A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [9]
Eleanor answered softly from the bottom of the stairs. “Yes, ma’am. It was me. Eleanor. Eleanor Smith. Miss Kennedy let me in.”
Miss Wetzel cut her off. “Step into the light where I can see you,” she said.
Eleanor did as she was told and stepped under the dim light of the hall so that she might be examined.
“Did you want a room?” Miss Wetzel asked.
“Yes, I did,” said Eleanor.
Miss Wetzel studied her. Eleanor stood frozen in the entranceway until Miss Wetzel finally edged a few steps down the stairs. “Gas is included in the rent,” she said, as she continued to descend.
Eleanor was uncharacteristically thrown by Miss Wetzel but it had been a remarkably long few days. “Yes, ma’am,” she said again almost sheepishly.
“And meals.” She peered at her up close now. “No gentleman callers after eight. And none upstairs ever. Where are your things?”
Eleanor hesitated. “I thought I would send for them later,” she said.
Miss Wetzel shook her head. She didn’t believe a word of this but she did have an empty room. She beckoned for Miss Smith to follow her upstairs.
It wasn’t the fur wrap around her shoulders that was keeping Rosemary warm, it was Philip’s arms around her. The street was practically deserted. They were standing on the steps to her brownstone. They had been at the theatre and had a late supper afterwards at a café on Columbus that was frequented by a mixture of really important people…and writers and artists. Paul Lucien had announced, after two martinis, that he wanted to paint their portrait, causing Rosemary to wonder what such a thing would cost…and Philip had teased her that she wouldn’t be able to sit that long. They’d had a bit to drink themselves, an awfully good claret and afterward cognac with their coffee. They were standing on the third step to her brownstone. He kissed her, playfully at first, and then it turned to something more urgent, something she could get lost in if she let herself. She felt his hand on her back through her dress. She moved slightly into him but then pushed him away.
She considered whether she should ask him in. He kissed her again and the force of it startled her. She pulled away when a carriage stopped unexpectedly a few houses away. She looked at Philip and smiled and he kissed her again. For a moment, she responded but then pulled back again.
“Stop it, Philip,” she said. “It’s late.”
“You don’t really want me to stop,” he said. He buried his face in the soft curve of her breasts. He started to kiss her there.
“We’re running out of time, Rose,” he said so quietly it made her hold her breath. He meant the war, the thing they never spoke about. And that there were rumours that the U.S. might soon join.
“Don’t say that, Philip,” Rosemary answered. “It frightens me.”
He looked at her and smiled sadly. His Rosemary, who never had a hair, a button out of place, who stepped so easily out of her car into the warmth of wherever she was going. In a way, she was as innocent as a child. She seemed to live her life as though she honestly believed that nothing bad would ever happen, and, if were to, by sheer force of will, she thought she would be able to right it. It was one of the things he admired most about Rosemary, that she staunchly believed that things should be a certain way…and that she had the luxury to believe it. “Oh, my precious, Rosemary,” he said, stroking her hair softly, “in her almost perfect world.”
The city felt as though it had been washed clean, the rain had finally stopped entirely, and the air was full with the fragrant smell of the onset of spring. Rosemary had been out for a walk, a constitutional so to speak, uncharacteristically without a store as a destination.
She took her hat off and shook her hair out as she walked into the library where her father was sitting in a leather chair listening to news of the war on the radio. She had color from