Part 27 (2/2)
”Helen's Today's her birthday”
”Helen Portola?”
”You forgot to say 'the lovely' ”
”The lovely Helen Portola?”
Bacon nodded, studying or affecting to study the thigh joint of one of his quail, as if there were a spot of blood that troubled him
”Who was there?”
”I was there The lovely Helen Portola was there”
”Just the two of you?”
He nodded again He was so uncharacteristically terse on the subject that Sammy wondered if Bacon and Helen had quarreled Sammy had little direct experience of actresses but shared in the conventional notion that by and large they possessed the sexual mores of estrous chinchillas Surely if Helen Portola had invited her leading man to celebrate her birthday a deux a deux in the privacy of her ho to end with her boyfriend out wandering around ourmet food in the privacy of her ho to end with her boyfriend out wandering around ourmet food
”So how old is she?” said Sammy
”Seventy-two, actually”
”Bacon”
”The old gal's remarkably well preserved”
”Bacon!”
”What's her secret? Liver, folks, and lots of it”
”Tracy!”
Bacon looked up fro an innocent surprise
”Yes, Clay?”
”What are you doing here?”
”What do you ave hireat food Helen's cook went to a lot of trouble”
”Helen's cook?”
”Yes I think you really ought to write her a little note”
”You inally”
”Did you and Helen have a fight?”
Bacon nodded
”A big one?”
He nodded again, looking genuinely miserable ”But it wasn'tto ask what they had fought about, but felt that they didn't know each other well enough for that It did not occur to him that under similar circumstances, with anybody else, he would not have hesitated, in his best Brooklyn htened him of his own accord
”For some reason,” Bacon continued, ”she was under the e to her this evening God knoho told her that”
”It was in Ed Sullivan,” said Sammy He had chanced upon the iteret; his friendshi+p with Bacon had had so little room in which to flourish-the tiny area that marked the intersection of their separate worlds; and he sensed that it could not survive once Bacon had one off to Hollywood to be a star ”Yesterday ret; his friendshi+p with Bacon had had so little room in which to flourish-the tiny area that marked the intersection of their separate worlds; and he sensed that it could not survive once Bacon had one off to Hollywood to be a star ”Yesterdayhandsome head a rueful shake
”You saw it?”
”No, but I rehts ago”
”Did you tell hi to ask Helen to marry you?”
”Could have”
”But you aren't”
”Didn't”
”And she got upset”
”Ran into her bedroom and slammed the door Hit me first, actually”
”Good for her”
”Sucker punchedabout this narrative to Sammy, or rather about the scene as he reconstructed it in his i of desire he had often experienced, growing up to havenot Tracy Bacon, but rather his life, his build, his beautiful and teirlfriend and the power to break her heart When in fact what he had was a pair of binoculars, a clipboard, and the hts a week ”So then you took her food”
”Well, it was just sitting there”
”And brought it up here”
”Well, you were just sitting here”