Now or never, he said to himself.
Stepping from his car he crossed the street, walked up the path and onto the porch, and rang the bell.
Sounds. The porch light flashed on. They’re up, he said to himself. Not yet ten o’clock. And it’s Friday. He doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow. Or maybe he does. Panic—panic.
A latch rattled, and then the door swung open. Chic Bonner, in his shirtsleeves and stocking feet, peered out at him. “Oh,” he said. “Lindahl. Come on in.”
“It’s pretty late,” Roger said. “I just dropped by for a second.”
“Hell,” Chic said, “it’s early.” He shut the door after Roger. “Nice to see you. Take off your coat.” Holding out his hand he said, “Let me have it; I’ll hang it up.”
“I can’t stay,” Roger said. “I just wanted to talk to you for a second.”
“Let me pour you something to drink.” The living room had a cluttered look; magazines lay everywhere, on the couch and on the floor. The television set was on, and Chic started towards it to shut it off. “I was looking at some damn TV drama, one of those half-hour things. You’re in the television business, aren’t you? You must see plenty of it all day long.” He shut off the set. “Sit down.”
Roger saw no signs of Liz Bonner. Maybe it was just as well. But now, in addition to panic, he felt an eerie cold feeling, a hollowness. Disappointment. “I wanted to thank you for the driving business,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” Chic said. “They both drove up together, didn’t they?”
Lowering himself onto the couch, Roger clasped his hands together and said, “I’ve been thinking. If this business is going to work out, it’s got to be split fifty-fifty.”
“No, that’s okay,” Chic said. He seemed uncomfortable. “Let it go as it is.”
“No,” he said. “Here’s the way I feel. It isn’t fair for your wife to take on a job we’re supposed to do. Here’s how I think it should work, if it’s going to work. Virginia’s afraid to make that drive, so I’ll do our share of the driving. If you and your wife can pick the kids up on Friday, I’ll take them back to the school Sunday evening. For me it would have to be Sunday; I work on Friday.”
“So do I,” Chic said. “That’s why I can’t go up Friday.” His hand traveled over his hair, halting at the bald place and then beginning again. “I’ve got an admission to make; it’s hard to make to people. I don’t drive. I don’t have a license. Liz does all the driving.”
Roger shrugged. “That’s nothing to feel bad about.” He had lost his own license, a couple of times.
“I know. Anyhow, as far as I’m concerned, this would be swell.” Chic sat down facing Roger. “She’s been making that drive four times a week. Now you can cut it down to two. I appreciate that. She says she likes it, but that’s too much for one person.”
“True,” Roger said.
“Well, then do you want to take them back this Sunday?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll come by around four o’clock and pick up your two kids.”
“Fine,” Chic said, smiling with satisfaction. “I mean, it was swell anyhow, but—you understand. The less times she has to make the trip the better I feel.”
Arising, Roger moved towards the door. “I’ll see you Sunday.”
“Better make it around two,” Chic said.
“Okay,” he said. “Good night. Say good night to your wife for me.”
Chic, accompanying him, said, “Too bad Liz isn’t here. She’s down the street visiting some woman she knows. They have kids; we’re going somewhere tomorrow. Don’t ask me where—I wasn’t consulted.”
A moment later, Roger found himself out on the front porch. Chic said good night and shut the door.
His legs wobbled under him as he crossed the street to his car. Anyhow now he had put himself in the middle of it. Four and a half hours a week on the highway, with the boys romping around the car. His mind groaned under the weight of plans: he could leave early, spend most of the afternoon up at the school. And he would be out of the house; he would have a legitimate excuse for taking off on Sunday afternoon. And—Christ—he was not left sitting by himself, on the rim of the pot. Whatever that meant. His thoughts were cloudy. He let them stay cloudy.
As he got into his car he noticed that Chic had left the porch light on. Probably for his wife. She would be coming back, soon.
Roger closed the car door and then moved over until he was less visible from the outside. But it was still too risky. Instead, he stuck the ignition key in the lock and started up the engine. Switching on the headlights he drove off, around the corner, and then back to the next street. Shortly, he had parked several houses away from the Bonner house, behind a parked milk truck.
Fifteen minutes passed. A dog trotted along the sidewalk, sniffed at a bush, then went on. Several cars came by. Once, a man stepped out of a house, waved good night, and set off rapidly on foot.
I’m crazy, Roger thought. Suppose Virginia calls the store? I’ll say I was downstairs. I couldn’t reach the phone. But suppose Olsen comes up and answers it. He won’t; he never does.
But suppose Olsen happened to be upstairs near it.
While he was meditating, a door far off down the street slammed. A woman hurried down the path of the house, onto the sidewalk. His eyes had got used to the dim light; he could see her quite well. The woman skipped along, her head down, half-running, then walking, then half-running again. Her hair, tied back in a pony tail, bounced up and down. She wore a short coat, and as she ran she hugged it against her with her hands. Her skirt flared out behind her.
Liz, he thought.
He watched her until she raced up the steps of her own house and vanished inside. The door slammed. The porch light died away into darkness.
After a few minutes he started up the engine of his car and drove away, back towards his own house.
The living room light had been turned off. As he reached about uncertainly, Virginia called from the bedroom, “Is that you?”
“Yes,” he said. He found a floor lamp and put it on.
“I went ahead to bed. I’m sorry.”
He said, “Can I bring you anything? Have you really gone to bed? Or are you sitting up reading?” Looking in, he saw that she had really gone to bed; the room was dark.
“I called the store,” she said.
“When?”
“About half an hour ago. I didn’t get any answer.”
“I must have been down in the basement. Olsen and I worked on some new sets.”
“Are you going to fix anything to eat?” Stirring about, she raised herself up and switched on the lamp by the bed. “If you are, I might want something.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He did not feel hungry, but he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “I might have a sandwich.” He rummaged aimlessly around until he had found the Swiss cheese. “Olsen and I were out for awhile,” he said. “We had a couple of beers.”
“I thought you went down there to work.”
“We talked.”
Virginia appeared, fastening her robe. Her hair, long and tousled, hung in her eyes; she brushed it back. “Don’t make a lot of noise and wake up Gregg. He’s still restless; I had to go in there a couple of times.”
“I’ve come to a decision,” Roger said. “I don’t want you driving that drive. I’ll split it with the Bonners. They can drive on Friday, and I’ll drive on Sunday. That’s the best. It’ll be even.”
“Fine,” Virginia said, with a huge gasp of relief. “I know I’m selfish, but I really love you; can you really do it? On your one day off?” Her delight flowed from her. “Maybe I could go along and hold onto the boys. So they wouldn’t climb all over you.”
He had not thought of that, both of them going together. “It’d be too crowded,” he said.
“Maybe so. Maybe once in awhile, though.” She looked at him with such fondness that he felt leaden with guilt. “I love you,” she said. “You know that?
What did you do, sit down there at the store figuring out how you could do the driving?”
“I can’t do it all,” he said, evading. “Not the going up on Friday. So we’ll have to split it with the Bonners.”
“You know what Liz told me? Her husband lost his license. I guess he drove erratically. She wouldn’t tell me why…but she has to do all the driving for them. Should I phone Liz tomorrow and tell her? I guess you can tell them when you go over with Gregg.” As he fixed his cheese sandwich she considered the matter. “If I have a chance I’ll call her.”
He said, “I already told them.”
“Oh,” she said. “Good. What’d they say?”
“I just talked to him. He liked the idea.”
“I’ve never met him. He was at work, when I was over there. They have one of those little tract houses; ordinary furniture inside, the usual TV set and drapes, coffee table, couch and rug. The furniture you see in those carload-sales places, those complete living room outfits for thirty dollars down and the rest at a dollar a week.”
“Where the Okies go,” he said.
She rushed on, “Yes, where they have those loudspeakers and Okie music.” Then she put on her subdued, mannered smile. When she was not sure of his meaning she passed through a formal stage, a moment of becoming a hostess, hearing and not hearing. “Oh come on,” she said. “I know you don’t like other people to say that.”
“No,” he said, with venom.
“She says they’re buying the place. Most of their money must be in the bread factory. Of course, I shouldn’t judge everything by her housekeeping; I wouldn’t want my house to be judged by some woman coming in and snooping around. But that’s what they do; I’ve had it happen to me. The P.T.A. wives. I don’t think Liz cares. If she did she wouldn’t leave everything lying around. It doesn’t seem fair to him, but maybe all he cares about is his work. He’s a vice-president; it’s that Bonny Bonner Bread—we’ve used it.”
“Maybe this bread I’m using,” he said, in a shaky voice.
“What’s wrong?” Virginia said.
“They have a little house, ordinary furniture; she’s dumb; she’s a lousy housekeeper; when you meet him you’ll say, He’s bald.”
“Is he bald? Really?” That visibly nettled her. “How old is he?”
He didn’t answer. He busied himself at the refrigerator, feeling moral outrage, the stricture in his throat. I’m not going to squeak, he thought. Through the blockage his voice would be high-pitched. Better not say anything at all. His pulse pounded as he bent; his wrists swelled.
“It worries you to have me drive,” Virginia said. “You get like this.”
He raised his head.
“Now don’t look at me that way,” she said. “I know you don’t approve of my driving.”
“I don’t give a damn about your driving!” His whole body shook. The studious desire to misunderstand. But maybe it was better. Let her go off into her own worries. Because she feared the drive she assumed that he must doubt her ability, too.
“Is that why you want to make the trip?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “That’s not why.”
But her expression said, That is why. I can tell. But I agree anyhow. It’s the truth. We both know it.
10
At the Los Angeles airport Mrs. Watson scouted for a blue ’39 Chevrolet sedan, and when she found it she found her daughter.
“I wouldn’t have recognized you,” she said, as Virginia caught up her suitcase and shoved it into the back seat. “Stand up so I can get a good look at you.”
Virginia shut the car door and stood up, facing her mother. “I had to cut my hair,” she said. She still wore her long coat, the one she had taken with her from Washington. But her hair was short, like a boy’s, and ragged, as if cut at home. “Because of my job. It’s growing out again.” Leaning forward she kissed her mother. “Thanks a lot for not stopping in Denver.”
“I’ll stop on the way back,” Mrs. Watson said.
“Are you disappointed in me?”
“What do you mean?”
Virginia said, “I don’t look very ladylike.”
“No,” Mrs. Watson said. But she had never put much of a premium on that. “But you’re thinner,” she said. “And,” she said, “I think you look a little mean.” Around her daughter’s eyes were lines, not wrinkles but grooves of intensity. Her daughter had a cool, detached, competent look; she wore no makeup, or nail polish, and in her gray suit she reminded her of some of the young career business women. “I’d be afraid to get into an argument with you now,” Mrs. Watson said. “You’d probably throw me with some jujitsu hold.”
As she drove, Virginia said, “Roger didn’t come along because I told him I wanted to talk to you without him around.”
“How are his teeth?” On the long distance phone Virginia had told her that he needed dental work done and that he had started having it. The idea repelled her. Naturally it would be his teeth. His eyes were bad, his teeth had holes in them, and two years ago, as soon as she laid eyes on him, she knew, by the way he walked, that he had some sort of back injury.
“He got one of them capped,” Virginia said.
“He better get them all capped,” Mrs. Watson said.
Virginia said. “I paid one week’s rent for you on a nice room with cooking privileges.”
“I’ll have to see how it looks.”
“It’s nice. They just painted it. Anyhow, it’ll give you a place to stay; I wish you could stay with us, but we only have one bedroom and then just the living room.”
“Is this the car he wants to drive to Arkansas in?” She did not know much about cars. “It looks like a good one.”
“Except for getting a new car it’s about the best.”
Mrs. Watson said, “If you don’t want to go to Arkansas, tell him you don’t want to go.”
“He’d go alone.”
“Oh,” she said. “Is that how he feels?”
“He’d just disappear,” Virginia said, with a quick little flick of her head. “He’d fool around with the car, make sure it worked okay and had plenty of gas and oil and whatever else it needs, he’d stick stuff in the back, in the trunk place, and he wouldn’t say anything; he’d just go. While I was shopping or asleep. I’d get up and he’d be gone.” After a moment she said, “Every day he thinks about it. He goes out and hoses off the car and starts it up; he drives around town, talking to people. He’s getting ready to go, but he hopes I’ll come along. So far he’s come back. He hasn’t actually left.”
“But that’s against the law.” Hearing about it, she was not surprised. Now that the war had ended and the easy money had stopped. Now that the aircraft plants had started shutting down. He had come out to California to get in on it; now he intended to leave. The money for the train trip had been hers. With Virginia’s money he had financed himself out to the West Coast. There was nothing complex about the situation.
Virginia said, “He feels he can’t get anywhere out here.”
“He could get a job.”
“He wants to open a television shop.”
“Maybe he can do that in Arkansas,” she said. “By himself.”
Virginia glanced swiftly at her and then back at the traffic. She said nothing.
“Why don’t you let him go?” Mrs. Watson said.
“That isn’t worth answering.”
“Let him go and then divorce him.”
“What if I told you I’m pregnant?”
She flinched. That was the thing she had most dreaded; she knew it would happen sooner or later.
“I am,” Virginia said. “Four months.”
“Leave him anyhow.”
“No,” Virginia said, smiling. “I’m not going to leave him. I want him to stay here; I think this is the best place for him. If he had some money he could open a shop. I think he could run it if he once got it started. He’s resourceful. He’s energetic. You’d be surprised. For two years he’s been working a
seven-day week, and all that money has gone in the bank; the only money we’ve spent is on rent and food and for his teeth and then this car. We can sell the car. He’s been working since we got married.”
“So have you.”
“I was working before I met him.”
“Not in a warplant.”
“What do you say?” Virginia said.
“Oh heavens above,” her mother said. “Don’t ask me. I can’t give you money for that, so he can run off to Arkansas with it.”
Virginia said, “Give me the money and I’ll fix up everything in my name. He can’t run off to Arkansas with it then. How can he? He can’t take the store with him.”
“You certainly are a prize sucker,” Mrs. Watson said.
“A sucker! You never saw her, did you? I wouldn’t be that for anything—”
“Who?” Mrs. Watson said.
“His first wife.”
“No,” she said. “I never met her.”
“I did,” Virginia said. “What an awful spectacle. She came around once, before Roger and I were married. She had their little girl with her.”
“Did she want you to take the girl?” Mrs. Watson said, abhorring the idea.
“No, of course not. She just wanted to see him and see me, see what I was like. What an awful situation to be in; don’t you understand how that would be? Imagine seeing her husband with me.” Virginia raised her head. “I thought—Suppose some time it’s my turn. He gets tired of me and decides to go off by himself or with some other woman. I made up my mind—” On the steering wheel her fingers clamped and strained. “I’m never going to be in that woman’s position; I’m not going to let him go off with somebody else and then come around begging for scraps, like she did.”
“Scraps,” Mrs. Watson said. “You mean he just left her to starve?”
“No, I mean she had nothing. What was she left with?”
“The child.”
Virginia said, “That’s the awful part. The child, too. That won’t happen to me. I promised myself then, and now I have to face it; now’s the time I have to do what I said. This would work out; I talked to the loan people at the bank—”
Puttering About in a Small Land Page 13
