High Time (10 page)

‘You know what I’d do if I was you?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.

Daphne shook her head.

‘If I had the money, an’ was all tore down in a dis-mangled heap like you, I’d hie me to a sanitarium for about three months!’

‘I have his insurance in the bank,’ Daphne said. ‘I never could bring myself to touch a penny of it.’

‘Well, this is the time to touch it! You gotta spend some of it to put yourself into some kinda shape! You wanna make up for the bad wife you think you been to him, don’t you?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.

The girl nodded.

‘All right! That’s why he taken that insurance—to help you get on your feet! You gotta prepare yourself to be a good mother!’

Daphne agreed.

‘That’s what I need—a cure! Something that will help me to feel clean inside again! But what could I do with the children?’

That was a poser. What would anybody do with those children, Mrs. Feeley was thinking.

Mrs. Rasmussen offered a solution.

You could board ’em out with one o’ the societies, in them Homes for Neglected Children!’

The mother’s eyes brimmed over again at the classification she had let her children slip into.

‘Now, now!’ Mrs. Feeley admonished. ‘No blubbering! That’s all over!’

‘All right,’ Daphne agreed with an effort. ‘If you’ll help me pick out a Home where they’ll be treated kindly—God knows they wouldn’t know how to behave if they were treated decently, poor little beasts!’

‘Aw, they ain’t so bad,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said reluctantly. ‘Just mis-cheev-ious!’

‘Hey!’ Mrs. Feeley had an inspiration. ‘You could board ’em at the Sisters’ School!’

Mrs. Garfunkle shook her head firmly.

‘I don’t think you understood my last name!’

The board of strategy had reached an
impasse.

Darleen cleared her throat and spoke in a small voice: ‘It isn’t none of my business, I realize that; but I can speak from experience about Homes! I’d hate to see any kid get into the kind I was in—even temporary. You know why I eat all the time? Because I never once had all the food I wanted! Johnny thinks it’s funny because I always ask for the white meat of the chicken, but I never tasted none till I was sixteen! An’, besides, you learn things in lots of them places that you’d be better off without!’

‘Well, we sure as hell can’t take ’em—’cause Franklin an’ Winston was here first!’ Mrs. Feeley cleared up that issue.

‘Now was they quiet, an’ played nice—by the way, just what the hell are they doin’?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked. ‘They’re awful quiet!’

Darleen shrugged. If they were into anything, the ladies would know it soon enough.

‘Like I said,’ Darleen continued, ‘it isn’t none of my business, but would it do any good if I was to come in and take them off of your hands?’

‘You couldn’t!’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘You sleep all day an’ work all night!’

‘I am resigning!’ Darleen launched her depth charge. ‘I have recently became very fed up with my position at the Café. Ever since I have went round some with you ladies, I don’t like that job no more.’

Mrs. Feeley restrained the impulse to give vent to three rousing cheers. Mrs. Rasmussen smirked happily. Miss Tinkham put her arm around Darleen and said:

‘To thine own self be true! You’ll never regret it, my dear!’

‘I’ll pay you, Darleen!’ Mrs. Garfunkle offered.

‘Well, we’ll work things out somehow! We always do! Right now I want a beer! You better have one, too!’ Mrs. Feeley said to Daphne. ‘You need a little shock-absorber after that spell!’

‘Trouble with all of us is here we sit starvin’ in the mist of plenty!’ Mrs. Rasmussen quoted Miss Tinkham admiringly if inaccurately.

Mrs. Feeley agreed. ‘An’ you can say that again! Them boogers must be starved!’

Mrs. Rasmussen went to the back of the room to stir up a bite and Darleen went out to the yard to see what had become of Pierpont and Myrna. She could not find them anywhere. Then she heard a faint tapping coming from Old Timer’s shed. She opened the door and peeked in. Pierpont and Myrna were trussed up with ropes to the stanchions. Their mouths were firmly gagged.

Darleen released them, expecting a flood of yells and kicks.

Pierpont grinned and said: ‘We’re playin’ a new game! Jap prisoners! He showed us how!’ And he pointed to Old Timer sleeping blissfully on his canvas cot.

W
HEN
Darleen and Daphne left Noah’s Ark late Sunday afternoon, the marines had not landed, but the situation was well in hand.

It was agreed that Monday morning bright and early Daphne was to go to Heavenly Valley Sanitarium for a rest-cure and treatment of her various neuroses. Mrs. Rasmussen was a little opposed to the idea at first because the sanitarium was strictly vegetarian, but she had to admit that they made some awful good cures. Mrs. Feeley was all for it, since the establishment had the reputation of being exceedingly strict! No fooling around over there! Daphne was to stay until the doctors pronounced her a well woman again.

Darleen agreed to undertake the care of Pierpont and Myrna on a cost-plus basis. Mrs. Rasmussen would compute the cost of their maintenance and to that figure Darleen would add a reasonable sum to pay for her work.

Daphne was relieved at the turn events had taken and sent Myrna’s crib and a small iron day-bed for Pierpont over to the Ark in a taxi as soon as she got home Sunday afternoon.

‘Hell, looks to me like we might’s well hang out a shingle like the Traveler’s Aid!’ Mrs. Feeley remarked when her newest acquaintances had gone home.

‘Dorothy Dix and Mr. Anthony had better look to their laurels!’ Miss Tinkham agreed.

‘Pretty soon they won’t be room to stand a walkin’-cane up in here!’ Mrs. Rasmussen muttered.

She was feeling gloomy because all this company had put a strain on the budget and she was trying to figure out a way to retrench. Pierpont and Myrna could count on plenty of mush and milk!

‘You know’—Mrs. Feeley broke through the gloom—‘I’ll be downright glad to see Franklin and Winston in the mornin’! One thing sure—those fellers ain’t got no troubles ’long as you keep a nipple in their mouths!’

‘I hope she pays reg’lar, like Lily!’ Mrs. Rasmussen remarked. ‘I sure hate to work an’ then hafta wait for my money!’

Mrs. Feeley was of the opinion that Daphne would pay promptly. After all, she did send the children’s beds when she said she would. That fact alone had sent her stock up several points.

‘Woe betide anybody that tells me they’re gonna do somethin’, an’ then don’t do it!’ Mrs. Feeley said.

The tax-money was right up-to-date in the jar under the bed. But, as Mrs. Rasmussen said, the more you got, the more you spent. Seemed like you really had more when you didn’t make so much money. You geared your expenses down better. She thought it was high time they began establishing a fund for emergencies. Not that they expected to make a profit off the Garfunkles! Darleen would get the excess, but the Lord knew she would be entitled to it if she managed to get through three months without murdering one or both of them.

‘Now she’s got to take ’em out in the yard right after breakfast, ain’t it?’ Mrs. Rasmussen queried.

‘Yeup!’ Mrs. Feeley agreed.

‘It is indeed fortunate the twins do not have their feeding until ten o’clock—it will give us a slight leeway in between,’ Miss Tinkham said.

‘Yeah, but do they ever wake them twins in the middle o’ the mornin’, they’ll sure be hell to pay!’ Mrs. Rasmussen anticipated the worst.

‘We’ll lock the doors an’ keep ’em out!’ Mrs. Feeley promised.

‘Darleen don’t know what she’s gettin’ into,’ Mrs. Rasmussen insisted.

‘That’s the Gawd’s truth,’ Mrs. Feeley agreed. ‘But it’s better’n her hangin’ ’round them dives—better’n stayin’ in her room, too! That sure as hell ain’t no Young Ladies’ Seminary!’

‘How right you are, dear Mrs. Feeley!’ Miss Tinkham nodded sagely. ‘Environment is so terribly important!’

‘Yeah. That’s a bad atmos, all right—’specially for somebody weak, warm, an’ willin’ like Darleen!’ Mrs. Rasmussen agreed. ‘Let’s us have a beer an’ grab some shut-eye!’

The ladies carried out the suggestion and retired shortly afterward. They checked on Pierpont and Myrna, who were caulking-off in their little beds, exhausted by Old Timer’s new game.

Monday morning Darleen arrived as per agreement, carrying a bundle of clean clothes for the children.

‘Well,’ Mrs. Rasmussen remarked, since she was in a more cheerful frame of mind after a night’s sleep, ‘you look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this mornin’!’

‘Damned if she don’t,’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘Set down an’ have a plate o’ potato-pancakes an’ some coffee!’

‘Do, dear!’ Miss Tinkham urged. ‘We must fortify ourselves for the exigencies of the day!’ She was also thinking of the great emotional strain they had all undergone with Daphne the day before and took two more pancakes.

‘She has went, all right!’ Darleen announced proudly. ‘Right after she sent the beds last night she took a good hot bath, manicured her nails, and got me to set her hair. Then she went right to bed!’

‘You sure she wasn’t gettin’ ready to step? All that fixin’?’ Mrs. Rasmussen was suspicious.

‘No, ma’am!’ Darleen replied. ‘She thrown the kids’ clothes in this carton and moved it into my room. Then she put her things in one little suitcase and give up the room!’

‘Well,’ Mrs. Feeley said, ‘won’t hurt to spend a nickel around dinnertime—you can just call up on the stren’th o’ wantin’ to know how she is. No use leavin’ things to chance.’

‘I believe she was sincere in her desire to change,’ Miss Tinkham said kindly. ‘Did she have enough money?’

‘She told me on purpose I should tell you ladies; she even shown me her bank-book! She’s sure-enough got five thousand dollars—and had quite a big wad in her pocket-book! She gave me this for the kids’ eats, and said she’d pay every Sunday when I bring the kids to see her.’ Darleen took a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse, and, with unerring instinct, handed it to Mrs. Rasmussen.

‘Ain’t you got no print dresses?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked, eyeing Darleen’s corduroy jumper and sheer ruffled blouse.

Darleen shook her head.

Mrs. Rasmussen brought out one of her own neat percale house dresses.

‘You’ll about drownd in this, but there ain’t nobody ’round here to show your shape off for!’ she said, and Darleen went into one of the cubbyholes to change.

Pierpont and Myrna emerged from the bathroom—naked.

‘Our clothes smell bad,’ Pierpont announced.

‘Icky!’ his sister added.

‘Well, I’ll be damned! By the time they’re here a week they’ll be wantin’ silk underwear,’ Mrs. Feeley laughed.

‘Cover yourself! Cover yourself!’ Mrs. Rasmussen admonished. ‘Ain’t that a disgustin’ sight before breakfast!’

Darleen came to the rescue with clean clothes for the children. When they were dressed and slicked up, she gave them their breakfast. The twins arrived about that time and the ladies met them at the door with cries of joy. Pierpont and Myrna got up to watch the excitement as the pram holding the sleeping beauties was wheeled in.

‘C’mon, let’s eat!’ Pierpont said scornfully to his sister. ‘Ain’t nothin’ but two little old baldy twins!’

The Garfunkles returned to their mush and milk.

‘Now, boy, don’t let me hear a sound outa you!’ Mrs. Feeley admonished. ‘Them twins ain’t to be woke up, y’unnerstand?’

‘It’s time we went out to play, anyway,’ Darleen said, picking up the
True Confession
magazine she had provided for her own entertainment.

Inside the Ark the twins slept in their accustomed place by the big front window. Miss Tinkham began straightening up the ravages of the week-end and Mrs. Rasmussen sat down to make out a shopping list.

‘Gutted!’ she muttered. ‘That’s what it is! They et us outa house an’ home!’

Mrs. Feeley trotted out to stop a passing milkman to tell him to leave two quarts a day.

‘An’ don’t gimme none o’ them wise looks, neither! It ain’t for us!’ she snapped.

Pierpont and Myrna wanted to play Jap Prisoner again, but Old Timer had gone off somewhere in the truck. Darleen had a time keeping the kids out of the parked cars that belonged to the workers in the tuna factory. She took a board and put it across a sawhorse to make a seesaw for the children, and that occupied them for a time. Just as the novelty was wearing off, Mrs. Rasmussen came out the door and handed Darleen a tray with three glasses of orange juice and a plate of cookies on it.

‘Gimme! Gimme!’ Myrna shouted, jumping up and down.

‘Not like that I won’t,’ Darleen said. ‘You ack like a little lady and I will! Look how nice Pierpont’s waiting!’ she pointed out. Darleen’s profession had taught her something about applied psychology.

Pierpont scowled, but went over to the shed and dragged an old box out to serve as a table.

‘Isn’t this nice? Just like a party?’ Darleen said, putting the tray down on the box.

‘What’s a party?’ Pierpont asked.