here. Any man got serious about her I could get a line on him, sure. But by then it could be too late."

"Why not send her to Switzerland for a year," Charles said.

"Charles, she's all I've got now," Tom Stagg said, "I wish you'd take her out a little. She likes you, you know. And some of these Ivy boys that come slobbering around – I guess you'd know some of their families, the good ones that is."

"I certainly know some of them," Charles said.

"Well I wish you'd take Beth-Anne to tea at the Plaza this afternoon."

It was a command, of course, but Charles could not truthfully say that he resented it. The idea of squiring Beth-Anne, and the hands-off implication, were subtly exciting, a refinement of his relationship with Virginia Chatsworth. More than a few girls had been invited to Charles' apartment by reason of Miss Chatsworth's aphrodisiac effect on him.

At noon Miss Chatsworth said: "A lady wants to talk to you, Mr. Corday, but she won't give her name."

"Charlie," Lorene said, "would you like me to cook your dinner?"

"No," Charles said. Once or twice before he had let girls linger in the apartment, but he had never liked doing it. "I thought i told you to get out of there," he said.

"Charlie," she said, "I haven't anywhere to go to. I'll make it worth your while, honest. I'm better than I was last night."

After all, the day was half over. Charles thought of her figure, and her ardor. "All right," he said, "and there's one condition. Don't you ever call me at the office here again."

Two weeks later Lorene said: "Now. Aren't I a good housekeeper?"

"Yes," Charles said. He did not stop typing.

"And good for other things?" Lorene bent over him.

Charles pulled the sheet out of his machine. The type and a lot of other black specks were dancing in front of his eyes and a nervous tic was having a life of its own in the muscles of his back. He had taken Beth-Anne to the Plaza, he had taken her to Rumpelmayer's, he had given her Sunday lunch on the terrace at the zoo, he had taken her to Chinatown and to Eddie Condon's. He had taken Lorene to the Stork Club and Sardi's and he knew he wouldn't be welcomed back, not with her. Lorene wanted to be seen but she wanted something else even more badly.

"A troublemaker from away back," the television producer said, after Charles had contrived to bring up her name. "She'd rather bitch things up than eat, that one. Nobody in the business'll touch her. Say, this is really a nice tense buildup. You're coming along, Charles. You're not ready, but you're coming."

"Yes," Charles said now to Lorene, "you're good for other things, too, and this can't go on. You aren't even looking for a job. I'll give you enough to keep you in the Barbizon for a month, and let's say good-bye."

"The Barbizon," she said.

"Anywhere," Charles said.

Her eyes began to glitter and Charles knew that she was beginning to work herself up to another one of those scenes she had used to keep herself in the apartment. She could scream and throw things and she could tear her clothes and run screaming out of the apartment. She had tried all of these things and Charles had had a final warning from the building agents. Charles Corday was in a classic trap and he was beginning to understand why men murdered women.

Suddenly Lorene said: "I love you. Why can't we get married?"

"Because I don't want to get married. I don't want to marry you and I don't want to marry anybody else."

"Oh yes you do. You want to marry that pie-faced rich girl you've been taking to those so-nice places."

"How do you know about any rich girl?" Charles put his hands to his head. He was picking up her lines like a fool.

"Because I watch you, that's why. I know where you go and everything." Lorene smiled. "I like doing that better than I like looking for work."

"Well it won't pay as well," Charles said.

"Won't it. Your stepfather is a millionaire."

"You do research as well as spying," Charles said.

"I think I may telephone him sometime," Lorene said. "They won't like it in Boston, what you're doing with me."

Charles began to laugh. He did not know it at the time, but it was a bad mistake. "You may get a surprise if you send that news to Boston," he said.

"Darling," Lorene said. "It's only because I love you."

"All right," Charles said.

"Charles," Tom Stagg said, "I guess you know what this is all about, hey son?"

"Tom," Charles said, "don't make me guess."

"Charles, would you say Beth-Anne's in love with you?"

"I don't know," Charles said, "I certainly haven't promoted anything there, Tom."

"I know you haven't, son. You're too decent. Charles," Tom Stagg said, "I just want you to know I'd be mighty glad to have you for a son-in-law. That's what it's all about, Charles. That's what it's been all about for a long time now."

Mr. Stagg's secretary knocked. "There's a lady on the telephone for Mr. Corday. Miss Chatsworth put her through to me because she said it was urgent and personal."

"Your mother?" Tom Stagg said, looking grave. "Take it outside if you like, Charles."

"Charlie," Lorene said, "I've been thinking. Maybe they don't care in Boston if I talk, but your boss wouldn't like it if he heard about you and I. Would he, Charlie."

"I'll have to give you a decision on that later," Charles said.

"It has to be a lot more than any month at the Barbizon. Charlie. Lots and lots more."

"I'll give it very serious consideration," Charles said. "God," he said, when he had hung up.

"Not bad news, Charles," Tom Stagg said. His door had been open.

"A woman writer," Charles said. "Persistent, and a pest."

"Oh, one of those. I don't know why I thought it was your mother. I think about her, Charles. It's sad. Well," Tom Stagg said, "we were talking about her, Charles. It's sad, Well," Tom Stagg said, "we were talking about Beth-Anne."

"Tom," Charles said, "I'm greatly honored. My realest concern is Beth-Anne's age. She's awfully young for marriage."

"You want to marry her, don't you?" Tom Stagg said.

"Certainly," Charles said, "even though it was beyond my wildest dreams, Tom. She's adorable."

"Well don't worry about her age, then. And Charles. Ask my girl out there for your new pay check. I think you'll like it."

Bought and paid for, Charles thought, back in his own office. He looked at the pay check. It was tremendous. He looked at his bank statement and then went to his apartment.

"Lorene," he said, "I'm going to give you a thousand dollars, and that's the end."

She looked at him carefully. "No," she said.

"Listen," Charles said.

"That's a lot more than a month at the Barbizon," she said. "And why aren't you getting right to work on your television script, the way you usually do? Something good happened to you today, that's why."

"How much do you want?" Charles said.

"Five thousand," she said.

"Why don't you ask for fifty thousand?" Charles said. "Your chances of getting it are the same."

The next day Miss Chatsworth said: "That same lady is calling you again, Mr. Corday."

"Tell her I'm not here," Charles said.

He watched Virginia Chatsworth speak into her telephone, then turn white, then hang up. "I've never heard a woman say things like that before in my life," she said. Then she said: "Mr. Corday, is she trying to make trouble for you?"

Charles looked into Miss Chatsworth's guileless eyes, and read the concern in her face. "Yes," he said, "and she's going to take it to Mr. Stagg if I don't buy her off soon."

"Well I know it isn't your fault, Mr. Corday. It couldn't be. I'll do my best to keep her from getting through to Mr. Stagg."

"Virginia," Charles said. "Someday I hope to be able to reward you, adequately."

The telephone rang again. "No," Miss Chatsworth said, "he isn't."

"I'll talk to her," Charles said. He waited until the secretary had closed the door behind her, then he said: "All right, Lorene. I'm going to try to get it for you from my stepfather and I can't do it all in one day, so behave yourself."

"Charlie," Lorence said, "I hope you mean it. Why can't we get married, Charlie? You'll have all of his money someday."

"He's going to live forever," Charles said. "Don't you want yours right now?"

"Yes," Lorene said.

Charles called his mother in Boston. "Listen," he said, "to a long story," and he told her everything.

"Well," his mother said, "congratulations on the Beth-Anne part. I don't see Bill buying you out of this other, though."

"Even if he sees what I lose?"

"Well he won't be losing anything, dear."

"I might as well sign on a freighter," Charles said.

"Don't be silly," his mother said. "Let me think for a minute." She began to laugh. "Is this Lorene good-looking?"

"Terrific," Charles said. "But in a cheap sort of way. I promise you, Josie, I never would have looked at her twice if I hadn't been so damn tired and – well."

His mother laughed again. "I think I'm going to tell Bill that you called to invite us to New York. You had such a wonderful time with him last time you want to do the town again."

"I see," Charles said. "I mean, I don't."

"Promise your Lorene anything, dear," his mother said. "It can't do any harm even though I can't promise you anything except that I'll be down. And Bill is restless. I'm sure he'll come too."

His mother met Charles in his office. "Darling," she said, "you look terrible."

"It's like living on the edge of a damn cliff," Charles said. "And Tom keeps telling me to go away and have a rest."

His mother sat in one of Charles' chairs. "I think you'd better take us all to dinner tonight," she said. "And tell this Lorene to be very nice to Bill. Tell her that's where the money's coming from but say he thinks it's for her stage training or whatever."

"Do I see the plot?" Charles said. He began to laugh. "Josie," he said, "I think I'm catching up with you."

"Let's catch our rabbit first," his mother said. "Our rabbits, I mean."

Charles reserved a table at a place where there was dancing. He encouraged Bill Dolson to drink and he encouraged him to dance with Lorene. After a while Bill Dolson didn't need any encouragement at all. Going back to the hotel in a taxi, Bill Dolson did something that made Lorene gasp, and then giggle; and he said something privately to her when Charles was handing his mother out of the taxi.

"You did quite well tonight," Charles said to Lorene when they were alone. "I think he'll part with your five thousand,"

"Oh shut up," Lorene said.

In the morning Charles talked for a while with his mother on the telephone and then went in to see Tom Stagg. "Tom," he said, "I hate to bother you about a personal matter, but my mother needs help."

"She can sure count on it from me," Tom Stagg said.

"It's my stepfather," Charles said. "He and my mother are in town and there's this girl he's been playing around with and, well, my mother can't stand it any more. I was wondering if your lawyers could put me on to a reliable detective agency."

"I can't say I'm sorry to hear this, Charles," Tom Stagg said. "That snake has it coming to him. Call my lawyers and use my name."

Charles met the detective in a quiet cocktail lounge. "I'm pretty sure they'll try to get together tonight," he said, "and at this address." He gave the detective the address of his apartment. "But they could go someplace else so don't lose them once we all get together."

"There'll be three of us," the detective said. "I gather that expense is no object."

"That's right," Charles said, "but no cure, no pay. I want them absolutely flagrante delicto."

"We call it something else," the detective said, laughing. "Very rude. But our photographer never misses. Don't worry."

But Charles did worry. Fortunately Bill Dolson wanted them all to have dinner together again, so Charles didn't have to risk the possible obviousness of making another invitation himself. The rest of it could look thin, if inspected.

He arrived at the dinner party late. "Mr. Stagg's been holding me up," he said. "He's making me take a train tonight for Baltimore. Some writer I have to talk to."

"Oh darling," his mother said. "No!"

"That's tough, Charlie," Bill Dolson said. "Real tough."

"I wanted to be with you as long as I could," Charles said, "so I rushed home and packed my bags and left them at the office. There's some stuff there I have to take, too."

"Lorene," Bill Dolson said, "let's dance."

Charles' mother broke a stick of celery and then began to giggle. "I'm going to get hysterical," she said. "What shall I sue for, darling, alimony or a property settlement?"

"Property settlement," Charles said, "and stop it. These rabbits aren't caught yet. Look at the way he's holding her."

"Look at the way she's holding him. Aren't we wicked?"

"This is survival," Charles said.

At eleven o'clock Charles stood up.

"Don't let me break up the party," he said.

"Not a chance, boy," Bill Dolson said.

"I hate to say good-bye to you," his mother said. "Why don't I go to the station with you."

"Stay and have fun," Charles said.

"I'm starting to get a headache from the smoke," his mother said. "I want to go to the station with you and then right back to the hotel. I feel as though I could sleep for a year."

"Well," Charles said, "in that case––"

Outside, his mother clutched his arm suddenly, "Has she got a key?" she said.

"Key?" Charles said. "Oh, to my apartment. You don't know Lorene very well, darling. She lifted my spare and had a duplicate made long ago." He put a bill into the doorman's hand and the doorman whistled at a taxi. "So now all we have to do is go to my office, and wait. Are you nervous?"

"I could scream," his mother said.

"Well I've got some Scotch there," Charles said.

• • •

That fall Tom Stagg said: "Charles, how'd you like me for a stepfather?"

"Why," Charles said, "I can't think of anything better." He put out his hand. "I can't say I haven't seen this coming," he said.

"We're going to go to Paris," Tom Stagg said. "London, Paris, Vienna, Rome. Maybe across to Rio."

"She'll love that," Charles said.

"So will I. Let's sit down, Charles. Your novel's doing well. Making the salesmen cuss, but I told them to push it."

"I can stand the salesmen's displeasure," Charles said. "And I've got another one going."

"Good, good." Tom Stagg began to look around the office in an embarrassed way. "I know how important your writing is to you, Charles," he said, "but I can't just throw this business away. Think you could handle it and your writing too?"

"Yes," Charles said.

"I hoped you'd say that." Tom Stagg stood up. "Move into my office anytime," he said. "It's yours now. I'm going to have lunch with your mother, and you're not invited." He laughed and then paused in the doorway. "By the way," he said, "your mother thinks Beth-Anne should go to Switzerland, same as you."

"She's too young to be rushed," Charles said. "We have to be fair to her, even though she doesn't like it."

"Nobody could be fairer than you, Charles," Tom Stagg said.

Charles washed his hands and then went back to his office for his hat. "I'll be back about three," he said to Miss Chatsworth.

Miss Chatsworth turned her beautiful face up to him. "Yes, Mr. Corday," she said.

"Virginia," Charles said, "it won't be long now."

"What won't, Mr. Corday?"

"You'll see, Virginia," Charles said. "You'll see."