Girls In 3-B, The (13 page)

She kept thinking about the supervisor as the morning passed and, since thinking so often seems to materialize its object, was hardly surprised to find herself in the same elevator at lunchtime. She smiled and got an answering smile. Miss Gordon said, "Going to lunch, or do you have an appointment with your boy friend?"

"I don't have time for boy friends."

"So? My appointment for this noon fell through. Perhaps we could have a bite together."

So there they were in the Palmer House Grill, where Barby had never dared to go before because it didn't seem the kind of place to go alone. They smiled tentatively at each other, two strangers ready to get acquainted and unsure how to begin. The prices frightened Barby, but she thought,
Well, I'll make it up the rest of the week, bring a sandwich from home or something, anyone has a right to go some place nice once in a while.
She relaxed in an atmosphere more leisurely and prosperous than that of the company cafeteria or the corner drugstore. The people at the other tables looked assured; you couldn't imagine them having any sordid problems
--
the executive-type women, the suburban shoppers in expensive hats, the well-groomed men. She took a deep breath, forgetting about Annice.

* * *

At that moment Annice was standing in the living room of the apartment, looking vaguely out of the window and thinking about school.
Why am I bothering with the silly place anyway?
she wondered, forgetting that Alan had been posing the same question every time she'd seen him lately. Alan's idea was that if she had her days free, she could live on the money her family sent her for tuition and they could collaborate. She wasn't sure what he wanted to collaborate on; he was always talking about writing a book, but she couldn't imagine him staying interested in one thing that long. Also, he claimed that it was impossible to write a good book until you had touched the lowest depths of degradation. This sounded fine and dramatic, and when he said it at a party the women always looked admiring and the men uneasy, but she wasn't sure it would be so much fun in real life. What if you reached the lowest depths of degradation and then couldn't climb back up?

Back to what?
Alan would ask.
Stuffy, respectable suburban life?

She grinned. Here she was putting answers in his mouth, and God knew he was capable of talking for himself. She got up and washed the dishes, her mother's training asserting itself, and picked up her dirty clothes and stuffed them in the hamper. Once more she noticed the stiff order and cleanliness of the apartment, hardly marred by full ashtrays and dented cushions.
They must have really been scared,
she thought guiltily,
to pitch in like that. I should have called them. But how could I?

Bathed, powdered and combed, she felt more like herself. At loose ends, though. It felt odd to be alone in the apartment
--
probably alone in the building, since the landlord didn't take families with children or non-working wives. All of the apartments were leased by working couples or single men or spinsters, or two and three girls or fellows sharing expenses. For that matter, apart from her college classmates she hadn't met a single woman who stayed at home and kept house, except
--
at a party
--
one girl who had a small child and was awaiting the birth of another, and she wrote confession stories to help out with the household bills.

If I ever got married,
she thought suddenly
, I'd want a house with a porch and a dining room, and I'd want to stay home and take care of my kids.

She could call Alan. Except that he didn't have any telephone in the first place, and in the second place he wouldn't like it if she called. A man has to be free. The only way to hold a man is to leave your hand open so he can fly away when he likes, a wild bird. What a man does with his own time is nobody's goddam business.

Or she could call Jack, leaving a message for him in the Registrar's office and asking him to call back. Good old Jack, he had sat with the girls all night, when they must have been scared witless about her. He would scold, or look at her reproachfully, wanting to scold but being patient and forgiving instead. A small flame of anger kindled in her. The girls didn't have any business calling him in. Like a member of the family or something. Sure, she had gone out with him a few times. She liked him. He was a nice kid
--
like a cousin or something. A date with him was about as thrilling as eating oatmeal.

She looked dimly around the apartment. Might as well take a nap.

She was half asleep when the bell rang, and it took her a moment to come out of her fog and locate the sound. It was Alan at the door. She scrutinized him for any sign of remorse or apology. But he looked just as he always did, with his hair uncombed and a bunch of loose papers sticking out of his pants pocket. "Hi. I brought over the first draft. You can check it for mistakes if you want to."

"I don't want to," Annice said coldly. It was no good to be angry at him; it was like blowing soap-bubbles against a brick wall. The anger broke, leaving him untouched. "How do you feel
?
Any lingering hallucinations
?
Any color sequences
?
I had the God-damnedest experience this morning," he said casually, "I thought there was a dead body in the shower stall."

"Wishful thinking."

"Oh no. If I wanted to kill somebody I would." But he ; didn't sound too sure.

Now that she was no longer alone she didn't feel so depressed. She swung her feet up to the davenport and stretched out lazily on her back. "You look good lying down," Alan said. "You've got good hip and pelvic bones, I'd like to paint you that way."

"Except you can't paint."

"Who says
?
I can do anything I want to."

He sat down beside her. She felt a sweet mixture of laziness and excitement.
No breakfast,
she recalled. The girls had fixed her a bowl of soup the night before, but she hadn't wanted it. How long since she had eaten? She felt very clear-headed, as if she could float instead of walk.

"You'd be a nice lay," Alan said, smiling.

"Then why don't you do something about it?"

The excitement carried her along. It didn't even seem strange to be undressing here in the middle of the living room, by broad daylight, with a man stepping out of his pants two feet away. Only for a moment, when the first pain stabbed, she was lifted out of her rapturous clarity into a realization of where she was and what she was doing. She saw the afternoon sun lying slantwise across Alan's clothes heaped on the floor, her own panties and padded bra lying on top of them. She felt abashed about the bra.
But of course he's known since the first night,
she
reassured herself.
She shut her eyes, clutching at him until her fingernails dug into the flesh of his bare back, as the current of feeling carried her away.

None of Pat's strategy was going to do any good. Not the black dress which had taken her an evening's time to pick out and the better part of a week's pay to get from Will Call, or the suede pumps that made her legs look so thin and elegant, or the chignon which she had bought, after all, when it became evident that wisps and straggles of hair were going to take months to make a decent bun. The girls were lavish with compliments, but she wasn't trying to impress them. Blake Thomson still didn't know she existed.

That is,
she corrected herself,
he knows it when I spell a word wrong. I'm part of the office equipment, like the typewriters and adding machines, except that I do get a paycheck twice a month. If I got sick he'd probably call a repairman instead of a doctor.
She laughed, but two tears rolled down her cheeks and made little blisters on the galley proof she was wrestling with.

Once she would have been thrilled at the prospect of learning to read proof, especially as there was the prospect of a promotion
--
with raise
--
involved. Phyllis rated an assistant; it was she who pointed out that it meant a chance to do something that was "publishing," not just office work. Pat was trying, but she didn't really care.

You can't forget a man who is within sight and earshot eight hours a day. She saw him at work five days a week, and thought about him the rest of the time. She had never been like this before, not even when her summertime romance with Johnny Cutler was ripening
--
she had certainly been excited by the touch of his hand and the pressure of his lips on hers, and there were times, parked in some country byroad, when she was sure she would say yes if he asked her to marry him. But her feeling for him hadn't crowded out everything else as this did
--
she had eaten with a hearty appetite and slept soundly and walloped her little brothers when she thought they needed it.

Thinking about Johnny turned her thoughts homeward. She thought about her mother, who had never seemed like a very interesting person before, although nice to have in the background and useful as a dispenser of band-aids, comfort, and spending-money. Her mother wrote every week, on lined paper torn from one of the kids' school tablets, and although it was good to get the letters they never made her homesick or anything like that. Usually she answered them because it gave her something to do in the evenings. There is a limit to the amount of time any girl can spend washing her hair, doing her nails, rinsing out her nylons or listening to the radio and wishing she was somewhere else.

Today, though, she thought of her mother with deep personal envy. To be middle-aged and overweight, to have your pattern of life all set seemed restful and reassuring. She didn't doubt that her mother worried when the children were sick or did poorly in school, but that sort of unhappiness is part of a large security that outweighs and outlasts it. You know what life has in store for you, and while it may not be so exciting, well, it isn't frightening either. Everything is settled.

She said to Phyllis, "Do you ever wish you were old
?
"

Phyllis considered, her forehead knitted. "I don't think so. I've wished I was dead
--
I tried to kill myself once, but I didn't have the guts to go through with it. I think I'd rather be dead than old, but maybe I'll change my mind when the time comes."

"I'd like to be settled."

"Nobody ever is, though. I suppose when you're eighty, life still looks all bright and full of promise." Phyllis shrugged. "The main thing in life is to have a skill. That never goes back on you."

Mr. Thomson passed her desk, on his way in from one of his frequent coffee breaks. She fell silent, looking after him, at his broad back in the well-tailored jacket, the line of his hair, the way he set his feet down. There was no use trying to be sensible about it. You can't reason away magic.

"Handsome is in a good mood today, isn't he
?
Must be love."

Pat frowned. Phyllis went on, lighting a new cigarette and flicking ashes on the floor, "It's about time he settled down, if anyone asks you. Only he won't. That kind never does. He'll be stepping out on her before they're married a month
--
you wait and see."

Pat said grudgingly, "She's pretty."

"If you like that skinny high-bred kind. She has good bones." Phyllis sat down on the edge of the desk, quite relaxed. This was part of her scheme for getting along in the world, she explained
--
make the management think you're too important to drudge; other people might have to work every minute, but you're entitled to a break when you feel like taking one. "Women all fall for him," she said, looking out of the window. "I knew a girl one time who went crazy over that kind of a man. Couldn't think about anything else. Thought it was the big love of a lifetime hen he asked her to spend the night with him."

"What happened?"

Phyllis grinned crookedly. "She didn't have anything to complain of, really. He paid for the abortion. Of course he couldn't stay with her while it was going on, the cramps and all. Somebody might have found out about it." She stubbed out her cigarette and fumbled in her shirt pocket for another. "Cost five hundred dollars. I suppose a girl can't complain if a man is willing to spend five hundred bucks on her without fussing
--
so very much."

Pat's protest was throttled by a sudden realization that she knew who the girl was. She looked at Phyllis with mingled awe and curiosity.

"Skip it," Phyllis said. "Maybe this marriage will work out all right. They do sometimes. She's got all the cards stacked in her favor.”

"Is she so rich
?
"

"God, yes. She's some relation to the Armours and the Palmers and half the old packing-house families. Then she inherited a wad from her first husband, too. She's got that sweet kind of a nature that turns out tough in a pinch
--
maybe she'll be okay. Older than he is, though."

"Maybe he loves her," Pat said. She felt that she could bear to be set aside in the interest of love, but to lose the thing she wanted most for mere expediency, to be defeated by money and social position was absolutely unbearable.

Phyllis laughed. "Maybe. Who knows what love is
?
"

"Supposed to be the most important thing in life."

"If you can put everything but the job out of your mind from nine to five-thirty you don't worry about what's important. That's what keeps you going, that little old job. After hours, week ends
--
get yourself laid if you want, that's fine." Phyllis shook her head. "Get yourself a good skill you can depend on, something that doesn't depend on anybody's whim and won't let you down if times get tough. Men are too changeable, and banks go bust
--
you can't count on money, even. But something you know how to do, that's the answer to everything."

"Everything?"

"Well
--
almost everything. It won't keep you warm on a cold winter night." Phyllis considered, her face brooding. "But there's plenty of that around too, without getting all involved."

Pat didn't answer, but she shook her head. Maybe if you had known a lot of men, they all seemed alive. Or if you liked somebody who was far away and only spent a night with him once in a while, or something like that, you could be reasonable and keep your mind on your work. But what did you do when every time you got settled down, with nothing on your mind but punctuation and broken letters,
his
voice floated out from the inner office and you felt excited and seasick, as if you were out in a rowboat on a choppy lake?