CHAPTER 2

Elaine could have shot herself for phoning Eric this way and telling him that the apartment was ready for instant occupancy.

"But it'll take time for your furniture to arrive," she murmured nervously, doodling on her desk pad in exasperation. Somehow, she wanted to prolong the interval between accustoming herself to her new way of life with Terry and Eric's arrival with his wife. Eric brought back so much she'd fought to lock away in the back of her mind! At least, Eric knew nothing. Nothing he could pinpoint as fact.

"We can have the furniture picked up tomorrow. This is a small town, Sis—not like when we were living in Chicago. We can fly in Thursday, give ourselves the long weekend to get settled," he wound up with a chuckle of satisfaction.

"Okay dear," Elaine masked her annoyance. "Let me know what flight you're taking, and I'll be at the apartment to welcome you." And his bride, she thought with a rush of insecurity. Someone who'd be one in the city, who'd probably want to foist herself on Elaine. Lord, it could be wretched! Then she membered what Eric had said about the poetry-writing kick his wife was on. Nothing she loathed more than pseudo-artists and phoney intellectuals.

Elaine heard herself making the perfunctory inquires about Kathy, Eric's wife, and the proper replies to his few moments of chit-chat. With a sigh of relief, she put the phone back into place. "Hi, are you finished for the day?" Terry's small face suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"Yes!" Elaine's head shot up in surprise. They'd made such a point of barely knowing each other here in the office.

"It's all right, darling," Terry reassured her with that smile of a tiny tot eager to please. "Not a soul left on the floor except us."

"It's better not, though," Elaine reiterated casually, reaching into a drawer for her purse and gloves. Better not take any chances that might jeopardize this fearfully-wonderful relationship, her mind echoed cautiously.

"Shall we eat at home or out?" Terry perched on the desk while Elaine slid into her suit jacket.

"Out," Elaine decided, her mind racing along on the routine errands she'd have to attend to for Eric and his wife. The gas and electricity to be turned on, arrangements to alert the super about the furniture arrival, a woman to come in and clean the place. "Oh yes, I have to stop by and pick up the lease and sign some sort of affidavit they're demanding since Eric'll be moving in before he has a chance to sign it."

"You mean they're holding you responsible?" Terry demanded indignantly.

"You don't have to worry, Eric won't run out. He's the quiet, dependable type, always determined to do the right thing."

"You don't make him sound very likeable," Terry decided curiously.

"Didn't I?" Elaine stared in astonishment. "I've always adored Eric. He's six years younger than me, and I suppose he had some sort of thing about having to try to keep up with me in everything. A funny sort of competition, you know," she fumbled, not saying what she wanted to at all. "He's really a brilliant character. Only twenty-six and with a job like his!"

Terry laughed delightedly. "You're a riot as the proud sister.”

"Why?"

"It's just that I can't see you with a brother," Terry admitted frankly. "I can't see you in a family circle at all."

"I didn't just grow," Elaine's eyes twinkled. "I had the routine mother and father." Her eyes lost the twinkle now. "Maybe not routine, but a father and mother."

Terry did most of the talking in the cab downtown, waiting outside while Elaine went into the real-estate office for the necessary papers about the apartment. Five minutes later she was back in the taxi, leaning forward to give the driver the address of a quiet restaurant on West Eleventh.

"Let's go somewhere different," Terry decided impulsively. "It isn't far from here."

"All right," Elaine gave in. Terry could be such a child sometimes. She was rather surprised, though, that she would know a place down in the Village. She'd only been in New York a short while.

The instant Elaine pushed open the door that lead to the basement restaurant called "Maria's", she was aware of an inner sense of wary alertness.

"It won't be too crowded this early," Terry chattered animatedly as they walked past the cashier towards the beckoning "Maria".

"That's good." Elaine's eyes were accustoming themselves to the ultimate in subdued lighting the place affected.

"Not too many sightseers, either," Terry murmured with a smile of anticipation. "You'll like it."

Elaine thought, for a brief moment, that this was just another Village eating spot, with the typical wine bottles with candles, fishnet drapes, paintings that adorned every available hanging space. Here and there she noticed couples who looked as though they were out "seeing the Village", bright-eyed girls with scornful males. Then, with stunning clarity, the whole picture changed for Elaine.

At first, she'd thought "Maria" was a woman wearing velvet pants and a satin blouse. Now, as "Maria" hovered over them, the truth was blatantly clear. "Maria" showed the first faint signs of needing a shave. The lipstick, the mascara, the exotic turban, like the shocking pink velvet pants and the orange blouse, declared the feminine instincts and desires that masked a male body.

Her body tense, shoulders hunched tightly, Elaine gripped the table with her hands, while her eyes darted about the room, confirming her suspicions. Mostly, the dining couples were paired by sex. Two girls together, two fellows. Most of the girls in slacks and shirts, or full-swinging skirts with high-necked sweaters. The fellows displaying varying degrees of daring, some of them going the whole hog, with wildly-striped slacks, mad shirts, all the make-up offered by the cosmetic manufacturers. Elaine felt physically sick. Terry had brought her to a gay hangout!

"I haven't been here more than once or twice," Terry said carefully, her eyes taking in Elaine's insecurity.

"You should have told me," Elaine said jerkily.

"The food's good." Terry's knee sought Elaine's under the table, and one hand reached to cover hers. "And we can relax," she added with a show of bravado. "You need to relax."

"I've never been in a place like this," Elaine managed quietly. "Not here in New York." She had to be honest—she'd traveled the rounds of gay bars in Acapulco and San Francisco and Miami. Never however, in a city where she might, by some horrible accident, bump into someone who might know her. There'd been one frightening near-encounter, in 'Frisco four years ago. She'd been in a bar with a girl who'd picked her up in another bar, and suddenly in the next booth she'd seen Len Woodson. Len Woodson. Len was an account executive in a competitive agency, with a wife and kids in a mid-Manhattan duplex. Only here he was with a fairy pal who couldn't keep his hands off Len. She'd excused herself incoherently and dashed off. Never in a million years would she have guessed Len wasn't straight! It taught her a lesson—if you're going to be smart, be smart all the way.

"You won't find anybody here from Fleet and Comstock," Terry intruded softly, and for the first time, Elaine realized with a start, Terry seemed sure of herself. More the wise frankly-initiated habituée of a place like "Maria's" than the wide-eyed half-child she'd always appeared to Elaine.

"Terry, I've tried to explain the importance of being discreet," Elaine started off, self-conscious in the presence of Terry's frankness.

"Darling Terry, where have you been?"

Elaine glanced up with a start as the handsome dark-haired chap in Madison Avenue tweeds descended upon them, reaching for Terry and kissing her noisily.

"Stephie, how wonderful," Terry beamed. "Elaine, this is Stephen Carr, one of the first people I met in New York. This is Elaine," she adroitly avoided last name identification.

"Hello, dear." Stephie was candidly scrutinizing her now. "Isn't this one a doll?"

"You're so conservative today," Terry giggled. "Business?"

"Yes," Stephie sighed. "Fred likes me to make a pretense of working for a living, you know. I'm doing a series of photographs for some cold-nosed New England pal of his tonight. Can you imagine if I showed up in drag?"

Elaine listened apprehensively to the high-pitched small talk that occupied the other two for the next few minutes. If it weren't for the touch of eyebrow pencil, the slightest blend of lipstick, Stephen Carr could have passed as a normal Madison Avenue junior executive, on his way up.

"Oh, I took Fritzi a present today," Stephie remembered exuberantly. "Fritzi's the bartender in a gay bar up in the Forties," he explained for Elaine's benefit, while she writhed with the agony of his presence. "I stole this new hat Fred's sister bought for herself over in Bendel's—the maddest thing you ever saw. Of course, it looks much better on Fritzi than on the old girl!"

Elaine struggled through the dinner, painfully conscious of her surroundings. How she detested these noisy, ostentatious queers! Why must they advertise to the world? Where were the sensitive introspective, fearful ones like herself? People who knew and understood and didn't condemn.

"I'm sorry I brought you here," Terry said finally. "It was a mistake, wasn't it?"

"We'll forget about it." Elaine allowed one hand to caress the slender leg that reached out towards hers.

"Let's go home," Terry coaxed urgently, her eyes bright with anticipation now. "Let's go home and I'll make you forget all about this!"

* * *

Elaine roamed through the apartment she'd rented for Eric and his wife, encased now in nervousness at meeting them. She glanced at her watch. Their plane was due to have arrived over an hour ago. They should be here any minute. It was more than three years since she'd seen Eric—during those agonizing days at the hospital while their father lay dying.

Her father, who'd so desperately wanted her to be a boy. He was well in his forties when she'd been born, and their mother not far behind. He was so afraid there'd be only Elaine. No son for him. Almost from the very beginning he'd treated her like a son, she thought, churning with the old frustration. When Eric was born, six years later, it made little difference. He'd been so delicate until he'd hit his teens. It was Elaine who played tennis and golf with the old man, Elaine who went on fishing trips with him, shared his confidence. Elaine, who should have been a boy!

Eric knew nothing, she'd kept telling herself for years, yet somehow his keen knowing way of looking at her could make her squirm with discomfort. Could he have seen through her disguise, as Terry had? No, this was ridiculous, she wouldn't cherish such idiotic ideas! She reached for a cigarette, lit it, picked up the bottle of champagne she'd bought as a token of welcome for Eric and Kathy. To keep busy, not to think, that was the urgent matter at hand. Then the doorbell rang, sharp and decisive. They were here.

"Hi ya, Sis!" Eric grabbed her warmly, kissed her, then held her at arm's length for inspection. "You look terrific," he commented approvingly. "What do you think, Kathy?"

"I think she's lovely." Kathy smiled with a simple honest warmth that won Elaine instantly.

"Well, come on and see your apartment," Elaine drew her sister-in-law into the living room with pleased surprise. Eric had done well for himself, she guessed instinctively. He needed someone like this—unaffected, warm, with her feet on the ground.

"I don't know about you two," Eric announced, "but I'm starving."

"Why don't we eat right here?" Kathy decided, her eyes darting to Elaine for support. "We can run down and pick up cold cuts at the delicatessen. We have champagne!" she waved to the bottle.

"You stay here and get acquainted with Elaine," Eric ordered, taking his tall, slim body to the door with rapid strides reminiscent of his sister's.

"Don't get lost," Elaine warned. "We want to eat tonight." With a start she remembered her original plan to have a drink with the incoming couple, a short conversation of welcome, and then up the West Side to the brownstone where Terry was waiting. She'd have to figure out a way to phone Terry if this threatened to become a long evening.

"Eric's talked so much about you." Kathy sat on one end of the sofa, tucking her slender legs beneath her.

"Has he?" Somehow, Elaine was surprised. "I hope it wasn't all bad." Such banal conversation, but it gave her a chance to inspect her brother's wife. A slender, dark-haired girl, built somehow like Terry yet with a striking difference. Kathy had wide intense eyes that seemed to question with bright interest, a full sensitive mouth, the classic oval face. Yet it wasn't this that gave her an indefinable air of beauty—it was something inside. Here was a girl who'd understand many things, Elaine thought turbulently, then grasped hold of herself. She must give herself away to no one. No one at all!

"Eric says you have a marvelous job," Kathy went on avidly. "It sounds absolutely fascinating."

"Not really." For the first time in years she was giving voice to the secret doubts that had gnawed at her at recurrent intervals. "Commercial junk, that for some insane reason pays off well. After a while, you forget anything else."

"You mean there's nothing creative about designing a package for a new lipstick or a bra or girdle?" Kathy smiled whimsically.

"Oh, it's creative, in one respect," Elaine allowed herself a brittle laugh. "It creates the means for my very charming apartment, clothes I couldn't otherwise afford, vacations."

"But it isn't enough, is it?" From Kathy it didn't sound phoney or pseudo-intellectual.

"It has to be," Elaine said calmly. "I'm not good enough for anything else."

"I thought you'd be the one who'd defy commercialism, who'd throw conventions to the winds." Kathy perked her head to one side, inspecting Elaine.

"What on earth gave you that idea?" Elaine felt herself caught up in alarm.

"Eric, the way he talked. Eric's sweet and wonderful, and I love him madly, but he needs success, financial reward. He has to know he's making good or it drives him to distraction."

"And I'm different?" she countered, her mind chasing back. Eric, with his maddening sense of competition with her. Competition for their father's love, for worldly approval. Why did he have to drive himself that way?

"You're strong," Kathy guessed intuitively. "I knew it even before I met you, from Eric. You have the strength to fight for what you want. Even if you never made it, you'd have the victory of having done it your way."

"You're a strange gal," Elaine teased, yet she knew Kathy accepted this as approval. "Wonder if Eric knows how lucky he is?"

They switched to casual talk then—about the city, the apartment building, the neighborhood—each satisfied in having made a friend in the other. It was a comfortable feeling, Elaine thought—she could relax with Kathy. So few people gave her that sense of not having to keep the barriers tightly locked.

Then Eric was in the apartment again, and they made a gay party-like thing of preparing the spread he'd brought up.

"Old Elaine didn't fail us, did she?" He pulled Kathy close to him now. "An apartment right in the Village, the way you wanted."

"I told you," Elaine laughed, "the Village is changing since the old days. The luxury apartments, like this one, are moving in all over—the actors and artists and writers are being shoved off into cold-water flats on the East Side."

"There’ll be enough left, though," Kathy insisted determinedly. "So much I want to see."

"Maybe you can persuade Elaine to leave off that career pursuing and show you around," Eric shot a mocking smile at his sister, and again she felt that penetrating insight that seemed to know more than it revealed.

"Oh, Eric, Elaine's squandered enough of her time on us. Finding this apartment, arranging everything!" Kathy glanced fondly from her husband to her sister-in-law.

"The trouble with Elaine," Eric was opening the champagne now, "she's so all-fired concerned about that career, she forgets about having fun. You ought to get married, Sis," he poured the champagne with a flourish. "Nothing like it!"

"Now, Eric," Elaine tightened inside. This was an almost-forgotten obsession of Eric's—to get her married off. "He's been going on like that for years."

"I hate to see you going to waste!" He shook his head in good-natured disapproval. "An attractive babe like you—you could have been married a hundred times if you didn't play so hard to get."

"Eric, shut up!" Elaine said it with a smile, but the peremptoriness underneath caught Kathy's attention.

"Eric, stop riding her," she protested gently, sipping at her own champagne with cautious watchfulness. Elaine knew Kathy sensed the unspoken peculiar antagonism between herself and Eric.

Eric was going fullspeed now—Elaine knew when he was bursting with high spirits like this nothing could stop him. She clutched her champagne glass, wanting to throw it in his face, yet understanding he did this only because he was driven. He couldn't accept the fact that he was as good as his sister in their father's eyes, even though the old man had been dead three years. He took this means of lashing back at her, gaining some release for himself.

"For a time I thought there was hope for old Elaine," Eric chuckled mockingly, but his eyes rested on his sister with honest affection. "Remember that crazy year when you tore off to Paris? I'd just started high school."

"I remember," Elaine said briefly. But she didn't want to remember! She hadn't let herself dwell on that for years.

"Elaine's sold out to old devil Success now," a trace of envy sneaked into his voice, "but she had the makings of a first-rate painter. Dad nearly burst with pride when she won some prize over there in Paris. Then suddenly, she gave it up and came back home. Never could understand it, Sis." His face probed keenly again, the mockery gone. "I figured, though, it must have had something to do with one of those crazy Left Bank love affairs. Mother went over to visit her, and lo and behold, they returned to Chicago together. Mother was bursting with the conviction she'd persuaded Elaine to be practical, to give up this starving artist bit, the art for art's sake deal. I never bought that, though."

"It was simple." Elaine compelled herself to meet Eric's eyes, though somehow she couldn't face Kathy's. "I realized I wasn't good enough to be great. In-betweens didn't interest me."

"You owed yourself the chance," Kathy insisted intensely.

"Now we've done enough talking about me," Elaine inspected Kathy with determined curiosity. "Let me hear all about Kathy now."

But while Kathy talked, lightly, brimming over with the joy of her marriage, Elaine's mind shot back. Thirteen years ago it was. She'd gone to Paris completely enraptured with Tomorrow, sure of herself, what she'd do with her life. The bare necessities of life would be enough, so long as she could work. Then she'd met Alex and the world had seemed too perfect. Alex—short for Alexandra—was an art student too, and the two of them moved into an attic studio together, sharing everything. They couldn't afford models, so they posed for each other. It'd been so easy, almost without realizing each new step, to fall into that relationship that people back home, in their circle, talked about only in whispers. Alex was warm, lovable, intelligent, and she adored Elaine.

How different life might be today if her mother hadn't popped to Paris for a surprise visit, and walked unannounced into that attic studio. Elaine's teeth clenched, pain shooting through her, reliving that awful moment. Alex had been posing for her in the nude, and the portrait was going so well. It was a hot day—they'd stopped for a glass of wine. They'd lain across the couch together, and then Alex had crept into her arms and began her gentle lovemaking, until neither of them remembered to be gentle. Caught up in the fury of passion, neither heard the door open. Then her mother's voice lashing at them, cold with outrage.

"You fiends! You rotten, degenerate fiends!".

Elaine fought to blank out her mind, not to remember the terrible scene. Her mother's threats to expose her to her father and Eric unless she returned to Chicago with her immediately. Elaine couldn't have borne exposure—she went back with her mother.

"Hey, Elaine, stop daydreaming," Eric's voice brought her back to reality. "Is this what champagne does to you these days? I still say, you ought to get married—that'd fix you up."

"I have to leave." Elaine arose abruptly. "I forgot completely about an appointment this evening."

"Eric, you're driving her away," Kathy rebuked him with a hopeless smile. "It's supposed to be the bride who's always trying to marry off the eligible gals among her acquaintance."

"I'm sorry," Elaine gathered her things together, knowing her sense of urgency was carrying across to the other two, but she couldn't help it. "I really do have to leave now."

She walked out of the apartment as though it were suddenly a gas chamber smothering out her life. Why couldn't you keep things locked away in those secret vaults in the back of your mind? Why did somebody have to come along to fling the doors open again?

Elaine walked, not knowing where, not knowing how long, until a corner clock struck reality into her. It was almost midnight and she hadn't phoned Terry! She hastened inside the nearest drugstore, dropping the coin into the change holder of the phone with nervous fingers. She'd promised to call early.

The phone rang, continually, with no answer. Perhaps she'd dialed incorrectly. Where was Terry? All at once it was urgent to know that this much, at least, remained unchanged, accessible to her. Elaine dialed again, her breath hurried and anxious. Again, the regular monotonous buzzing of an unanswered phone.

"Damn," she swore softly as her change purse skidded to the floor of the narrow phone booth.

Out on the sidewalk, she hailed a cab, impatient to reassure herself again with Terry. Out of the cab, up the stairs of the brownstone, ringing the bell with clamorous urgency. The windows were dark, she'd noticed from the street, but if Terry were asleep, she'd hear—she was such a light sleeper. Taking out her key, Elaine unlocked the door and walked inside. The bed was empty. The apartment was empty. Terry was nowhere around…

* * *

Elaine stood there in the middle of the empty apartment, as though her world had suddenly dissolved into a shambles. At least, she could run to Terry, she'd thought. Terry who understood and sympathized and loved with such tenderness. She must have dressed in a rush, Elaine decided with the first faint stirrings of suspicion. For whom? Her make-up lay scattered about the mirrored dressing table with the reckless abandon of a temperamental Broadway star almost late for an entrance.

Elaine reached out to touch the spilled dusting powder, closed the bottle of perfume Terry had overlooked, as though somehow this would bring her close. She glanced at her watch again. What was so urgent that Terry would dress to the teeth and run out this way? Elaine had said she'd call! But she hadn't, Elaine reminded herself, determined to be fair. Terry, volatile and emotional, must have been furious with her.

Elaine lowered herself into a chair, reached for a cigarette and lit it. Maybe she'd stay here a while, wait to see if Terry would show up.

"Damn!" She leapt to her feet in a fit of impatience, after only a minute of repose. How could she sit, with this insistent doubt eating away at her? Why had Terry dashed out like that? Couldn't she wait even a while? That was one of the small things in Terry that plagued at her—that faint streak of vindictiveness that showed itself at the slightest provocation. Terry was angry because Elaine hadn't called, Elaine improvised, so she'd cooked up this stunt to get even with her. She'd probably gone tearing off to Maria's, Elaine told herself—because she knew Elaine loathed the place.

Or had she gone to some man? Some hidden corner of the days before they'd met, like the life that included Maria's and that posturing character Stephie, had returned to lay claim to Terry, Elaine thought, perspiring with alarm. She needed one certain thing in her life, one thing with roots, to know. That was supposed to be Terry, who'd come into her world and changed it to glorious hues. Where was she—and with whom?

No sense in staying here, torturing herself, conjuring up nasty mental pictures. Elaine reached for her purse, tossed her jacket over her arm and hurried out of the oddly-haunted apartment into the quiet midnight of the west seventies. She reached the sidewalk with a sigh of relief, then uncertainty caught hold of her again. The prospect of returning to her own apartment was suddenly repugnant. Tonight's encounter with Eric had punctured sealed-off memories that threatened to destroy utterly the peace of mind she'd labored so long, so hard, to attain for herself. A peace of mind that was admittedly a fragile tenuous thing, but it had been something. On top of that, Terry's desertion.

Of course she was being melodramatic, Elaine taunted herself. What was the matter with her, that she could become such an emotional mess because Terry hadn't been there when she expected her to be? Kathy was different, an insidious voice whispered. Eric's wife would never be vindictive, shallow. There was a fine, wonderful quality in that girl Eric had found for himself. She almost envied him, Elaine admitted. But enough of such dangerous mental meanderings, she tried to take herself in hand. She was Elaine Ransome, successful, highly-respected in her field, with an exciting career to pursue. Think about that Truly Yours account, for instance, she commanded herself sternly. What a feather in her cap to land it! And if she were smart, she would.

Elaine hesitated as she turned onto Broadway, still loath to go back to her own place. The bar at the corner appeared quiet and relaxing. So she wasn't the type to wander into a bar alone! This wasn't the routine night in her existence. She'd go in, sit quietly alone over one drink, take hold of herself again—and then a cool cab ride across Central Park to her apartment. When she got there, she'd phone Terry—and Terry'd be home, she promised herself with soaring optimism. And Terry would have a marvelously simple excuse.

"Yes ma'am?" The bartender strolled over leisurely inspecting Elaine and obviously coming up with a complimentary appraisal.

"Gin and tonic," Elaine ordered with an impersonal smile, to let him know she was friendly but not there for a pick-up.

She glanced about at her surroundings. It was a small place, intimate and cozy, not over-populated at the moment. She could feel herself beginning to relax. This was good—being among people without being with them. It took the edge off the horrible loneliness that sometimes threatened to smother her.

The bartender brought her drink, offered a moment's small talk, and discreetly took himself off. Elaine almost wished he'd remained. That way her mind couldn't probe its uneasy secretive caverns.

With a start she realized the man at the extreme end of the bar was casually making his way over to her. She stiffened coldly as he straddled the seat next to hers.

"I could ask for a light," he said in low, interested tones, "but that's such a trite approach, don't you think?"

"It fits a trite situation." She returned his inspection with disdainful iciness. "I suggest you extend your search to a more fruitful area."

"It's a shame," he murmured regretfully. "We could make it a fascinating evening, with some cooperation on your part."

Elaine forced herself to regard him calmly. He was quite attractive, actually—the average woman would have considered him a real catch. But then, she wasn't the average woman. She was only half-woman—only this outer deceiving shell. In a way, it was a compliment to her efforts at camouflage that so many men found her attractive physically. They didn't know!

"You’ll have to find yourself another playmate," she brushed him off, outwardly casually, hiding the insistent urge to bash in that handsome male face of his. Was Terry off with somebody like that? A cold, sick chill encased her as she envisioned Terry in the arms of some hulk of a man set on satisfying himself with that soft pliant body that had stretched beside hers.

Elaine concentrated on finishing her drink, allowing him time to retreat gracefully, then she paid the tab and hurried out of the bar as though her life depended upon breathing fresh air again. She walked to the subway, poised uncertainly at the head of the stairs, then swerved and walked swiftly in the opposite direction. An all-night coffee shop, bright and cheerful, captured her attention, and she walked inside. She took a small booth near the front, where she could watch the door as though expecting someone, in case anybody got ideas about joining her.

She was working on her second cup of coffee when something about the tensely erect shoulders of the man coming through the revolving door drew her glance. At the same instant he spied her. Paul Hennessy.

"Hi!" He wandered over, frankly delighted. "What are you doing on this un-smart side of town?"

"My brother and his wife just moved into town. They're staying at a hotel in this section until their apartment is ready for them," Elaine lied skillfully. "And don't be a snob about your neighborhood."

"I can't picture you in anything but Sutton Place or East End Avenue," he kidded, enjoying this unexpected encounter. He waved to a waitress and gestured his wants. Plainly Paul was a regular here.

"You don't really know me at all," she said intensely, then gasped in dismay at her inadvertent admission.

"I've tried to remedy that situation, regularly." His eyes held hers, and something there must have warned him to veer away from the romantic track. "How many people actually do know one another? We work together, spend hours each day practically side by side, but who has time in our crazy world to bother with learning the real things?"

"They know you here, don't they?" Elaine noticed the warm curiosity of their waitress, the counterman, watching their table.

"Practically my second home." Paul smiled whimsically, "I belong to the night people—I can't fall asleep before three or four in the morning. I get sick of TV and reading after a while. I come here."

"There's a whole world of drugstore and cafeteria people," Elaine said softly. "I remember when I first came to New York to live. I knew practically no one, except the familiar faces I saw every day in the cafeteria where I had breakfast and a late snack before bed time. Somehow, I felt as though I wasn't entirely alone."

"Been a long time since you thought about those cafeteria days," Paul challenged.

"That's right," Elaine conceded. The horrible, frightening aloneness she'd suffered through before Terry hadn't been assuaged by such innocuous diversion. But then people like Elaine Ransome didn't sit around in such places. She studied Paul's face with fresh respect. "Why does someone like you prowl around through the night? You with your feminine fan club!" It was true enough; women in droves plagued Paul with phone calls at the office. She'd heard the awed comments of the receptionists and switchboard operators.

"What about you?" he countered. "What ghosts are you chasing?"

Elaine caught her breath sharply. She was almost giving herself away! "I don't make a practice of this," she reminded. "I was visiting my brother and his wife, then suddenly got this urge for a bite to eat. So, here I am." She spread her hands eloquently, a thoroughly un-Elaine gesture.

"What brought your brother to New York?" He was watching her quizzically. "Trying to emulate his sister's success?"

"Eric's brilliant," she said calmly. "His firm made him a fabulous offer to come to New York, so he grabbed at it."

"Like his job?"

"I think so." The question caught her unawares. "As much as most people do."

"What about you?" Paul probed. "Where you always bent on designing lipstick containers and deodorant packages?"

"I had the usual adolescent ideas," Elaine conceded, frowning. Why must everything tonight drag out the Paris year?

"Too bad we can't hang on to the adolescent ideas —we'd be a damn lot happier, most of us." Paul stared at his cigarette. "I was nuts to study seriously in Paris or Rome. The old evil, money, got in my way. Now I do fool things, like buying weird paintings by artists I think are going to be great fifty years from now. I've been collecting this one French guy. Not expensive, to a man who can afford to collect, but on my salary it's kind of nuts. Anyhow, I went chasing over to the gallery tonight to plunk down another hundred on a painting they're holding for me. I got there too late—the gallery had closed already." He peered moodily into space.

"They'll be open tomorrow." Elaine watched him now, her interest caught by this unexpected side of Paul Hennessy. At the office it was always the gay, flippant side she encountered.

"There was this couple standing before the window. Inspecting my painting—the one the old boy was holding for me. Know what they said? This guy is good, yes—my painter, I mean. But they claim he has his top students execute paintings in his style, he signs them, and then they split the loot."

"Sounds pretty rotten."

"That's the way I figured it. But I started to think. There's an awful lot of his work around town right now. How do I know I'm getting the McCoy? It's been so long since I've been around anything that wasn't phoney!" He jabbed his cigarette butt in the ashtray.

"You'd know," Elaine consoled, then curiosity compelled her to question him. "The fellow really is that good?"

"I told you!" Excitement kindled in Paul's eyes, creating a feeling of kinship in Elaine. "I'd swear he'll be considered one of the great ones." He toyed with the idea for a moment, while Elaine watched him. "Say, my place is just five minutes from here. Why don't you run up with me and give me your opinion? I'd feel lots better."

"If I agree," she kidded, but it was a good-natured, almost intimate kind of thing. The sort of intimacy shared by two people, regardless of sex, because of a closeness in the things nearest to their hearts.

"I'll chance it. Come on." His eyes held hers, urging her to agree.

"All right." Her acquiescence was compulsory. She was fidgeting to see these paintings that had aroused such unbridled enthusiasm in Paul Hennessy. Perhaps, she told herself wryly, it was no more than envy.

They walked across to Riverside Drive, enjoying the quiet crispness of the autumn night, and Elaine thought it might be good to have this man for a friend. Such friendships did grow and become cherished segments of one's life. Perhaps Paul Hennessy could be a real friend, the land she'd never honestly known, because she was so starkly afraid of getting close to people. Paul Hennessy, friend—not lover.

Paul stopped in front of a narrow greystone along the Drive, led her up the sedately carpeted stairs to the third floor. When he unlocked the door and switched on the lights, Elaine caught her breath in amazement. She'd expected a typical bachelor efficiency apartment. Paul Hennessy occupied a high-ceilinged duplex.

"It's absolutely lovely, Paul." Her eyes swept the large, comfortably-furnished living room with its wood-burning fireplace and the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson, the winding stairway that led to the second floor. "I never expected something like this."

"You figured I'd live in one of those starkly-modern atrocities with the kind of furnishings you'd read about in Esquire or Playboy," Paul interpreted. "When I leave the office, I leave Madison Avenue behind me."

"People with something like this don't know how lucky they are," Elaine told him warmly. "You're living here—not existing in a luxury vacuum."

"Don't get wild ideas," Paul teased lazily, lighting a cigarette and giving one to her. "I inherited this place from a college buddy. The rent's frozen. Probably only peanuts more than you pay for your place. And it's my one extravagance. After all, I don't have to buy my wardrobe at Bendel's or Bergdorf Goodman's."

Something about the way Paul looked at her now was disturbing. His eyes were destroying that wonderful friendship idea she'd been nurturing.

"What about those paintings?" she prodded, a growing self-consciousness taking over. Had this been a stupidly impulsive move on her part? Paul kidded regularly in the office, but basically she'd taken it for the routine phoney verbal lovemaking that was part of their daily chatter.

"Upstairs." He pointed "In the bedroom." His eyes trailed the length of her, passion showing itself in the vein pounding away in his forehead, in the quickened breathing.

"Odd place for paintings," she said levelly.

"I'm an odd character." He stood still, like a panther watching for the propitious moment to spring.

"Are there pictures, Paul?" Her voice was laced with iciness now. Damn him for leading her on this way. "Or is this the slightly dressed-up etching routine?"

"Sweetie, are you calling me a liar?" he chided lightly, but there was nothing light about the way his eyes lingered on the boyish slenderness of her lean, firmly-built body, down to the adolescent-slim legs. Paul Hennessy obviously wanted no part of the voluptuous Hollywood type beauties.

"Are there pictures?" she repeated calmly, without moving, fighting to conceal the tornado of anger whirling within her.

"Eight of them," he assured her, and suddenly it was as though the flame had been mysteriously extinguished. "My dowry, you might call it. I'm always one step ahead of my paycheck, but they're worth it. Want to see?"

"Of course." Elaine felt oddly guilty. Had she been ridiculously mistaken about Paul? Could she be so edgy as to have imagined that man-on-the-make look in him?

"Then let's go!" He gestured mockingly towards the stairs and she walked towards them with her swift eager strides, wishing she didn't feel so terribly aware of Paul's body uncomfortably close to hers. Next time she wouldn't let herself in for something like this. This crazy feeling of suffocation that being alone with a man always thrust upon her. Because there wasn't a man living whom she sincerely trusted. Every rotten one of them with the single-track mind!

"You're a strange babe," Paul's voice was a husky whisper, and then his arm was about her waist as they started up the stairs.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Elaine said harshly. "Is that all you ever have on your mind?"

"Know something better?" he challenged, locking his hands behind her, his face close to hers, his male body sickening her with its insistence.

"I was right. This is strictly the corny old etching routine!" she lashed out scathingly. "I gave you credit for more intelligence!"

"Now really, Elaine," he shook his head mockingly, "isn't it rather late for you to be playing the wide-eyed virgin bit?"

"That's not what we have under discussion." Fury rocked her, yet she was determined to be in command of the situation.

"Let's have a little less discussion and more action," he turned on the amorous, little-boy brand of charm.

"I came up here to see some paintings. I honestly thought you were serious." She managed to put distance between them now—only a few inches, but she could breathe again.

"Then it's the way I thought—the way people talk about. You only play when it does some good for that almighty career of yours. Rick Stacy, for instance?"

"Why don't you leave me alone, Paul?" Her eyes met his with cold antagonism. "I thought I'd made it clear enough that I'm not interested!"

"One of these days you're going to make a slip, duchess, and when you do it's going to be a colossal blunder!" He moved aside to let her pass.

"Don't worry. I won't ask you to pick up the pieces!"

Without a backward glance Elaine strode across the living room and to the door, impatient to be out in the clean night air again. What a horrible, nightmarish evening this had been! What would tomorrow be like, her tortured brain demanded? Right now she was at the point where every small obstacle to peace of mind assumed gigantic proportions. She tried to rationalize to herself, but it was useless. Eric back in her life again, unlocking all those secret doors—Terry bringing out traits within her that made her cringe with shame—an idiot like Paul Hennessy making that stupid play. They all seemed, at first glance, to be isolated occurrences, yet in her present state Elaine could only believe that some relentless pattern was forming to choke off her tenuous hold on life, to make tomorrow completely, impossibly unlivable...