Florentyna was momentarily taken aback. Her plans for Richard had not included any provisions for tomorrows.
'Not if you don't want to,' he added before she could re)cover.
'I'd love to,' she said quietly.
'I'm having dinner with my father, so why don't I pick you up at ten o1clock?'
'No, no,' said Florentyna, 'I'll meet you there, It's only two blocks away.'
Ten o'clock then,' he bent forward and kissed her gently on the cheek.
'Good night, Jessie,' he said, and disappeared into the night.
Florentyna walked slowly back to her apartment, wishing she hadn't told so many lies about herself. Still, it might be over in a few days. She couldn't help feeling that she hoped it wouldn't.
Maisie, who hadn't yet forgiven her, sp ent a considerable part of the next day asking all about Richard. Florentyna kept trying unsuccessfully to change the subject.
Floreneyna left Bloomingdale's the moment the store closed, the first time in nearly two years that she had left before Maisie. She had a long bath, put on the prettiest dress she thought she could get away with, and walked to the Blue Angel. When she arrived Richard was already waiting for her outside the cloakroom. He held her hand as they walked into the lounge where the words of Bobby Short came floating through the air.
Are you telling me the truth, or am I just another lie? As Florentyna walked in, Short raised his arm in acknowledgment. Florentyna pretended not to notice. Mr. Short had been a guest performer at The Baron on two or three occasions and it never occurred to Florentyna that he would remember her. Richard looked puzzled and then assumed he had been greeting someone else. When they took a table in the dimly - lit room, Florentyna sat with her back to the piano to be certain it wouldn't happen again.
Richard ordered a bottle of wine without letting go of her hand and then asked about her day, She didn't want to tell him; she wanted to tell him the truth - 'Richard, there is something I must . . .'
'Hi, Richard.' A tall, handsome man stood at Richard's side.
'Hi, Steve. Can I introduce Jessie Kovats - Steve Mellon. Steven and I were at Harvard together.'
Florentyna listened to them chat about the New York Yankees, Eisenhower's handicap - his golf, and why Yale was going from bad to worse. Steve eventually left with a gracious, 'Nice to have met you, Jessie.'
The moment had passed.
Richard began to tell her of his plans once he had left business school, how he hoped to come to New York and join his father's bank, Lester's. She had heard the name before but couldn't remember in what connection. For some reason it worried her. They spent a long evening together, laughing, eating, talking, and just sitting, holding hands, listening to Bobby Short, When they walked home, Richard stopped on the comer of Fif ty - seventh and kissed her for the first time - She couldn't recall any other occasion when she was so aware of a first kiss. When he returned her to the shadows of Fifty - seventh Street, she left him and her white lies, aware that this time he had not mentioned tomorrow. She felt slightly wistful about the whole non - affair.
She was take aback by how pleased she felt when Richard phoned her at Bloomingdale's on Monday, asking if she would go out with him on Friday evening.
They wound up spending most of that weekend together: a concert, a film - even the New York Knicks did not escape them. When the weekend was over Florentyna found she had told so many innocent lies about her background that she became inconsistent in her fabrication and puzzled Richard more than once by contradicting. - herself. It seemed to make it all the more impossible to tell him another entirely different, albeit true, story. When Richard returned to Harvard on the Sunday night, she persuaded herself that the deception would seem unimportant once the relationship had ended. But Richard phoned every day during the week and spent the next few *eekends in her company: she began to realise it wasn't going to end that easily. She was falling in love with him. Once she had admitted that to herself, she realised that she had to tell him the truth the following weekend.
33
Richard sat through his morning lecture, daydreaming. He was so much in love with that girl, he could not even concentrate on the 'Twenty - nine crash'. He wished he could work out how to tell his father that he intended to marry a Polish girl who worked behind the scarf, glove and woolly hats counter at Bloomingdale's. Richard was unable to fathom why she was so unambitious for herself when she was obviously very bright : he was certain that if she had had the chances he had been given, she would not have ended up in Bloomingdale's. Richard decided that his parents would have to learn to live with his choice, because that weekend he was going to ask Jessie to be his wife.