Always and Forever (32 page)

“Are you playing golf today?” she asked, sitting at the table.

“Probably.” He shrugged. “Look, would you drive into town and buy me a can of shaving cream and a razor? I’m giving up on my electric razor. It’s making a mess of my face.”

“Okay. I suppose you want to shave before you play golf?”

“That’s the idea.” He was attacking his breakfast with gusto.

“I’ll drive Jesse over to the Hales’, then pick up your shaving cream, a razor, and blades.” Thank God, he’d shelved his rage at Frank. For now. Instinct warned her that Phil and his father would consider Frank’s actions as high treason. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. And why can’t Alice take Jesse to the Hales? Christ, they’re like a block away.”

“She has to dress and pack for her weekend at her sister’s. I—”

“I forgot,” he drawled. “You’re playing Lady Bountiful again. How can we go out to dinner tonight?”

“I arranged for a baby-sitter. There’s no problem.”

Phil mentioned he wanted to go for dinner to a new seafood restaurant he’d discovered in a nearby community. It was informal; she wouldn’t have to go through the dressing-up routine. He’d have a couple of drinks with dinner, come home and collapse in front of the TV. She’d settle herself in bed to read. It would be a comfortable, quiet Saturday evening.

Right on schedule, Kathy climbed behind the wheel of the car and waited for Alice to bring Jesse. How handsome he looked, she thought tenderly as she watched him scurry toward the car in his immaculate white shirt and shorts, happily clutching the gift-wrapped package in his hands. And he was so excited about starting first grade next week at the posh school where Rhoda taught.

She dropped Jesse off at the Hale house, then headed for the drugstore. On impulse she stopped first at a coffee shop. Not because she was hungry, but it was good to relax over a cup of coffee for a few minutes in anonymous surroundings. Phil could wait to shave.

She drove directly home from the drugstore, pulled into the garage and went into the house through the side entrance. She could hear Phil on the phone in the den. Probably talking with his father again about Frank and the animal rights group. No, he wasn’t talking about that, she suddenly realized, halting to listen.

“Look, I don’t want to be mixed up in this. I was told I could give you the information without being involved. The man’s a second-generation Communist. His father fought with the Loyalists in Spain.
He brags about that.
His wife is no better than he is, and she teaches young kids at a private school—”

“Phil!” Kathy charged into the den. He was standing with the phone clenched in his hand, nodding as though the person at the other end could see him.
“Phil, what are you doing?”
Frank and Rhoda would lose their jobs!

“Get away from me!” he ordered through clenched teeth, one hand covering the mouthpiece. “Yeah, that’s right.” He’d removed his hand to continue the conversation. “That’s the magazine he works for.”

“Phil, don’t do this!” Kathy gasped in disbelief and reached to pulled the phone from his hands.

With one vicious gesture Phil slammed his fist against her face. She staggered, would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed at a chair. She was vaguely aware that Alice was standing outside the door, watching with her mouth ajar. She was conscious, too, of a pain at the bridge of her nose.

“You bitch!” Phil put down the phone and crossed to hang menacingly over her. “Don’t you ever do something like that again!” Now he turned and stalked from the room. Alice had apparently retreated in alarm.

Kathy rose to her feet, trembling with shock. She reached a hand to her nose, discovered a warm trickle of blood running down the side. Phil’s ring had ripped away a chunk of skin, she realized.

“Let me drive you to the hospital emergency room—” Alice came into the den with a wet towel in one hand. “That cut may need stitches.”

“It’ll be all right in a minute.” Kathy reached for the towel. How could Phil do something so rotten?
He was destroying Frank and Rhoda.
Now—when Rhoda was pregnant and they’d just moved into a new, expensive apartment.

“You’d better sit down,” Alice said anxiously. “Keep pressure on that cut.”

“The ring dug into the skin,” Kathy stammered, humiliated that Alice had seen Phil hit her. She struggled for calm. “It’ll stop bleeding in a minute,” she repeated.

“I’ll bring you a glass of water.” Alice’s face reflected compassion for her, contempt for Phil. “Just sit still and hold the towel to your nose.”

Kathy sighed with relief when Alice concurred at last that the bleeding had stopped.

“Your nose ought to be x-rayed,” Alice said. “There might be a bone broken.”

“No, I’m fine,” Kathy insisted, and glanced at her watch. “We have to leave for the station. You’ll miss your train.”

“I’ll take a later one.”

“No, your sister will be worried. And I’m all right, Alice. I’ll drive you to the station, then I’ll pick up Jesse. Please forget what you saw here.” Tears stung her eyes. “Go bring down your valise, and we’ll head for the station.”

Kathy sat motionless, trying to deal with what had just happened. She had told Bella she would stay with Phil as long as it was good for Jesse.
But it wasn’t good anymore.

How could she allow her son to grow up in a house with a father who was so vindictive and rotten, who would betray her dear friends? Phil knew how red-baiting wrecked lives. Frank and Rhoda were fine, caring people, but he wanted to destroy them.

She would take Jesse and get out of this house. Out of Phil’s life.

She would raise Jesse alone.

K
ATHY DROVE ALICE TO
the Greenwich station and returned to the house. Now she struggled to disguise the injury to her nose with make-up, though the swelling was a giveaway. Ever conscious of the time—because she was to pick up Jesse at the Hale house in twenty minutes—she began to pack for herself and Jesse. Grateful that spare luggage and a goodly amount of wardrobe was kept up here rather than at the apartment.

She packed one large valise with casual clothes, pulled a favorite winter coat from the cedar closet, and brought out a small valise to hold Jesse’s clothes. Her diamond and sapphire necklace was in the apartment safe; it would have to stay behind.

She dragged the luggage out to the car and stowed it away in the trunk. Thank God, she always kept her secret savings account book with her. The balance wasn’t large, but she and Jesse could survive on it for a year if she budgeted carefully.

She glanced at her watch again. It was time to go over to the Hales’ to pick up Jesse. She’d drive into White Plains, then take a train into Manhattan from there. She’d leave the car at the White Plains station.

First of all, she must tell Rhoda and Frank what Phil had done. They had to be forewarned, though with the climate in the country as it was, she thought painfully, there was nothing they could do to clear themselves. Then she’d check into some small Upper West Side hotel for the night.

She couldn’t stay in New York with Jesse, her mind warned.
Phil mustn’t be able to find them.
They’d go to San Francisco. Marge was there; they wouldn’t be alone.

But the company had a store there, she remembered in alarm. No matter, she determinedly dismissed this. San Francisco was a large city. Phil was there for a day or two twice a year. He’d never find them. She’d change her name. She’d be Kathy Altman from this moment on. She would never allow Phil to take Jesse from her. She and Jesse would begin a whole new life in San Francisco.

By the time she arrived at the Hales’, the guests were beginning to leave.

“Alice is off for the weekend,” she explained to Irene as nursemaids corralled their charges. “I’m sure it was a wonderful party.”

“The kids seemed to enjoy themselves,” Irene said happily, but Kathy was aware of startled scrutiny. Did her nose look that bad? “Would you like to stay and have coffee with me?”

“Thanks, but I have to run. Some friends are coming from the city,” she alibied.

In the car she told Jesse they were going into Manhattan.

“We’ll catch the train in White Plains. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

“Sure.” His eyes were bright with anticipation. “What about Daddy?”

“He’s staying at the house.” She hesitated. “Jesse, how would you like to fly out to California to see Marge again?”

“Wow! But what about school?” All at once he was ambivalent.

“We’ll work that out,” she promised. Later she’d tell him that he was to go to school in San Francisco. Not today.

Weighed down with two valises and a coat over one arm, she managed to marshall Jesse aboard a New York-bound train. Part of her mind focused on entertaining Jesse while the other tried to plot their future. Phil would be sure she was going out to Borough Park, once he realized they were gone. He’d call Mom for sure.
Don’t phone Mom. Not till later.

She called Rhoda from Grand Central Station. Praying Rhoda would be home. When she was on the point of hanging up, Rhoda’s voice responded.

“Rhoda, I can’t say much because I’m in a phone booth in Grand Central.” Kathy half-closed the door. She’d told Jesse to stand right there and guard their luggage. “I’ve left Phil. There’s something I have to tell you before I check into a hotel. Could I—”

“You’re not staying in a hotel,” Rhoda interrupted softly. “Hop in a cab and get over here. And don’t worry, Kathy, you’re going to be all right.” But Kathy sensed her anxiety.

Kathy and Jesse went through the station and out to Forty-second Street, and to her relief found a cab almost immediately. At Rhoda’s apartment building she didn’t bother ringing the doorbell. A small boy on his way out held the door for them and they headed for the elevators. She was glad that Rhoda and Frank lived in an elevator building now. The valises grew heavier, it seemed, with every step she took.

“Kathy, why didn’t you buzz so Frank could come down to help you,” Rhoda scolded and reached to hug Jesse. “Frank,” she called over her shoulder. “Come bring in Kathy’s luggage.”

For a few moments they were caught up in greetings. Then after an exchange of sign language Frank prodded Jesse toward what was currently Frank’s home office and would in a few months become the nursery, to see their new TV set.

“Try it out for us,” Frank told Jesse enthusiastically. “We’ll find a good program for you to watch.”

“Kathy, your nose is all swollen—” Rhoda inspected her with sudden suspicion. “Did Phil hit you?”

“That’s the least of it,” she said, all at once exhausted. “I have to tell you—”

“First you’re going over to the hospital emergency room to have that nose looked at,” Rhoda insisted. “It may be broken.”

“It’s all right. It just throbs a little. Rhoda, I—”

“Later.” Rhoda gestured for Kathy to wait while she left the room to go down the tiny hall. “Jesse,” Kathy heard her say, “Mommie and I are going out to buy some ice cream. You stay here with Uncle Frank, okay?”

“Chocolate?” Jesse asked.

“Chocolate,” Rhoda promised.

En route in a taxi to the hospital Kathy knew she’d have to wait for the privacy of the apartment to warn Rhoda and Frank about Phil’s red-smearing. They talked instead about Kathy’s going out to San Francisco.

“I want to get as far away as possible,” Kathy said passionately. “And Marge is there. She’ll help me find an apartment and to get Jesse settled in school.” In a corner of her mind she remembered that Marge’s saleswoman was leaving to get married. Maybe she could work for Marge.

At the emergency room Kathy’s nose was x-rayed. There was, indeed, a fracture.

“We won’t splint it. It’ll heal by itself,” the doctor in charge told her cheerfully. “And the cut will heal. It doesn’t need stitches.”

They stopped at a supermarket to buy chocolate ice cream, then hurried back to the house. Though she knew Jesse was safe with Frank, Kathy felt a need to be close to him.

“Look, if Phil calls, you don’t know where I am,” she cautioned as they rode up in the elevator. How was she going to explain their sudden move to Jesse? Was he going to be upset by this unexpected change in their lives?
But it was necessary.

In the apartment Rhoda spooned out a lavish portion of ice cream for Jesse and carried it to him. She gestured to Frank to join her in the living room. Jesse was happy to continue watching TV with the added treat of chocolate ice cream.

“I left Phil because I caught him in a terrible act.” Kathy’s throat tightened as that image flashed across her mind. “If it wasn’t for me, if you weren’t my friends, this wouldn’t be happening to you.”

“What’s happening?” Frank was bewildered. “You know we’re happy to have you and Jesse here.”

“I came into the house late this morning—” Kathy struggled to deliver her devastating message. “Phil was talking to somebody on the phone. He didn’t mention any names, but I knew it was one of those hate-mongering groups. People who had something to do with
Red Channels
or
Counterattack
or something like that.” What Max Lerner had called “the locust-plague of the democratic harvest.” “He was telling them about your father, Frank, about the International Brigade in Spain. And he said your wife was teaching small children and—”

“Oh my God!” Rhoda was ashen. “Frank, I’ll be fired!”

“We’ll both be fired.” Frank fought for calm. “It was that article, wasn’t it?”

“Of course,” Kathy whispered. “He and his father are livid about your animal rights group, and then Phil saw the article.”

“I’ll ask for maternity leave immediately.” Rhoda was pale but defiant. “I don’t want it on my job record that I was fired for Commie affiliations.”

“So I’ll be fired.” Frank dropped an arm about Rhoda’s shoulders. “I’ll have time to focus on the book with no other interruptions.”

“They’ll attack the group now,” Rhoda warned. “They’ll go after every one of us. We’re all caring people. We’ve signed petitions for human rights groups and contributed to the International Rescue Committee. Some of us even campaigned for Henry Wallace.” She laughed derisively.