by Belva Plain
“She can’t seem to make up her mind. You know how she is.”
“Actually, I don’t know. She and I never do more than say hello when she walks through the store.”
“It comes down to money in the end. She’s old, and old folks are afraid to spend.”
Pa, Adam thought. A penny saved is a penny got.
“I suppose,” Theo continued, “she doesn’t feel the need for earning anymore. There’s more than enough for their lifestyle, all the tuitions and traveling . . . That’s a beautiful girl, don’t you think?”
“She’s unusual,” Adam said briefly, not wanting to talk about Emma Rothirsch.
“Nevertheless,” continued Brown, returning to the subject, “with this new income tax, you never can tell. Once a tax is levied, it’s bound to rise. So it only makes sense, it seems to me, some sense and my obligation as an advisor, to encourage the merger.”
Adam was wondering how his own job would be affected if it were to be done, when Theo went on.
“The reason I’m telling you is that if you should hear any more talk about the deal, about plans, I don’t want you to worry. Nobody’s taking your job while I’m around. I was your age once, starting up the ladder and worried that somebody might push me off, so I know.”
Adam was touched as on occasion a son may be touched by his father’s concerns for him. “Thank you, Theo,” he said simply. “Thank you more than I can say.”
“Well, I’ve known you a long time, and I like you, Adam. If I had a son, I’d want him to be like you, smart, hardworking, and honorable,” Theo responded as he stood and began to clear the desk. “On a lighter note, I hope the poor old lady won’t wear herself out jaunting all over New England this summer.”
“Going to visit her niece, I suppose?” Adam asked.
“Who else? Emma’s the only reason for all her trips.”
“I haven’t seen Emma since they came back from Europe last year.”
“The time will come when you’ll never see her. Once she’s got her M.A., she’ll find somebody important to marry and settle herself in New York, London, or Paris, if the war’s over. Far from here, anyway, you can bet on that. In fact, Mrs. R. did drop a little hint about a man in London. Well, I’m off to lunch. Take care.”
Outdoors it was unmistakably May. Lilacs, tulips, and women’s hats, along with small boys playing baseball in a schoolyard, proclaimed the season. It was a happy kind of day, and Adam felt happy as he walked the familiar streets, nodding and greeting and being greeted.
Tonight he was taking a new girl out for the evening. Maybelle Munoz, she was half Spanish, dark and exotic. Maybe she would want a Mexican dinner with plenty of hot pepper; on the other hand, since her mother was American, she might be as unused to spices as he was. They’d be driving to the capital; the old Interurban was no more, with its schedules and timetables. You were your own boss now.
That’s what he was thinking when after stopping an instant to admire the striped tulips, imported from Holland, in the new window boxes, he stepped through the revolving doors into the Rothirsch store. There, pausing again to look around at the subdued color and glitter of expensive goods, he felt a rush of satisfaction.
There would be no need for many sales days this year. Merchandise at regular prices was flying out of the store.
“Hello, Mr. Arnring. We meet again,” Emma Rothirsch said brightly. “Do you remember me?”
“I certainly do. Haven’t you got somebody to wait on you?” he asked hastily, for she was carrying a pile of garments in her arms.
“Oh, I like to help myself.”
He recognized her choices as she walked away. They were all from the budget side of the store, where a bicycle skirt cost three dollars, linen skirts cost four, and kid gloves were ninety-eight cents a pair. Strange, he thought, comparing her with her aunt, who bought twenty yards of imported satin for an afternoon dress to be made by her own dressmaker.
When Emma had paid for her purchases in cash and the pneumatic tube was sailing across the ceiling toward the cashier upstairs, he was surprised again: Mrs. R. had a charge account, as was only to be expected.
“I see you’re looking at what I’ve bought,” Emma said. “You won’t make a lot of money from people like me, will you?”
“On the contrary. There are more people in the world who buy cheaper clothes than there are who buy designers’ dresses.”
“I think it’s a great idea that you put in a low-price department. I used to feel conspicuous when I was younger and wore such elegant clothes in school. Nobody else did. So this really was your idea, I suppose?”
“Well, yes, since you ask, it was.”
Her hair must have blown in the breeze, for a few waving strands hung loose around her neck. It seemed to him—perhaps because of their color?—that they would be warm to the touch. And with this thought, he felt immediately foolish.
“Have you had lunch? It would be nice to continue our interrupted conversations if you haven’t.”
My God, but she’s bold, he thought, and thought again, as if to correct himself, she’s not really bold, just inexperienced—or could one say naive?—not to see the difference between this place and the train and the chauffeur’s seat on the Pierce-Arrow.
“I hear there’s a very good new place behind the courthouse. All the lawyers eat there now.”
He wavered. The last time he had seen her, she was at the front door of her house, apparently looking for him. And what had he done? He had turned his car around and fled away down the street. Why? Because he feared the old lady. Trembling in his boots, that’s what he was doing. Had he no self-respect? And after the praise Theo Brown had given him half an hour ago? The girl was charming; he had been struck by her charm, as any man would be, from the very first time he had seen her. But, my God, he wasn’t trying to seduce her! So what could be wrong with a lunch? All this went through his mind in a few seconds, while standing at the counter waiting for Emma’s change to return on the pneumatic tube.
He looked at his watch. “It’s twelve-thirty. I have one telephone call to make, so if you don’t mind waiting five minutes—”
“Mr. Arnring,” said Reilly, who had come up behind them, “you have an appointment at one with those shoe people. Oh, how are you, Miss Rothirsch? Back home for a while, are you? It’s good to see you.”
“You’re wrong, Mr. Reilly. That appointment is for next week. Next Tuesday, not today.”
Reilly smiled. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. Arnring. It really is for today, the seventh.”
“You’re sure? I have a pretty good memory.”
“I’m sure, Mr. Arnring.”
There was something in the steady fixation of Reilly’s widened eyes that conveyed a message: Listen to me.
“Well,” Adam said, “I guess that’s it, Miss Rothirsch. No lunch today. I’m awfully sorry.”
She smiled. “Another time.”
She took her packages. Reilly leaped ahead to hold the revolving door for her, and returned.
“What the deuce is this?” demanded Adam. “That appointment’s for next week, and you know it.”
In the back of the shoe department among the shelves and stacks, Reilly spoke his piece.
“Adam, you can’t play around with that girl. It’s a good thing I happened to walk out there in time to hear you.”
“Who’s playing around? What the hell are you talking about?” Anger, such as he rarely felt, was hot in Adam.
“How can you even think of being seen with Mrs. R.’s girl? Seen in a place where anybody—that guy Lawrence, her lawyer, goes there. I read a piece in the paper last week in that gossip column about some meeting they had there, somebody from the governor’s office or someplace. ‘Oh, I saw Adam Arnring the other day having lunch with your Emma, Mrs. R.’—can you imagine it? Geez, you might as well quit before she kicks you the hell out.”
Now Adam’s anger exploded. “You have no right to talk to me this way, Reilly. We’
ve been good friends, but that doesn’t give you the right to interfere in my private life and to scold me. Who do you think I am, your kid, or your neighbor’s kid who spilled paint on your sidewalk or something? I’m still the manager here, remember?”
Reilly said calmly, “Yes, I remember, Mr. Arnring. I understand everything you’re saying. I have not forgotten, I never forget, that you are the manager of this business. For now, you are. I know what dignity belongs here in this store, and I’ve never stepped out of my proper place. I’m doing this because you’re only in your twenties, and I could be your father. I don’t want to see you throw away everything you’ve earned on account of this girl.”
“I have no intention of doing so,” Adam said stiffly.
“People don’t intend to fall in love. It happens. If you don’t stop it before it happens, if you get my meaning. That girl likes you too much. It’s plain as the nose on your face.”
“That’s nonsense. She hardly knows me.”
“You don’t have to know a person to fall for him. It can happen in ten minutes. That’s the sad part of it. Look at the mess poor Archer got himself into with that wife he’s got. You fall, and you can’t pick yourself up again. Make believe for one minute that I’m your father and listen to me. If he was here, he’d say the same thing.”
Maybe he would. Maybe that’s what happened to him, and I’m the result of it.
“I haven’t fallen for her. I have no plans to marry Miss Emma Rothirsch, only to have lunch with her.”
“Adam, don’t be stubborn. The old lady’s got great plans for Emma. And you need money! You need to remember that there isn’t a blasted soul on earth who can’t be replaced. When McKinley was shot, we got another president in five minutes, didn’t we?”
Adam was silent. He was beginning to feel a little ashamed. His pride had been affronted, and by whom? By Jim Reilly, who wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him, Adam Arnring. But then . . . Perhaps he had been getting a trifle smug about his position? And looking back into the earnest face of this good man standing now between himself and a row of shoe boxes, this good man who had never reached and would never reach even as low a position as he, Adam, now held, he felt a wave of remorse.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I lost my temper, and it was stupid of me. I know you mean the best for me. You always have.”
“You’ve meant the same for me, Adam.”
“Yes. Yes, you’re right. You were reminding me of my needs. There’s my father . . . He’s losing his health. There’s my brother in college . . . And there’s the other one, I’ve told you about him, so strange, poor guy . . . Yes, I do need money.”
Reilly sighed. “Don’t we all? But you’ve taken on very big responsibilities, Adam.”
“How could I not take them on?”
“A lot of sons your age would know how not to. Well, that’s it. I have customers waiting for shoes.”
For a moment they stood looking out at the pleasant bustle of shoppers moving through the bright display. Then each went on his way.
Chapter 10
Looking back at the course of a journey, whether it is a cross-country trip or the map of a lifetime, it is easy to see the point at which, unrecognized by the travelers, a small event made an abrupt and drastic change in direction.
So it was for Adam Arnring in the autumn of 1915. At that time across the ocean, young men by the thousands were suffering and dying. But that was far away, and in the sunny, peaceful town of Chattahoochee, hard to envision.
One day when it was not sunny, he was walking home in a drizzle, thinking about the recent increase in his salary and about Doris Buckley, the girl with whom he had spent the last six months, which was the longest stretch of time he had ever devoted solely to any one woman. She was a lovely, quiet person, intelligent and pretty, a country girl who had come to town as a doctor’s receptionist and to live where Adam lived, in the house that belonged to her grandparents.
Theirs had been an easy relationship from the beginning. The Buckleys had long been treating Adam not so much as a tenant but as a young friend, inviting him to share Sunday supper anytime when he “had nothing better to do,” as Mrs. Buckley would say. So, when Doris appeared, all of this remained the same, only more so.
Now as he walked through the gathering rain, Adam reflected upon all those movie nights, the country rides in his “Tin Lizzie,” the visits to the ice cream parlor, the hours spent “passing the time of day” with the old folks on the front porch. They would be wondering soon, if they had not already done so, when he was going to propose to Doris. It was only natural; she was twenty-three, almost twenty-four, and once a girl reached twenty-five without being married, she was over the hill.
When are you going to get married? Pa wrote. You never even mention a steady girl. You’re twenty-seven and a half. It’s time to stop just running around. Jonathan’s only halfway through college, and he has a wonderful girl, Blanche Berman, a beauty, a relative of Berman the tailor. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got married someday. I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
Well, maybe I will, Adam thought. I certainly miss Doris when she goes home to spend a few days. I’ve gotten so that I expect to see her when I come down the street. She’ll be either weeding the flower patch in the front yard or else sitting on the porch with the newspaper or a book. Then I know she’s not so much reading or weeding as waiting for me, although she would never show it because a woman isn’t supposed to let a man know.
He smiled to himself, and reflected that she really was a sweet young woman. She liked what he liked; she took long country hikes and she read good books that they could talk about. Pa’s right, he thought. What am I waiting for? She was probably wondering what was taking him so long. He decided to bring up the subject next week, maybe Sunday.
A gust of rain drenched Adam’s head as he stepped off the curb. A horn blew, a car stopped, and a voice called, “Watch out, Mr. Arnring, I almost ran over you.”
The little electric car was noiseless of course, but he had not been paying attention, and feeling foolish, he was prepared to apologize when the door opened and Emma Rothirsch summoned him inside.
“Please! This is a downpour. Get in.”
At least it wasn’t Mrs. R. at the tiller. He got in and remarked that he had not seen this car around the neighborhood in a long time.
“She’s getting too old to drive it. Her sight’s bad. Unless I get home now and then to use it, it stands in the garage. Where can I take you?”
“I was going home, out near the boulevard. But that’s too far for you, Miss Rothirsch.”
She smiled. It looked to Adam as though her whole face smiled, not only the lips, but the eyes and the rounding of the cheeks; all sparkled.
“Adam,” she said, “you’re making me laugh. Isn’t it time that young people of our age should stop this ‘Mr.’ and ‘Miss’ business? You’re Adam and I’m Emma.”
He was very uncomfortable. This was behavior he could never have expected; he was sorry he had accepted the ride, and he did not answer.
“Tell me something. Is it my aunt and your job that you’re worried about?” When he still did not answer, she continued, “Yes, it is. Well, I promise you that I would never let her know that we are Adam and Emma. Not that or anything else, although you may be surprised to know that her bite is nowhere nearly as dangerous as her bark.”
Even on the ride back from the railroad station that time, he had not felt so uncomfortable.
“You turn left here,” he said hurriedly, “then three blocks in.”
“I’m not letting you out just yet in this deluge. Tell me, what are you afraid of? We’ve met a few times, four to be exact, counting the times when I was still in high school. And each time I’ve had the feeling that we could be friends. I’ve wanted to talk to you, and I knew you wanted to talk to me.”
“How could you possibly have known that?”
“Simply by the way you looked at me. That time I su
ggested lunch at the restaurant in back of the courthouse, you were ready to go until Mr. Reilly stopped you with his fib about another appointment. I knew that he was afraid for you, but I couldn’t get too annoyed with him. I’ve known him since I was in kindergarten. He always had a chocolate lollipop for me.”
I feel, Adam thought, like a—like somebody on a speeding sled who’s trying to stop it before it crashes into a tree.
“You did want to go that day, didn’t you? If I’m mistaken, please tell me. If you think it was ‘forward’ of me to invite you, please say so.” Having stopped the car, she was able to turn, look at him, and draw an answer from him.
“Well, not exactly forward, but—”
“But unwise. Tactless. I guess it was. But listen to me. If you had been the son of the owner and I a saleswoman, you would think differently about it. Probably you might not have made the invitation as public as I did, but that’s the only difference. It’s the man’s way versus the woman’s. Perhaps that will change someday, I don’t know, but it won’t for a long time, if it ever does. It will be long after I’m around, I’m sure.”
Adam smiled. He could see the justice—and the humor—in her remarks.
“Well, isn’t it true that I shouldn’t be talking like this because women are not allowed to be as free as I’m being? Now tell me, isn’t it?”
Unwillingly, he replied that he supposed so.
“Oh, Adam. I don’t want anything from you! This is totally, totally innocent. If you think I’m dying for a man, you’re all wrong. I have more invitations, decent invitations, with nice men, than I can use. Most of them, I don’t accept. I’ve wanted only to be your friend. I’ve felt that way about you from the start.”
“But how could you feel that way, or any way, when you don’t know a thing about me?”
She threw up her hands. On one arm he recognized the gold bracelet. She was telling him about fish soup. She was walking away with her hand on the edge of her narrow skirt. And he was standing there until she had gone out of sight.
