Nothing That Meets the Eye (8 page)

Mr. Fay came to the platform while the visitors stood by the door.

“Mrs. Heathwaite, Mrs. Donnelly, and Mr. Sheppard ask me to express their commendations to the class, Miss Juste,” said Mr. Fay.

The little girls on the first row across listened with open eyes and mouths.

“And to Miss Pendergast's playing.” Miss Pendergast smiled and nodded several times. “They are sorry they must leave so soon, but they want to see the rest of the school, and they have a luncheon at twelve-thirty.”

“Why . . . why, yes. . . . That's quite all right, Mr. Fay,” Miss Juste said. “And would you please tell them it was a real pleasure to have them!”

Mr. Fay and the visitors left the gymnasium.

Miss Juste stood on the platform, looking at the back of the gym. The class saw her take a deep breath. The class took a deep breath, too. Her smile had disappeared with the visitors, but her mouth had not taken on its usual firmness, nor her eyes their flintlike expression. In fact, Miss Juste's mouth was open and she looked a little blank, as though she were thinking of something else. A frown came between her brows. She tapped the whistle idly in her palm.

Slowly she turned toward the piano.

“All right, Miss Pendergast,” she said.

The gay chords jangled through the gymnasium as the little girls skipped in their circles. Across the room, near where the visitors had sat, Grace O'Rourk's partner for the dance was curtsying and locking arms with an imaginary figure.

WHERE THE DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN AND THE WELCOME MAT IS OUT

R
iding home on the Third Avenue bus, sitting anxiously on the very edge of the seat she had captured, Mildred made rapid calculations for the hundredth time that day.

Her sister Edith was arriving from Cleveland at 6:10 at Penn Station. It was already 5:22, later than she had anticipated, because some letters Mr. Sweeney wanted sent out at the last minute had delayed her at the office. She would have only about twenty-two minutes at home to straighten anything that might have gotten unstraightened since last night's cleaning, lay the table and organize their delicatessen supper, and fix her face a bit before she left for Penn Station. It was lucky she'd done the marketing in her lunch hour. All the last half of the afternoon, though, she had watched the dark spot on the grocery bag grow bigger—the dill pickles leaking—and she'd been too busy at the office to drag all the things out and rearrange them. Now, with her firm, square hand over the wet place, she felt better.

The bus swayed to a stop, and she twisted and ducked her head to see a street marker. Only Thirty-sixth Street.

Dill pickles, pumpernickel bread, rollmops (maybe it was the rollmops leaking, not the pickles), liverwurst, salami, celery and garlic for the potato salad, coffee ring for dessert, and oranges for breakfast tomorrow. She'd found some gladiolas in her lunch hour, too, and their blossoms still looked as fresh as when she'd bought them. It seemed like everything, but she knew better than to think there wouldn't be something at the last minute she'd forgotten.

Edith's telegram last evening had taken her completely by surprise, but Mildred had just pitched in and cleaned everything, spent all last evening and early this morning at it, washing windows, cleaning out closets, as well as the usual dusting and sweeping and scouring. Her sister Edith was such a neat housekeeper herself, Mildred knew she would have to have things in apple pie order, if her sister was to take a good report back to their Cleveland relations. Well, at least none of the folks in Cleveland could say she'd lost her hospitality because she'd become a New Yorker. “The welcome mat is always out,” Mildred had written many a time to friends and members of the family who showed any signs of coming to New York. Her guests were treated to a home-cooked meal—though she did depend on the delicatessen quite a bit, she supposed—and to every comfort she could offer for as long as they cared to stay. Edith probably wouldn't stay more than two or three days, though. She was just passing through on her way to Ithaca to visit her son Arthur and his wife.

She got off at Twenty-sixth Street. Five twenty-seven, said a clock in a hardware store window. She certainly would have to rush. Well, wasn't she always rushing? A lot Edith, with nothing but a household to manage, knew of a life as busy as hers!

Mildred's apartment house was a six-story red brick building on Third Avenue over a delicatessen. The delicatessen's crowded window prompted her to go over everything again. The coleslaw! And milk, of course. How could she have forgotten?

There were two women ahead of her, their shopping bags full of empty bottles, and they chatted with Mr. Weintraub and had their items charged in the notebook he kept hanging by the cash register. Mildred shifted and trembled inwardly with impatience and frustration, regretted that neighborliness had such a price these days, but her tense smile was a pleasant one.

“Coleslaw and milk,” repeated Mr. Weintraub. “Anything else?”

“No, that's all, thank you,” Mildred said quickly, not wanting to delay the woman who had come in after her.

Some children playing tag on the sidewalk deliberately dragged an ash can into her path, but Mildred ignored them and fumbled for her keys. Necessity had taught her the trick of pushing the key with a thumb as she turned the knob with the same hand, a method she used even on those rare occasions when both arms were not full. She saw mail in her box, but she could get it later. No, it might be something from Edith. It was a beauty parlor advertisement and a postcard about a new dry-cleaning process for rugs.

“Plumber's upstairs, Miss Stratton,” said the superintendent, who was on his way down.

“Oh? What's happened?”

“Nothing much. Woman above had her bowl run over, and the plumber thinks the trouble might be in your place.”

“But I haven't—” It was quicker to suffer accusation, however, so she plodded up the stairs.

The door of her apartment was ajar. She went into a narrow room whose two close-set windows looked out on the avenue. Crossing her room, she felt a lift of pride at the unaccustomed orderliness of everything. On the coffee table lay the single careless touch: a program of the performance of Hansel and Gretel she had attended last Christmas in Brooklyn. She'd found it in cleaning the bookcase, and had put it out for Edith to see.

But the sight of the bathroom made her gasp. There were black smudges on everything, even on the frame of the mirror over the basin. What didn't plumbers and superintendents manage to touch, and weren't their hands always black!

“All fixed, ma'am. Here's what the trouble was.” The plumber held up something barely recognizable as a toothbrush, and smiled. “Remember it?”

“No, I don't,” she said, letting her parcels slide onto a kitchen chair. It wasn't her toothbrush, she was sure of that, but the less talk about it, the sooner he would leave.

While she waited to get at the bathroom, she spread her best tablecloth on the gateleg table in the kitchen, pulled the window shade down so the people in the kitchen three feet away across the air chute couldn't see in, then dashed the morning coffee grounds into the garbage pail and stuck the dirty coffeepot into the sink. Keeping one foot on the pedal of the garbage pail, she pivoted in a half dozen directions, reached even the bag of groceries on the chair and began to unload it.

The closing of the door told her the plumber was gone, and crushing the last paper bag into the garbage—she generally saved them for old Sam the greengrocer, but there was no time now—she went into the bathroom and erased every black fingerprint with rag and scouring powder, and mopped up the floor as she backed her way out. In the minute she allowed for the floor to dry, she pushed off her medium-heeled oxfords at the closet door and stepped into identical newer oxfords. But their laces were tied from a hasty removal, too. She stooped down, and felt a dart over her bent knee. A run. She mustn't forget to change the stocking before she left for the station. Or had she another good stocking? Buying stockings was one of the errands she had intended to do today in her lunch hour.

Twenty-one minutes of six, she saw as she trotted into the bathroom. Eleven minutes before she ought to leave the house.

Even after the brisk scrubbing with a washrag, her squarish face looked as colorless as her short jacket of black and gray tweed. Her hair, of which the gray had recently gotten an edge over the brown, was naturally wavy, and now the more wiry gray hairs stood out from her head, making her look entirely gray, unfortunately, and giving her an air of harassed untidiness no matter what she did to correct it. But her eyes made up for the dullness of the rest of her face, she thought. Her round but rather small gray eyes still looked honest and kind, though sometimes there was a bewildered, almost frightened expression in them that shocked her. She saw it now. It was because she was hurrying so, she supposed. She must remember to look calm with Edith. Edith was so calm.

She daubed a spot of rouge on one cheek and was spreading it outward with timid strokes when the peal of the doorbell made her jump.

“Miss,” said a frail voice in the semidarkness of the hall, “take a ten-cent chance on the St. Ant'ny School lottery Saturday May twenny-­second?”

“No. No, child, I haven't time,” Mildred said, closing the door. She hated to be harsh with the little tykes, but at seventeen minutes of six . . .

As a matter of fact, the alarm clock shouldn't be out on the coffee table, she thought, it looked too much as if she slept on the living room couch, which of course she did. She put the clock in a bureau drawer.

For a moment, she stood in the center of the room with her mind a complete blank. What should she do next? Why was her heart beating so fast? One would think she'd been running, or at least that she was terribly excited about something, and she wasn't really.

Maybe a bit of whiskey would help. Her father had always said a little nip was good when a person was under a strain, and she was under a slight strain, she supposed. After all, she hadn't seen Edith in nearly two years, not since she'd been to Cleveland on her vacation two summers ago.

Mr. Sweeney had given her the whiskey last Christmas, and she hadn't touched it since she made the eggnog Christmas Day for old Mrs. Chevlov upstairs. The bottle was still almost full. Cautiously, she poured an inch into a small glass that had once contained cheese, then added another half inch, and drank it off at a gulp to save time. The drink landed with a warm explosion inside her.

“Dear old Edith!” she said aloud, and smiled with anticipation.

The doorbell rang.

Those children again, she thought, they always tried twice. Absently, she plucked a piece of thread from the carpet, and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, wondering if she should answer the door or not. Then the bell came again, with a rap besides, and she plunged toward it. It might be the plumber about something else.

“Miss, take a ten-cent chance on the St. Ant'ny—”

“No,” Mildred said with a shudder. “No, thank you, children.” But she found a coin in the pocket of her jacket and thrust it at them.

Then she dashed into the kitchen and set out plates, cups and saucers, and paper napkins in buffet style. It looked nice to have everything out, and would save considerable time later. She put the big mixing bowl for the potato salad on the left, and lined up beside it the smaller mixing bowl for the dressing, the salad oil, the vinegar, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper, the jar of stuffed olives—a little moldy, best wash them off—in a militarily straight row. The sugar bowl was low, she noticed, and lumpy, too. And only three minutes left! She hacked at the lumps in the bowl with a teaspoon, but not all of them would dislodge, so finally she gave it up and just added more sugar. Some of it spilled on the floor. She seized broom and dustpan and went after it. Her heart was pounding again. What on earth ailed her?

Thoughtfully, she took down the whiskey and poured another inch or two into the glass. Soothing sensations crept from her stomach in all directions, made their way even into her hands and feet. She swept up the sugar with renewed fortitude and patience, and whisked the remaining grains under the sink so they wouldn't crackle underfoot.

The kitchen curtains caught her eye for the first time in months, but she resolutely refused to worry about their streaks of black grit. A person was allowed one fault in a household, she thought.

As she pulled on her coat, it occurred to her she hadn't boiled the eggs for the salad, and she'd meant to do it the first thing when she came home. She put three eggs into a saucepan of water and turned the gas on high. At least she could start them in the few moments she'd be here, and turn them off as she went out the door.

Now. Had she keys? Money? Her hat. She snatched up her hat—a once-stiff pillbox of Persian lamb, much the same color as her hair—and pressed it on with the flat of her hand. Nice to have the kind of hats one didn't have to worry about being straight or crooked, she thought, but she allowed herself one glance in the hall mirror as she passed by, and it was enough to reveal one rouged cheek and one plain one. She hurried back into the bathroom, where the light was best.

It was six minutes to six when she flew downstairs.

She'd better take a taxi to the station after all. She regretted the extravagance, though she felt herself yielding to a gaiety and abandonment that had been plucking at her ever since she thought of taking a nip of whiskey. She didn't really care about eighty-five cents, a dollar with tip. A dollar was just a little more than one-hundredth of her weekly salary. Or a little more than one-thousandth? No, than one-hundredth, of course.

Crossing the lobby of Penn Station toward the information center, she felt the run in her stocking travel upward and was afraid to look. She'd forgotten to change it, but she wouldn't, really wouldn't have had time to look for a good stocking, even if she'd remembered. She could tell Edith she'd gotten the run hurrying to meet her. In fact, she thought brilliantly, Edith didn't have to know she'd been home at all, which would make her house and herself, after some apologies, look very nice indeed.

“Downstairs for incoming train information,” the clerk told her.

Mildred trotted downstairs, and was referred to a blackboard, where she learned that the Cleveland Flyer would be twenty minutes late. Suddenly something collapsed in her, and she felt terribly tired. She started for a nearby bench, but she knew she was too restless to sit still. She wandered back upstairs. Her nervous system was not adjusted to waiting. She could wait in the office for Mr. Sweeney to finish a long telephone conversation and get back to whatever work they were doing together, but she could not wait on her own time—for an elevator, for a clerk in a department store, or on a line in the post office—without growing anxious and jumpy. Maybe another touch of whiskey would be a good idea, she thought, a leisurely one she could sip while she composed herself.