Ourselves to Know Too Well

try the view from john o'hara's terrace

"How long have you been in Vexville, Pennsylvania, honey?" Karen Green-grass asked, smiling warmly.

"I've been in Vexville for fifty-seven years," Roger Padam replied, tapping the top of his desk with the index finger of his left hand.

Roger Padam was born in Vexville, Pennsylvania, in 1903. His father, Jonathan Padam, had come to Vexville from Budapest in 1873. In Budapet, the Padam family had included Roger's father, his mother Clara, his father's grandparents, Minnizia and Elias Padam, his father's brother (or Roger's uncle) Zeb and his father's two sisters, Zenia (Zeb's twin) and Greta. Zeb owned the largest flax-flicking factory in all of Europe. In 1872, he sold out and made the move to America. In 1922, his son Roger met Minnie Klinkle. Minnie's father, Stanley Klinkle, was born in Cracow, Poland, in 1855. He married Selma Nordka in 1870, when both were fifteen, and sailed to America in the hold of a merchant ship. Minnie, their only child, was born in 1904. Roger Padam and Minnie Klinkle were married during a warm (mid-seventies) Philadelphia weekend in 1925, two months after their first embrace. They settled in Vexville. Roger, with the aid of the $400 weekly stipend sent to him by his father, who had built an empire in Newark, New Jersey, created a vast flax-flicking corporate realm in Vexville.

"That's a long time to be in this town," Karen said.

"It's not so long," Roger said. "It's a fine old town and it's been very good to Minnie and me. Minnie was saying just yesterday that this is a fine old town and I can't say she's wrong. It's been good to us. We have many friends here and when I stroll to the post office each day to chat with Marvin Moritat-sky I know that I'm passing through the town in which I'll die. But even then I'll go knowing that I spent many happy years here with Minnie and all the wonderful townspeople."

Karen paused. She thought about this fascinating man. She thought about Vexville – new to her after three years in New York. She doubted that she could love this town, but she knew she could love this man.

Karen Greengrass was twenty-two. Her father, Ezra, had been a pawnbroker in Butte, Montana, for twenty-four years. Her mother, Gilda, had been her father's wife for twenty-three of those years. They were pleasant beings, but their life wasn't Karen's kind of life. Her brother, Kahil, had gone to Iran when he was thirteen; she hadn't seen him since. Her two sisters, Emma and Pernita, had married (at the ages of seventeen and twenty-one, respectively) and had moved from Butte (to Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Norman, Oklahoma, respectively). Karen sensed the need to make her own way and had taken a train (actually a series of trains) East. She hoped to get a job flicking flax at the Padam Works in Vexville. But she hadn't anticipated this interview with Roger Padam.

Padam, she observed, was six feet, one inch tall. He weighed 170 pounds. His hair was dark brown, as were his eyes. He wore brown high-top shoes, purple stockings, and a green tweed suit with matching vest. His tie was solid mauve; his shirt was yellow. He had a mole on the back of his left hand.

"What's Minnie like?" she asked.

"Kind of roly-poly you might say, but all sweet inside," Roger replied, eying Karen's properly bulging blouse.

"Prettier than I am?" Karen asked, sliding her chair closer to his desk.

"No, I suppose not," Roger replied, "but she's a fine person."

"I think you're fascinating," she said.

"Thank you," Roger said, gripping the knot of his mauve tie.

"Kiss me," Karen urged, rising from her chair and moving around Roger's desk.

"No," Roger answered. "This is a business interview. I believe in understanding my employees. No more than that."

"I want you, Roger Padam. I've come all the way from Butte for you," she said.

"My mother is dead. You could be a mother to me, if you wish, but no more than that," he murmured.

"I want you," Karen sighed.

"You can't have me – Minnie has me," he insisted.

"You're a louse in a lousy town," she cried. "You show off your big factory and you talk about your Minnie and you. . ."

Roger Padam glared at her attractive form and remembered an evening in Philadelphia in 1929.

"Come on, Rog old boy, come on. We'll drop in at Mamie's for a few hours and you'll have something to take back to Vexville with you. Minnie won't know about it. It'll be something you'll remember for years," Alvin Cornmead had said. Alvin had attended Haver-sham University, too, from 1920 to 1925, and somehow they had managed to maintain contact after graduation. Alvin was a big city attorney, a member of the firm of Cornmead, Medville, Grogan and Marx (on Broad Street).

"I really don't want to," Roger had implored.

But he did.

When he stood before the choice young girl, he felt weak.

"I don't want to," he had said to her.

"You're a louse from a lousy town," she had said, seizing her clothes and rushing from the room.

Roger remembered. He looked at Karen Greengrass and realized that it wasn't too late to correct past error.

"Maybe just this once," he whispered.

"Maybe just this once what?" Karen asked, gazing out the open window overlooking the vast Padam Works.

"Maybe," Roger mumbled, advancing.

They met at the side of his desk. He clasped Karen to him, kissed her and guided her across the room.

It was a simple matter to edge her out the window.

"It's not a lousy town," he said, lighting a moderately expensive cigar. "It's home for Minnie and me."