The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [29]
“Like hell I will!”
“Like hell you will! You’ll do exactly what I tell you.”
“Go — yourself.” A female voice, American and very sullen. I hadn’t heard the phrase since I left college.
“Thanks, I’d love to. Just tell me how,” was the snappy comeback: as good as any, it seemed to me. I made a note of it.
The footsteps kept approaching. They would be upon me any moment. I cowered behind the nearest pyramid of chairs, and from this vantage point, watched the night cough up its second revelation.…
There under the light of the street lamps, the disembodied voices revealed themselves as belonging to Larry—Larry and a girl. I held my breath, and crept farther into the chairs. When I peered out again, the girl was leaning against a chestnut tree, swaying a little and tugging at something around her neck. As the necklace broke and the pearls, catching the light, went spilling onto the pavement, bouncing along the street and into the grating around the chestnut tree, she began giggling wildly; it was an absolutely frightening sound. She made no attempt to recover her pearls.
“Let ‘em go, let ‘em go,” she quavered through her giggles. “Girl I shared the cabin with coming over said never, never wear pearls when you travel. Said pearls are for tears. Well, I’m traveling, you bastard. I’m traveling …” and giggles turned to sobs.
Larry was tender, comforting her. “There now. Please. That’s a good kid. Now, baby, don’t upset yourself. Wait a minute.” He disappeared out of my sight, on all fours, I imagined looking for the pearls. “There now,” he said after a while. “That’s all I can find now. Come along. Let’s get some sleep. You want to look your best when you meet those people tomorrow.”
She jerked away from him. “Let’s get it straight once and for all, you bastard. I’m not working while I’m over here.”
She had moved farther away from him, into the light, and now I got my first good look at her face. It was another jolt. A big one. To my astonishment the girl with Larry was that ravishing model Lila, the one that was always coming up to visit him on the week ends in Summer Stock. She didn’t look very ravishing just then, though, out there in the lamplight at three in the morning, tear-stained and so much the worse for liquor. She looked a mess, in fact. I felt sorry for her. She seemed so sad and a long way from home.
“Be your age,” Larry was saying. “You can’t stay in Europe without working, who do you think I am? And it’s not so easy to get work over here. Believe me. I worked damn hard to get these people interested in you. How can you run out like that? I tell you there are hundreds of good-looking babes around. American too. It’s coals to Newcastle.”
“I came to see some bright lights,” she whimpered. “Now that I’ve got this chance to go to Biarritz, I’m going whether you come or not. It’s all paid for. This guy … Aw Larry, I’m young. I just want to have some fun.”
“O.K. I give up. Go to Biarritz, for Christ’s sake and have fun. You manage your own life, you do it so well. You’ll end up back in Sheldon, Iowa. You’ll end up in the gutter. I don’t care. But don’t come back to me. I’ve tried to straighten you out for the last time. Come on. I’ll take you back to your hotel.” He began to look for a cab along the boulevard.
She followed him. “Oh baby, don’t be angry,” I heard her say. “You’re not jealous?”
“Jealous, no; just sore that I wasted all this time and trouble.”
“I’ll be back in a month.”
He’d found a cab by then. “Don’t tell me about it. I’ve washed my hands of you. Hurry up, get in.”
“Don’t bother, I’ll find my own way.”
“Oh, get in,” he said wearily, “you don’t even know how to pronounce the name of your hotel.”
I shut my eyes, and when I opened them