Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [69]
Now, now, Irma, you don t think I don t remember. Didn’t you know you stole the trombone player s hat?
Oh, you’re kidding. You’re a fine one to talk, you are. What a load you had. Did you get home all right?
I guess so, he said. Then he thought quickly. I felt a little sick, haven t felt that way in years, and I was dancing, too, so I had to go out.
Oh, she said. Maybe she believed him. I pulled a complete pass-out in the car. I think it was some girl from your party that I was dancing with, he said. Maybe she might believe him. Oh, no it wasn t. Not that they didn’t want to, but you went out with the singer.
What singer?
Helene Holman her name is, she sings at the Stage Coach. Oh, it s worse than I thought. I guess I have to send her flowers. I had some vague idea it was Frannie. I remember talking to her.
She was there, but you didn’t dance with her, said Irma. She was having her own troubles. Well.
See you soon, said Julian. Bye, she said. He walked on, a little afraid that he had made a fool of himself, that Irma had not believed a word of his too-ready story that he had gone out with Helene because he was sick. But he knew that whatever he did, Irma would stick up for him. He always had liked Irma; she was the prettiest girl in high school, and a big girl, when he was a kid running around with Butch Doerflinger and Walt Davis and the rest of his kid friends. She had taught him in Sunday School, and did not report him on Sunday afternoons when he bagged it to go to a ball game. He wished he could tell her all his troubles, and he knew that if there was one person to whom he would tell them, it would be Irma. But she was Mrs. Lute Fliegler, the wife of one of his employees. He told himself that he must not forget that. He went up in the elevator to Harry Reilly s office. Hello, Betty. Your boss in? Betty Fenstermacher was a stenographer who also ran the switchboard in Harry s office. Betty also had given her all to Julian and at least a dozen of his friends when they were all about nineteen or twenty. Hello, Ju, she said. Yes, he s in all right. Can t you hear him? He s going away, and you d think be was never away before in his life. Do I have to announce you?
I think you d better. Where s he going?
Oh, New York, she said, and spoke into the telephone. Mr. English is here to see Mr. Reilly. Shall I send him in?
Just then Harry appeared, bag in hand, hat and coat on. I ll be back by Tuesday at the latest, he was saying. Phone Mrs. Gorman and tell her I made the train all right. He turned his face, and for the first time Julian was able to see that Harry s eye was decorated with a shiner, there was no other word for it. The ice apparently had smacked his cheekbone, and the pouch of flesh under the eye was blue and black and red and swollen. Oh, it s you, said Harry. Yes, I thought I might as well come
Listen, I can t wait another minute. I m catching the ten-twenty-five and I have about four minutes. I ll be back next week. He ran through the office. Julian thought of going along with him to the station, but rejected that plan. He couldn’t get anything said to a man who had four minutes to catch the train. On her own hook Betty Fenstermacher was calling the station and telling them to hold the train; Julian became conscious of this, and when she finished he said: What s it all about?
I don t know. I heard him shoot off his mouth about a lot of railroads going together. You d think he was the one that was getting them together, the fuss and fury we been having around this office this morning. I hear you gave him the shiner, Ju. What was he, making passes at your wife or something?
No. Good-by, darling, he said. Ordinarily he would have stopped to kid Betty, to whom you could say anything without insulting her, but now he was still blank from Harry s breezy walk-out. It wasn’t like Harry. On the way back to the car Julian recalled that he had heard some talk about a merger of the New York Central, the Chesapeake & Ohio, Nickel Plate, Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania,