5:45 to Suburbia (4 page)

A
FTER
Charlie Gibson put aside the news clipping, he searched through his mail pile for the letter from his daughter, Jane (or Jayne, as she was now spelling it).

It was written on Radcliffe College stationery and it began quite simply:

Dear Dad,

I am having an affair …

Charlie felt his stomach do a flip. He gulped (he had been expecting “Happy Birthday” or something like that; never,
never
this), got a grip on himself and took a deep breath and exhaled as he continued to read:

Charlie Gibson’s first reaction to the letter was mute shock, shock of the uncanny sort that seeps in on one gradually, like water slowly flooding a leaky rowboat, and he sat there at his desk momentarily in an effort to get used to it. When he could — just barely — he seized at the idea that his daughter did not mean “affair” in the same sense as he had taken it. Not affair,
sexual,
not that … Jane? … Jayne?

For some peculiar reason his mind shot back to a summer afternoon (how
many
years ago) when his wife came out into the backyard, and pulled a lawn chair up beside the hammock where Charlie was napping, and said, “Well, Janie’s finally gotten around to the birds and bees.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie woke up enough to ask. Funny how he could recall too that he had stared up above his head at the caterpillar nests in the apple tree, and thought he ought to get a kerosene torch and burn them out of there. Funny how you could remember odd little things like that.

“Well,” Joan had answered, “She asked me if women got babies kissing men.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“She caught me off guard. I told her we’d have a long talk. I wanted to think about it first. About how to explain it.”

“Good idea,” Charlie had agreed. “We got any kerosene in the cellar?”

Had they ever had that long talk?

God, Charlie didn’t even know. As much as he searched his mind, the only other memory he had along those lines was of an evening long after that day, when Janie was grown up, wearing spectator pumps and smoking cigarettes, and just lately being allowed a cocktail before dinner, along with Charlie and Joan. That evening, in a particularly jocular frame of mind (he had gotten a raise, hadn’t he? They were celebrating something; or was it a final payment on the house?) he had mixed a second round of Manhattans, and Janie had gotten a little high. She had told a rather smutty story, more smutty than amusing, and Charlie had remembered that he had had some difficulty in laughing at it, though he
had
laughed, and that he had fought a sudden impulse to slap her mouth.

Later, when he and Joan discussed it, Joan had said, “Oh, kids always pick up the smuttiest kind of stories when they’re growing up. I was a little appalled by it myself, until I remembered some of those
I
thought were clever when I was Janie’s age … I wouldn’t worry, darling. It’s a phase.”

Wasn’t there any recollection in between that and this?

Any conceivable frame of reference for the casual announcement:
Dear Dad, I am having an affair?

And of course after several slow seconds of semi-stupefaction, Charlie was forced to come to grips with the obvious — that it was an
affair
Jane meant. Not a crush, not an innocent romance, not even a collegiate “only from the waist up” passion — but an actual out-and-out “in bed”
affair.
One that he, Charlie, was expected to finance, in part, during its continuation this coming summer on the Continent.

“Like almighty hell I will,” Charlie muttered to himself, “like almighty hell!” But as quickly as he had boiled with anger in that moment, he shrunk with that incredibly lost feeling of helplessness, thinking forlornly: Only what am I going to
do? What?
And, Janie, Janie, how did this
happen
to you?

The intercom on his desk was buzzing persistently; and finally he had to answer it; and monotonously, he had to dwell on his problem as he listened abstractedly to his secretary’s voice, listened and wondered if
she
were having an affair, too, if she and all the bright-eyed, red-cheeked, soft-skinned, pretty little typists in the office pool were having affairs. And the receptionist, and girls (kids, really; babies) whom you passed on the streets of the city. You noticed they were cute, inhaled their perfumes, admired their legs, and then went by — never saw them again. Were they all having affairs? Or only Jane; only the Jaynes who studied Freud on ivy-infested campuses not too far from Boston and who somehow seemed to fathom the most minute facets of life by some process of osmosis?

“… wants you to call her as soon as you can before lunch, Mr. Gibson,” Bonnie was saying through the intercom, while Charlie was thinking: Good Lord, do you suppose Jane has a diaphragm? — not sure which was worse, the thought of her having one or the thought of her being without one.

“All right, I will,” Charlie said. “I’ll call her immediately.”

“And Mr. Cadence says he’d really appreciate it if you could get the dummy up to him
before
four. He says the printers want to send a boy at five for the mock-up.”

“Okay.” Charlie sighed.
In your business, Dad, you deal with hacks who sell emotions and ideals and rationale down the river for three cents a word — but Dud is not that kind of —

“… guess that’s all, Mr. Gibson, for the moment — except — have you read the memo yet?”

“Uh-uh … Not yet.
I
’m still working on my mail,” Charlie answered.

I
T WAS
not only his nineteenth birthday — it was also his and Mitzie Thompson’s first anniversary; and that whole year, they had waited.

Charlie did not want to take advantage of her, and Mitzie did not want to confess that he would not have been the first who had.

What puzzled Charlie most about
their
year, was that the two or three times when he had had too much hootch, and his hands had slipped and come very damn close to violating her inner sanctum, she had never reproached him — not
really
reproached him, but only whimpered (“whimpered like a frightened little puppy,” Charlie had phrased it in his journal. “Gosh, I
am
a heel of the first water!”). And after, on “the next days” when Charlie could have kicked himself for being such a cur, Mitzie never mentioned it. And if
he
mentioned it, Mitzie always tacitly forgave him. That, Charlie decided, was because she loved him, and
that
invariably set Charlie to thinking: Gosh, did he love her as much as she loved him? I mean, I
love
Mitzie! But she seems really to love me more; and I wonder if it’s fair to her to take up all her time without marrying her.

What puzzled Mitzie most about
their
year, was that Charlie
didn’t
go any further; and she was alternately torn between wondering whether the reason was that he
couldn’t,
and basking in the uncertain and unusual glory of the fact that for one solid year she had been in love with — and loved by — a boy who was six times as passionate as any she had ever known (“All we do is spoon,” she had written in her five-year diary. “We hardly even get around to moving pictures any more, but just spoon. Wow, I’m not complaining, but — ”). Yet he never forced the moment to its crisis. (“We just simmer. We never boil.”)

Once during
their
year, Charlie had said to her: “Avery says he’s been with you, you know. He’s said it three or four times around the house. Not in front of me. I’d bust him for it. But he’s said it.”

“He’s a liar!” Mitzie said flatly.

“Oh, gosh, don’t I know that! He’s always been a liar.”

But Avery was less of a problem during
their
year, than Charlie had thought he would be. At first, Avery pretended that instead of Charlie’s having stolen Mitzie from him, Avery had simply cast her off, and Charlie was dating his hand-me-down. He made countless innuendoes to that effect, but they were lost to most, who knew the truth, and ignored by Charlie, who was far too moonstruck to be bothered by them.

Then when sping came, three things happened which distracted Avery. He went in training for baseball. He tried out for and got the lead in
Beyond The Horizon,
the new O’Neill play, which kept him in rehearsal for months. And he began to concentrate considerable energy on riding a new boy — a DKE named Basescu who had transferred from a New England university, a small rather lithe young sophomore who was remarkably brilliant and shy.

Their
year was quite idyllic. In the summer when they separated, Charlie worked as a waiter at the Yacht Club up in his hometown in Auburn, New York. He wrote long letters late at night,
every night,
to Mitzie, and outlined a novel he was going to begin — already titled
Apostrophe —
about a man who turns away from the materialistic to the idealistic. (The dedication was written … “To Mitzie, whose feet contain no clay,” with a question mark in the margin and a feasible second choice: “To Mitzie, who hath not feet of clay.”)

Mitzie, in turn, lolled about under shade trees down in Bolivar, Missouri, wrote long letters which took her all day and which were constantly interrupted with such legends as: “10:30
A.M
. just got up; 12 noon — after lunch; 4:30
P.M
. — lying in the hammock;” and “saved herself” for Charlie by only dating on week ends.

When they were reunited in the fall, their magic persisted. Charlie wrote 410 poems about her. (“What I really want to do is experiment with poetry; is to learn, and introduce some new way of writing about this feeling I have for Mitz. I will yet!”)

And Mitzie thought all 410 of them were beautiful; and they all made her cry. (“Otto Avery got some illness and hasn’t returned to campus. They say he’ll be out until after Christmas! … I’d be in some fix if I was still pinned to him! … Besides, Charlie is
IT.
There’ll never be another, no matter what Papa says about being safer marrying lawyers or doctors — (ugh!”)

When Charlie finally did find a new way to express his sentiments about Mitzie, he sent his experiment to a magazine. It read:

The editors returned it with a comment: “Ugh!”

But the magic between Mitzie Thompson and Charlie Gibson still persisted; right up until March 6, 1926, approximately four minutes before March 7th of the same year.

• • •

Charlie knew he could wait no longer.

He had already come close to spoiling their record, with his urgency, three of four times during the week before the year was up.

After each time, he would force control on himself abruptly. He would hit his head with his fist, jump from the blanket spread out on the woods where they went for hikes, and groan: “Oh, gosh, Mitz, I’m a poor sort of pig, aren’t I! Can’t even wait out a year!”

“Don’t feel bad,” she’d tell him, in that funny little frail voice she always had during those interludes.

“But I do! I feel really rotten, Mitz. You ought to chuck me!”

But in the long run, despite the somewhat sloppy near-collapses of his standards, he
had
waited.

So he wanted it to be beautiful for them; he didn’t want it to happen off in the woods or in a rumble seat or out on the frat-house lawn, but in a room; by candlelight, with music — and he’d buy a white rose to give her afterward.

It took planning, elaborate planning, because he didn’t want it to seem planned. He figured a girl wouldn’t want it to seem planned her first time. So he set about making arrangements.

The DKE’s were giving a dance the evening of March 6; and this fact was decidedly in Charlie’s favor. There would be empty rooms throughout the house. He had only to choose one which he knew for certain would remain empty right up until closing hour. That one would be Elliot Basescu’s, the boy who had transferred from the New England college a year or so ago, the one whom Avery had picked for a scapegoat.

Basescu always went home to Kansas City for the week end when there were dances, and nobody could stand to room with Basescu because he never bathed, so Basescu had a single.

The position of Basescu’s room was another point in Charlie’s favor. It was right above the Chapter Room, where the DKE’s held their meetings; and the Chapter Room was always empty and locked during dances, so that nobody below would hear any likely noises, were Charlie to choose Basescu’s room.

It would be simple to get to the room, too; it could be gotten to by a back staircase, right off of the kitchen. It was the first one on the right at the top.

All Charlie had to do was check the facts.

“Of course I’m going for the week end.” Basescu peered up sullenly from a copy of
The Forsyte Saga.
“Since when is it
your
concern?”

“How about lending me your key?”

“Why on earth should I?”

“Well …” Charlie decided to come right out with it. “I want to bring a girl up, Basescu. I’ll pay you.”

“How much?” Basescu was a notorious miser. He’d do anything for money, everyone swore.

“Two dollars,” Charlie said.

Basescu said, “Three.”

“Two and a half. That’s final!”

“Three,” Basescu said.

Charlie said, “All right, Basescu. Three!”

He slapped the bills down and Basescu reached a puny hand out and grabbed them. Charlie noticed the dirt encrusted under Basescu’s fingernails. He decided he’d have to sneak up on the afternoon of the dance and put his own clean linens on Basescu’s bed.

“And keep your mouth shut about it, too!” Charlie said as he walked out of the room. “You can leave the key in my mailbox when you take off.”

Basescu only grunted.

Charlie was beginning to feel somewhat lightheaded then, when he collided with Avery on his way down the frat-house stairs. Since Avery’s ulcer attack, he had returned to college with less enthusiasm for vituperative scenes and a somewhat more sullen, if not somber, outlook. He even went easy where Basescu was concerned, and was almost friendly, at times, with Basescu. But they still had bitter outbreaks from time to time, usually incited by Avery, who on occasion could not resist riding Basescu about his money-hunger.

Toward Charlie, though, Avery was simply grudging — not in the sly, smiling, malicious way of the past, but more coldly disdainful. Charlie believed he still carried the grudge of Mitzie’s disloyalty, but Charlie didn’t care any more what Avery felt. He didn’t even mind what Avery said to him when they collided there on the stairs.

“Well, well, Chazz … you still going with Easy Mitzie?”

“Still green about it, Avery?”

“She
is
easy, Chazz. Easy to
know,
in the Biblical sense of the word.”

“Take care of your ulcer, old man.” Charlie laughed and waved, and then ran on.

Avery shouted after him: “I could prove it, Chazz!”

• • •

Everything went smoothly in the beginning.

At supper that night, the DKE’s rose as a corps and sang:
It’s His Birthday, He’s A Sport!
to an excited Charlie, who sat thinking: I’m not going to rush things with her. Gosh, we’ll even sit around for a while just talking beforehand. Maybe sit around in the nude.

Basescu left the key as planned; and that afternoon Charlie had sneaked up and fixed his linen on the bed, put the rose in water outside the window and hid a candle in the desk drawer. He’d even managed to get a scratchy recording of Ravel’s
Daphnis et Chloë
from someone in the house, and a phonograph.

By nine o’clock, when the DKE’s were heading out to pick up their dates, Charlie had checked twice on everything. Then he put his overcoat on and set off to get Mitzie.

Two hours later he was gently guiding her through the kitchen, up the back stairs and into Basescu’s room.

“Isn’t this a swell idea!” Charlie exclaimed nervously as they settled side by side on the old leather couch in the foreroom, just in front of the cubicle that contained Basescu’s bed. Charlie lit the candle and looked hungrily at her. She was wearing a green net gown, and off in the bowels of the DKE house a chorus of inebriated coeds were singing:

“It’s a swell idea, all right,” Mitzie said.

“It’s quiet,” Charlie said. “That’s what I like about it.”

“I like the candlelight.”

“Oh, gosh, yes, I do too.”

“And it’s quiet … So this is where you boys live, huh?”

Regardez le maison de ce garçon,”
Charlie said. Mitzie giggled appreciatively.

They were silent then. Charlie reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“I just de
-test
that awful song,” Mitzie said. “Honestly, I can’t stand it.”

“I know it.”

“The old songs were awfully good, but I just can’t stand the new ones.”

“They’re awful,” Charlie said, playing with her little finger. “Remember
Kiss In The Dark?
That was a
song!”

“And
Blue Moon.”

“And
Margie.”

“And
Three O’clock In The Morning,”
Mitzie said, beginning to sing:
“It’s three o’clock in the morn-ning — ”
With Charlie joining in:

“I don’t know the words,” Mitzie said. “Only those first few lines.”

Charlie said huskily: “I love you.”

“Oh gosh; gosh, so do I.”

Then he took her in his arms, thinking: Should I tell her, or just sort of naturally let us find our way into the next room after we spoon awhile? Wonder what time it is, anyhow?

• • •

Fifteen minutes later they had “just sort of naturally” found their way into the next room, because Mitzie had said she was always curious about frat men’s bedrooms: “I always sort of picture them sleeping on old cots or something, like in the army,” she had said.

“Oh, gosh, no. No,
real beds.
C’mere and look.”

Then they got comfortable.

“I mean we’re no more indecent now than if we were on a beach going swimming,” Mitzie said. “I mean I don’t wear any more than this on a beach going swimming.”

“I don’t either,” Charlie said. “Want me to put music on?”

They played the record of
Daphnis et Chloë
twice, and during the third time, Charlie said: “I like Ravel. What’s that there, anyway?”

“Ravel was never my forte,” Mitzie said. “What’s what?”

“Where my hand is?”

“Oh, that,” Mitzie said. “It’s a wart…. I like Mendelssohn.”

“It’s a funny place for one,” Charlie whispered. Then after he kissed her for a long time, he said, “Gee!”

“What?”

“Gee, I just thought of a poem.”

“What poem?”

“No, I mean, I just wrote one — in my mind. I’ll call it:
Conversation While Listening to Daphnis and Chloë.
Here’s the way it goes:

Charlie chuckled. “We’d be the only ones who’d appreciate it.”