Into the Night

“Oh, anytime after five-thirty. I’m not going to start in until after you’re there. Half the fun is having someone around you when you’re doing it.”

“All right,” she said with grave politeness. “I’ll be there. You can count on it.”

“’Bye for now,” he said.

“’Bye for now,” she repeated.

She didn’t smile vindictively when she’d hung up, or look grim, or anything melodramatic like that. She had a pensive, wistful look in her eyes, almost as if she felt sorry for the guy. She gave a soft sigh, underneath her breath. Then she shrugged one shoulder very slightly, as if realizing the whole thing was beyond her control.

She left the apartment at about one-thirty, and had a midday snack at the fountain in the hotel drugstore. This was only a degree less frugal than her preceding repast had been: a tomato sandwich and a malted milk.

Then she got on a bus and, avoiding the larger department stores, where the clothes had a tendency to lack individuality, sought out a small specialty shop on a side street that she had been to once or twice before.

“Something in black,” she mentioned.

About the fourth one struck her interest. She went into the dressing room, put it on, and came outside again.

“You two go very well together,” the brisk manager-saleswoman told her.

“I can see that,” Madeline agreed. “That’s why I picked it out. The only thing is this—” She put her hand over a small metallic ornament. “Can’t you take it off? I don’t like gewgaws on my clothes.”

“Oh, but that makes it look too much like mourning,” the other protested. “You’re not going to a funeral.”

Aren’t I? thought Madeline, eying her inscrutably. Aren’t I?

“It’ll have to come off,” she said flatly, “if you want me to take the dress.”

The woman brought a small pair of scissors and severed it.

Madeline paid for the dress and had it boxed.

It was now a little after three, and she still had better than two hours to kill.

She went back to the hotel, had a bellman take the dress up to her room for her, and she herself went into the hotel beauty salon. This was more for the sake of using up the excess time that she had on her hands than because she was interested in having her hair done. As a matter of fact, for a girl in her own particular age bracket, she patronized such places remarkably seldom; not more than once or twice a year.

“Can you take care of me?” she asked the girl at the desk. “I don’t have an appointment.”

“I have a customer who’s late again for her appointment, as usual,” the girl remarked resentfully. A resentment that was not, however, intended for Madeline, it was apparent. “You can have her time. If she does show up, she can just wait until after you’re through. It may teach her to be more punctual after this.” Then she added, no doubt as a special concession, “Would you like Mr. Leonard to take care of you?”

“No,” Madeline said. “I’d rather have a girl do my hair.”

“I’ll call Miss Claudia,” the receptionist said.

Following an enamel-smooth redhead into a booth, Madeline wondered, as she had once or twice before, why in this particular profession the names of the personnel were always prefixed by a “miss,” whereas in all others employees of equal rank simply called one another by their given names. One of the traditions of the trade, she supposed.

“What would you like to have done?” the girl asked Madeline, running a professionally appraising eye over her hairdo.

“I’m not too well up on the new styles,” Madeline let her know. “I’ve worn my own this way since I was sixteen, but I know it must be outdated by now, because I no longer see it on anyone else, the way I used to at the start.”

The girl handed her a brochure of glossy photographs. “Perhaps you may find something in there you like.” She pointed one out. “We get a lot of requests for this.” It looked like a beehive. It was massive, rising to a point high above the head.

“It must be a lot of trouble to keep it looking right,” Madeline remarked dubiously

“It is,” the girl admitted. “But it’s very dramatic.”

Madeline laughed outright. “I don’t think I’d care to go around with dramatic-looking hair, whatever that is.”

They finally arrived at a compromise. Madeline kept her original flat downswept style, but it was modernized by being shortened to the ear tips and combed several different ways at once on top.

“Not bad,” she conceded when the job had been completed.

“Not bad?” the girl almost yelped. “Why, you look marvelous. You’ll be a killer tonight,” she promised.

Then she faltered and stopped. “Why, what a strange smile,” she said lamely. “I never saw a smile quite like that before.”

She was still staring after Madeline with more than just professional interest as she walked out, knowing she’d come across something, but not knowing exactly what it was.