"I don't make that kind of money. I'm only the office manager at the magazine. I'm not an editor yet."
"You look like an editor."
She smiled.
"I don't know whether you mean that as a compliment or not. But at Style, we try to look the way our readers think we should."
I stared at her for a moment.
Style was one of the most successful new fashion magazines aimed at the young matron.
"How come you're not an editor yet?"
She laughed. "I'm one step away. Mr. Hardin's an old-fashioned businessman.
He believes that every editor should put in some time on the practical side. That way, they learn something about the business problems involved in getting out a magazine.
He's already hinted that the next editorial opening is mine."
I knew old Hardin.
He was a magazine publisher from way back. He paid off in promises, not in dollars.
"How long has he been promising?"
"Three years," she said. "But I think it will happen soon.
He's planning a new movie magazine. A slick. Something on the order of the old Photoplay. We'd have been on the presses, only the finances are holding it up."
"What would you do on it?"
"Feature editor," she said.
"You know, arrange stories about the stars, that sort of thing."
I glanced at her. "Wouldn't you have to be out in Hollywood for that?"
She nodded. "I suppose so. But Hardin hasn't got the money yet so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."
Monica put her coffee cup down and smiled at me.
"It's been a perfectly lovely dinner, Jonas, and you've been a charming host.
Now tell me why."
"Does there have to be a reason?"
She shook her head.
"There doesn't have to be," she said. "But I know you.
When you're charming, you want something."
I waited until the waiter finished holding a match for her cigarette. "I just got back from England," I said quietly. "I ran into your mother over there."
A kind of veil dropped over her eyes.
"You did?"
I nodded. "She seems very nice."
"I imagine she would be, from what I can remember of her," Monica said, a slight edge of bitterness in her voice.
"You must have a very good memory. Weren't you about Jo-Ann's age?"
The violet eyes were hard. "Some things you don't forget," she said.
"Like your mother telling you how much she loves you, then disappearing one day and never coming back."
"Maybe she couldn't help it. Maybe she had a good reason."
"What reason?" she asked scornfully. "I couldn't leave Jo-Ann like that."
"Perhaps if you wrote to your mother, she could tell you."
"What could she tell me?" she said coldly. "That she fell in love with another man and ran away with him?
I can understand that.
What I can't understand is why she didn't take me with her.
The only reason I can see is that I didn't matter."
"You may not know your mother, but you do know your father.
You know how he can hate when he feels someone has crossed him."
Her eyes looked into mine.
"Someone like you?"
I nodded. "Someone like me," I said.
"That night, when you both came up to the hotel in Los Angeles – was he thinking about you or was he thinking about how much he wanted to get even with me?"
She was silent for a moment, then her eyes softened.
"Was it like that with my mother, too?"