Nine Stories (3 page)

"I
see you're looking at my feet," he said to her when the car was
in motion.

"I
beg your pardon?" said the woman.

"I
said I see you're looking at my feet."

"I
beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said
the woman, and faced the doors of the car.

"If
you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But
don't be a God-damned sneak about it."

"Let
me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl
operating the car.

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

"I
have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason
why anybody should stare at them," said the young man. "Five,
please." 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, "Merritt Parkway, baby," and reminded
Mary Jane that she had found the house twice before, but Mary Jane
just wailed something ambiguous, something about her box of Kleenex,
and rushed back to her convertible. 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, "Just
exactly what is a hernia, anyway?" 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, "Oh," and the two girls entered the house.

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.

"No,"
Eloise was saying. "It was actually red." She was stretched
out on the couch, her thin but very pretty legs crossed at the
ankles.

"I
heard it was blond," Mary Jane repeated. She was seated in the
blue straight chair. "Wuddayacallit swore up and down it was
blond."

"Uh-uh.
Definitely." Eloise yawned. "I was almost in the room with
her when she dyed it. What's the matter? Aren't there any cigarettes
in there?"

"It's
all right. I have a whole pack," Mary Jane said. "Somewhere."
She searched through her handbag.

"That
dopey maid," Eloise said without moving from the couch. "I
dropped two brand-new cartons in front of her nose about an hour ago.
She'll be in, any minute, to ask me what to do with them. Where the
hell was I?"

"Thieringer,"
Mary Jane prompted, lighting one of her own cigarettes.

"Oh,
yeah. I remember exactly. She dyed it the night before she married
that Frank Henke. You remember him at all?"

"Just
sort of. Little ole private? Terribly unattractive?"

"Unattractive.
God! He looked like an unwashed Bela Lugosi."

Mary
Jane threw back her head and roared. "Marvellous," she
said, coming back into drinking position.

"Gimme
your glass," Eloise said, swinging her stockinged feet to the
floor and standing up. "Honestly, that dope. I did everything
but get Lew to make love to her to get her to come out here with us.
Now I'm sorry I--Where'd you get that thing?"

"This?"
said Mary Jane, touching a cameo brooch at her throat. "I had it
at school, for goodness sake. It was Mother's."

"God,"
Eloise said, with the empty glasses in her hands. "I don't have
one damn thing holy to wear. If Lew's mother ever dies--ha,
ha--she'll probably leave me some old monogrammed icepick or
something."

"How're
you getting along with her these days, anyway?"

"Don't
be funny," Eloise said on her way to the kitchen.

"This
is positively the last one for me!" Mary Jane called after her.

"Like
hell it is. Who called who? And who came two hours late? You're gonna
stick around till I'm sick of you. The hell with your lousy career."

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.

"It's
getting so icy out," she said, turning. "God, that was
quick. Didn't you put any soda in them?"

Eloise,
with a fresh drink in each hand, stopped short. She extended both
index fingers, gun-muzzle style, and said, "Don't nobody move. I
got the whole damn place surrounded."

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. "Wuddaya think she's doing out there?" she said.
"She's sitting on her big, black butt reading `The Robe.' I
dropped the ice trays taking them out. She actually looked up
annoyed."

"This
is my last. And I mean it," Mary Jane said, picking up her
drink. "Oh, listen! You know who I saw last week? On the main
floor of Lord & Taylor's?"

"Mm-hm,"
said Eloise, adjusting a pillow under her head. "Akim Tamiroff."

"Who?"
said Mary Jane. "Who's he?"

"Akim
Tamiroff. He's in the movies. He always says, `You make beeg
joke--hah?' I love him. . . . There isn't one damn pillow in this
house that I can stand. Who'd you see?"

"Jackson.
She was--"

"Which
one?"

"I
don't know. The one that was in our Psych class, that always--"

"Both
of them were in our Psych class."

"Well.
The one with the terrific--"

"Marcia
Louise. I ran into her once, too. She talk your ear off?"

"God,
yes. But you know what she told me, though? Dr. Whiting's dead. She
said she had a letter from Barbara Hill saying Whiting got cancer
last summer and died and all. She only weighed sixty-two pounds. When
she died. Isn't that terrible?"

"No."

"Eloise,
you're getting hard as nails."

"Mm.
What else'd she say?"

"Oh,
she just got back from Europe. Her husband was stationed in Germany
or something, and she was with him. They had a forty-seven-room
house, she said, just with one other couple, and about ten servants.
Her own horse, and the groom they had, used to be Hitler's own
private riding master or something. Oh, and she started to tell me
how she almost got raped by a colored soldier. Right on the main
floor of Lord & Taylor's she started to tell me--you know
Jackson. She said he was her husband's chauffeur, and he was driving
her to market or something one morning. She said she was so scared
she didn't even--"

"Wait
just a second." Eloise raised her head and her voice. "Is
that you, Ramona?"

"Yes,"
a small child's voice answered.

"Close
the front door after you, please," Eloise called.

"Is
that Ramona? Oh, I'm dying to see her. Do you realize I haven't seen
her since she had her--"

"Ramona,"
Eloise shouted, with her eyes shut, "go out in the kitchen and
let Grace take your galoshes off."

"All
right," said Ramona. "C'mon, Jimmy."

"Oh,
I'm dying to see her," Mary Jane said. "Oh, God! Look what
I did. I'm terribly sorry, El."

"Leave
it. Leave it," said Eloise. "I hate this damn rug anyway.
I'll get you another."

"No,
look, I have more than half left!" Mary Jane held up her glass.

"Sure?"
said Eloise. "Gimme a cigarette."

Mary
Jane extended her pack of cigarettes, saying "Oh, I'm dying to
see her. Who does she look like now?"

Eloise
struck a light. "Akim Tamiroff."

"No,
seriously."

"Lew.
She looks like Lew. When his mother comes over, the three of them
look like triplets." 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.
"What I need is a cocker spaniel or something," she said.
"Somebody that looks like me."

"How're
her eyes now?" Mary Jane asked. "I mean they're not any
worse or anything, are they?"

"God!
Not that I know of."

"Can
she see at all without her glasses? I mean if she gets up in the
night to go to the john or something.

"She
won't tell anybody. She's lousy with secrets."

Mary
Jane turned around in her chair. "Well, hello, Ramona!" she
said. "Oh, what a pretty dress!" She set down her drink.
"I'll bet you don't even remember me, Ramona."

"Certainly
she does. Who's the lady, Ramona?"

"Mary
Jane," said Ramona, and scratched herself.

"Marvellous!"
said Mary Jane. "Ramona, will you give me a little kiss?"

"Stop
that," Eloise said to Ramona.

Ramona
stopped scratching herself.

"Will
you give me a little kiss, Ramona?" Mary Jane asked again.

"I
don't like to kiss people."

Eloise
snorted, and asked, "Where's Jimmy?"

"He's
here."

"Who's
Jimmy?" Mary Jane asked Eloise.

"Oh,
God! Her beau. Goes where she goes. Does what she does. All very
hoopla."

"Really?"
said Mary Jane enthusiastically. She leaned forward. "Do you
have a beau, Ramona?"

Ramona's
eyes, behind thick, counter-myopia lenses, did not reflect even the
smallest part of Mary Jane's enthusiasm.

"Mary
Jane asked you a question, Ramona," Eloise said.

Ramona
inserted a finger into her small, broad nose.

"Stop
that," Eloise said. "Mary Jane asked you if you have a
beau."

"Yes,"
said Ramona, busy with her nose.

"Ramona,"
Eloise said. "Cut that out. But immediately."

Ramona
put her hand down.

"Well,
I think that's just wonderful," Mary Jane said. "What's his
name? Will you tell me his name, Ramona? Or is it a big secret?"

"Jimmy,"
Ramona said.

"Jimmy?
Oh, I love the name Jimmy! Jimmy what, Ramona?"

"Jimmy
Jimmereeno," said Ramona.

"Stand
still," said Eloise.

"Well!
That's quite a name. Where is Jimmy? Will you tell me, Ramona?"

"Here,"
said Ramona.

Mary
Jane looked around, then looked back at Ramona, smiling as
provocatively as possible. "Here where, honey?"

"Here,"
said Ramona. "I'm holding his hand."

"I
don't get it," Mary Jane said to Eloise, who was finishing her
drink.