Nine Stories

by J. D. Salinger

>> Sybil was silent.

  <<
  <<>> said the young man, getting his feet wet. <<>> He dropped the rubber float on its back. <<>> They waded out till the water was up to Sybil's waist. Then the young man picked her up and laid her down on her stomach on the float.

  <<>> he asked.

  <<>> <<>> <<
  <<>> He kept pushing the float.

  The water was not quite up to his chest. <<>> She shook her head.

  <<>> He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. <<>> <<>> <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> <<
  <<>>

  <<>> asked Sybil.

  <<>>

  <<
  <<>> He took Sybil's ankles in his hands and pressed down and forward. The float nosed over the top of the wave. The water soaked Sybil's blond hair, but her scream was full of pleasure.

  With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported, <<>> <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> said the young man. <<>> <<>>

  The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil's wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch.

  <<>> said the owner of the foot, turning around.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<
  <<
  The young man put on his robe, closed the lapels tight, and jammed his towel into his pocket. He picked up the slimy wet, cumbersome float and put it under his arm. He plodded alone through the soft, hot sand toward the hotel.

  On the sub-main floor of the hotel, which the management directed bathers to use, a woman with zinc salve on her nose got into the elevator with the young man.

  <<
  <<>> said the woman.

  <<>>

  <<
  <<>> <<
  The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.

  <<>> He took his room key out of his robe pocket.

  He got off at the fifth floor, walked down the hall, and let himself into 507. The room smelled of new calfskin luggage and nail-lacquer remover.

  He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.

  Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut

  IT WAS ALMOST THREE O'CLOCK when Mary Jane finally found Eloise's house. She explained to Eloise, who had come out to the driveway to meet her, that everything had been absolutely perfect, that she had remembered the way exactly, until she had turned off the Merrick Parkway. Eloise said, <<
  Eloise turned up the collar of her camel's-hair coat, put her back to the wind, and waited. Mary Jane was back in a minute using a leaf of Kleenex and still looking upset, even fouled. Eloise said cheerfully that the whole damn lunch was burned--sweetbreads, everything--but Mary Jane said she'd eaten anyway, on the road. As the two walked toward the house, Eloise asked Mary Jane how it happened she had the day off. Mary Jane said she didn't have the whole day off; it was just that Mr. Weyinburg had a hernia and was home in Larchmont, and she had to bring him his mail and take a couple of letters every afternoon. She asked Eloise, <<>> Eloise, dropping her cigarette on the soiled snow underfoot, said she didn't actually know but that Mary Jane didn't have to worry much about getting one. Mary Jane said, <<
  Twenty minutes later, they were finishing their first highball in the living room and were talking in the manner peculiar, probably limited, to former college roommates.

  They had an even stronger bond between them; neither of them had graduated. Eloise had left college in the middle of her sophomore year, in 1942, a week after she had been caught with a soldier in a closed elevator on the third floor of her residence hall. Mary Jane had left--same year, same class, almost the same month--to marry an aviation cadet stationed in Jacksonville, Florida, a lean, air-minded boy from Dill, Mississippi, who had spent two of the three months Mary Jane had been married to him in jail for stabbing an M. P.

  <<>> She was stretched out on the couch, her thin but very pretty legs crossed at the ankles.

  <<
  <<>>

  <<>> Eloise yawned. <<>> <<>> She searched through her handbag.

  <<>> <<
  <<>> <<>>

  <<>> Mary Jane threw back her head and roared. <<
  <<>> <<>> said Mary Jane, touching a cameo brooch at her
throat. <<>> <<>> <<>>

  <<
  <<>> Mary Jane called after her.

  <<>> Mary Jane threw back her head and roared again, but Eloise had already gone into the kitchen.

  With little or no wherewithal for being left alone in a room, Mary Jane stood up and walked over to the window. She drew aside the curtain and leaned her wrist on one of the crosspieces between panes, but, feeling grit, she removed it, rubbed it clean with her other hand, and stood up more erectly. Outside, the filthy slush was visibly turning to ice. Mary Jane let go the curtain and wandered back to the blue chair, passing two heavily stocked bookcases without glancing at any of the titles. Seated, she opened her handbag and used the mirror to look at her teeth. She closed her lips and ran her tongue hard over her upper front teeth, then took another look.

  <<>> Eloise, with a fresh drink in each hand, stopped short. She extended both index fingers, gun-muzzle style, and said, <<>> Mary Jane laughed and put away her mirror.

  Eloise came forward with the drinks. She placed Mary Jane's insecurely in its coaster but kept her own in hand. She stretched out on the couch again. <<>> she said. <<>> <<
  You know who I saw last week? On the main floor of Lord & Taylor's?>>> <<>> <<>> said Mary Jane. <<>>

  <<>> <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> <<
  She only weighed sixty-two pounds. When she died. Isn't that terrible?>>> <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> <<>> Eloise raised her head and her voice. <<>> <<
  <<
  <<>> <<>> <<>>

  <<>> <<>> <<>> Mary Jane held up her glass.

  <<>> said Eloise. <<>> Mary Jane extended her pack of cigarettes, saying <<>> Eloise struck a light. <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> Without sitting up, Eloise reached for a stack of ashtrays on the far side of the cigarette table. She successfully lifted off the top one and set it down on her stomach.

  <<>> <<>> Mary Jane asked. <<>> <<>>

  <<
  <<>>

  Mary Jane turned around in her chair. <<>> she said. <<>> She set down her drink. <<>> <<>>

  <<
  <<>> said Mary Jane. <<>> <<
  Ramona stopped scratching herself.

  <<>> Mary Jane asked again.

  <<>>

  Eloise snorted, and asked, <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> Mary Jane asked Eloise.

  <<>> <<>> said Mary Jane enthusiastically. She leaned forward. <<>> Ramona's eyes, behind thick, counter-myopia lenses, did not reflect even the smallest part of Mary Jane's enthusiasm.

  <<
  Ramona inserted a finger into her small, broad nose.

  <<>> <<
  <<>> Ramona put her hand down.

  <<>> <<
  <<>>

  <<
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  <<>> <<
  Mary Jane looked around, then looked back at Ramona, smiling as provocatively as possible. <<>> <<>>

  <<
  <<
  Mary Jane looked back at Ramona. <<
  Marvellous.>>> Mary Jane leaned forward cordially. <<>> she said.

  <<>> <<>>

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  <<>>

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>> Mary Jane said, and leaned even farther forward in her chair.

  <<>> <<
  <<
  <<
  Sleeps with her. She sleeps way over to one side of the bed, so's not to roll over and hurt him.>>> Looking absorbed and delighted with this information, Mary Jane took in her lower lip, then released it to ask, <<>> <<>>

  <<>>

  Eloise, yawning, shook her head. <<>> <<>>

  Eloise looked at her. <<
  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> <<>> Ramona said, taking a burned match out of the ashtray.

  <<>>

  <<>> Mary Jane said musically.

  <<>>

  Eloise lunged suddenly to her feet. <<
  <<>> <<>> <<>> <<>> <<>>

  <<>> She stopped short on the floor board between the living room and the dining room and executed a grind and a bump. Mary Jane giggled.

  <<