Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [50]
“Your plane,” Honora says, glancing at the clock on the wall.
“I’ve still a minute or two,” Vivian says.
“My husband has had a lot of worries lately,” Honora says. “Business isn’t going well.”
“He sells typewriters.”
“And other business machines.”
“This can’t last forever.”
“No, but you see we’d just bought the house.”
Vivian nods, once again experiencing the guilt of the survivor. The fiasco with the stock market has ruined a good number of her friends: the Nyes, the brothers Chadbourne, Dorothy Trafton. She finds it hard to muster sympathy for Dorothy Trafton. “What are you giving your husband for Christmas?” she asks.
“It’s called a Multi-Vider pen. It multiplies, divides, works percentages and proportions.”
“Sounds clever.”
“It’s crimson and black, gold filled,” Honora says with a flush of pride.
“I’m sure he’ll love it,” Vivian says. “Men love gadgets.” Vivian has bought her father a movie camera for Christmas. She’ll be up all night wrapping presents; she has seven parties to go to in the next ten days. The stock market thing will be all the talk — who is destroyed, who is not, quaint economies one has heard of.
“I’d show it to you, but it’s wrapped,” Honora says.
Another pang of something like regret passes through Vivian, regret that she hasn’t a lover to whom to give a Christmas gift. Of course she will give Dickie a present — a small painting by the artist Claude Legny — but it isn’t the same. Their meeting will almost certainly be strained and tense.
“I’d better go,” Vivian says.
“Where’s the airfield?” Honora asks.
“The other side of Ely Falls.”
“How are you getting your car back to your house?”
“I’ve a fellow who’ll take the trolley to the airfield the day after tomorrow and drive it back,” Vivian says.
“I was just going to suggest I drive it for you.”
“You know how to drive?” Vivian asks with more incredulity than she has intended.
“I do indeed,” Honora says. “My husband taught me this summer. I’ll just get my coat.”
Vivian sits a moment and then politely finishes her tea and pie. She puts her dishes in the sink and slips on her coat. She moves into the hallway and follows a corridor that leads to what appears to be a front room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the beach. The sky seems to be brightening, and Vivian notices a sliver of blue to the east. A grand piano is in one corner, a decorated Christmas tree in the other. Several carefully wrapped packages have been set upon a tree skirt. A small settee near the tree is covered in a white crocheted throw, doubtless meant to hide a stain. Vivian has a sudden and powerful need of cheer — of fireplaces and highballs and brittle chatter and women covered with velvet and pearls.
Sexton
Sexton leans against the lamppost as if drunk already. He wants only to be drunk. Men and women brush past him, some with heads bent, letting the brims of their hats catch the snow, others with their faces tilted back, laughing. It seems that the entire city is on the streets this afternoon, ducking into doorways and balancing packages, everyone expectant and purposeful. He fingers the summons, now crumpled in the pocket of his coat.
Dear Mr. Beecher,
Would you be kind enough to come to my office at nine o’clock on the morning of December 24th. There is a matter of the utmost importance I should like to discuss with you. We have been unable to reach you by telephone.
Sincerely yours,
Kenneth A. Rowley
The summons is typed on a Fosdick No. 7 that Sexton sold the bank. The note was Copiographed for the files on a machine Sexton himself carried into the building just weeks earlier.
Sexton moves with the crowd, scarcely knowing where he is headed, too tired even to light a cigarette. After he has gone a block, he finds his path obstructed