Ideal (6 page)

“Because I couldn't stand it any longer. There are times when one can't stand it any longer.”

“Yes,” he said. “There are.” And then his voice was steady and natural and sure of itself. “Look,” he said, “I won't let the cops get you. Not if they had to tear the house down. Not if they came with gas bombs and such.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I don't know . . . Only that . . .”

“Your letter, it said . . .”

“Oh,” he faltered, “you know, I never thought you'd read the silly thing.”

“It was not silly.”

“Well, you must forgive me, Miss Gonda, but you know how it is with movie fans, and I bet you have plenty of them—fans, I mean, and letters.”

“I like to think that I mean something to people.”

“You must forgive me if I said anything fresh, you know, or personal.”

“You said you were not happy.”

“I . . . I didn't mean to complain, Miss Gonda, or . . . It was only . . . How can I explain? . . . I guess I've missed something along the way. I don't know what it is, but I know I've missed it, only I don't know why.”

“Maybe it's because you wanted to miss it.”

“No.” His voice was firm. “No.” He rose and stood looking straight at her. “You see, I'm not unhappy at all. In fact, I'm a very happy man—as happiness goes. Only there's something in me that knows of a life I've never lived, the kind of a life no one has ever lived, but should.”

“You know it? Why don't you live it?”

“Who does? Who can? Who even gets a chance at the . . . the very best possible to him? We all bargain. We take the second best. That's all there is to be had. But the . . . the God in us, it knows the other . . . the very best . . . which never comes.”

“And . . . if it came?”

“We'd grab it—because there is a God in us.”

“And . . . you really want that? That God in you?”

“Look,” he said fiercely, “I know this: let them come, the cops, let them come now and try to get you. Let them tear the house down. I built it—took me fifteen years to pay for it. Let them tear it down, brick by brick. Let them come, whoever it is that's after you . . .”

The door was flung open.

Mrs. Perkins stood on the threshold, her fist clutching her faded
blue corduroy robe in a tight huddle in the middle of her stomach. A long nightgown of grayish-pink cotton hung to the tips of her pink mules with faded velvet bows. Her hair was combed tightly back to a thin knot, and a hairpin was sliding down her neck. She was trembling.

“George!” she gasped. “George!”

“Dovey, keep quiet. . . . Come in . . . Close the door!”

“I . . . I thought I heard voices.” The hairpin disappeared between her shoulder blades.

“Rosie . . . this . . . Miss Gonda, may I present—my wife? Rosie, this is Miss Gonda, you, Miss Kay Gonda!”

“Indeed?” said Mrs. Perkins.

“Rosie . . . oh, for God's sake! Don't you understand? This is Miss Gonda, the movie star. She's . . . she's in trouble, you know, you've heard about it, the papers said . . .”

He turned desperately to his guest, waiting for support. But Kay Gonda did not move. She had risen, and she stood, her arms hanging limply at her sides, her huge eyes looking at them without blinking, without expression.

“All my life,” said Mrs. Perkins, “I've known you were a rotter and a liar, George Perkins! But this beats it all! To have the nerve to bring that tramp right into your own home, into your bedroom!”

“Oh, shut up! Rosie! Listen! It's a great honor that Miss Gonda chose to . . . Listen! I—”

“You're drunk, that's what you are! And I won't listen to a single word out of you until this tramp is out of the house!”

“Rosie! Listen, calm yourself, for God's sake, listen, there's nothing to get excited about, only that Miss Gonda is wanted by the police and . . .”

“Oh!”

“. . . and it's for murder . . .”

“Oh!”

“. . . and she just has to stay here overnight. That's all.”

Mrs. Perkins drew herself up and tightened her robe, and her nightgown stood out in a bump over her chest, a faded blue pattern of roses and butterflies trembling on the grayish pink.

“Listen to me, George Perkins,” she said slowly. “I don't know what's happened to you. I don't know. I don't care. But I know this: either she goes out of this house this minute, or else I go.”

“But, dovey, let me explain.”

“I don't need no explanations. I'll pack my things, and I'll take the children, too. And I'll pray to God never to see you again.”

Her voice was slow and calm. He knew she meant it, this time.

She waited. He did not answer.

“Tell her to get out,” she hissed through her teeth.

“Rosie,” he muttered, choking, “I can't.”

“George,” she whispered, “it's been fifteen years . . .”

“I know,” he said, without looking at her.

“We've struggled together pretty hard, haven't we? Together, you and me.”

“Rosie, it's just one night . . . if you know . . .”

“I don't want to know. I don't want to know why my husband should bring such a thing upon me. A fancy woman or a murderess, or both maybe. I've been a faithful wife to you, George. I've given you the best years of my life. I've borne your children.”

“Yes, Rosie . . .”

He looked at her drawn face, at the wrinkles around her thin mouth, at the hand that still held the faded robe in a foolish knob on her stomach.

“It's not for me, George. Think of what'll happen to you. Shielding a murderess. Think of the children.”

“Yes, Rosie . . .”

“And your job, too. And you just got that promotion. We were going to get new drapes for the living room. The green ones. You always wanted them.”

“Yes, Rosie.”

“They won't keep you down at the company, when they hear of this.”

“No, Rosie.”

He looked desperately for a word, for a glance from the woman in black. He wanted her to decide. But she did not move, as if the scene did not concern her at all.

“Think of the children, George.”

He did not answer.

“We've been pretty happy together, haven't we, George? . . . Fifteen years . . .”

He thought of the dark night beyond the window, and beyond that night an endless world, unknown and menacing. He liked his room. Rosie had worked a year and a half, making the quilt for him. The woman had blond hair, a cold, golden blond, that one would never dare to touch. Rosie had knitted that tie, over on the dresser, in blue and green stripes, for his birthday. The woman had thin white hands that did not look human. In another year, Junior would be ready for high school; and he had always thought of that college where Junior would wear a black robe and a funny square cap. The woman had a smile that hurt him. Rosie cooked the best corn fritters, just as he liked them. The assistant treasurer had always envied him, had always wanted to be assistant manager, and now he had beat him to it. That golf club had the best links in town, and only the best of members, solid, respectable members; not with their fingerprints in the police files and pictures in all the papers as accessories after the fact of murder. The woman had spoken of a dark, lonely street where he would want to scream . . .
scream . . . scream. . . . Rosie had been a good wife to him, hard-working, and patient, and faithful. He had twenty years to live yet, maybe thirty, no more. After all, life was over.

He turned to the woman in black.

“I'm sorry, Miss Gonda,” he said, and his voice was efficient, like the voice of an assistant manager addressing a secretary, “but under the circumstances—”

“I understand,” said Kay Gonda.

She walked to the dresser and put her hat on, pulling it down over one eye. She put on her gloves and picked up her bag from the bed.

They walked silently down the stairs, the three of them, and George S. Perkins opened the door. Kay Gonda turned to Mrs. Perkins.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I had the wrong address.”

They stood and watched her walking away down the street, a slender black figure with golden hair that flashed once in the light of a lamppost.

Then George S. Perkins put his arm around his wife's waist.

“Is Mother asleep?” he asked.

“I don't know. Why?”

“I thought I'd go in and talk to her. Make up, sort of. She knows all about buying Frigidaires.”

“Dear Miss Gonda,

I think you are the greatest moving pichur star ever lived. I think yur moving pichurs is swell. I want to thank you from the bottom of my hart for the joy you giv us in our old age. There is plenty of other pichur stars onlie it aint the same thing. There aint none like you and never was. My wife and me just wait for evry pictur of yurs and we set thru all the shows and come back the nex day. It aint like if we just liked you. It is like goin to church goin to your picturs that's wat its like, onlie beter. I aint never understan it myself on akount of you act bad womin and such but what you mak me think of is a statoo of the Saint Mother of God what I see once onlie I dont no how that is. Yur what we'd like a doter of ours to hav bin onlie never
had. We hav three children my wife and me, too girls of them onlie it aint the same. We are onlie old folks, Miss Gonda, an yur all we got. We want to thank you onlie I don't no how to say it on akount of I never rote no letter to a swell lady like you. And if ever we cood do sumthin to show how grateful we are to you we'd just die happie on akount of we aint got much longer to go.

Resspecfully yurs,

Jeremiah Sliney

Ventura Boulevard

Los Angeles, California”

O
n the evening of May 5th, Jeremiah Sliney celebrated his golden wedding anniversary.

The table was set in the middle of the living room. Mrs. Sliney had taken out the best set of silverware, and polished it all morning, and laid it out carefully under the light of a hanging brass oil lamp.

“Are we gonna have turkey?” she had asked that morning.

“Sure,” Jeremiah Sliney had answered.

“It's the last one left, Pa. I was just thinkin' maybe if we took it to town we could get maybe—”

“Aw, Ma, there's only one golden anniversary in the whole of yer life.”

She had sighed and shuffled into the backyard to catch the turkey.

The table was set for nine. The children had gathered to celebrate. After the lemon chiffon pie was served, Jeremiah Sliney winked naughtily and opened a gallon jug of his best hard cider.

“Well,” he said, chuckling, “fur the occasion.”

“You know very well,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, the oldest daughter, “that I never touch the stuff.”

“I'll take Maudie's,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink, the youngest.

“Now, now,” said Chuck Fink, beaming, “everybody's gotta drink for the happy event. Can't hurt nobody! A little glass a day keeps the doctor away.”

“I'm sure I won't let Melissa have any,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “I don't know how some people do, but I bring my daughter up as a lady should be brung up.”

Jeremiah Sliney filled eight glasses. Melissa Hennessey, the only grandchild old enough to be present, threw a dark glance at her mother, but said nothing. Melissa Hennessey spoke seldom. She was twenty, although her mother insisted that she was eighteen. She had faded brown hair in tight ringlets of an unsuccessful permanent wave around a face dotted with perpetual pimples. She wore a long green dress of dotted swiss with stylish ruffles, high and stiff on her shoulders, flat brown oxfords with fringed tongues, and a brand-new wristwatch on a leather band.

“Veter santee, as they say in society,” said Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant Sliney haughtily, raising her glass.

“Aw, can the fancy stuff, Angelina,” said Ulysses S. Grant Sliney gloomily. He had a long nose and a collar too wide for his thin neck, and he always looked gloomy.

Angelina Sliney shrugged. Her big celluloid earrings tinkled against her neck and the five celluloid bracelets tinkled against the knob of her wrist bone.

“A toast!” roared Chuck Fink. “Gotta have a toast.”

“Aw, now,” said Jeremiah Sliney, standing helplessly, hunched, embarrassed, spreading wide his two hands with a short stump in the place of his left forefinger. “Well, now, I never in my life . . . I wouldn't know how to . . . I . . .”

“I'll make it for you,” said Chuck Fink, bouncing up. He was not
very tall when he stood up; his vest was stretched over a round stomach; his smile was stretched over a round face with a short nose with wide nostrils.

“To the best little parents that ever breathed God's sunshine,” said Chuck Fink, beaming. “Many happy returns to one happy family. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like the good old farm.”

Mrs. Eustace Hennessey nudged her husband. Eustace Hennessey had gone to sleep, his long face nodding over his pie plate. He jerked, one hand fumbling for his glass, the other one for his mustache, twisting it mechanically up into a sharp, thin needle of a glossy, waxed black.

Then they all drank but Melissa.

Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney sat silently in the shadows at the head of the table, her little hands folded in her lap, her white lips smiling in a gentle, wordless blessing. She had the serene face of a wrinkled cherub and glossy white hair, well brushed, combed tightly to a yellow knob on the back of her head. She wore her best dress of patched purple taffeta and a little shawl of yellow lace held by her best pin of tarnished gold.

“Well,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, “the good old farm and all that is all very well, but I do think you oughta do something about that road, Pa. Honest, it's enough to shake a body's guts out to drive up here.”

“Well,” said Angelina Sliney, “you can stand a bit once in a while. God knows, you don't do it often.”

“When I need telling to,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, “I'll choose the people to do the telling.”

“Aw, now, Maudie,” said Eustace Hennessey, yawning, “the road ain't so bad. You oughta see some of the roads a fellow's gotta travel in this here country.”

Eustace Hennessey was a traveling salesman for a cosmetic concern.

“Some people,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink, “sure do have to travel. And then again, some don't.”

Chuck Fink owned his business, an all-night restaurant on South Main Street, Chuck's Place, with eight stools by the counter and an electric coffee boiler.

“Now, now, Flobelle,” said Jeremiah Sliney, sensing danger, “we all do the best we can, as God permits.”

When the table was cleared, and they all sat silently in a circle on stiff, worn chairs and stared at the windows where tall gray weeds rustled softly against the sills; when Jeremiah Sliney lit his pipe, and Eustace Hennessey lit his cigar, and Angelina Sliney lit a cigarette under the smoldering glances of her sisters-in-law, and Melissa disappeared mysteriously into the kitchen, Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney sighed sweetly and said timidly, her little hands opening and closing nervously:

“Now, about that mortgage . . . it's due day after tomorrow.”

There was a dead silence.

“Funny how many people drive around these days,” said Chuck Fink, looking at the distant headlights in the hills, “and at this time of the night. And in the hills, too.”

“If we don't pay, they'll take the house. The mortgage people, I mean,” said Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney.

“Hard times, these are,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “We all have our troubles.”

“If . . . It would be a shame to lose the old house like that,” said Jeremiah Sliney and chuckled. His pale blue eyes blinked under a moist, whitish film. His gentle old face smiled hesitantly.

“We all have our cross to bear,” sighed Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “Times ain't what they used to be. Now, take us, for instance. There's Melissa's future to think about. A girl's gotta have a little something to offer to get herself a husband, these days. Men ain't so easily satisfied. It ain't like some folks what have their own business.”

“Junior had the whooping cough,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink hurriedly,
“and the doctor's bills is something fierce. We'll never get outta debt. It ain't like some people that never knowed the blessing of parenthood.”

She looked resentfully at Angelina Sliney. Angelina shrugged, her earrings tinkling.

“It's a good thing some people don't have no litter every nine months,” said Ulysses S. Grant Sliney, gloomily. “A man's got a future to think about. How'm I ever gonna buy that meat counter of my own? Think I'm gonna sling hamburger for some other guy the rest of my life?”

“It's fifty years we've lived in this house,” said Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney and sighed gently. “Oh my! What would ever become of us now?”

“With eggs the way they are,” sighed Jeremiah Sliney, “and our last cow what we had to sell . . . we just don't have the money for the mortgage people at all.” He chuckled. He always chuckled when he spoke, a hesitant little chuckle that sounded like a moan.

“Oh my!” sighed Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney. “It would be the . . . poorhouse for us.”

“These are hard times,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey.

There was a silence.

“Well,” said Chuck Fink noisily, bouncing up, “here it is going on eleven and it's pretty near to twenty miles driving back home. Gotta be going, Flobelle. Time to hit the hay. Gotta get up early. It's the early bird that catches the good old nickels.”

“Us, too,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, rising. “Melissa! Where's that girl gone to? Melissa!”

Melissa emerged from the kitchen, her face flushed red under the pimples.

There were many kisses and handshakes at the door.

“Now you run on to bed, Ma,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink. “And don't you stay up late worrying.”

“Well, so long, folks,” said Chuck Fink, climbing into his car. “Cheer up and keep smiling. The darkest hour is just before the silver lining.”

Mrs. Eustace Hennessey wondered why Melissa staggered uncertainly, getting into the car, as if she had trouble finding the door.

Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney stood in the road and watched the three little red lights bumping away, low over the ground, in a soft cloud of dust.

Then they went back into the house, and Jeremiah Sliney locked the door.

“Oh my!” sighed Mrs. Sliney. “It's the poorhouse for us, Pa.”

They had blown out the lights and pulled the blinds over the windows, and Mrs. Sliney in her limp flannel nightgown was ready to climb into bed, when she stopped suddenly, stretching her head forward, listening.

“Pa,” she whispered, alarmed.

Jeremiah Sliney pulled the blanket from over his head.

“What is it?”

“Pa, d'you hear?”

“No. Hear what?”

“Sounds . . . sounds like someone was coming here.”

“Nonsense, Ma. Some rabbit, most like . . .”

A hand knocked at the door.

“Lord in heaven!” whispered Mrs. Sliney.

Jeremiah Sliney fumbled for his slippers, threw an old coat over his shoulders, and shuffled resolutely to the door.

“Who's there?” he asked.

“Open the door, please,” a low feminine voice whispered.

Jeremiah Sliney opened the door.

“What can I do for . . . Oh, Lord!” he finished, gasping, when he saw a pale face under a black hat, a face he recognized at once.

“I am Kay Gonda, Mr. Sliney,” said the woman in black.

“Well, as I live and breathe!” said Jeremiah Sliney.

“Can you let me in?”

“Can I let you in? Can I let you in? Well, I'll be a— Come right in, ma'am, right, right in. . . . Ma! Oh, Ma! Come here! Oh Lord!”

He threw the door wide-open. She entered and closed it cautiously. Mrs. Sliney trudged in and froze on the threshold, her hands fluttering, her mouth wide-open.

“Ma!” gasped Jeremiah Sliney. “Ma, can you believe it? This here is Kay Gonda, the pichur star, herself!”

Mrs. Sliney nodded, her eyes wide, unable to utter a sound.

“I'm running away,” said Kay Gonda. “Hiding. From the police. I have no place to go.”

“Oh Lord! Oh Lord Almighty!”

“You heard about me, haven't you?”

“Have I heard? Why, who hasn't heard? Why, them papers said . . .”

“It was . . . murder!” whispered Mrs. Sliney, choking.

“May I stay here for the night?”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“Ye mean—right here?”

“Yes.”

“Good God! Why . . . why, certainly, ma'am. Why, of course! Why, it's an honor ye're doing us and . . . and . . .”

“It's an honor, ma'am,” said Mrs. Sliney, curtseying.

“Thank you,” said Kay Gonda.

“Only,” muttered Jeremiah Sliney, “only how did ye ever . . . I mean, how could ye . . . I mean, why would ye, of all places?”

“I had your letter. And no one would ever find me here.”

“My . . . letter?”

“Yes. The letter you wrote me.”

“Oh Lord, that? You got it?”

“Yes.”

“And ye read it?”

“Yes.”

“And ye . . . ye came here? To hide?”

“Yes.”

“Well, will miracles ever cease! Why, make yerself to home, ma'am. Take your hat off. Sit down. Don't ye worry. No one will find ye here all right. And if any cops come nosing about, why, I have a shotgun, that's what I have! Make yerself to—”

“Wait a minute, Pa,” said Mrs. Sliney, “that's not the way. Miss Gonda is tired, she is. She needs a room, a place to sleep, at this hour of the night.”

“Ye come this way, ma'am . . . this way . . . the spare room. We have a nice spare room. No one'll bother ye.”

Jeremiah Sliney opened a door, bowing. They let their guest enter and shuffled in hurriedly, breathlessly, after her. The room smelt of dried hay and pickles. Mrs. Sliney brushed quickly a cobweb off the windowsill.

“Here's a bed for ye,” said Mrs. Sliney, hurriedly beating the pillow, pulling down a patched cotton blanket. “A nice soft bed for ye, ma'am. Just make yerself comfortable and sleep like a kitten.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am, Miss Gonda. The place ain't so swell for a great lady like ye, but it's yours, same as this whole house. . . . My, I bet ye've seen some swell places out where the movie folk live!”