"Don't count on it."
She chuckled. "You're one of the lucky ones. Only--you don't know it.
That's the way they are, mostly."
"Some compliment."
She nodded. Her metallic hair swung before my eyes. She got up from the
arm of my chair. "So long! Don't worry about--you know who."
Marcia came to the door in a few minutes. She was wearing a black
dress--a thin black dress and--nothing else. Her blue eyes were defiant.
"Hi!"
"Paul is apt to barge in here any minute."
"I know. I thought he might." She shut the door.
I went over to the window and squinted through the dark heat at the
Jersey rivage. "He might. And you were going to have him sent in.
You were going to go through a prepared routine. You were going to
disillusion him--but quick--break his heart right now--and get it over
with. You were going to tell him about the cute salesman who dropped in
around four. The newspaper publisher who stopped by at five. The nice
banker who hung around till he was late for dinner. And the college kid
who'd just left."
"You read minds," she said.
"Don't."
"Why not?" She walked over to me. "What else? All you had to do the
other day was to take one quick look at me and see I was a tramp. Oh--I
could feel you paw me. I could see you putting your damned twenty
bucks on my bureau. You knew--so you knew how to look. And--sooner or
later--everybody would know. And know how to look. And look that way.
And where would a good kid's wife be, then?"
"You might have thought of that sooner," I said, ignoring the false
charges for the moment.
"I suppose I make the world go around! What _did_ I think about? What
would anybody think about? They'd think--this is how a sweet guy treats
a nice girl. This is how he talks. This is how he holds your hand.
Holds your hand, for God's sake! You'd get a real kick out of that--the
realest one you'd had in years. You'd think--_maybe_. _Maybe_ the life
could end. Maybe I could have an apartment someplace and kids and a
guy people respected. Maybe I could get into the bridge games and
the theater parties and the midnight snacks next door and the church
suppers, even, and drive a sedan around a suburb, buying groceries at
the chain stores and not forgetting to pick up Junior's shoes."
"Forsaking all others?"
"Yes," she said, "I thought about that, too! I'm human. Feelings come
over me. I'm maybe even like a kleptomaniac that can't resist a box of
tacks in a hardware store or a pair of cheap earrings on a counter.
Maybe I could learn to choke it down. Control it. I did--for months."
"And now?"
"Now it doesn't matter."
"Months isn't years."
Her eyes fixed on mine. They were not defiant now--but speculative.
"Sure. So I'm human. So Paul knew that. I told him he couldn't expect a
letter-perfect show, forever."
"Did you?"
"Certainly, I did. And what did he say? He said I couldn't expect one
from him, either."
"He's being pretty--devoted--right now."
"That's what has to stop. That's why I hope he does come in here.
That's why I asked Hattie to let me stay here--instead of just putting
me on the phone exchange, the way it used to be. I wanted to go back
with a bang. After the way you looked me over the other noon--that's
exactly what I wanted to do."
"Funny."
"I see nothing funny."
"I thought--you were looking me over."
She sat down suddenly--folded in the middle and dropped into a chair.
"You did?"
"Yes, I did."
"Well--here I am." She spoke in a low tone--not with resignation, not
with spite. "All you have to do is say so."
I skipped that. "Marcia, I never needed to consider what sort of person
you were. All I needed to think about was what sort of guy Paul is. And
I could see--I thought I could--the whole thing coming apart--slowly,
painfully, rottenly--"
"Go on. Play God with us poor mortals."
"My opinion--that's all--sure. I know Paul pretty well, though."
"Better than I do?" She grinned sarcastically.
"Better. I know better what he comes from. Then I saw you. I had the
impression, Marcia, that your maternal instincts were involved. You
were pulling the child to your warm breast and nourishing his starved
little body. Feelings like that. No-good feelings, for wives." She had
sucked her lips into a point; she glanced at me almost with fear; so
I went on. "Maybe you thought about running errands for his kids. But
actually you did more thinking about fondling his emotions--taking care
of him--working for him. And you even did work. You sat there in the
Knight's Bar looking at Paul like a proud female parent--like a doting
mother sharing in her son's discussions of his conquests. You were the
conquered--but you were the string-pulling mamma, too. Take it or leave
it--that's how I felt you felt about him! And then I caught you looking
at me--looking at me the way a girl with warm insides looks at a man.
So if I didn't give you the impression I was struck silly with the
possibilities of the match--that's also why. I'm sorry--but there's the
whole answer."
She was breathing evenly--but more deeply than anybody needed to
breathe, just sitting. Down the hall, doors opened and shut. Raucous,
faintly nervous male laughter echoed. "Some of the boys from the
convention," she said, almost reluctantly--as if she found it necessary
to explain so I wouldn't stop, and as if she was afraid the explanation
would stop me.
I looked at her--at a breathing, beautiful girl--and I thought for a
moment about the canoe-hats. Then I shook it off. "If a good gal--a
sweethearted dame who had no stomach for the life--had started living
with Paul, I'd have objected. In your case--I didn't believe you were
even that--"
Feet marched on happy excursions down the hall. Somebody tried the
door--opened it, to his surprise--and apologized gruffly without daring
to carry the impulse through and look in.
Marcia was staring at me. "So all right," she said. "Paul's just a
little kid. He's not even a good boyfriend. Too jittery. I thought I
could teach him. He doesn't really want to learn. He thinks a dame is
made of soap bubbles and lives on a pedestal a mile high. He thinks sex
is something for pack trips in the mountains and spruce boughs. I got
sick to death of his pack-trip monologue! Who wouldn't? Lying with a
guy on a good inner-spring mattress and listening to him yak about pine
needles! Drenching myself in cologne--and hearing him rave about stable
smells! I was ready to spring myself, when we had that lunch. And you
gave me the excuse. I'd saved up mad enough for six girls--and I let
him have it."
"He asked for it."
"Did he!"
"But you gave him the wrong medicine. Why didn't you tell him it wasn't
the disapproval of an uncle--the looks to come from men--but--the
spruce routine?"
"Haven't you any feelings? That was his dream. Why louse that up,
too? Let him dream! Someday, God knows, he may even meet one of those
spruce-loving dopes with cute little things in her flannel blouse and
her jodhpurs. Let him have her! I got tired of my uptown personality
the minute I realized it led straight to the Rocky Mountains--and the
farther from camp the better."
"He grew up in the West."
"Pardon my spurs!" Tears filled her eyes. "I'm a sap, too. For a
while--I really was in heaven. I really thought--this is love. Ye
gods! What can happen to people who should know better is--unfair to
humanity! And then I began looking for an out. I worked. Sure. Honest
working wife--for a couple of weeks. Then--working wife has lunch with
the floor manager--in a hotel room rented for the lunch. One club
sandwich--and one good, busy change from Paul. Then the stockboy--a
hot-looking wop with long hair--took me out in his department to show
me the new materials--and the place was deserted. So I knew I was a
sap!"
I thought that over. "I'm glad you told me. I know how it is. I don't
mind. It's you--and that's that. But there's one thing I wish you'd do.
Write Paul a letter. Don't try to teach him a lesson by letting him see
you here. He'd just tear up the place--or maybe hurt you--"
"We've got a boy in the kitchen to take care of rough stuff."
"So Paul would get tossed on the street. And come back. And you'd have
to call cops. I'm sure Hattie knows the ones to call. Then I'd get a
buzz from jail. And Paul would have that indignity to sweat out--on top
of everything else. Don't you see he holds the whole business against
me--and he likes me? Against family, friends, the kind of people from
whom he comes? Against the people he cares about--and the way of
life he's been brought up in? If you'd write him the truth--he could
transfer the damage to the place where it belongs. He'd hate you for a
while--and what would that mean to you? Nothing. By and by--he'd see
that he didn't even hate you--maybe even liked you. Understood. Then
he'd be pretty grown up. Enough to hate the way we do on the earth, all
of us, if he had to go on hating anything."
Marcia smiled gently. Her eyes were inaccessible. "You're right. I
liked you--at lunch."
"Good."
"It could be. I'll tell you what. I'll write--on one condition."
"What?"
She moved quickly. She moved into my lap and put her arms around me.
"My room's just three doors from here."