A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

The Clock at the Astor

It was raining and the lights of Broadway gleamed upside-down from the shiny sidewalk. She came hurrying along from the direction of the Fifties, hanging on to a dog-eared suitcase with one hand. It was fairly large but it must have been fairly empty, for it swung lightly against her thigh with every step she took. She kept her head down to keep the flying drops out of her eyes. There wasn’t anything about her to attract attention; she was dressed just like everyone else. Her skirt just missed her kneecaps by about an inch and her hat looked like an inverted bowl jammed down on her head. A flashing sign across the street proclaimed “Garbo talks!” Another one a few blocks down retorted “Barthelmess sings!” There were hardly any silent pictures being shown any more.

The illuminated news-belt around the middle of the Times building was laboriously quoting President Hoover. Something about two chickens in every pot. News vendors, hugging doorways to keep out of the rain, were selling papers date-lined 1929.

She didn’t pay any attention to any of this as she hurried along, grip in hand, bucking the traffic that cut across her path at each side-street. It was nothing to her. She was leaving it for good. “For better or worse” was the way the words went. She’d hear them said to her, right to her face, by a man holding an open book in his hand, tomorrow about this time, a thousand miles away from here, where they used lights just to read by and not to turn night into day on the streets. That was what he’d promised, and she believed him; she didn’t care what anyone said.

“But if he is the quaint old-fashioned marrying kind,” her chum had said, with eyebrows way up to here, “why not do it right here? What’s the matter with New York? Why go all the way out to the sticks?”

“Because,” the girl had tried to explain, “he’s had a job offered to him in his home town and he’s taking me back with him; he wants his folks to be there at the ceremony.”

Even her landlady, when she had checked out of the rooming-house just now, had warned her: “You better bite that minister and make sure he’s not stuffed with straw before you go through with it.”

All of which fell on deaf ears as far as she was concerned. She knew what was the matter with them. Broadway had gotten under their skin; they thought there was a catch in everything. That was why she wanted to get away while the getting was good, before she herself got that way.

A taxi-fender just grazed the calf of her leg as she scurried across Forty-fifth Street. Ahead the marquee of the Astor offered shelter, had kept a big patch of sidewalk dry under it. She was going in there anyway; that was where he’d told her to wait for him. He was bringing the tickets with him and had promised to pick her up at eight-twenty at the latest. Their bus pulled out at eight-thirty. Now that this rain had come up, she was glad he’d made it the Astor instead of the bus-terminal itself. It was just an alley between two buildings; bus-lines didn’t have much in the way of accommodations yet, and you had to take pot-luck with the weather. As she guided her valise in through the revolving glass door ahead of her, she looked very young and rather inexperienced — at least for Broadway.

She looked around her as she entered the lobby. He wasn’t there. There was the usual crowd, standing, sitting, pacing back and forth, lounging against the columns, everybody waiting for somebody else. The Astor lobby has always been New York’s favorite meeting-place and probably always will be until the building comes down around it. Tonight the rain had increased their numbers. She went through to the back as a precaution, first of all, and glanced up and down the transverse alley that runs through Forty-fourth to Fifth. He wasn’t there either. He’d said the front anyway. She went back and she was in luck. Somebody’s appointee showed up just then and one of the big chairs fell vacant. The girl with the valise sank into it, tucked her grip under her legs, crossed her knees and relaxed with a sigh. Any minute now he’d be here.

But he wasn’t. Minute ticked after minute into eternity and the glass door facing her kept turning endlessly, and yet he didn’t show. The group about her changed imperceptibly. All the faces that had been there when she arrived had been called for and delivered one by one, and Broadway kept feeding it new ones. She had no wrist-watch to consult like most of the others. Even that dollar-and-a-quarter alarm back in her room had gone out of whack weeks ago. She had to keep turning around and looking over her shoulder at the clock high up on the wall behind her. It was so imposing one didn’t dare dispute it. A million pairs of eyes have sought it in their time and tried to read their fate by it: “I haven’t been stood up, have I?... Is he through?... Doesn’t she care any more?” And still the hands go slowly round through the years, ticking off New York’s evenings. Still the same two gilt cupids hover lovingly above it, one on each side, heartless under their gold-leaf.

More frequently and yet more frequently she began to turn and glance at it, each time with more of a jerk of the head. The five-minute intervals became one-minute intervals; then she was looking every thirty seconds, twisting and untwisting a handkerchief that had come out of her pocketbook. Eight-twenty-eight... eight-twenty-nine... They couldn’t make the bus now, not even if they broke their necks hurrying. Eight- thirty — the bus had gone. What was the matter — what had happened to him? If she only knew where to reach him! But he’d checked out of his own room hours ago just as she had hers. Maybe he’d been run over on the wet street—

Panic lapped at her slim ankles but she kicked it back, took a grip on herself. No use losing one’s head. Maybe there was a later bus; maybe he hadn’t been able to get reservations on the first one. Still, why didn’t he come and tell her, why did he let her stew here like this in her own juice? He knew where to reach her; he knew she was waiting here for him. Didn’t he want to go through with it? Was he backing out? Needles of ice ran up and down her spine. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t do a thing like that to her! He knew she’d given up her job last Saturday, let her show start out on the road without her, on his account, and that there was no chance of getting another until the beginning of the new season. He knew she’d given up her room tonight and told everyone the reason why, and that she couldn’t go back there and face them, tell them she’d been ditched. The few things she’d bought she’d blown all her savings on. He’d stranded her high and dry, and if he didn’t come through, where was she?

Twenty-five to, twenty to, a quarter to. Her small chest was moving up and down like a bellows now, with fright and resentment and scorn all mixed up together. The things they’d said to her, her friends and the landlady and the stage manager, all came back to her now and got in their dirty work at last. Sure, they’d been right, why hadn’t she listened, why had she let him make a fool out of her? Broadway mightn’t trust its own mother, but at least Broadway knew its human nature.

She’d stopped looking now; there was no use any more, and people had begun watching her curiously, especially that elderly guy over there with the black ribbon holding his glasses and the stock-broker set-up. She was steeped in dismal apathy now, and without knowing it her chin was low, just missed the five-and-ten crystals round her neck. As the hands behind her up on the wall passed the quarter-hour and went into the homestretch toward nine, she clung to one last shred of hope. It wasn’t much consolation, but it was all she had now. It was this: he had no reason yet for doing this. If she’d given in to him last night or the night before, or any of the other nights he’d tried so hard to get to first base, the motive would have been clear. But there wasn’t any so far. She’d heard of them getting cold feet after they’d got what they wanted, but never, until now, before.

Little by little the fear subsided, left her. This wouldn’t kill her, she’d live through it, she’d pull through. Suppose she had no job and suppose she had no room, tomorrow always came. At least he hadn’t had the last laugh on her, that last masculine laugh that has gone echoing down Broadway through the years. She could hold her head up! But replacing the first fright that was gone now came a fine walloping anger. A little home of their own with a porch and a front lawn! Yeah! And morning-glories round the door! Yeah! And chickens in the back yard! Yeah! And his mother and sisters would love her, would show her how to bake her own pies; she’d be one of the family! Yeah! God, how she hated him!

“Pardon me, you dropped your handkerchief.” The benevolent-looking old gentleman with the glasses had finally worked himself up to the point of tackling her. She didn’t blame him at that. Twenty-after. She’d been here a full hour now. People didn’t come to an appointment that much ahead of time; he knew the coast was clear.

“Thank you,” she said, and took it back. She could hardly see him at all through the waves of heat that were coming out of her smoldering eyes. But visible or not, he didn’t go away.

“Would you be insulted if I asked you to join me in a bite?” And then very quickly, before she could show her claws, “I don’t mean any harm.”

“That’s just as well,” she said in a flat voice that she’d never heard herself use before, “because it wouldn’t do you any good even if you did.”

“I can assure you I don’t make a habit of this,” he faltered, “but there was something about you as you sat here, you seemed so disappointed — shall we say? — that it made me come over and speak to you almost against my will.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” she said stonily. “You fought and you fought until finally you had to give in.” She gazed morosely out through the glass door. “It’s still raining,” she said absently. Her words meant nothing — her thoughts were far away.

“I have a car,” he murmured deprecatingly.

Her lips twisted into a peculiar bitter sort of smile. “And don’t you want me to look at your etchings? No? Well, you will later.” Suddenly she had risen to her feet. She heard herself talking the way she had heard other girls talk in the show she’d worked in. “Save the build-up. I’m ahead of you every step of the way. You have a car. And I haven’t had any supper.”

“Boy!” he motioned commandingly. “Check this grip for the young lady. It will be called for later.”

She preceded him out through the revolving glass door just as the hands of the clock reached nine-twenty.

The town car drew up in front of the Astor. It was raining, and again the pavements glistened with the reflected lights. News vendors were peddling papers date-lined 1936. She stepped out, dropped a careless word to the chauffeur, and went up the steps into the lobby. Heads turned as she went by. The sleek fur that draped her shoulders was mink; the flower pinned to it was an orchid; the flashing at her wrist was diamonds encircling a watch. She still looked young but not inexperienced.

The usual evening crowd was there and instantly she became the center of all eyes. She acted used to that. She glanced around her, evidently didn’t see whoever it was she had come to meet. A chair was offered her and she sank into it with a nod of thanks as though such attention was hers by right. She frowned slightly as though she were not used to being kept waiting. The spiked heel on one custom-made shoe tapped a little on the marble, the manicured nail of one forefinger drummed on the arm of her chair. That light at her wrist flashed, and she glanced at her watch.

The man who had been watching her more closely than all the rest edged nearer. He seemed to be trying to place her. There was a startled, questioning expression in his eyes. She seemed to become aware all at once that someone was standing directly in front of her. She looked up.

“I–I don’t suppose you remember me?” he faltered.

She didn’t answer for a long cold minute while her eyes bored into his. Then like the crack of a whip she uttered the single word:

“Perfectly!”

“I–I thought it was you,” he said, or something like that. Again she didn’t say anything for a long time, seemed to be about to ignore him altogether. There was a look of cold disdain on her face. Her eyelids drooped with indifference.

“The same place and the same time,” she said finally, “but you’re just seven years late. What detained you?”

He looked surprised. “Don’t you think it’s up to me to ask you that? I waited here right on the spot that night until the bus had gone and it was too late. No sign of you.”

She sat up a little straighter in the chair. “I had my grip all packed. I waited here a full hour. One of us is lying.”

They both forgot themselves a little, were back in the past, intimate again, not just strangers, in the heat of contention.

“Twenty after eight I came—!”

“You couldn’t have, I tell you! That’s just when I got here. And it was twenty after nine when I walked out of here!”

“Wait a minute!” he said suddenly. He turned and looked up at the two gilt cupids on the wall. “Did you go by that thing?” His hand shot out and touched her.

“Of course! I had no watch of my own.”

“It was in April, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “It was in April, but why bring that up now?”

“Because don’t you see? I know what happened now! That was the night they changed to daylight-saving time. I remember they warned me when I bought the tickets. And they forgot to adjust the clock here. You came an hour too soon and left just before I got here!”

Her mouth dropped open. She glanced at her wrist, then compared it to the clock on the wall.

“It’s an hour slow,” she breathed in amazement. “The same thing must have happened tonight again!”

He glared up at it and his face contorted. “Damn the clock at the Astor!” he muttered.

She glanced down at the orchid nestling on her own shoulder, at the diamonds on her wrist; she rubbed her chin lovingly against the soft mink of her collar. She suddenly felt how much life meant to her.

“God bless the clock at the Astor!” she answered thoughtfully. She smiled a little. “Tell the truth,” she said. “That was a set-up, wasn’t it? You can tell me now; I’ve been around.”

“Yeah,” he admitted at last, “it would have been a frame.”

She shrugged philosophically. “Well,” she said, and got up and moved away as the glass door spun around and the gentleman with the black ribbon on his eye-glasses came in. He looked a good deal older but as prosperous as ever. She was frowning as she went to meet him. “You’re a nice one! You can’t treat me this way! Remember, I’m your wife, not one of those floozies you used to run around with!”