I was over an hour late when I got to Lippit’s apartment and not much to show for it. I had managed to learn nothing new since being with Louie, except how Benotti looked through a screen door and then how he looked on the flowerbed. And that he and I were not apt to be friends. Also, I had lost a button on the front of my jacket.
I rang the bell and hoped that the party was fine, busy and not too attentive. Pat opened the door and I could hear this was a very quiet party. The first thing everybody would notice, I had lost a button.
“Hi, Jack,” she said. “You’re late.”
“Yes. Is everybody…”
“You lost a button.”
“All right.”
“Aren’t you coming in?”
She left the door open for me and walked through the little anteroom holding one arm bent on her back and her hand to the top of her zipper. The zipper ran up her midline but not very high up so as to show more of the girl. Similarly, in front. It wasn’t a formal, because her pretty legs showed, but it was one of those five to ten numbers, to cover cocktails, dinner and whatever you do at ten in the evening.
“You’ve got to help me with my zipper,” she said and walked on ahead into the front room.
“What kind of a party-” but she didn’t hear me, having passed through the door.
It was a very quiet party. When I was through the door I saw that there wasn’t any party. Just Patty and me.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she said again.
“Am I early or late?”
“You’ve got to help me with my zipper.”
“In other words, I’m that early.”
“Late. They’re gone.”
“What kind of a-”
“Jack. For heaven’s sake, I can’t stand here and hold this thing forever.”
I closed the door, leaned up against it for an effective moment, and smiled at Pat She didn’t smile back but she looked good just the same. She was holding the dress front and rear but that didn’t matter too much because Pat had a figure you look at, and you try to discount what she’s wearing.
“For heaven’s sake, Jack.”
“Patty, let me help you with that zipper.”
“No!”
We had that kind of a relationship. It always came out no.
“Walter Lippit trusts me,” I said, “my friends trust me, even I myself…”
“All right,” she said. “Just remember it goes up, not down.”
The thing was, this dress had no straps. She sat down on the big couch, her back turned to me, and I sat down behind her. Pat had brown hair with a lot of lights in it and cut short all around. This left me a fine view of her neck, shoulders, back and the whole thing looked very prettily naked.
“How come the party’s over?”
“Are you getting that zipper fixed?”
“If you’ll get your hand out of the way here, maybe…”
“All right. But I’m holding on in front, Jack St. Louis, so no shenanigans are going to do you any good anyway.”
“I look upon this the way a mechanic would.”
“All right.”
“A mechanic who loves his work.”
“Okay. You just-Jack!”
I gave her a slow kiss on the curve of her neck and she didn’t dare move because of the zipper. I was holding on to it and when she moved it went down.
“Jack, please! This just makes me shiver.”
“That’s very small potatoes compared to what it does to me.”
“Then why don’t you stop it!”
“I adore you.”
“I know what you adore.”
“That’s what I said, Patty.”
I worked on the zipper. The problem was that it wouldn’t lock but kept sliding each time she took a breath.
“What are you doing back there, Jack?”
“I was very honestly studying the problem of this zipper, right this moment.”
“Well, hurry up. We’re late.”
“The party’s over.”
“They all went to the club,” she said. “When Carey came he started talking business with Walter and they all got upset. Walter said-Jack!”
“Was that cold?”
“I’m getting mad, Jack.”
“Why did they go to the club?”
“Because Walter wanted those labor people to come, too. And he didn’t want that to be here.”
“You know what would be best, Patty? You should just take this dress off and then maybe I could do a regular job on this.”
“I know what kind of a regular job.”
“And the zipper too. Honest, Patty.”
“Jack!”
I put my hands on her bare shoulders and she couldn’t do very much about that because she was holding the dress up in front.
“It just makes you shiver. I know.”
“Jack, please. You’re supposed to-”
“I will.”
“You’re supposed to go too. They’re waiting for you.”
“Good.”
“I mean now. Right now.”
“Yes.”
I pulled her around a little and turned her face and held it that way for an earnest kiss.
“No,” she said.
I went back to the kiss. Then she said, “Jack, it’s all the way down. The zipper…”
I switched her around and put my hands on her back where the zipper used to be and to hell with the mechanical interest.
“No!”
Her hands were still in the way. She was still holding the dress in front and I could feel her knuckles where she should be soft.
“Jack, if you don’t stop that,” she said, and later, with a little less breath, “Please, Jack. Walter wouldn’t like it.”
“He’d be mad.”
“I know That’s what I meant.”
“We won’t tell him.”
“You’re hurting my hands.”
“Move them.”
“No!”
I gave her a kiss and leaned her back on the couch. As soon as she noticed that maneuver she put back her hands, to keep herself up, but that left the dress mostly to its own devices. When she tried to take care of that error she had to move her hands and I got her down on the couch. And she couldn’t get her hands back in front because I was too close.
“Don’t get mad,” I said. “Because if you wriggle too much-”
She held still.
“Gimme a kiss.”
She moved her head to one side and I got her ear.
“No!”
I moved my hands away from her back so she would lie more comfortably. “-no.”
With that “no” I felt much less uncertain and I leaned up on my elbows and smiled down at her.
“Patty, if you’ll let me have that dress, like I said, I’ll be able to do…”
“I know what you want to do.”
“You sensed that, Patty. You just sensed that without my having to tell you a thing.”
“Don’t! Don’t move away, I’m all bare in front!”
“I sensed that.”
I stayed close to her because why move and because she was holding me that way. Then we didn’t talk for a while, but when I gave her a chance she said:
“I told you, Jack. You’re supposed to be there.”
“I’ll be late.”
“They’re going to wonder. And Walter, he’s going to wonder!”
“I’ll explain to him. I’ll explain why.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Hold still.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“You think I’m crazy?”
“Yes!”
“I wouldn’t spoil that for you. Walter Lippit’s all right.”
“Don’t tell me about Walter!”
“You don’t think he’s all right?”
“Of course he’s all right!” she said. “I like Walter.”
“Don’t yell in my ear.”
“Better than you, I like him.”
“That’s only because you have never given yourself, and, of course, me, the most elementary chance which both you and I…”
“I don’t mean that, Jack St. Louis. Let me up. No! — I was talking about how he helps me.”
“Your career. Ah yes. Your career.”
“You know I’m a good singer.”
“You’re much better, given half a chance, in more elemental…”
“Stop using those words!”
“You’re much better, I meant, in…”
“I know what you mean.”
“And all good singers are fat.”
“That’s not true. I don’t have to be fat.”
“Not at all. This was my point.”
“Walter doesn’t talk that way about me.”
“He helps your career.”
“Seriously.”
“So could I, Patty. Seriously.”
She didn’t answer right away. I could tell by her face that I had made the mistake of getting her onto the one cold and serious subject of her life. She lay still.
“You’re kidding me,” she said.
“Ever hear of Blue Beat Records?”
I could tell she had. It wasn’t a big label, but a nice, little thing for the aficionados.
“You mean you could get me on that label?”
“I could get you a trial, maybe.”
Which had been the wrong answer. If I had said yes, she would have thought I was handing a line. When instead I had said the other, she pricked up her ears, because she had caught something serious. Which is what I mean when I say that I had made a mistake.
“Listen, Jack. I want to talk to you.” She rewound her arms on my neck and looked up at my face.
“I don’t want to talk to you, Patty, honest,” and I tried to get back to the lost subject.
She didn’t say “no” this time. She didn’t say anything for a while, and I didn’t, and it felt as if we were done talking. My collar felt tight and out of place and she must have felt the same way when it came to that dress with the busted zipper because she stretched and twisted up closer and to hell with the front of that dress.
Then it struck me what a mercenary minx she was.
“Patty.”
“Huh?”
“I got nothing to do with the record business.”
“Uh.”
“I said, I got no ins with the record business.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I mean it.”
“Your stud button is digging into me.”
“I, uh, I’m sorry.”
“Take it off.”
It was hard to take it off and it was harder to talk any more and I hardly cared any more what kind of a minx she was. I heard her kick off first one shoe, then the other.
“Listen, Patty.”
“Yes, Jack.”
“I meant that, what I said.”
“Yes, Jack.”
“So let me up.”
“I’m half naked.”
“What I mean is…”
“Yes, Jack. Yes, Jack.”
“About records…”
“I don’t give one damn, Jack!”