Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (13 page)

T
HE
H
ONEYMOON OF
M
RS
. S
MITH

(Version I)

W
HEN SHE CAME INTO
the grocery she was sure that she had interrupted a conversation about herself and her husband. The grocer, leaning across the counter to speak confidentially to a customer, straightened up abruptly and signaled with his eyes, and suddenly everyone in the store, clerks and customers, found reason to interest themselves stubbornly in food displays or grocery lists, or shopping bags. Wherever she looked it seemed that she had all but caught a swift, eager glance that dropped as she turned, and then the grocer said loudly and clearly, “Afternoon, Mrs. Smith,” and a slow sigh, almost imperceptible, swept through the store.

“Good afternoon,” Mrs. Smith said.

“What’ll it be for you today?” he asked, moving his hands nervously on the counter. “Big weekend order?” They were phrases he used with nearly all his customers, even shoppers so new as little Mrs. Smith, but when he spoke to Mrs. Smith his voice came out with an unusual heartiness, and he coughed, embarrassed.

“I don’t need very much,” Mrs. Smith said. “My husband thought we might be going away for the weekend.” Again that long sigh went through the store; she had a clear sense of people moving closer, listening to every word she spoke. “A loaf of bread,” she said. “A half pint of cream. A little can of peas.” She looked down steadily at the list she had made a few minutes ago in her apartment; at first, a few days ago, she had wandered around the store as the other women did, but now that she knew their moving away from her and their side glances were deliberate and directed at her, she stood directly before the counter and read her order to the grocer. How silly they all are, she thought, and said, “And a quarter pound of butter, and three lamb chops.” One, she wanted to say to their faces, one lamb chop for me, and two for my husband. For my husband, she wanted to tell them, turning to look at them one by one, because even an old maid of thirty-eight can
sometimes
find herself a man to protect her and be fond of her; it’s just as well, she remembered ruefully, that they don’t know how we met.

“Coffee?” said the grocer. “Tea?”

“A pound of coffee,” she said, smiling at him. “I love coffee. I could drink coffee all day long, if I let myself.”

“A
whole
pound?” the grocer said, startled.

“Yes.” She took tight hold of the edge of the counter so that she would not stumble over the words. “My husband,” she said, “is not fond of coffee. But I love it.”

Again, although she was ready for it, she heard that distant sigh, and again the waiting silence. What do they want me to
do
, she wondered—pretend I’m a widow? The butcher, who had heard her order, came silently across the store and put down the wrapped package of lamb chops, gave her one quick look over his shoulder, and hurried back to the meat counter on the other side of the store. “Thank you,” Mrs. Smith said, and the grocer began a fierce rattling of paper bags to open one for her order. One good thing about being so conspicuous, Mrs. Smith was thinking, I never have to
wait
anywhere; all these women were here ahead of me, and yet I have my groceries and—

The grocer leaned toward her suddenly. “Mrs. Smith,” he said, “I guess it’s not my place to speak, but around here people try to be neighborly and sooner or later someone’s got to let you know—” He stopped, helpless, and the silence was immense. “Won’t anybody tell her?” the grocer demanded, and no one moved or spoke.

Mrs. Smith laughed shyly. “You don’t need to tell me anything,” she said. “I know I’m kind of new at things like keeping house and I suppose I’ll make all kinds of foolish mistakes”—she hesitated, hearing again that expectant sigh—“but you’ve all been so kind,” she said, “and I’m grateful to you for wanting to help me.”

“Oh, my goodness,” said the grocer. He gestured widely around the store; “Won’t
anyone”
he said, and still there was no sound.

“Well,” Mrs. Smith said uncertainly. “Thank you very much.” She gave a little smile toward the other women, and took up her bag of groceries. “I expect we’ll be back on Monday,” she told the grocer. “Have a nice weekend.”

The grocer stared at her with his mouth open, and Mrs. Smith turned to the door. As she closed it behind her she heard the grocer saying wildly, “You all just
stand
there—” Funny people, Mrs. Smith thought; city neighborhoods are really just like small towns, always edgy about new people. And I’m a new person, she thought happily; after thirty-eight years I’ve turned into a new person. Mrs. Charles Smith, she thought; I suppose I embarrass them because I’m a little foolish about it.

It was not really new to her, this attitude of odd surprise she encountered everywhere; as a matter of fact, the first person to show it had been herself, Helen Bertram, when Charles Smith, looking nervously down at the rice cookie by his teacup, had said, almost stammering, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought about… getting married, have you?” Surprise, Mrs. Smith reflected now, had very likely been the outstanding emotion showing on her face, surprise and then, quickly, incredulous happiness; it’s lucky he never looked at me that minute, Mrs. Smith thought now, and almost laughed. Mrs. Charles Smith. She realized then that she had stopped in front of a dress shop and to anyone passing might seem to be regarding wistfully a display of black lace nightgowns; good heavens, she thought, backing away and blushing; I hope no one saw me
then;
imagine such things at
my
age.

“I hope you won’t think me forward,” he had said to her on that golden morning now two weeks and three days past, “I hope you won’t think me forward if I open a conversation with you?”

She had thought him unbelievably forward, had been astonished, had for a moment almost drawn her black shawl around her and moved coldly away, and then at last, changing her life, she had smiled back and said, “No, of course not.”

“It is such a lovely day,” he said.

“Lovely,” she said.

“And the sea air is refreshing.”

“Most refreshing.”

And that night at dinner, in a restaurant on the pier, he had told her, soberly, about his wife who had died, about the little house now closed up and abandoned after fifteen years of married life, about the kindly employers who had sent him on a month’s leave of absence to indulge his grief. “But a man gets very lonely, I find,” he told her, and she nodded, sorrowful, and yet envious of the wife who had had at least those fifteen years. She told him, then, about her father and her long, lonely years keeping house, never getting any younger, and the insurance money that would be just enough, if she took care, to provide for her modestly; “At least,” she said bravely, “I won’t have to go out and try to find a…
job
, or anything like that.”

“You must be very lonely, too,” he said, and gave her hand a quick, shy pat.

Even the napkins in the restaurant on the pier smelled of fish, and the table had a faint salty grain. “That’s really why I spoke to you, I guess,” he said. “I knew I was being forward, but I guess I just thought that maybe you were all alone, too.”

“I’m very glad,” she said timidly. “That you spoke to me, that is.”

“My wife,” he said, “my
former
wife—Janet, that is—
she
would have been very angry. I guess I was afraid you would be angry, too.
She
would have gotten up and walked away.”

Remembering how nearly she had come to getting up and walking away, Helen Bertram, so soon to be Mrs. Charles Smith, gave a little laugh and said, “I would call that silly. People who are all alone have every right to be friends with one another.”

And then, three days later, they had taken tea together at a Chinese tea shop, and, looking uncomfortably down at his rice cookie, he had asked her if she ever thought about getting married. Now, turning in through the doorway of the apartment house where they were to live until the house was ready, little Mrs. Smith wondered, as she had so many times in the past few days, how it could happen that the lives of two people might be wholly changed by a chance, by the combination of a lovely day and the sea air, by a sudden sympathetic word, and the awareness of an unexpected comfort to be found in a shared melancholy—although, Mrs. Smith told herself conscientiously, she had not really been so
terribly
sad these past few days. She remembered with some tenderness the first wife, the lost Janet, and again, as she had before during these past few days, she made a small promise to Janet that Mr. Smith should not be less happy in his second wife than he had been in his first.

Mr. Smith had their little apartment on the third floor, and it was a long climb for Mrs. Smith, who was not getting any younger, and particularly with a bag of groceries. She stopped to rest on the second floor landing, and then remembered too late that Mrs. Armstrong lived on the second floor and that Mrs. Armstrong had already shown almost excessive interest in being neighborly; coming down, on her way to the store, Mrs. Smith had hurried past Mrs. Armstrong’s door and heard it open behind her, and now it opened again and she was fairly caught.

“Mrs. Smith, is that you?”

“Good afternoon,” Mrs. Smith called over her shoulder, moving with some haste toward the stairs.

“Wait a minute, I’m coming.” The lock on Mrs. Armstrong’s door snapped, and the door closed behind her. Mrs. Armstrong came hastily, a little out of breath, along the hallway and to the stairs where Mrs. Smith waited. “Thought I’d miss you,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “I was waiting for you to come back. Where you been—shopping?”

Since Mrs. Smith was carrying her bag of groceries she had only to nod, and attempt to back on up the stairs, but Mrs. Armstrong followed her resolutely. “Well, I thought you’d never get back,” Mrs. Armstrong said, panting. “I said to Ed that I wasn’t going to let another day go by, not
one more day
, without having it out with you.
You
know,
you’d
do as much for
me
. Being your nearest neighbor and all.”

She followed Mrs. Smith onto the third floor landing and waited, holding her side and breathing heavily while Mrs. Smith unlocked the door of the little apartment where she and Mr. Smith were living until Mr. Smith’s little house was ready for them; Mrs. Armstrong was the first outsider to penetrate the little apartment, and Mrs. Smith realized nervously that she was not, after all, very well equipped to receive guests; they had unpacked so little, and lived so sketchily from day to day, waiting for the house, that the apartment seemed bare, and without warmth. “We’re not really moved in yet,” Mrs. Smith said apologetically, gesturing at the inadequate furnishings. “Actually, we’re staying here only until—”

“Of course, you poor poor dear. I guess he told you to stay away from your neighbors?”

“No,” said Mrs. Smith, surprised. “I’ve always been very slow about making friends, and so I suppose I—”

“You poor
poor
dear. But it’s going to be all right now. I’m almighty glad I made up my mind to talk to you.”

Mrs. Smith put her bag of groceries down on the kitchen table and came back into the living room to hang her coat in the hall closet, next to the unfamiliar raincoat that belonged to Mr. Smith, and it amused her, in spite of Mrs. Armstrong, to think of sharing her closet with someone else; later, when her clothes were fully unpacked in Mr. Smith’s house, she would have a closet of her own, the cedar-lined closet, Mr. Smith had explained, that had once held the clothes of the first Mrs. Smith.