Harlem lay black and shining in the rain of an October night. The
trolleys groaned along One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and the
lights of Proctor’s and the Harlem Grand Motion Picture Theater lay
in dank and yellow reflection in the puddles. Harlemites, their faces
covered by umbrellas, hurried along the street. They prodded and bumped
into each other, scowled, and rushed on to the movies.
Dot stood outside of Loft’s candy store waiting for Eddie. An old felt
hat was pulled low over her eyes and the collar of her coat pinned
tight around her neck. Her slippers were heavy with wetness and the
sleazy silk stockings clung to her insteps. Dot’s umbrella was closed.
It was useless. The rain was coming from the direction in which Dot
wanted to watch. Why was Eddie late? She glanced into the candy store.
Even with its tiled floor tracked with countless pairs of dripping
rubbers it seemed inviting. She went in and asked for a pineapple
sundae. Certainly by the time she had consumed it Eddie would be
there. She stood at the counter with the little mound of ice cream and
pineapple shreds. From the tables she couldn’t see the street, and she
wanted to see the street. Perhaps Eddie would come, and not finding
her, would go away again. Gee, that would be fierce.
The pineapple sundae disappeared and Dot took up her post again beneath
the red electric specimen of Mr. Loft’s handwriting. She might have
stayed in the store, but a person gets so restless waiting. There’s a
painful sort of solace in watching each new figure that appears, and in
trusting and believing until the perfect stranger draws close enough
to rout all hopes. The disappointments and the courage that flares anew
with each blighted expectation.
One dark outline a block away, slim and slight as Eddie, caused Dot’s
heart to pound delightedly. She framed her words; she knew just how
she would greet him. “You’re not late by any chance?” she would say.
But it wasn’t Eddie. A sickening chill passed over Dot as the outline
materialized into a well-dressed unknown. He said “Hello, Cutie” to Dot
as he passed.
The sickening chill persisted. There was a heavy conviction bothering
her now, a conviction that Eddie would not come. Half an hour late! He
had never done this before. At least thirty times they had met at this
corner, and Eddie had always been prompt. It had been raining, too, on
other occasions. It wasn’t the weather that delayed him. Dot bit her
lower lip till it was sore and bleeding. Oh, where was Eddie? There was
positive agony in the glance that she directed unwaveringly eastward.
Another figure. This one might be Eddie, she assured herself. As the
man, one she had never before seen, walked under a bright light, Dot
suffered no disappointment. She was conscious of the fact that she had
really known from the start it was not Eddie. Stupid, to try to fool
herself.
Well, she would wait no longer. He wasn’t coming. She knew what she had
to do. She had to go to his house and find out what had kept him. She
couldn’t go home and sleep without knowing. Perhaps he was sick--Dot
hastily snipped her thoughts off there. She was going to give him a
piece of her mind, that’s what she was going to do. How did a guy get
that way? Letting her stand out in the rain like a sap. She wouldn’t do
that for the Pope. Where did he get that stuff, anyhow?
She knew his house though she had never before been in it. Madison
Avenue. The inevitable brown stone that needed no “Vacancy” sign in the
window to identify it. On either side, similar houses flaunted similar
announcements.
A girl in a bright blue slicker ran up the stairs whistling, took a
key from her pocket, and opened the door. Dot thanked her as she too
passed into the house. The bright blue slicker disappeared into the
gloom at the top of the green-carpeted steps. Dot stared around at the
hatrack where a deserted-looking shawl drooped drearily, at the dusty
rolling doors that undoubtedly concealed the inevitable business couple
in the inevitable “front parlor.” From behind a door at the end of the
passage Dot heard voices. One voice, a woman’s, was shrill and grating.
Dot recoiled from the idea of looking that voice straight in the eye
and asking for Mr. Collins. Still she had to know why he hadn’t come.
Perhaps she could find the girl who whistled and wore a bright blue
slicker. Dot climbed the stairs and looked around. Five doors. All
closed. No sound from anywhere. Dot tried one flight higher. This floor
had six closed doors to make the situation more baffling. She leaned
against the banister rail trying to decide what to do. Then all at once
there was music. An orchestra abruptly burst into music, oddly enough
choosing the last six bars of a popular song to begin with. Dot was
momentarily amazed. Then she smiled. A radio set. Probably Eddie’s set,
too. She was trying to place the room from which the music came when it
was discontinued as suddenly as it had started. A second later it began
again, loud but not clear as before. There was a shocking distortion to
it now. Silence again. Then after a time, the music once more, loud and
with perfect clarity, but only for a moment or two; then in the quiet
that followed, Dot heard some one walking about. The door farthest away
from her opened, and Eddie rushed out like a cyclone. He was halfway
downstairs before she could call him.
“Eddie.”
“Oh, gee, Dot,” he said and came up the stairs again.
“I was worried about you,” she said. “I thought maybe--But say, you got
a deuce of a nerve letting me stand in the rain while you play your
set.”
“They stuck me with it, Dot; at the last minute the boss wanted me to
fix it. I brought it home. I can work better here. I thought you’d know
I’d get there. I figured you’d sit in Loft’s till I come.”
“Well, I couldn’t. How’d I know you’d come?”
“Well, Gosh, I never gave you a stand-up, did I? You seen just now how
I was breaking my neck to get to you, didn’t you?”
“Yeh,” admitted Dot slowly.
“Gee, that set was a pipe to fix”--Eddie smiled reminiscently as he
spoke--“once I found out what was wrong.” He was silent for a time,
thinking in terms of condensers and grid leaks. Dot watched him
sulkily. He had enjoyed working on the set. He hadn’t cared at all that
that half hour could have been spent with her. “Want to see it?” he
asked, brightly.
Dot followed him into his room. She knew it wasn’t considered “nice”
to go into a man’s room, but with Eddie so enthusiastic over his
mechanical skill she thought it would be placing a high value on her
charm to object. She could fancy him saying, “Don’t worry, Kid, I’m so
interested in that set you don’t look like anything to me!”
He closed the door and turned on the lights. Dot looked about
and gathered an impression of a tiny room, a narrow white bed, a
chiffonier, and radio parts that trailed their disks, coils, and
plates over every visible flat surface. The window sill, the top of
the chiffonier, the single chair, the floor, and the table that stood
at the window each bore a burden of radio equipment. Only the bed was
saved, and Dot guessed that that was because Eddie hated to subject his
treasures to constant rearrangement.
The set which he had repaired stood on the table in a space which had
been hurriedly cleared for it. The floor whereon lay an overturned ash
tray and many strange drawings with weird symbols testified to the
swift, deft motion with which Eddie had provided a landing-place for
the set.
“Ain’t she a beaut?” asked Eddie.
“Sure is,” Dot agreed, dully.
“Super het,” Eddie announced.
“Is that so?”
“Bring in anything from KGO to 2LO.”
“No kidding?”
“Sure. Wanna see inside?”
Dot looked obligingly inside. A lot of bulbs gleamed up at her and
an unintelligible mass of metal and wire sat snugly, confident of
admiration.
“Neat, eh?”
“Sure is.” Dot yawned.
“See what I did on it?” asked Eddie.
Dot lost her patience then. “How the hell should I know what you did to
it?” she asked. “For God’s sake, I’m not Marconi or Edison or whoever
discovered radio. I stand like a sap out in the rain waiting for you
while you’re getting everything from KGO to 2LO; then you have the
crust to make me look at the damn thing.”
Eddie walked away from the set and found a cigarette.
“All right, Dot, my mistake. It’s my job, you see. I thought you’d be
interested.”
“I am interested, Eddie, but I can’t know these things just natural.
They got to be explained. Let’s go to the movies, Eddie. Gee, I don’t
want you to be sore at me.”
“I’m not sore at you. You’re right. I’m a coo-coo.”
He walked to the window and stared vacantly for a second before saying
“Look,” in a low, disgusted tone. Dot looked. The rain was beating in
slim gray sheets against the window, hitting the pane and spattering
into thin, colorless wavy lines, trailing drearily for a second before
joining other colorless wavy lines only to wiggle wetly into oblivion.
Dot watched the drama silently.
“It’s raining like hell,” said Eddie. “Can’t you wait till it lets up?”
“We’ll wait downstairs, huh, Eddie? I feel funny here. Suppose your
landlady should find me? She’d think I was a bum or something.”
“She won’t find you,” said Eddie. “They don’t expect nothing raw here.
This ain’t a twelve-dollar-a-day hotel.”
Dot laughed a little nervously. She didn’t want to splash through
the streets again. She hated the thought of a movie with the smelly
dampness of a thousand drenched coats. But it was dangerous, being
here alone with Eddie. She knew it was dangerous. Often as they stood
in her vestibule with their bodies pressed tightly against each other,
she had been glad of the people who at intervals passed through the
hall and forced them to spring guiltily apart. Here there would be no
saving interruptions. Here there would be only Eddie and herself--only
Eddie and herself. A happy tingle came over her as she realized their
aloneness. Conclusive proof of the danger.
“Let’s wait downstairs, Eddie.”
“Go on. You crazy? It might rain for an hour yet. Who’s gonna sit on
the steps in that dirty hall when they can stay here where there’s ash
trays and things?” asked Eddie, stamping his cigarette into the rug
with a practiced heel.
“Ah, come on, Eddie.”
“No, you’re crazy. Take off your things and wait here.”
“Gee, Eddie, you’re mean.”
Dot walked to the chiffonier and gazed sulkily into Eddie’s shaving
mirror. Not a trace of powder remained to suggest the careful toilet
she had made before going to Loft’s corner. Solemnly she found her
compact and daubed at her nose and chin. Her lipstick next, then a
little vindictive yank at a wave that had slunk into obscurity beneath
the soaked felt hat.
“Coming downstairs?” she asked, coldly.
“No, what’s the use of that?”
“Then I’m going home,” said Dot.
Eddie took a step toward her and surveyed her questioningly. He
was sincerely puzzled at the tremendous point Dot made of getting
downstairs. A dangerous situation to Eddie was a bulging hip pocket
or a length of lead pipe. Anything else was a dame’s excuse to pick a
fight. Eddie didn’t feel like quarreling now.
“Aw, stay a while, Dot. Look,” he said with sudden inspiration, “wait
here fifteen minutes, and if it ain’t stopped raining I’ll do whatever
you want, or if it has stopped we’ll go dance or something. What do you
say?”
Dot hesitated and he followed up quickly: “Get your coat and hat off
and smoke a cigarette with me. It’ll do you good.”
“Well, only fifteen minutes,” Dot gave in.
She took off her coat and laid it over the iron foot of the bed. Her
hat she perched on Eddie’s clothes-tree, and he smiled at seeing it
there. It looked funny as hell, he said to her. Dot’s dress, blue satin
with yards and yards of shining braid, was new, but he didn’t notice
it. Dot didn’t expect him to. She would have told you that men never
notice clothes.
“Sue Cudahy called me up at the office today,” she said. “Pat’s got
a new job. He’s up at a store on Washington Heights. They want us to
go to the Poppyland Dance Hall with them Saturday night. She said it
would be better than last time. They got a new band there now. I told
her I’d ask you about it.”
“It’s all right with me,” Eddie said.
He sat down on the bed, and Dot moved restlessly about the room,
pausing at the mirror and the window to pass disparaging comments on
her reflection and the weather at each stop.
“Come here,” said Eddie, suddenly.
“What for?”
“Come here.”
Dot went to him, successful in her attempt to look wholly unaware of
what he might possibly want. He pulled her down on his knee and kissed
her. Dot laughed and scrambled to her feet.
“Oh, that’s what you wanted! Gee, I thought you had something important
to say or something. If I had known I wouldn’t have come.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I should say not.” But she was still laughing.
“It was a hell of a kiss with you busy trying to get away, and the
first one tonight, too,” he complained. “Let’s try it again.”
Dot shook her head.
“Well, sit down anyway,” Eddie said. “You got me crazy, walking around
like a wild animal.”
She came over and sat beside him, knowing full well that he would kiss
her again. Far better than Eddie did she know that tonight he would be
difficult to manage. There were no sinister plans or expectations in
his mind. There had been none when he had urged her to stay.
His arm went around her, and for a minute of silence they stayed so,
leaning against each other. Eddie looked blankly at the wall. Dot
busily pleated the braid on her dress. Neither of them knew how the
next kiss happened. Perhaps Dot suddenly raised her lips, or maybe
Eddie stooped to them. It was a long kiss. It ended with both his arms
around her and Dot’s weight heavy against him.
“Getting hot in here,” he remarked as they separated.
Dot giggled. Eddie always said that after the first lingering kiss, and
Dot always giggled.
“Where’s that cigarette you so rashly offered me?” she asked.
“Oh, I forgot.” Eddie produced a package of Lucky Strikes and Dot took
a cigarette. Eddie watched her as she lighted it.
“You’ll choke to death,” he said.
She was painfully conscious that he continued to watch her as she made
a brave effort to inhale the smoke. Gee, let’s see now, how did Maude
do it?
“Here, quit torturing that cigarette.” Eddie was grinding the sparks
into the carpet, and Dot’s objections counted for little.
“You don’t know how to smoke, and there ain’t no sense in learning, but
there are some things come natural.” He smiled at her and kissed her
lips.
Dot’s arms, so young and so pitiably anxious, despite her inner
knowledge of what that night might mean, curled eagerly about his neck.
His mouth was warm against hers. His face could be no closer to her;
yet she had the sensation that he was drawing nearer, nearer. It was
only when the kiss was over that she found he had gently forced her
head down on the pillow. She knew that she ought to sit up and pull the
new blue dress with all its yards of braid down over her bare knees.
She knew she ought to. She knew she ought to.
Another kiss, hot and heedless, made her breath come faster. She
saw Eddie’s eyes blue and narrow close to her, a vein in his temple
throbbing spasmodically. He closed his eyes. To shut out the sight of
her? Was he trying to get himself under control? The thought perished
when Eddie stretched himself beside her.
“Eddie, we must get up.”
“Why?”
Yes, why? Well, because things happen, had happened to other girls. She
tried to sit up, but he held her with one surprisingly strong arm.
“Eddie, I can’t stay here. Maybe you don’t know or don’t believe that
I’m a good girl.”
“Who said you weren’t?”
“You ain’t acting as though you thought I was. You’re making me lay
here.”
He withdrew his arm swiftly. “All right, Kid,” he said. “I’m sorry. I
thought you knew that with me you’d always be as safe as you wanted to
be.”
“Oh, Eddie, I didn’t think you’d--you’d make me do anything.”
He continued to look injured; so she kissed him, bending over him and
running one hand through his hair. Again and again she kissed him till
his arms were once more around her and she was lying with her breasts
crushed against him and swelling just a little above the square-cut
neck in the satin dress.
“Eddie, I love you so.”
It was hardly more than a breath, but he heard her, and his embrace
tightened. He knew what she wanted him to say. He ought to say it, but,
damn it, he couldn’t. Once said, the words would belie their sincerity,
sound hollow and false and theatric. They embarrassed Eddie with their
inadequateness. She waited, and he said nothing.
“Oh, I do love you.” Dot fell back on the pillow and turned her face
away.
Eddie lay with his eyes closed, one hand palm outward against his
forehead.
In the moment of silence the long, wet fingers of the rain tapped with
dismal insistency at the window. Neither of them heard. Dot turned and
looked at Eddie. Her hand wandered to his and crawled under his cuff,
snuggling warmly against his pulse.
“I have to touch you if you’re going to lie there,” she said.
He smiled and pulled her to him. Their mouths melted together. Dot
felt his hand on her knee. It was indecent. She could not discourage
it without shaking off his kiss, and the kiss was very sweet. She
wondered: if her stockings were not rolled, would it be so awful?
She did not try to stop him and discovered almost immediately that
that was a mistake. At this stage of the game, silence was obviously
encouragement.
“Eddie, don’t. You mustn’t.”
She felt that there was no ring of conviction in her voice. Certainly
there didn’t appear to be.
“Dot!”
“What? What’s the matter, Eddie?”
“Nothing. Just--Gee, don’t this get you at all?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you feel that we--that there should be more?”
“Eddie!”
“Oh, I know I oughtn’t to have said that, but, God! Dot, I’m a wreck.
You see, I ain’t used to stopping. Do you get what I mean?”
“Yes, I get it.”
“Well, it looks like a kiss or so is all you want out of this thing.
You’re not upset if we stop after hot loving.”
“Is that so?” asked Dot, unexpectedly.
“Are you? Do you feel that there should be more?”
He sat up suddenly on the edge of the bed and looked down at her with
hope and incredulity mingled in his expression. She said nothing. She
was thinking of what it would be like to be a bad girl. People would
know about it perhaps. Eddie might tell. Then she’d have to go away to
a place where nobody knew her.
“Dot, answer me.”
She said what was on her mind. “I’d be a bad girl.”
“No, you wouldn’t. A bad girl is something different. You’d never let
anybody else touch you, would you?”
“I don’t know,” she said after a minute’s hesitancy. “I never thought I
would let you go the whole way with me.”
It took time for the full meaning of her words to penetrate. When it
did he looked at her face and found that her eyes had been waiting to
meet his. “Do you mean that you are going to let me?”
“I guess so, Eddie.” Pause. “Yes, I’m going to let you.”
“Now?”
“If you want to.”
“If I want to? Gee, Kid, you say crazy things.”
* * * * *
The girl in the bright blue slicker was the first one in the house
to discover that the rain had stopped. She charged down the stairs,
feverishly anxious to be out of the small, dusty room that was her home.
“It isn’t raining any more,” she shouted to her friend who had the
first floor front.
“It will be teeming again in a minute,” was the gloomy response.
“Don’t be silly,” said the girl in the bright blue slicker. She swung
down the hall singing cheerfully. “It ain’t gonna rain no more, no
more. It ain’t gonna rain no more. How in the world can--”
The front door closed with a firm and solid sound, cutting off any
further repetition of Wendall Hall’s weather forecast.
Upstairs, Eddie and Dot looked at each other with timid little smiles
hovering about their mouths.
“Do you remember--” began Dot.
“Yes,” said Eddie.