“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Teitelbaum. You’re going to get service tonight like you’ve never seen,” Mr. Pat said.
“I’m looking forward to it. I see many people are afraid to eat.”
“They’re coming, little by little. Their appetites will get the best of them sooner or later.”
“I see there’s no one at our table. They must have heard about Mrs. Bluestone.”
Blanche gave her husband a little nudge. “So we’ll have a peaceful meal for a change.”
They walked on toward their table. Some of the staff who knew them waved and nodded. He could sense they were encouraged by each guest’s appearance. Suddenly they felt someone slip her arms through theirs from behind. Ellen had come in between them.
“My most courageous couple.”
“There’s not a soul at our table, and I’m glad,” Mrs. Teitelbaum said. “We’re going to pretend its our second honeymoon.” Ellen laughed.
“How’s Sandi?” Sam asked.
“She’s home playing housewife with a can of tuna. Magda volunteered to go over and make something for her but she said she wasn’t hungry.”
“Not sick, I hope?”
“No. Just sulking because I told her to stay away from the main building.”
“You did the right thing,” Blanche said. “She’s just a child. She should be spared such problems.” When they reached the table, the busboy and waiter helped them into their seats and then hovered a few feet behind.
Blanche looked around the table. “Where’s the salad?” She turned halfway toward the waiter. Both he and the busboy looked at Ellen.
“There won’t be any tonight,” she said quickly.
“Oh?”
“It’s one of those courses we weren’t able to replace immediately. Fresh lettuce was sold out by the time we put in our order.”
Blanche noticed the way her eyes moved away.
“Well, olives and celery will do just fine,” she said. “In fact, it will be a welcome change.”
There was a long, embarrassing pause. Then Ellen spotted Toby Feigen coming in with her daughter.
“I’ve got to see some people,” she said. Blanche grabbed her by the wrist.
“If we ate the lettuce last night we aren’t in any danger, are we?”
Sam studied Ellen’s reaction. The blood had drained from her face. “You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?” she asked, avoiding a direct answer to the question.
His lawyer’s instincts told him something was wrong. They also told him to avoid further questions. “Blanche is fine and so am I,” he said. “She was just curious.”
“You’re not fine,” his wife reminded him. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Ellen was only able to hear the last word. “Constipated.”
Sam laughed out loud. “That, my dear, is the exact opposite of what happens when you have cholera. But you’ve reminded me. Young man,” he called. The waiter snapped to attention. “Maybe you can get me a glass of prune juice.”
“Sir,” he said with a grin, “it will be my pleasure.”
Still somewhat stunned and subdued, Charlotte had come down to dinner, not from any demands of appetite, but rather from a need to be with people. Just as Bruce had suggested, it was better to be where there was noise and activity. She had asked to be transferred to another table in order to avoid having to answer questions about Fern and David, but the more the conversation at her new table centered around the topic of cholera, the more she thought about them both. At one point, the young couple seated to her left stopped talking abruptly. For a moment she had no idea why.
“What’s wrong?” the young girl asked.
“Wrong?”
“There are … there are tears streaming down your face.”
She brought her palms to her cheeks. The feel of the teardrops shocked her. She stood up immediately.
“I … I’m sorry,” she said, excusing herself from the table. She ran hurriedly back up the aisle and out of the dining room. For a few moments those remaining at her table were speechless. Then they all started talking at once.
She got hold of herself in the lobby. Then she saw Bruce talking on a house phone and hurried to his side.
“Charlotte!” he said, hanging up the phone, I was just about to look for you. That was the doctor at the hospital. Fern’s completely out of danger. She’s responded well to the treatment.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said. He put his arm around her shoulders.
“You all right, kid?”
“Yes, yes. I just need to catch my breath. Can I talk to her?”
“She’s kind of out of it for tonight. Call her first thing in the morning. Going in to dinner?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She looked back at the dining room entrance as though there was a ring of fire around it. “I’m not hungry.”
“C’mon, you’ve got to eat something.”
“Later,” she said. “Right now, all I want is a drink.”
“Well, take it easy on an empty stomach. Remember, you still probably have some after-effects from the sedative.”
“Right doc, I’ll keep that in mind. Care to join me?”
“Maybe later. Believe it or not, all this work has given me an appetite.”
“From the look of things in there, there’ll be enough food for you to have thirds.” She hesitated a moment, then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Then she headed for the Pelican Lounge.
There were more people in there than she expected and one man at the bar was particularly busy fortifying himself with liquid courage—Manny Goldberg. He had come down for a cocktail with Flo but she left him to go to dinner. He sat there alone, staring at the small neon light that pulsated the word BUDWEISER. He was practically hypnotized by it and at first didn’t notice Charlotte take a seat two down from him on his right. She ordered a rum and Coke because she thought she wanted something sweet, yet something that would have a jolt to it, too.
The combo was on a break but the juke box was on and Frankie Avalon was singing his hit song “Venus.” The subdued lighting, a relaxed atmosphere and the music all worked to calm her down. She clutched her drink with both hands and brought it to her lips like a construction worker taking a beer break on the streets of New York City in the middle of July. Then she sat back and opened her pocketbook to take out one of those menthol cigarettes she had bought just for this trip. Vacations, she had figured, were always a good time to experiment with something different.
The flame of her cigarette lighter caught Manny’s attention. She looked familiar to him but then again, half the girls up here looked familiar to him after a while. Right now, he couldn’t think straight anyway. Charlotte blew her smoke to the side and turned to see him staring at her. She smiled nervously and took another sip of her drink.
“Don’t want to eat either?” he said.
“I’m too nervous. What’ll probably happen is I’ll wake up at two in the morning starving to death and eat my blanket.”
He laughed and finished his drink. Then he quickly ordered another. What was he so afraid of? He could do it; he could do anything, even escape from the Congress. Look how easy it was for him to start with a woman. Confidence, confidence—the man with confidence wins the day.
“Me,” he said, moving off his stool and taking the one beside her, “I don’t trust ’em here.”
“What do you mean?”
“They say they’re giving us new food, but how do we know for sure?”
“Oh, I don’t think …”
“You don’t, huh? Do you have any idea how much food they would have to throw out? You know what it takes to feed a crowd like this? C’mon, we’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars.”
“Yes, but there are health inspectors here and doctors and …”
“Whadda they know?” He paid for his new drink. “I don’t go in for this quarantine idea. I think it’s the dumbest thing they coulda done. I mean, what did I do to get locked up like this?”
“Locked up?”
“If you can’t go out when you please, you’re locked up, ain’t ya?”
“I wasn’t going anywhere for the next couple of days anyway.”
“Yeah, but they’re talking about six of them.”
“I gather it’s what has to be done.”
“Yeah, well not to me,” he said, “not to me.”
“Really,” she said, turning fully toward him for the first time, “why don’t you just relax and enjoy yourself? You’re at a famous resort. There are a lot worse places to be quarantined.”
He studied her for a moment. Damn it, he did know this girl from someplace.
“You don’t work in the garment district, do you?”
“No, but I’d like to. I’d be able to get clothes at a discount.” He laughed and reached into his pocket for a business card.
“Here,” he said. “You’re ever in the neighborhood, drop in. I’ll see what I can get for you wholesale.”
“Thanks.” She looked at the card and put it in her pocketbook. He checked his watch again and took a big gulp of his drink.
“Well,” he said, “I gotta get goin’.”
“There’s no need to hurry. They’ll be serving dinner for another hour easy,” she said, suddenly not wanting to be alone.
“I’m not going to dinner. Nice meetin’ you, Miss …”
“Fein. Charlotte Fein.”
“Miss Fein.” He rubbed his hands together vigorously. She looked at him with a curious expression.
“Where are you going, bowling?” He laughed and started out.
“Yeah, in a sense. I’m going to knock some kings off their pins.” He laughed again and disappeared through the door. She motioned to the bartender and ordered another rum and Coke.
Despite Flo’s tough and bitter reaction to what Manny had told her, in truth she was frightened. The prospect of bankruptcy terrified her. What would they do if they lost all their money? What about all those outstanding charge accounts she had run up, accounts Manny wasn’t even aware existed. And the house … they were down to the last few years of the mortgage. Did that mean they could lose that, too? She cursed herself for not taking more interest when her father had tried to explain the financial complexities of the business. All she really knew was that nothing could be sold without her signature, but how the profits were made and how they were spent, she had no idea. She didn’t even know how much money Manny had in the bank. As long as there was always enough to buy what she wanted and go where she wanted, she had no reason to care. But now, to think they might end up paupers, maybe have to borrow money from the children … it was something she couldn’t bear to contemplate.
Her dinner table was only half filled and, as at most of the others, everyone was talking about Ellen’s speech and the quarantine. She listened, but contributed little and ate sparingly. At times, she found her hands shaking and looked to see if anyone noticed. She wondered if Manny had tried his escape yet—wondered if she should hope he made it. If he was able to get back to the city in time, it might at least forestall financial disaster.
She declined dessert and left the table early. She was much too nervous to sit there and talk. The others sensed her reluctance to get involved and proceeded to ignore her. They barely noticed when she left. When she got to the lobby, she felt even more confused. She knew she didn’t want to go to the bar or the card room where she might bump into Manny’s friends, but by the same token, she didn’t want to sit at the end of the lobby and watch television with the old biddies either. The prospect of going back up to her room and lying there alone was even more distasteful. She desperately needed to get her mind off things, if only for a little while.
She was standing uncertainly when she spotted Billy Marcus coming from the Pelican Lounge carrying a tray loaded with ice and glasses. He didn’t see her until he was nearly on top of her.
“Where’s all that going?”
“There’s a wild party up on the fourteenth floor.”
“Party? Someone’s having a party now?”
“You wouldn’t believe it. It’s more like a carnival. They took the furniture out of one of the suites and put it in the hallway to make room for themselves. When I left before, they had put two mattresses down on the floor in one of the bedrooms.” He leaned toward her and whispered. “It’s like a community bed, know what I mean?”
“Can anyone go to this party?”
“Guess so. No one knows who anyone else is anyway. Excuse me, but I gotta get this ice up there before they tear the roof off.”
“Wait,” she said, moving toward him. “I’ll go along with you. I’ve got nothing better to do right now anyway.”
“I don’t think your husband would approve, Mrs. Goldberg.”
“That never bothered you before,” she said dryly. He laughed and she followed him into the elevator.
The noise from Melinda’s party had shattered the privacy of every room on the floor. The dancing and frolicking spilled out into the hall, and some guests were seated on the floor of the corridor, their backs to the wall, drinking and laughing. Women sat with their thighs spread apart, their panties long ago removed. Couples kissed and petted openly. It was a bacchanal the likes of which Flo had never even imagined.
Although most of the people were young, there were more older people than she would have expected. It occurred to her she knew many of the men’s wives and wondered what they would say if they knew what their husbands were doing right now. Billy Marcus’s tray was literally attacked. He could barely keep it in balance as hands reached out from everywhere to grab glasses and ice. She saw what was happening and quickly took one for herself. Then she started through the crowd in search of some booze.
“Be careful, Mrs. Goldberg,” Billy called with a wink.
Melinda’s bedroom had been stripped clean—dresser, bed, vanity tables and chairs. In their place, as Billy had said, were mattresses. People walked around barefoot. The normal heat had been so increased by the presence of so many bodies and so much activity, that many people had begun to strip. Two women had their blouses completely unbuttoned, their breasts practically popping out of their bras. The music was so loud everyone had to shout to be heard.
Melinda herself was sprawled in one corner, a man on each side of her, a third man squatting at her feet. Her skirt was nearly up to her crotch; her open blouse left nothing to the imagination. From this most ludicrous position, like some Queen of Sheba, she proceeded to shout out perverse commands. It was a pornographic version of “Simon Says.” As a result of her personal magnetism, she had been successful in turning grown men into court clowns. They danced around in bras, zipped down their flies and made complete asses of themselves, all as a result of “Melinda Says.”