Deadline for a Critic Read online

  “Well . . .. would you be willing . . . would you like to have something with me . . . I mean a snack after the show? I mean...”

  “That’d be nice. I’ll meet you back here in the lobby after the show.”

  It was good that the date had been accepted; the mood of the waiting line was growing ugly.

  Groendal had to force himself to concentrate on the screen. His mind kept racing ahead to the date, his first ever with a girl. But by determined concentration, he did manage to pick up some additional nuances in the direction, lighting, and dialogue.

  After the movie, Groendal waited until the theater had nearly emptied. He found Jane, overcoat over her uniform, waiting in the lobby. He held the door for her, then headed in the direction of the drugstore. There was no snow, but a sharp wind made it seem colder than the temperature. Jane put her arm through his. It was the first time anyone had done that to Ridley. It made him feel good. He felt protective.

  Jane ordered a Coke; so did Ridley. He was grateful. Money was not abundant.

  They talked for a long while about Adam’s Rib. Jane was duly impressed with Ridley’s knowledge of the film and its background. His information was quite comprehensive by almost any standards. But Ridley was running out of data. And he didn’t know what to do next. What happened when one got done telling a girl all one knew? What could they find to talk about then? As long as Ridley could expound on one of his favorite subjects, he felt relaxed and at ease. But one could not run on with technical information forever. Then what?

  Then a few minutes of silence. Normally, Ridley felt about silence the way nature reacts to a vacuum: he abhorred it. But now, for some reason, it felt comfortable.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Remember you?” Ridley clearly did not.

  “I was only two years behind you at Holy Redeemer. But there’s no reason why you’d remember me.”

  “Well, the girls were separated from the boys,” Ridley needlessly explained.

  “I know.” She had been there.

  “But you remember me?”

  She lowered her eyes. “Sure . . . I . . . I had a crush on you.”

  “You did?” It had never crossed his mind that anyone would.

  “Uh-huh. I used to watch you every chance I got. I remember especially how good you could play the piano. I used to go to the recitals just to hear you.”

  The recitals! Ridley had pretty well blocked out the memory of the recitals, especially after that fiasco years ago with David Palmer. In fact, he had rather effectively blocked out David Palmer. Ridley found it embarrassing that Jane would remember any of that.

  “I remember the last year you played in the recital. You played that Rachmaninoff ‘Prelude’ so well I was thrilled. I never forgot it.”

  “Really? Then you must remember later in that recital when I didn’t do so well as an accompanist.” Might just as well face up to it.

  “Oh, that was all the fault of that other boy. He was going too fast. I felt so sorry for you.”

  She knew it was Palmer’s fault and she sympathized! Where had she been when he’d needed her? “I never knew any of this.”

  “I’ve kept watching you when you come home for vacations. You look so nice when you’re serving, especially now that you wear the collar and dress like a priest”

  She’d seen him in the Roman collar, knew he was a seminarian, and still kept her crush alive apparently. This was not hanging together. She was a product of parochial school. So she must have known that priests and even seminarians were off-limits. But here she was, talking to him just as if he were an ordinary young man and not a seminarian just a little more than four years short of ordination to the priesthood. Maybe even flirting with him. He couldn’t figure it out

  After a slight pause, she continued. “I was sort of wondering what you were doing tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night? That’s New Year’s Eve, isn’t it? I don’t know. I can tell you one thing I won’t be doing: I won’t be seeing Adam’s Rib. I’d never be able to talk the old man into the price of another ticket So, I don’t know . . . haven’t got any plans.”

  “You’re not going to a party? A New Year’s Eve party?”

  “Uh-uh.” He did not bother adding that he’d never been to a New Year’s Eve party.

  “Well, would you like to come over to my house? We can have a kind of small party.”

  Part of Groendal was hearing Monsignor George Cronyn proclaiming that seminarians should take for granted they would like girls if they gave dating a chance, so nip it in the bud. And part of Groendal told him this might be his very last chance to test that theory. But, if he were to go to the party, what would he tell his parents?

  Because he had been carefully programmed, it did not strike Ridley as odd that at age twenty he was still asking permission to use the phone at the seminary and still accounting to his parents for every place he went.

  His educated guess was that his parents—read his mother—would deny him permission to go to a mixed party on New Year’s Eve. His mother and Monsignor Cronyn were of one mind when it came to girls. Somehow he would have to invent a party for and by seminarians at somebody’s house. Then pray fervently that neither parent checked. He thought he could carry it off. He seldom if ever lied to his parents. And they seldom if ever checked up on him.

  After all this thought, he agreed to go to Jane’s party. She would be able to get off duty after the first showing of Adam’s Rib tomorrow evening. He should come to her house about 9:30 P.M. She gave him directions. It was in the neighborhood; it would be easy to find.

  Everything went smoothly the next day. Ridley did all the chores expected of him and then some. His mother readily agreed to the seminarians’ party that night, cautioning him only to be very careful because the weather promised to be rather treacherous. His father was grateful the kid didn’t need any more money.

  At 9:30, he set out for Jane’s home. He did not want to be unstylishly early. He, of course, walked all the way. As he neared the house, he looked in vain for clusters of cars parked nearby. He concluded nearly everyone was from the neighborhood and, like him, would be walking.

  When he climbed the steps to her front porch, there was no indication of a party of any sort going on. Decidedly odd.

  A seemingly breathless Jane answered the bell. She was wearing a green and red floral print dress. She was very pretty and when she looked up at Ridley, her eyes seemed to sparkle.

  “Am I early?” As Ridley entered, he looked into the living room. It appeared there was no one but the two of them there.

  “No, you’re fine.” She took his coat and hat and hung them in the hall closet.

  “Well, then, where is everybody?”

  “We are everybody.”

  “We are—I don’t understand. I thought this was a party.”

  “You can have a party with two people.”

  “And your parents?”

  “Out. At their own party. They probably won’t be back until early in the morning.”

  “You mean we’re the only people in the house . . . no one else is coming?”

  Jane shook her head and smiled. “Scared?”

  Ridley swallowed. This was a first. He felt that this evening might test Monsignor Cronyn’s theory.

  “Don’t worry.” She laughed. “Nothing’s going to happen. I just thought this would be a nice time for us to get acquainted. Besides, I hate New Year’s parties, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been to one.” It did not occur to him to cover his inexperience with a lie.

  “You have lived a sheltered life, haven’t you.”

  He could not argue the point.

  “Come on.” She led him into the living room. “I put together a snack.”

  He looked around. It was a room one could find in almost any home in that neighborhood. Not, in fact, unlike his own. The walls displayed a liberal supply of pictures about equally divided between r
eligious and family; venerable furniture that had belonged to more than one generation; knickknacks owing their continued presence to a family that threw nothing away. An ornate carpet, once thick, now worn thin in spots favored by a series of comfortable feet.

  She sat on the couch. He hesitated, then selected a nearby chair. She smiled. The snack, on a tray on the coffee table, was near the couch, not the chair. She brought the tray to him. He took a paper napkin and a plate and selected half a sandwich. It was impossible, at least in those days, to overfeed a seminarian. She seemed to sense that: She pushed the coffee table near Ridley and set the snack tray on it. He was silently grateful.

  She returned to the couch and kept what she presumed was the proper clerical distance.

  “So,” he took a bite of the sandwich—ham and cheese, very adequate, “you work at the Stratford. Full-time?”

  She chuckled. “Hardly. Just evenings. Three, maybe four a week. Plus anything else I can get. Right now, during the Christmas rush, I’ve had a job at Hudson’s. That was neat: the Baker streetcar from here right to Hudson’s. Some of the jobs are not nearly so convenient.”

  “But why? Why all these jobs?”

  “College. I’m going to the University of Detroit. Someday I’ll be a teacher.”

  Groendal felt guilty. Since last year, his junior year in college, the Archdiocese of Detroit had been picking up most of the costs of his education and would continue to do so all the way through the final four years of theology. Both he and Jane were going to college. She was toiling for nickels and dimes anywhere she could find employment, working her way through college. While, as far as financing his education was concerned, he was coasting.

  “Did you ever think of becoming a nun?”

  From his perspective it was a perfectly logical question. Most parochial pupils at one time or another consider religious life. And the IHM nuns who had taught them at Redeemer were exclusively a teaching order. If Jane wanted to be a teacher and was short of funds—well, the idea made sense to Groendal.

  “I must admit the idea crossed my mind.” Jane had a most attractive smile. “But it’s not for me . . . too confining.”

  “Oh.” Ridley finished the other half of his ham-and-cheese sandwich.

  There was a lull in the conversation.

  “I was wondering—that is, if I’m not imposing on you—if you would play the piano for me. It’s in tune,” she added hastily.

  Groendal dried his fingers with the napkin. “I’m afraid I haven’t kept it up. After what happened at that recital, I lost my enthusiasm.” He tried not to recall that humiliation. Whenever the memory resurfaced, so did the bitterness.

  “Oh, what a pity! You mean you don’t play at all anymore?”

  “No, I still play. But rarely. It’s just that . . . well, back then, I was aiming at something, something that could have become a concert career. When that didn’t . . . work out, I just let the serious side of training slide. Practice, and all that.”

  “Does that mean you won’t play for me?”

  “If you want me to, I’ll try. But my fingers aren’t as supple as they were when I was really working at it. I just want to warn you that in these last seven years I’ve lost technique instead of gaining it.”

  Jane hesitated. “Can you still play Rachmaninoff s ‘Prelude’?”

  “I’m afraid to try. I haven’t played it for years. I’d probably just mess it up. And Rachmaninoff doesn’t need that.”

  “Well, then, anything.”

  “Okay.”

  Ridley moved to the piano, rubbed his hands together, getting as much warmth as possible into his fingers, and essayed a few exercises. He then selected some popular pieces of the day that were lyric and lazy, giving his reluctant fingers a chance to limber up.

  He played “That Lucky Old Sun,” “Scarlet Ribbons,” and “Tell Me Why.” Simple tunes, but he chorded them imaginatively. He could hear Jane humming along. Her voice was pleasing. Frequently, he played for schoolmates’ singalongs. He was accustomed to a group of male voices, not universally in tune. Jane’s soft soprano was a pleasant change. He played on from a little further back “Everybody Loves Somebody,” “Bluebird of Happiness,” “Now is the Hour.”

  His fingers were beginning to respond and to do nearly what he wanted of them. He moved into the classical field, staying in adagio tempo. Mendelssohn’s “Consolation,” Handel’s “Largo,” Chopin’s “Prelude in A” and “Prelude in C Minor.” He decided to take a chance on Liszt’s “Liebestraum.” While it was far from perfect, he played it better than he’d hoped. Works by Bach, Sibelius, and Grieg followed. He lost track of time. So immersed was he in the music he loved that he even forgot Jane for a while.

  He stopped. He’d been playing for almost an hour and a half. He’d begun to sense control of the music. It was, of course, far from what he might have expected if he had been faithfully practicing daily. But it was by no means either clumsy or sloppy playing. He could sense that Jane was more than thrilled at what he could draw from the old upright.

  “I think I can play that Rachmaninoff for you now.”

  Softly but enthusiastically she applauded the idea.

  He played it every bit as letter perfect as he had seven years before, with the added maturity and perspective of the intervening years as a bonus. He concluded with the full, crashing chords that for fifty years had brought audiences to their feet in resounding applause.

  Jane neither stood nor applauded, but she was deeply moved. “That was beautiful.”

  He felt drained. And he was perspiring. It was the first he’d noticed that. The house was warm but not excessively so. He had been working hard and he felt it. He stretched, and flexed his back muscles. His shirt was damp and adhesive.

  Jane noticed. “Come sit on the couch and let me rub your shoulders. It’ll make you feel better.”

  He thought about that. There were a lot of considerations. On the positive side, it would relax him and it was the least Jane might do in payment for a far better than average concert. On the negative, there was Monsignor Cronyn and his exhortation against girls. In all, the scale swung heavily to the positive. He joined Jane on the couch, back toward her, waiting to absorb the promised massage.

  “That was just beautiful . . . gorgeous! The most beautiful concert I ever heard.” She kneaded his shoulders and upper back.

  “Thanks.”

  Her surprisingly strong fingers dug into his muscles, generating a medicinal inner heat. “Were you kidding . . . I mean about being out of practice and all?”

  He laughed. “No, I wasn’t kidding. What I did, in effect, was practice on your time. The pop tunes weren’t difficult at all. I just kept working into more demanding stuff until I had warmed up enough to do a decent job with the more complicated pieces. Besides, it wasn’t that I haven’t played for the past seven years, only that I haven’t been practicing every day. It’s not all that much of a miracle.”

  Ridley surmised that Jane was not an habitué of the concert hall. His makeshift presentation probably was one of the outstanding musical events of her limited cultural life.

  “Well, I think it was wonderful!”

  The steady kneading was growing painful. “I think that’s enough.” He moved to the opposite end of the couch. “But thanks. It was a very good massage. I feel very relaxed.”

  “That’s good.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, look at the time!”

  He consulted his watch. A quarter to twelve. It made no profound impression on him. Only that it was very late. Under ordinary circumstances, way past his bedtime.

  “It’s almost midnight!”

  He could not argue the point.

  “We should have something to drink.”

  “We should?”

  “Of course. It’s New Year’s. Everybody has a drink at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”

  “They do? I’m sorry, I didn’t bring anything.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.” She got up and w
alked toward the kitchen. “There must be something in the house.”

  Ridley began to have qualms. To this point in his life, he’d been a beer and wine man. And not much of that.

  “Do you have any preference?” she called from the kitchen.

  He knew he should express his known limitations, but, “Not really. Anything will be fine.”

  She emerged carrying a tray on which were two glasses and a bottle. As she drew nearer, he could see ice in each glass. The bottle bore a not unfamiliar label, though he had no idea what it might taste like. It was Cutty Sark.

  She set the tray on the coffee table, which was now no longer near the couch but close to the chair where Ridley had been sitting. She poured a bit of the amber liquid in each glass.

  “I couldn’t find any champagne. I think champagne is what’s called for on New Year’s Eve. I guess we’ll have to make do with Scotch.” She presented him with one of the glasses. “I’ve never had it myself, but my dad swears by it. He just sips it, so it must be pretty powerful.”

  Ridley sniffed the drink. He’d seen them do that in movies. The drink was usually brandy, but Scotch could not be far different. He recoiled. The aroma was abrasive. Keeping in mind the example of Jane’s father, Ridley took a small sip.

  It was repulsive. Which did not necessarily indicate that it should be dismissed out of hand. After all, cigarettes had been a not dissimilar experience. To begin smoking, or to take up the habit after a hiatus, was difficult. It was, indeed, challenging. Cigarettes, initially, were horrible. The nicotine invaded one’s bloodstream, made one dizzy, and caused coughing fits. But if one stayed with the weed long enough, smoking became second nature. One could not imagine arising without—coffee without, breakfast without, talking on the phone without, attending a meeting without, etc., without—a cigarette.

  Jane seemed to be having the same experience. She took a sip and considered. But, in spite of it all, she took another sip.

  So did Ridley. He could not argue that something was happening. But what?

  Ridley was guilty of two errors that an experienced drinker would never make. He was hungry. With the exception of that single sandwich, he had had nothing to eat since a light supper hours earlier. And he was thirsty. So the Scotch to some extent was taking the place of water. On a nearly empty stomach, liquor can do awesome things. Already he felt lightheaded. For that matter, so did Jane.