Listening to Billie by Alice Adams Page A

earned a lot of money writing, and had inherited a lot. But she eerily recalled Smith Worthington saying those words to her, last summer in Maine, on the night before his marriage. “Mother, I have to go now,” she lied. “I have a lunch. I just wanted to tell you—”
    “Darling, I’m so glad—how good you were to call.” And then Josephine’s voice sounded tremulous: was that because they were saying goodbye, or because she was truly glad for Eliza’s poem?
    As she hung up, Eliza was trembling, and she did not understand,
really
, what had happened—or she could not face what she seemed to understand. Which was that Josephine was not entirely pleased.
    An hour or so later, as she sat on her worn wooden front steps, in the sun, Eliza almost managed to return to her moment of joy. Smelling lavender, she thought of the enormous difference between having sold even one small poem and not. Being a published poet or not.
    She wished that she were, in fact, meeting someone for lunch, but she did not have the right friend for that moment, and besides, it was too late—after noon.
    Harry, if he were there—Harry would have been terrific, but he would have overdone it. Lunch at the Palace,champagne—he would have overwhelmed the event, and thus, not meaning to, have minimized it. Still, it would have been more fun with him.
    And she thought of the splendid weekend that had succeeded the not good one in New York. Harry had had to come back to Los Angeles to look at rushes, and he managed three days on Nob Hill, at the Huntington—to which Eliza rushed for long afternoons of wine and love, some tiny naps—rushed home for supper with Catherine, back to Harry for more love and midnight feasts.
    After that visit, Eliza thought, Well, he’s marvelous, but I couldn’t see him very often; I wouldn’t last.
    Inside, she considered calling Miriam, but that was crazy, too much to explain. Considered, and dismissed, Kathleen.
    She even thought of calling Peggy Kennerlie.
    And then she saw a possibly oncoming wave of self-pity, against which she firmly braced herself. Firmly she spread her competent hands before her on the table, and she thought, Of course it would not be as important to anyone else; no one else has been inside my head, feeling my craving for any recognition, my really dying to be published.
    She said to herself, I send poems out into space; that’s how it feels. And so, how extraordinary that someone should have heard. Someone bought my poem.
    The threatened wave of self-pity did not strike.
    The phone rang. It was Josephine, who said, in a hurried, out-of-character voice, “I just called because I wasn’t sure I’d said how really glad I was. Just surprised. I wouldn’t have thought of you as being a poet. But, darling, that’s absolutely terrific. First-rate.” Was Josephine crying? “Well, I must hang up. We don’t want to start supporting the phone company, do we?”
    Her daughter was totally confused.
    But Eliza had almost returned to her earlier euphoria, when she heard loud and unexpected feet pounding up the stairs. It was, of course, Catherine, but then—at lunchtime?
    “Mom, don’t you remember? There’s a teachers’ meeting, so we all got out early! I told you!” Blond and beaming, plump and almost twelve, Catherine burst into the room, trailing books and a favorite bedraggled pink wool cardigan.
    “Oh, no, I did forget, but, Cat, I’m so glad. And guess what happened to me today.” Eliza told Catherine her news.
    “Oh, Mom, a poem in a real magazine with your name on it? Mom, that’s terrific—God, that’s wonderful!”
    Eliza and Catherine went off to Chinatown to have lunch, to celebrate.

11 / Expensive Hotels
    What would it be like to be that woman? What goes on in her mind, or beneath her skin? Daria is thinking these questions as she stares at a youngish, black-wrapped, emaciated woman of indeterminate nationality—as they both stare down into an enclosed space of broken