Boys and Girls Together (12 page)

The matter of money was off his mind for the rest of the day.

The boy came out and stood in the kitchen doorway, yawning, stretching and smiling.

‘I smell coffee.'

‘I'm making some.'

‘Papa, why can't little boys—why can't
big
boys drink coffee?'

‘You can drink coffee.'

‘I can't.'

‘You can have a little this morning.'

‘How much?'

‘As much as you like.'

‘I can't, can I?'

‘Yes, you can have coffee. Coffee's all right. I'll fix you a cup. Is Rosey awake?'

‘A little. She's saying funny words.'

‘Do you want to sleep some more?'

‘Sleep some
more
? I want to get dressed. I want to drink coffee. Can I sit at the big table with you?'

‘Sure. Let's be quiet, though, so Rosey can sleep some more.'

‘She's not sleeping. She's saying poo-poo and pay-pay and things like that.'

He dressed the boy, then the girl, they had breakfast together at the big table, and then he turned them loose in the yard.

Pay Me in the sixth.

The woman was up at noon needing coffee. She made telephone calls while she had coffee and got the day organised. The three couples would meet at two
o'clock at the St. Francis for lunch. After that the girls would go shopping and the boys would either go with them or sit somewhere and drink and talk. At six they'd all go home and rest and change and meet again at nine for dinner somewhere. After that they'd think of something else.

‘What about the kids?' the man said.

‘I thought you'd telephone Marta. She could spend the night. We could sleep upstairs or maybe at a hotel. Wouldn't it be fun at a hotel?'

‘I thought you never wanted Marta to step into this house again.'

‘Well, who could we get? After all, she's in the family. She's something to the kids. We couldn't feel so relaxed about the kids with anybody else. I hate her, but who else could we get?'

‘I'll stay with the kids. You go ahead. After dinner tonight if you feel like it bring them out. I'll buy some more Scotch and some stuff to eat.'

‘Why should you stay with the kids? Let Marta come and stay with them.'

‘We've treated her pretty badly.'

‘Well, call her anyway. There's nobody else.'

‘I'll stay.'

‘I told them we'd
all
meet.
I'll
call Marta.'

The woman called her and then said: ‘I must say she was delighted about the whole idea, but why shouldn't she be? She ought to feel lucky to have a chance to be near two kids like Johnny and Rosey.
She's ready any time you are. She knows where everything is. She said she'd be glad to stay as long as we like. Maybe we could spend a couple of nights at a hotel, maybe drive somewhere afterwards for a couple of days, maybe drive Alice and Oscar home and stay with them overnight or something.'

‘I'll go get Marta.'

‘What's the matter? You're not sore, are you?'

‘I'm a little tired. After Marta gets here I'm going upstairs for a nap while you're dressing.'

He drove three miles to where Marta lived in a small apartment. On the way back she asked that he stop a moment at the Safeway. When she came out she was carrying a carton full of groceries. The man took the carton from her, put it in the car, and handed her a hundred dollars.

‘In case we're away a couple of days,' he said. ‘I'll telephone of course.'

‘All right. Is it all right if I clean the place?'

‘You don't have to go to all that trouble.'

‘No. I like to do it. I'd like to clean both flats if it's all right.'

‘The top flat
does
need a little looking after, at that. You're very kind, Marta.'

‘Oh, don't talk silly, please.'

The woman ran in her
négligé
that you could see through and embraced and kissed Marta, the way she always did, friend and enemy alike, and the man went upstairs.

He wanted to get it off his mind, so he telephoned Leo and said, ‘Put me down for two hundred across on Pay Me in the sixth.'

That was it. That was all there was to it. If Pay Me won he'd know he was getting his luck back and that he'd soon have everything straightened out.

He stretched out on the davenport in the living-room that was his work-room whenever they lived downstairs. He worked at a bridge table. The other room, the original work-room, was too small. He felt trapped in that room.

When the woman woke him up he remembered that he had been dreaming about the fox.

‘How do I look?' she said.

‘You look fine. Is that a pimple on your chin?'

‘Isn't it
hidden
?' She opened her handbag and looked into the small mirror at the pimple. ‘Well, it's a very beautiful pimple. Isn't it?'

‘What?' the man said. He was still half-asleep and trying to remember more about the fox.

‘Isn't it? The pimple. Beautiful?'

‘Oh,' the man said. ‘Yes, it is.'

The woman giggled because she knew how tiresome it was to make him answer all the silly questions she just somehow couldn't help asking. He knew she couldn't, but he wished to God she'd lay off some day. He got up.

‘Do you have any money?' the woman said. ‘I mean,
they're all so rich, but we've got to pay for things just the same because they're visiting us.'

‘I've got some.'

‘Not twenty or thirty dollars. You ought to have at least a hundred and fifty or so, and I ought to have fifty at least. We'd better stop at the bank.'

‘I was there yesterday,' the man said.

He took fifty out of his wallet and handed it to the woman.

‘How much do we have left?'

‘The account's still open.'

‘What are we going to do?'

‘I ought to be getting some money from England pretty soon. It's all right.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Come on, let's go.'

If Pay Me came in he'd pick up the money and deposit it and tell her the money from England had come. He'd keep the rest in cash.

They began to drive to town.

‘You won't make a pass at Lucretia, will you?'

‘I don't like her. I like her less than I like Alice. Why would I make a pass at her?'

‘I thought you liked Alice. I thought you liked Lucretia, too.'

‘I don't mind them because they're your friends, that's all.'

‘Well, don't make a pass at her, anyway. All right?'

‘All right.'

‘We'll have fun, won't we?'

‘I've been having fun ever since I got out of the Army.'

‘There's plenty of time for your writing. Three years in the Army for a man like you isn't something you can get over just like that. You need time.'

‘I've had three years.'

‘It isn't as if you had been a colonel or something.

You were a private. You need fun after three years of that. We'll have a lot of fun. Is the pimple awful?'

‘Nobody'll notice it.'

‘I'm starved. We'll order everything. All right?'

‘Sure. I want some onion soup and a steak. I'm a little hung-over.'

‘Lucretia's afraid of you.'

‘I'd rather not hear about it.'

‘She told me so. She thinks you're mysterious.'

‘Shit.'

‘She's jealous of me, but she was being honest when she told me she was afraid of you. She was sorry she said it, but I nagged at her and made her tell me everything. It was when they came out to dinner when we were in Long Island. She said when you look at her she feels gooey all over.'

‘Shut up.'

‘That's why you've got to look at
me
all the time.'

The car stopped at a red light and the man turned to look at the woman.

‘Lay off a little, will you? I'm kind of tired.'

The woman giggled, then pressed beside him.

‘I love you so much,' she said.

The light changed and they moved on.

Pay Me. That was it. Pay me because I need it badly. Pay me because my wife's nuts and I want to see if I can help her. Pay me because she can't help herself. Pay me because she's driving me nuts too and I don't want to do any of the things I keep stopping myself from doing. Pay me so I can get this thing worked out. Pay me so I can have enough money to be able to forget all about it and see if I can help this girl who's Johnny's and Rosey's mother and my wife. Pay me so I can see about getting back to my work. Pay me, that's all.

It was half-past two in the afternoon when they reached the hotel lobby, but no one was around, so the woman telephoned Lucretia. Her voice was high and excited when she began to speak, but it became swiftly hushed. (They couldn't have lunch, most likely.)

‘Something terrible's happened,' the woman said. She brought out the small bottle of smelling salts
she always carried around in her handbag, unscrewed the top, and waved the open neck of the small bottle in front of her nose several times.

‘Leander's had a heart attack. A bad one. They took him to the hospital an hour ago. He's not expected to live. That was Alice. She's alone up there and scared to death. She and Oscar saw it happen. Oscar went along with Lucretia, and Alice stayed up there to wait for phone calls from Oscar. I guess we'd better go up.'

‘How about a drink at the bar first?'

‘I
need
one, but she's waiting. I told her I'd be right up.'

‘You go up,' the man said. ‘I'll have a drink and be up in a moment.'

‘It's room eleven-o-seven.'

She threw her arms around the man and hugged him desperately.

‘It couldn't happen to you, could it?' she said.

She giggled a little, then said, ‘It wouldn't
dare
.'

But when he saw her face there were tears in her eyes.

‘I feel so sorry for Lucretia,' she said.

‘
She
didn't have the attack.'

‘How could she have the attack? She's twenty-three. Don't take too long and don't look at anybody.'

She went off as if to a party that promised to be the best yet. The man went to the mezzanine bar instead of to the Men's Bar, which he knew would be full of the more successful of the town's business men at
that hour and he didn't want to overhear any of their talk.

He had one drink quickly, expecting to go on up and listen to the details, but he decided he'd need at least one more, first. Besides, they ought to have enough time to get their real feelings about the matter out of their systems, so that by the time he got there they could pretend to be shocked and upset.

When he got up to the room he found both girls in tears.

‘He's dead,' the woman said. ‘Lucretia tried to throw herself out of the window of the hospital. It's a good thing Oscar was there.'

‘Oscar just phoned,' Alice said. ‘They've given Lucretia a sedative and want her to go to bed, but she doesn't want to.'

‘What does she want to do?'

‘Throw herself out the window,' the woman said.

‘What floor are they on?'

‘Oh, shit,' the woman said, and then both of the women who had been sobbing bitterly began to laugh.

‘You dirty son of a bitch, you,' the woman said.

‘What are you laughing about?'

‘We'd better not be laughing when we see Lucretia and Oscar,' Alice laughed. ‘Lucretia's got her chance to suffer at last and Oscar's scared to death of heart attacks. All his friends have had them.'

‘What about lunch?'

‘Lunch?' the woman laughed. ‘How can you talk
about lunch at a time like this? We've got to stay here until Oscar phones again.'

‘He's been stuttering like mad,' Alice said, trying not to laugh. ‘I never heard him stutter before. He wanted to know if he should telephone the Associated Press, and he kept asking if I knew who Leander's mother is. He thinks everybody's got a mother.'

‘I'd hate to be hanging since Leander had a mother,' the woman said. ‘He was almost seventy, wasn't he?'

‘Well, whatever he was,' Alice said, ‘his mother would be at least a hundred if she were alive.'

‘What's the schedule now? I'd like to get some lunch.'

‘Don't leave us,' Alice said. ‘Have lunch up here. I'll call room service. What do you want?'

‘Onion soup and a sirloin, rare, but I don't want to eat up here. They may be coming back in a little while.'

‘I'm going to eat, too,' Alice said. ‘I'm starved. They won't be back for hours. This is Lucretia's big chance. And by the time Oscar gets through calling the Associated Press and L. B. Mayer and his own mother in New York it'll be early evening.'

‘Well, order for me, too, then,' Daisy said. ‘I'll have the same, but I'd like a real nice dessert, too. We'll pay for it.'

The villain's wife ordered lunch and when it came the man's wife paid for it and tipped the waiter and waited for him to step respectfully out of the room
in which the celebrated Leander Asp had had a heart attack. Then she began to laugh again.

‘He didn't notice that we've been laughing, did he?' Alice said. ‘Lucretia would never forgive us if she found out.'

‘He doesn't know anything about it,' the man said. ‘They all walk that way at the hotels where the rates are high. How much was the bill?'

‘Forty.'

‘The hell it was.'

‘Well, I want forty anyway,' the woman said.

The man gave her forty, they sat down, and began to eat. After lunch the man stretched out on one of the beds in the bedroom, but the woman said, ‘Not that one, that's the one they stretched
him
out on.' The man didn't move, though, and the woman flung herself on the bed and hugged him.