Different Seasons - Stephen King [236]
'No,' I said in a voice that was not quite steady. 'I think not.'
'Goodnight, then,' Stevens said, and I crossed the threshold. I heard the heavy door close behind me. I heard the lock turn. And then I was walking towards the lights of 2nd Avenue, not looking back over my shoulder, somehow afraid to look back, as if I might see some frightful fiend matching me stride for stride, or glimpse some secret better kept than known. I reached the corner, saw an empty cab, and flagged it. 'More war stories?' Ellen asked me that night She was in bed with Philip Marlowe, the only lover she has ever taken.
"There was a war story or two,' I said, hanging up my overcoat. 'Mostly I sat and read a book.'
'When you weren't oinking.'
'Yes, that's right. When I wasn't oinking.'
'Listen to this: "The first time I ever laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Stiver Wraith outside the terrace of the Dancers,"' Ellen read.' "He had a young-looking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a place that exists for that purpose and for no other." Nice, huh? It's -'
'The Long Goodbye' I said, taking off my shoes. 'You read me that same passage once every three years. It's part of your life-cycle.'
She wrinkled her nose at me. 'Oink-oink.'
'Thank you,' I said.
She went back to her book. I went out into the kitchen to get a bottle of Beck's. When I came back, she had laid The Long Goodbye open on the counterpane and was looking at me closely. 'David, are you going to join this club?'
'I suppose I might if I'm asked.' I felt uncomfortable. I had perhaps told her another lie. If there was such a thing as membership at 249 East 35 th, I already was a member. 'I'm glad,' she said. 'You've needed something for a long time now. I don't think you even know it, but you have. I've got the Relief Committee and the Commission on Women's Rights and the Theatre Society. But you've needed something. Some people to grow old with, I think.'
I went to the bed and sat beside her and picked up The Long Goodbye. It was a bright, new-minted paperback. I could remember buying the original hardback edition as a birthday present for Ellen. In 1953. 'Are we old?' I asked her.
'I suspect we are,' she said, and smiled brilliantly at me.
I put the book down and touched her breast. 'Too old for this?'
She turned the covers back with ladylike decorum and then, giggling, kicked them onto the floor with her feet. 'Beat me, daddy,' Ellen said, 'eight to the bar.'
'Oink, oink,' I said, and then we were both laughing.
The Thursday before Christmas came. That evening was much the same as the others, with two notable exceptions. There were more people there, perhaps as many as eighteen.
And there was a sharp, indefinable sense of excitement in the air. Johansson took only a cursory glance at his Journal and then joined McCarron, Hugh Beagleman, and myself.
We sat near the windows, talking of this and that, and finally fell into a passionate-and often hilarious-discussion of pre-war automobiles.
There was, now that I think of it, a third difference as well-Stevens had concocted a delicious eggnog punch. It was smooth, but it was also hot with rum and spices. It was served from an incredible Waterford bowl that looked like an ice-sculpture, and the animated hum of the conversation grew ever higher as the level of the punch grew lower.
I looked over in the corner by the tiny door leading to the billiard room and was astounded to see Waterhouse and Norman Stett flipping baseball cards into what looked like a genuine beaver tophat. They were laughing uproariously.
Groups formed and re-formed. The hour grew late and then, at the time when people usually began slipping out through the front door, I saw Peter Andrews seated