Chapter 4

Cindy Jamison wore her new summer dress to the company party the following Tuesday evening. It was a pretty thing, a frilly pale-blue sheath with no sleeves or belt, but a matching jacket for evening wear-- which she now had on. The hemline was daringly high for her, just below the current "mini" style, allowing her to show off her slim, wonderfully tanned legs. At first she had been uncomfortable in the dress, for she didn't have a slip she could wear with it and her only underclothing was her bra and panties, but when she saw herself in the mirror at the clothing store, saw how childlike and innocent it made her look, she couldn't resist it.

Norma Taylor had been right, Cindy once more reminded herself. She said buying a dress would help, and it certainly had. All through the rest of the days before Howard had returned from the convention, the lovely young housewife had never really felt her usual vivacious nature. At best she had been moody, going through the motions of cleaning and shopping only half aware of what she was doing. At worst, she fell into terrible fits of depression, oftentimes crying until the salt dried on her cheeks. These low moments usually came toward bedtime, around the time that the hated postal clerk, Samuels, had first forced his sinister intentions upon her defenseless body, and they lasted long after she had retired, keeping her awake and moaning fitfully as sleep evaded her.

Then she would switch on the light and go to the closet and take the new dress out. She would hold it up on its hanger and admire it, press it to her breasts and swing around with it, and as she would do this, the comforting words of Norma Taylor would replay in her mind. You were forced... you did the right thing... no woman could have avoided becoming excited... do nothing... do nothing... the clerk will never come back...

The dress was a tangible, real symbol of what Cindy so desperately wanted to believe--needed to believe in order to save her sanity.

But nothing ever helped the cold stab of utter terror which would slice through Cindy when the doorbell rang, or the phone jingled, or somebody would hail her name... For in that instant before she heard or saw who it was, she had the instinctive dread that it was the postal clerk again...

Thank God Howard finally returned, she sighed. Thank God there's his warm, protective form next to mine at night... And with the loving thoughts swirling through her mind, she turned to her husband.

"I love you Howie!" she said, and reaching over, she placed her hand on his leg.

Howard grinned. He wasn't sure what had prompted that sudden exclamation; was only glad to hear it. The Lord knew that his wife had been acting strangely enough since he had come home. It was as if there was something wrong--but not wrong; as if Cindy was deeply disturbed about something--yet at the same time overjoyed. Hadn't she bought a new dress? A reckless little gesture, denting their budget but giving a tremendous amount of happiness to her, he thought. Hadn't she all but raped him the minute they'd gotten back from the airport, making so passionate a bedpartner it was almost as if she was trying to prove something to him-- or herself? Yes...

But there was the other side, the side which worried him. Hadn't he glanced at her a number of times when she wasn't aware of him looking and seen a grim, almost painful cast to her features? Hadn't she blanched a more pale white--a white more like translucent china than pearl--when one of the neighbors had phoned? Hadn't she been going around with a preoccupied air, at times not even hearing him? Yes...

So Howard Jamison had been disturbed, but wasn't sure where or how to direct his uneasiness. This had been the first time he'd been away from his wife in their three years of marriage, and for want of a better reason, he merely assumed that his absence to go to the convention was the cause of her peculiar behavior. Certainly she had kept insisting that nothing was the matter when he'd asked her...

He returned to the task of driving. The Volkswagen was a little small after driving the big Buick he usually had, but the Buick was at Auto Circus, waiting to be delivered tomorrow to a customer. Moreover, as he had had to stay later and close up the lot--early, thank heavens; at nine instead of midnight because of the party--it was simpler from a time standpoint for Cindy to drive the little station wagon into town and pick him up rather than having him drive another of the lot cars home.

Traffic was light and a full moon was casting almost as much light upon the earth as the sun had earlier. Howard Jamison steered the little car through the late evening, humming along with a little French tune on the radio, feeling more content now that his lovely wife had said those three magical words: l love you. It still didn't displace all of his concern for her erratic behavior, but the successful convention, the warm and loving greetings he had had from Cindy upon returning, and the prospect of a party at Lathrop's combined to shove any worry and doubt to the back of his mind. The world was well and God was in His heavens...

The party had been planned on the flight up from Lox Angeles, after the convention. The general manager, Buddy Lathrop, had insisted that one be held at his home to celebrate a successful business deal which had been negotiated: the signing of a national auto lease company to allow Auto Circus to handle the liquidation of their cars in Northern California. It was a tremendous coup, for the lease company would provide a continual stream of a year-to eighteen-month-old cars in top condition and of the most popular makes and models. It was no wonder that Lathrop had been in an expansive mood.

All the salesmen, Ralph Taylor, assorted wives and girl friends would be at the Lathrop residence by now, and Howard knew it would be a swinging affair. Good Ol' Buddy, the head man over the whole organization, threw liquor and laughter around in abundant profusion, belying his tall, stoop- shouldered parsimonious appearance. Perhaps if the general manager wore black, he might have passed for an undertaker, but with the wit and smile of a country bumpkin, the shrewd mind of a born salesman, and the wild clothing of a carnival barker, he had risen to be one of the richest, most successful car dealers in the state. Howard was pleased to work for him, just as he wax pleased to work for his immediate superior, Ralph. Both good men, he thought.

As befitting his position, Lathrop lived in an expensive area outside of Morriston. There was a section to the south, along Route 34, which wasn't exactly a suburb, but was a planned community for the few who could afford the high cost of the custom built homes and restrictive zoning laws. Lathrop had built a large replica of a southern plantation mansion, complete with widow's walk and white pillars along the broad, wide front. It looked like a set out of Gone With the Wind, right down to the weeping willows and red hibiscus and a carport fashioned to resemble a carriage house. The backyard, about the size of a football field, was more modern: swimming pool and cabana, two tennis courts, and a pond and stream where Mrs. Lathrop raised her prize goldfish.

Buddy Lathrop answered the door when the Jamisons arrived. He stood beaming, a tall glass of some red punch in his hand, his face slightly mottled from the liquor. "Come in! Come in!" he greeted, stepping aside. He was attired gloriously in hound's-tooth check trousers, green plaid sports coat, and an orange shirt. And as the yellow light from the hall fell across his cheek when he turned, Cindy saw a smear of lipstick. The shrieks and laughter from behind him were deafening.

This, she could tell, was going to be another typical salesmen's party. She smiled and murmured a ritualistic hello-and-how-are-you, while her more enthusiastic husband grinned broadly and pumped Buddy Lathrop's hand heartily. The pretty wife was feeling ambivalence toward the party, although she never mentioned it to her husband.

The three of them walked down the great main hall where the staircase swept upwards to the second and third floors and beyond, past the sitting room and the billiard room and the music room where one of the salesmen was pounding out "Chopsticks" on the Steinway baby grand. All the while Cindy was biting her lower lip, the opposites of wanting and yet not wanting to be here surging like cross-currents through her. She wanted to come here tonight because that way she wouldn't be home alone... still itching with the fear of being summoned again by that malicious postal clerk... listening for him and only hearing the miniature grandfather's clock in the hall ticking off the slow and endless seconds before Howard would arrive...

And so she had agreed with Howard's request to accompany him tonight, not even uttering one word about how the types of men and their mates she would find here disagreed with her. Usually she did so, for while she loved Howard and admired his boss, the suede-shoe operators at Auto Circus left her cold. They were loud, crude, and drank too much. They smoked the most foul-smelling cigars in the world, and insisted on either blowing the smoke in her face or waving the cigar under her nostrils as they made some asinine point about something they were ignorant about. Their wives and girl friends were little better, spending their whole day reading confession magazines and chewing gum, with even less to say than the men.

It never failed to give her a splitting headache, coming to one of these occasions. Christmas, New Year's, assorted birthdays and anniversaries--she would make sure she and Howard came late and left early.

Not tonight, though. Tonight Cindy was going to stay until the Lathrops threw them out. Until the last dog is hung, until the last drink is--

"Howdy!" came a booming voice, and Cindy nearly jumped a foot in the air. Gruff hands went around her waist and a wine-heavy breath seared her neck as Art Manacor kissed her. "Haw! Haw! I see you brought your wonderful little woman tonight, Howie!" he guffawed, his laugh reminding Cindy of a bowling ball bouncing down a flight of stairs. She tried to smile and act as though his kiss had been fun... but it hadn't been. His rubbery lips, his sudden grasp had been too vivid a simile to the postal clerk's hated touch...

"Yes," Howard grinned, "too big a deal even for her to pass up." He looked around, slapping the backs of some other men, acting as though he hadn't seen them for a coon's age, rather than just a matter of hours. "Say, what's that slop you're drinking, Art?" Howard asked, pointing to the glass the salesman was holding. "Looks like raspberry Kool-aid."

"Something called sangria," came the reply. Art blinked, studying the pieces of lemon and orange at the bottom of the glass. "A wine punch Binnie found a recipe for in a Spanish cook-book." Binnie was Mrs. Lathrop's nickname, and what she insisted everybody call her. Manacor drank a little. "Not bad, and that's all what's available." It had obviously gotten him high.

"Ah'll get you-all some," cried out Mrs. Manacor. She was a thin, breastless woman with black spit-curls and a vapid expression, except when drunk as she was now and then her eyes had a tendency to cross. She was from Louisiana and had a grating twang which made Cindy think the bowling ball had crashed through a plate glass window. "You-all wait raht heah."

Cindy waited impatiently, for she wanted some sangria; wanted a lot of it, in fact, to dull the building pressure in her head. The party was going to be terrible, that she could see--but not as terrible as the silent nightmare shadowing her happy home...

Mrs. Manacor--"Jest cahl me Salli-Ann"--delivered two brimming tumblers of the ruby liquid and Cindy drank deeply. The sangria was pleasant tasting, very refreshing, with a combination sweet-tart taste hard to identify. A fruit punch? No... the fruit taste was in the background, Cindy thought as she ran her tongue around her lips. A wine base, plus... what? She finished her glass in three more swallows, excused herself from Howard, who was explaining what was wrong with the Buick he had been driving, and the Manacors who were both listening intently, and walked over to the large cut-crystal punch bowl.

Binnie Lathrop was behind the bowl, busily ladling out the sangria. She was an impressive woman, statuesque, with a large figure gained from many years of creamed chicken luncheons at the country club. Her breasts were well buttressed in a corset, standing out like the Continental Shelf, and her whole bearing was one of imperious condescension as she looked over their tops. She was, however, a pleasant and friendly woman, and unlike most of the other females, knew something of the world. Cindy's husband had once said of her: "She must have been one hellion on wheels in her day..."

She was most pleased to see the pretty wife of Auto circus's star salesman; her own husband being quite aware of Howard's fine record and coming ability and having mentioned the young man to her. Cindy felt warmly toward the woman, and after getting a refill, they started chatting amiably. Binnie Lathrop was happy to give Cindy the recipe for sangria:

"It's a red wine base, a good and hearty wine like Burgundy. Seven parts of it to two parts brandy and one part Cointreau, add a little Vodka if you want--I did--then a bottle of some carbonated lemon drink, slices of orange and lemon and some cherries, stir like hell and serve. Voila!" The older woman chuckled and winked, though never losing her decorum. "Be careful with it. It's very potent!"

Cindy let some more of the fine punch swirl around her taste-buds. She nodded. "It's delicious Binnie."

"Well, I thought it might be fun to have something different than the usual bourbon and scotch and gin. I get so tired of them after a bit."