I'll Call Every Monday

by Orrie Hitt

  “You might have something there.”

  “Take the debit you’re on,” he continued. “There wasn’t much business coming off of it when you started. That’s because the guy couldn’t see them. You have because you’re new and the people are new and you don’t know too much about them.”

  Margie came in, lugging the mail under her arm.

  “Any policy come through on Schofield?” I wanted to know.

  “Jesus!” she said, unlocking the door to her cage. “Give me a chance to look, will you?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “You’ve been asking every morning for a week.”

  I gave her a sour look and turned back to Dell. I could hear Margie throwing change in the drawer, ripping the envelopes open.

  “What else?” I asked Dell, keeping my voice low. “On this final, I mean — what else is he going to find, Dell?”

  He took a deep breath and I could see his chest tighten.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got to look. I can’t be sure.”

  “How much?”

  “I said I didn’t know, Nicky.”

  “You must have some idea.” I poked a big finger into his chest, and he didn’t give me the old gag about not doing that because there was a nail in it. “How much?”

  “Maybe four hundred,” he said. “I’ve got to check.”

  “That’s plenty.”

  “You know how it is, Nicky.”

  “Sure.”

  He picked up the debit book and stuck it under his arm.

  “I’ve got to get around the debit and figure it out,” he said, his voice desperate as he started thinking about what could happen. “Then I’ve got to work something out — between now and Monday.”

  “Let me know,” I said. “Before Monday.”

  He had started over toward the door, but now he stopped.

  “You mean that, Nicky?”

  “I said to let me know, didn’t I?”

  A grin slid across his face.

  “Thanks, Nicky,” he said. “You’re all right.”

  He went out and I started thinking what a sucker I was for sticking my wallet out like that. Then I shrugged and went over to the window where Margie was sticking policies in our mailboxes.

  “No Schofield,” Margie said.

  “They must be sitting on it.”

  “It’s only been nine days,” she said.

  Christ, it had seemed like a month! I’d been out there past the Schofield place a couple of times since then, but that had been at night and I hadn’t seen anything except the lights in the house. I’d wondered what she was doing and what her husband was coffee. She gave me the coffee and then reached down into the cabinet to get the pitcher of cream. Her breasts were flabby and they hung down in front of her like gourds on a vine. She slid the pitcher across the counter and gave me a smile. I didn’t feel like drinking the coffee.

  “Hot, ain’t it?”

  She had something there, all right. It was hot, the heat coming in from the street, souring the ice cream that had been spilled behind the counter, making the coffee impossible and bitter in my mouth.

  I pushed a quarter across the counter and got up.

  “Maybe you’d like a coke?”

  “No.”

  “That coffee ain’t so good,” the girl said. The cash register clanged open. “Hey, mister, here’s your change.”

  “Skip it!”

  I pushed the door open and went out into the heat. The guy who had the clothing store next door was outside talking to a customer, telling him how good a game of golf he could shoot. I crossed to the Buick and rolled all the windows down before I got in.

  I put the book on the back seat and wondered what I should do. I could go over the debit and do some cold canvassing, maybe pick up a little industrial some place. Or I could go out into the country and waste the day, because when it’s hot and you’re in the mountains and you’re an insurance man you never do any work.

  The Buick slid out into the traffic. I knew what I was going to do. It didn’t have anything to do with work.

  A few minutes later I parked the car in front of the tourist house and started up the walk. Miss Hankins came around the corner of the porch. She had an empty shopping bag in one hand and a watering can in the other.

  “I might as well throw the water in the street,” she said disgustedly, putting the can on the porch. “The only thing that’ll help my flowers is the Resurrection.”

  I started up the steps.

  “You ought to put them on the other side of the house,” I said. “By the rose arbor, where it’s shady.”

  “Well,” she said. Then, “Say, Nicky?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anybody in your office want a good room?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “Sally’s leaving.”

  “She won’t miss much,” I said.

  I went on in and closed the screen door. It was cooler in there because the ceilings were high and the old lady kept the shades pulled down during the day. I started up the stairs but stopped about half-way. I could hear the washer thumping in the cellar and I remembered what Miss Hankins had told me about Sally doing her washing. I’d never been in the cellar before, but I was going to get down there now even if I had to chop a hole through the floor.

  There’s a lot of doors in an old house, especially in the kitchen, but I hit pay-dirt on the third try. The steps were narrow and unpainted and I had to crawl down them like a crab going over rocks in a brook.

  I could hear the washer running on the far side of the cellar so I crossed in that direction. The outside cellar door was open and the sun poured in, feeling good, because it was so damp inside. I found the washroom off to the right and entered.

  An old Maytag made a lot of noise in one corner. The last time I’d seen a machine as ancient as that one was up in Iceland, the time the laundry blew a motor and one of the guards cleaned up taking in washing. There were a couple of soap-stone tubs, one filled with bluing water, and on the floor back of the door was a mountain of dirty sheets and pillowcases. That was all.

  A figure broke the pattern of the sun on the cellar floor. I heard soft treads coming down the stone steps.

  “Hi, Nicky!”

  I got out of the way and let her in. She had a small clothes basket under one arm and she put that over near the machine, under the wringer. She turned around and gave me a big smile. My throat closed up and the glands at the ends of my jaw hurt.

  She had on a light-blue dress that fit her real tight and looked like something old she’d been saving for just such a time as this. There was a big dark streak of wet across her middle and I could see that the dress was plastered to her bare skin underneath. Her breasts were pointed and held the top of the dress way out. I could see the round, dark circles of the nipples press out at me as she laughed.

  “What happened at the club, Sally?”

  She stopped laughing and the smile left her face. I could see that she was thinking about it, what had happened, and that she didn’t want to talk about it.

  “I quit,” she said. She hit the lever on the washer and the noise stopped. “That’s all.”

  I had never heard her sing. I hadn’t wondered until now whether she could or not. It didn’t make any difference. I couldn’t look at her voice.

  “I thought I’d go back to Port,” she said.

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “There’s plenty of work there in the summer.”

  “Sure.”

  She took the lid off the washer, started the wringer and began feeding clothes into it. A white brassiere came out, all flattened, and dropped into the basket.

  “Maybe singing isn’t my line,” she said.

  I went over and shut off the wringer. She didn’t look at me, just kept her hands down there in the water, messing with the rest of the clothes.

  “What happened at the Arrow Club?” I asked gently. “Weren’t you any
good?”

  “They said I sang all right.”

  “Well?”

  “But they said that wasn’t enough.”

  I kept quiet. I knew what she was going to tell me.

  “They had a dress for me,” she said. “It wasn’t much of a dress, just — well, you know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “They said the people up from New York could hear good voices any time.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that?”

  She looked at me straight.

  “I wasn’t supposed to wear any bra.”

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. She didn’t need one.

  “Yeah?”

  “Or — you know, Nicky,” she said, starting the wringer again. “There was something else I wasn’t supposed to wear. Not the regular kind, anyway.”

  I got to thinking how she’d look like that. Just her words and the nearness of her twisted me around a big ball of smoking fire.

  “That’s no reason to run off,” I said.

  “I don’t have enough money to hang around and look for a job,” she told me. “When I get back home I can go right to work where I worked last summer. I can make sixty-five a week waiting on tables. Later on, I’ll try the singing again.”

  The wringer kept grinding away. Another brassiere went through it. Some of her panties went around the roller a couple of times.

  “Maybe I can help you out, Sally.”

  “How?”

  I started thinking fast, about the hotels out in the country, of a couple of guys out there that I knew pretty good.

  “You type?”

  She nodded.

  “I think I could fix you up until after Labor Day, at one of the hotels.”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know why not.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful!”

  I liked the way she said that, with her eyes coming alive and the full smile curving her lips. She reached over and shut off the wringer. I knew that she didn’t want to go back to Port — any more than I wanted her to go.

  “Nicky!” she said. “Nicky!”

  I got my hands up there on her shoulders and pulled her to me. I could feel her breasts poking me in the chest, burning through my shirt at two hot little points.

  “You want to stay, don’t you, Sally?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  I could feel her hands on my arms, digging down, and I knew that it had been there with her, too.

  “I want you to teach me how to play that music box I bought.”

  “I’ll try, Nicky.”

  I brought her closer. She didn’t feel at all like any of the others. There was something good and clean and fragile about her. But there was something else about her that was the same. It’s always the same. I wanted it.

  “Kiss me, baby.”

  I knew I said it rough, and I expected that she would jerk away and get out of there. But she didn’t. She breathed deeply and her breasts came at me harder and her mouth came up, seeking mine. Her lips were warm and smooth and parted. For just a moment she kept them like that, and then her mouth opened and my tongue was in there, blasting away at her briefly.

  She held her face against my chest, turned away. I knew she was crying. That was all right. It would be a hell of a time for her to laugh.

  “Sally.”

  I kissed her on the cheek. I pushed her hair out of the way and kissed her along the neck. I could feel her tremble.

  “Sally, baby.”

  She hadn’t said yes and she hadn’t said no. I put my arm down there, around her, feeling her warm flesh beneath the dress. My head started to pound and I kissed her some more. I pushed her into the corner and kicked the door shut.

  “Oh, not now!” she whispered. “Not here, Nicky!”

  But I already had her down there on the pile of sheets. She wasn’t crying any more, but she whimpered some and pressed in close to me.

  “I was afraid this would happen,” she said.

  Her lips were hot and wet, seeking mine. I kissed her back and then I pulled away far enough so that I could get my hand down there at the top of her dress.

  “Don’t tear it,” she said.

  “Maybe you’d better do it.”

  “No, that’s all right. You do it, Nicky. I’d be — scared.”

  The dress unbuttoned all the way down the front, but I only undid enough of it so that I could get at her brassiere. It was one of those types that hook in the front. For a long time she held one hand over mine, just looking up at me, not letting me do anything. Then she took her hand away. My fingers were clumsy but I got the thing loose without any trouble.

  “Sally, Sally,” I kept saying over and over.

  Her breasts were alive and full, swelling up at me, trembling a little as she breathed. I took one of them in my hand and held it.

  “Please don’t, Nicky.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “I know. But don’t.”

  I lowered my head and our mouths touched. Her fingernails crept around and dug into my back.

  “I’m yours, Nicky.”

  My chest felt tight, like I was choking to death, struggling with my clothes. I heard something rip but I didn’t stop. I didn’t give a God-damn what happened.

  “Oh, my God!”

  We came together and my hands found her. My legs pained and nothing mattered. There were just the sounds of her fear, the cries of her passion and my heavy breathing in the tiny room. Briefly, just before the moment closed in on us, she fought back at me.

  Later, we lay there, still wound up in the sheets. Her smile was like the sun, only brighter, as she looked at me. Then she frowned and reached up and pulled my head down. She kissed me near the mouth.

  “I bit you,” she said.

  I could smell the blood.

  “That’s all right.”

  I kissed her again, long and hard, and sat up. I didn’t want her to see my face. That kiss hadn’t meant a thing.

  “Nicky?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m — not sorry.”

  One of her shoes was over in the middle of the floor. I glanced at her and her dress was way up around her waist. She straightened her legs and tried to sit up. She let out a little sigh and fell back, laughing.

  “I hurt you, Sally.”

  “I wanted you to.”

  I thought about that last kiss. How can anything so beautiful become so uninteresting so fast?

  “Christ!” I said.

  She sat up, buttoning her dress.

  “You don’t have to do anything for me about the job, Nicky. Not unless you meant it, you don’t.”

  I looked at the little tight lines around her mouth.

  “I meant it,” I said.

  I kissed her again and it was better this time. I could hear someone walking around upstairs.

  “Must be Miss Hankins,” I said.

  “She’d be mad, if she knew about this.”

  “Or jealous.”

  “Nicky! Some of the things you say!”

  I grinned at her.

  “The truth has been spoken,” I said.

  I got her by the elbows and helped her up. She kept looking at me, then away, and I realized that I hadn’t put myself together. I started to do that but she came at me, touching me, and her lips bruised mine.

  “Baby! Baby!”

  The old lady was upstairs, banging around, and she might drop into the cellar at any moment. But that didn’t bother me. It wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d been right there.

  “Hey, hey, there, Nicky!” Sally whispered, playfully biting at my chin.

  I wanted her more than ever, but as I looked down I suddenly felt sick and good and sorry and glad all at the same time. I held her tight, trembling against her, scared by what this had meant for her.

  I had never been the first one before.

  CHAPTER V

  THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE THE MOUNTAINS in the summer. You get
the sun early and sharp in the morning and if there’s a breeze blowing it stays with you through the hot afternoons and the quiet of the evenings. And during the thunder showers you can watch the lightning rip in waves across the sky. The thunder is always close up there in the mountains and sometimes a tree gets struck, shaking the ground all around you.

  And you don’t have a lot of people knocking on your door.

  I guess that’s why I took the cabin.

  The cabin was on the rim of the hill that hung high over Hickory Lake. From the porch you could look down across the top of the hotel, over the lake and to the rambling, unbroken hills beyond.

  “You’ll like this, Mr. Weaver.”

  “Yeah.”

  This guy Johnson was a little fellow in his early fifties. He owned the hotel down by the lake, but in his undershirt and overalls he looked more like the dishwasher.

  “I’ll give you four hundred until Labor Day,” I told him.

  His price had been five.

  “Okay,” he said. He picked up an empty beer bottle and tossed it over the railing. It was in the air a long time before it hit. “I’m sorry I ever built this place up here, Mr. Weaver. If I had it down on the level, where people can park their cars right alongside, I could get seven-fifty.”

  “I like walking,” I said. It had only been a couple of hundred yards from the road and the path was good.

  The cabin had three rooms — a kitchen, bedroom and a living room with a fireplace in it. The walls were finished off in knotty pine and the maple furniture was new and looked good in the place.

  “You can move in whenever you want,” Johnson said. He gave me a wink and laughed. “After you pay.”

  “I’ll bring a check out tomorrow.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Weaver.”

  We left the place and started to walk back down the path. It was a good, wide path that curved around the big pines and through high rhododendron bushes. The slope was gentle but constant and before you knew it you were far down below the cabin, crossing a wooden bridge that hung high over a growling brook.

  “About the other thing,” he said, stopping as we got on the other side of the bridge. “You shouldn’t count on that too much, Mr. Weaver.”

  “Which thing?”

  “The insurance.” He swatted at a fly that came out of the sun at him. “Like I said, it all depends on the season.”