5. The Long Debut Of Lois Taggett

LOIS TAGGETT was graduated from Miss Hascomb's School, standing twenty-sixth in a class of fifty-eight, and the following autumn her parents thought it was time for her to come out, charge out, in what they called Society. So they gave her a five-figure la-de-da Hotel Pierre affair, and save for a few horrible colds and Fred-hasn't-been-well-lately's, most of the preferred trade attended. Lois wore a white dress, an orchid corsage, and a rather lovely, awkward smile. The elderly gentlemen guests said, "She's a Taggett, all right;" the elderly ladies said, "She's a very sweet child;" and the young gentlemen said, "Where's the liquor?"

That winter Lois did her best to swish around Manhattan with the most photogenic of the young men who drank scotch-and-sodas in the God-and-Walter Winchell section of the Stork Club. She didn't do badly. She had a good figure, dressed expensively and in good taste, and was considered Intelligent. That was the first season when Intelligent was the thing to be.

In the spring, Lois' Uncle Roger agreed to give her a job as a receptionist in one of his offices. It was the first big year for debutantes to Do Something. Sally Walker was singing nightly at Alberti's Club; Phyll Mercer was designing clothes or something; Allie Tumbleston was getting that screen test. So Lois took the job as receptionist in Uncle Roger's downtown office. She worked for exactly eleven days, with three afternoons off, when she learned suddenly that Ellie Podds, Vera Gallishaw, and Cookie Benson were going to take a cruise to Rio. The news reached Lois on a Thursday evening. Everybody said it was a perfect riot down in Rio. Lois didn't go to work the following morning. She decided instead, while she sat down on the floor painting her toenails red, that most of the men who came into Uncle Roger's downtown office were a bunch of dopes.

Lois sailed with the girls, returning to Manhattan early in the fall--still single, six pounds heavier, and off speaking terms with Ellie Podds. The remainder of the year Lois took courses at Columbia, three of them entitled Dutch and Flemish Painters, Technique of the Modern Novel, and Everyday Spanish.

Come springtime again and air-conditioning at the Stork Club, Lois fell in love. He was a tall press agent named Bill Tedderton, with a deep, dirty voice. He certainly wasn't anything to bring home to Mr. and Mrs. Taggett, but Lois figured he certainly was something to bring home. She fell hard, and Bill, who had been around plenty since he'd left Kansas City, trained himself to look deep enough into Lois' eyes to see the door to the family vault. Lois became Mrs. Tedderton, and the Taggetts didn't do very much about it. It wasn't fashionable any longer to make a row if your daughter preferred the iceman to that nice Astorbilt boy. Everybody knew, of course, that press agents were icemen. Same thing.

Lois and Bill took an apartment in the Sutton Place. It was a three-room, kitchenette job, and the closets were big enough to hold Lois' dresses and Bill's wide-shouldered suits.

When her friends asked her if she were happy, Lois replied, "Madly." But she wasn't quite sure if she were madly happy. Bill had the most gorgeous rack of ties; wore such luxurious broadcloth shirts; was so marvelous, so masterful, when he spoke to people over the telephone; had such a fascinating way of hanging up his trousers. And he was so sweet about--well, you know--everything. But...

Then suddenly Lois knew for sure that she was Madly Happy, because one day soon after they were married, Bill fell in love with Lois. Getting up to go to work one morning, he looked over at the other bed and saw Lois as he'd never seen her before. Her face was jammed against the pillow, puffy, sleep-distorted, lip-dry. She never looked worse in her life--and at that instant Bill fell in love with her. He was used to women who wouldn't let him get a good look at their morning faces. He stared at Lois for a long moment, thought about the way she looked as he rode down the elevator; then in the subway he remembered one of the crazy questions Lois had asked him the other night. Bill had to laugh right out loud on the subway.

When he got home that night, Lois was sitting in the Morris chair. Her feet, in red mules, were tucked underneath her. She was just sitting there filing her nails and listening to Sancho's rhumba music over the radio. Seeing her, Bill was never so happy in his life. He wanted to jump in the air. He wanted to grit his teeth, then let out a mad, treble note of ecstasy. But he didn't dare. He would have had trouble accounting for it. He couldn't just say to Lois, "Lois. I love you for the first time. I used to think you were just a nice little drip. I married you for your money but now I don't about it. You're my girl. My sweetheart. My wife. My baby. Oh, Jesus, I'm happy." Of course, he couldn't say that to her; so he just walked over where she sat, very casually. He bent down, kissed her, gently pulling her to her feet. Lois said, "Hey! What's goin' on?" And Bill made her rumba with him around the room.

For fifteen days following Bill's discovery, Lois couldn't even stand at the glove counter at Saks' without whistling Begin the Beguine between her teeth. She began to like all her friends. She had a smile for conduct-ors on Fifth Avenue busses; was sorry she didn't have any small change with her when she handed them dollar bills. She took walks to the zoo. She spoke to her mother over the telephone every day. Mother became a Grand Person. Father, Lois noticed, worked too hard. They should both take a vacation. Or at least come to dinner Friday night, and no arguments, now.

Sixteen days after Bill fell in love with Lois, something terrible happened. Late on that sixteenth night Bill was sitting in the Morris chair, and Lois was sitting on his lap, her head back on his shoulder. From the radio pealed the sweet blare of Chick West's orchestra. Chick himself, with a mute in his horn, was taking the refrain of that swell oldie, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

"Oh, darling," Lois breathed.

"Baby," answered Bill softly.

They came out of a clinch. Lois replaced her head on Bill's big shoulder. Bill picked up his cigarette from the ashtray. But instead of dragging on it, he took I between his fingers, as though it were a pencil, and with it made tiny circles in the air just over the back of Lois' hand.

"Better not," said Lois, with a mock warning. "Burny Burny."

But Bill, as though he hadn't heard, deliberately, yet almost idly, did what he had to do. Lois screamed horribly, wrenched herself to her feet, and ran crazily out of the room.

Bill pounded on the bathroom door. Lois had locked it.

"Lois. Lois, baby. Darling. Honest to God. I didn't know what I was doing. Lois. Darling. Open the door."

Inside the bathroom Lois sat on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the laundry hamper. With her right hand she squeezed the other, the injured one, as though pressure might stop the pain or undo what had been done.

On the other side of the door, Bill kept talking to her with his dry mouth.

"Lois. Lois, Jesus. I tellya I didn't know what I was doing. Lois, for God's sake open the door. Please, for God's sake."

Finally Lois came out and into Bill's arms.

But the same thing happened a week later. Only not with a cigarette. Bill, on a Sunday morning, was teaching Lois how to swing a golf club. Lois wanted to learn to play the game, because everybody said Bill was a crackerjack. They were both in their pajamas and bare feet. It was a helluva lot of fun. Giggles, kisses, guffaws, and twice they both had to sit down, they were laughing so hard.

Then suddenly Bill brought down the head-end of his brassie on Lois' bare foot. Fortunately, his leverage was faulty, because he struck with all his might.

That did it, all right. Lois moved back into her old bedroom in her family's apartment. Her mother bought her new furniture and curtains, and when Lois was able to walk again, her father immediately gave her a check for a thousand dollars. "Buy yourself some dresses," he told her. "Go ahead." So Lois went down to Saks' and Bonwit Teller's and spent the thousand dollars. Then she had a lot of clothes to wear.

New York didn't get much snow that winter, and Central Park never looked right. But the weather was very cold. One morning, looking out her window facing Fifth, Lois saw somebody walking a wire-haired terrier. She thought to herself, "I want a dog." So that afternoon she went to the pet shop and bought herself a three-months-old scotty. She put a bright red collar and leash on it, and brought the whimpering animal home in a cab. "Isn't is darling?" she asked Fred, the doorman. Fred patted the dog and said it sure was a cute little fella. "Gus," Lois said happily, "meet Fred. Fred meet Gus." She dragged the dog into the elevator. "In ya go, ya little cutie. Yes. You're a little cutie. That's what you are. A little cutie." Gus stood shivering in the middle of the elevator and wet the floor.

Lois gave him away a few days later. After Gus consistently refused to be housebroken, Lois began to agree with her parents that is was cruel to keep a dog in the city.

The night she gave away Gus, Lois told her parents it was dumb to wait till spring to go to Reno. It was better to get it over with. So early in January Lois flew West. She lived at a dude ranch just outside of Reno and made the acquaintance of Betty Walker, from Chicago, and Sylvia Haggerty, from Rochester. Betty Walker, whose insight was as penetrating as any rubber knife, told Lois a thing or two about men. Sylvia Haggerty was a quiet dumpy little brunette, and never said much, but she could drink more scotch-and-sodas than any other girl Lois had ever known. When their divorces all came through, Betty Walker gave a party at the Barclay in Reno. The boys from the ranch were invited, and Red, the good-looking one, made a big play for Lois, but in a nice way. "Keep away from me!" Lois suddenly screamed at Red. Everybody said Lois a rotten sport. They didn't know she was afraid of tall, good-looking men.

She saw Bill again, of course. About two months after she'd returned from Reno, Bill sat down at her table in the Stork Club.

"Hello, Lois."

"Hello, Bill. I'd rather you didn't sit down."

"I've been up at this psychoanalyst's place. He says I'll be alright."

"I'm glad to hear that. Bill, I'm waiting for somebody. Please leave."

"Will you have lunch with me sometime?" Bill asked.

Bill got up. "Can I call you?" he asked.

"No."

Bill left, and Middie Weaver and Liz Watson sat down. Lois ordered a scotch-and-soda, drank it, and four more like it. When she left the Stork Club she was feeling pretty drunk. She walked and she walked and she walked. Finally she sat down on a bench in front of the zebra's cage at the zoo. She sat there till she was sober and her knees had stopped shaking. Then she went home.

Home was a place with parents, news commentators on the radio, and starched maids who were always coming around to your left to deposit a small chilled glass of tomato juice in front of you.

After dinner, when Lois returned from the telephone, Mrs. Taggett looked up from her book, and asked, "Who was it? Carl Curfman, dear?"

"Yes," said Lois, sitting down. "What a dope."

"He's not a dope," contradicted Mrs. Taggett.

Carl Curfman was a thick-ankled, short young man who always wore white socks because colored socks irritated his feet. He was full of information. If you were going to drive to the game on Saturday, Carl would ask what route you were taking. If you said, "I don't know. I guess Route 26," Carl would suggest eagerly that you take Route 7 instead, and he'd take out a notebook and pencil and chart out the whole thing for you. You'd thank him profusely for his trouble, and he'd sort of nod quickly and remind you not for anything to turn off at Cleveland Turnpike despite the road signs. You always felt a little sorry for Carl when he put away his notebook and pencil.

Several months after Lois was back from Reno, Carl asked her to marry him. He put it to her in the negative. They had just come from a charity ball at the Waldorf. The battery in Carl's sedan was dead, and he started to get all worked up about it, but Lois said, "Take it easy, Carl. Let's smoke a cigarette first." They sat in the car smoking cigarettes, and it was then that Carl put it to Lois in the negative.

"You wouldn't wanna marry me, would you, Lois?"

Lois had been watching him smoke. He didn't inhale.

"Gee, Carl. You are sweet to ask me."

"I'd do my damnedest to make you happy, Lois. I mean I'd do my damnedest."

"You're very sweet to ask me, Carl," Lois said. "But I just don't wanna think about marriage for a while yet."

"Sure," said Carl quickly.

"Hey," said Lois, "there's a garage on Fiftieth and Third. I'll walk down with you."

One day the following week Lois had lunch at the Stork with Middie Weaver. Middie Weaver served the conversation as nodder and cigarette-ash-tipper. Lois told Middie that at first she had thought Carl was a dope. Well, not exactly a dope, but, well, Middie knew what Lois meant. Middie nodded and tipped the ashes of her cigarette. But he wasn't a dope. He was just sensitive and shy. And terribly sweet. And terribly intelligent. Did Middie know that Carl really ran Curfman and Sons? Yes. He really did. And he was a marvelous dancer, too. And he really had nice hair. And he wasn't really fat. He was solid. And he was terribly sweet.

Middie Weaver said, "Well, I always liked Carl. I think he's a grand person."

Lois thought about Middie Weaver on the way home in the cab. Mid-die was swell. Middie really was a swell person. So intelligent. So few people were intelligent, really intelligent. Middie was perfect. Lois hoped Bob Walker would marry Middie. She was too good for him. The rat.

Lois and Carl got married in the spring, and less than a month after they were married, Carl stopped wearing white socks. He also stopped wearing a winged collar with his dinner jacket. And he stopped giving people directions to get to Manasquan by avoiding the shore route. If people want to take the shore route, let them take it, Lois told Carl. She also told him not to lend any more money to Bud Masterson. And when Carl danced, would he please take longer steps. If Carl noticed, only short fat men minced around the floor. And if Carl put any more of that greasy stuff on his hair, Lois would go mad.

They weren't married less than three months when Lois started going to the movies at eleven o'clock in the morning. She'd sit up in the loges and chain-smoke cigarettes. It was better than sitting in the damned apartment. It was better than going to see her mother. These days her mother had a four-word vocabulary consisting of, "You're too thin, dear." Going to the movies was also better than seeing the girls. As it was, Lois couldn't go anywhere without bumping into one of them. They were all such ninnies.

So Lois started going to the movies at eleven o'clock in the morning. She'd sit through the show and then she'd go to the ladies room and comb her hair and put on fresh make-up. Then she'd look at herself in the mirror, and wonder, "Well. What the hell should I do now?"

Sometimes Lois went to another movie. Sometimes she went shopping, but rarely these days did she see anything she wanted to buy. Sometimes she met Cookie Benson. When Lois came to think of it, Cookie was the only one of her friends who was intelligent, really intelligent. Cookie was swell. Swell sense of humor. Lois and Cookie could sit in the Stork Club for hours, telling dirty jokes and criticizing their friends.

Cookie was perfect. Lois wondered why she had never liked Cookie before. A grand, intelligent person like Cookie.

Carl complained frequently to Lois about his feet. One evening when they were sitting at home, Carl took off his shoes and black socks, and examined his bare feet carefully. He discovered Lois staring at him.

"They itch," he said to Lois, laughing. "I just can't wear colored socks."

"It's your imagination," Lois told him.

"My father had the same thing," Carl said. "It's a form of eczema, the doctors say."

Lois tried to make her voice sound casual. "The way you go into such a stew about it, you'd think you had leprosy."

Carl laughed. "No," he said, still laughing, "I can hardly think it's leprosy." He picked up his cigarette from the ashtray.

"Good Lord," said Lois, forcing a little laugh. "Why don't you inhale when you smoke? What possible pleasure can you get out of smoking if you don't inhale?"

Carl laughed again, and examined the end of his cigarette, as though the end of his cigarette might have something to do with his not inhaling.

"I don't know," he said, laughing. "I just never did inhale."

When Lois discovered she was going to have a baby, she stopped going to the movies so much. She begun to meet her mother a great deal for lunch at Schrafft's, where they ate vegetable salads and talked about maternity clothes. Men in busses got up to give Lois their seats. Elevator operators spoke to her with quiet new respect in their nondescript voices. With curiosity, Lois began to peek under the hoods of baby carriages.

Carl always slept heavily, and never heard Lois cry in her sleep.

When the baby was born it was generally spoken of as darling. It was a fat little boy with tiny ears and blond hair, and it slobbered sweetly for all those who liked babies to slobber sweetly. Lois loved it. Carl loved it. The in-laws loved it. It was, in short, a most successful production. And as the weeks went by, Lois found she couldn't kiss Thomas Taggett Curfman half enough. She couldn't pat his little bottom enough. She couldn't talk to him enough.

"Yes. Somebody's gonna get a bath. Yes. Somebody I know is gonna get a nice clean bath. Bertha, is the water right?"

"Yes. Somebody's gonna get a bath. Bertha, the water's too hot. I don't care, Bertha. It's too hot."

Once Carl finally got home in time to see Tommy get his bath. Lois took her hand out of the scientific bathtub, and pointed wetly at Carl.

"Tommy. Who's that? Who's that big man? Tommy, who's that?"

"He doesn't know me," said Carl, but hopefully.

"That's your Daddy. That's your Daddy, Tommy."

"He doesn't know me from Adam," said Carl.

"Tommy. Tommy, look where Mommy's pointing. Look at Daddy. Look at the big man. Look at Daddy."

That fall Lois' father gave her a mink coat, and if you had lived near Seventy-Fourth and Fifth, many a Thursday you might have seen Lois in her mint coat, wheeling a big black carriage across the Avenue into the park.

Then finally she made it. And when she did, everybody seemed to know about it. Butchers began to give Lois the best cuts of meat. Cab drivers began to tell her about their kids' whopping cough. Bertha, the maid, began to clean with a wet cloth instead of a duster. Poor Cookie Benson during her crying jags began to telephone Lois from the Stork Club. Women in general began to look more closely at Lois' face than at the clothes. Men in theater-boxes, looking down at the women in the audience, began to single out Lois, if for no other reason than that they liked the way she put on her glasses.

It happened about six months after young Thomas Taggett Curfman tossed peculiarly in his sleep and a fuzzy woolen blanket snuffed out his little life.

The man Lois didn't love was sitting in his chair one evening, staring at a pattern on the rug. Lois had just come in from the bedroom where she had stood for nearly a half-hour, looking out the window. She sat down in the chair opposite Carl. Never in his life had he looked more stupid and gross. But there was something Lois had to say to him. And suddenly it was said.

"Put on your white socks. Go ahead," Lois said quietly. "Put them on, dear."