The Collected Stories of Richard Yates (75 page)

“Darling,” he would say, “I'll have earned it all back by tomorrow at this time. One half-day at the office will cover everything, and I have every intention of spending all my days—full days—at the office from now on.”

“Oh, don't be a fool. You know perfectly well you're not allowed to work for another month.”

“I know nothing of the sort. All I know is—”

“All
I
know,” she would say, “is that I come home and find my budget ruined for weeks to come, you carrying on like a madman,
and
one of the new cups broken.”

“The cup,” he would say icily, “needn't bother you any more. It's been replaced.
And
so has the soap dish.”

“Oh, no,” she would say, closing her eyes. “You mean you broke the soap dish
too
?”

“Listen,” he'd say, or probably shout. “I'm going to the office tomorrow, is that clear?”

“You're going to bed,” she would say, getting to her feet. “Is that clear? And I'm going to make lunch, and then I'm going to see if the florist will take these roses back. That'll recover some of the loss, anyway. And I think I'll call the doctor too, and have him look at you. You've probably done yourself a great deal of damage this morning. You're hysterical, Bill.”

By the time the scene had played itself out in his mind he was staring fiercely into the mirror, breathing hard. That was how she'd win, all right, as easily as that. She always won. And even if he did go to work in the morning the whole thing would be ruined, the whole point lost. He was blocked every way he turned. He slouched out of the bathroom and began absently putting on the robe as he walked around the carpet. But wait a minute, he thought, stopping in his tracks again. What if he wasn't
here
when she came home? What if he went to the office now, before she had a chance to stop him? It was only a little after eleven—he could leave now, get in a full half-day's work and
then
come home with the new cup and the soap dish, the flowers and champagne. What could she say to that? How could there be any argument when he confronted her with the accomplished fact? The beautiful logic of the thing was suddenly clear, and he nearly laughed as he tore the robe off for the second time and headed for his dresser. He yanked the pins out of a clean shirt and began dressing with brisk efficiency—dressing to go to work like any normal man, just as he'd once done every morning of his life. It was as if there had never been any illness, any hospital, any operation or any convalescence. Everything seemed in order for the first time in many months. He still felt a little weak in the knees, but that would go away as soon as he'd had a decent lunch. When he straightened up from tying his shoes, he almost blacked out in a rush of dizziness. He blinked and sat down on the bed, shaking his head. He was probably a little overexcited; he'd have to get a grip on himself, so that when he walked into the office he would look fit and rested. Already he could picture their faces when he got off the elevator. “Bill!” his boss would say, looking as if he'd seen a ghost, and Bill would grin at him and shake hands—“Hi, George”—and sit casually on the edge of his desk.

“But your wife said you wouldn't be back for another month at
least
.”

“Oh,” he would say, “you know women, George. She exaggerates everything. Anyway, here I am. Cigarette?”

“Well, it's certainly great to see you, boy, but how do you feel?”

“Like a million dollars, George. Never better in my life. How's everything here in the shop?” It would be as simple as that. Then as soon as he'd straightened up his desk and shaken hands with everybody and answered all their questions he'd be back in commission again; doing a job and on the payroll.

But he'd have to hurry now, if he wanted to get out of here before she came home. Knotting his tie in the mirror, he planned the note he would leave for her: something short and to the point. “Decided to stop fooling around. Gone to the office. Feeling great. See you later. What kind of champagne do you like?” Or maybe it would be better to let the champagne be a complete surprise, when he made his triumphal return. He hurried over to the desk and wrote it out, omitting the part about the champagne, making the whole thing look very casual. Inspired, he finished it off with “P.S.—Cup, soap dish broken. Sorry. Will replace both on way home tonight.” Then he propped it on the coffee table where she couldn't miss it, and chuckled.

She would come in loaded down with clumsy bundles, exhausted, with Mike howling and dirty and hanging on her skirt. “Mike,
stop
that! Stop it this instant! Bill?” she would call plaintively, “would you mind getting up for just a minute and giving me a hand? Bill, do you hear me?” And she'd stagger into the living room, enraged, dragging Mike and spilling half her groceries. “Look, Bill, I
hate
to tear you away from your—” But then she would stop, amazed, finding him gone and the apartment empty, and the little note propped on the table.

She probably wouldn't be able to do anything for an hour or so, until after she'd made Mike's lunch and gotten him settled for his nap, but after that the first thing she'd do would be to call him frantically on the telephone. He would take the call at his desk, leaning back in the swivel chair and answering the phone in a crisp, businesslike way.

“Bill?” she'd say. “Is that
you
?”

He would feign surprise. “Oh, hi, baby. What's on your mind?”

“Bill, have you gone
mad
? Are you all right?”

“Never better, honey. Say, I'm sorry about that cup, and the other thing, the soap dish. That what you called about?”

“Listen to me, Bill. I don't know what this is all about, but you're going to get right on the bus and come home. Do you hear me? No, better take a taxi. This instant. Do you hear me?”

“But
baby,”
he'd say, “you know I can't quit work in the middle of the day. Want me to get fired?”

He laughed aloud—the line about getting fired was a hot one. He was all ready to go now, except for the piece of tissue on his lip. He pulled it off carefully, but the cut was still fresh and started to bleed again. Cursing, he dabbed at it with his handkerchief and stood by the door, waiting for it to heal. What would she say next, after the line about getting fired? Probably something like “Look. Just what is all this supposed to prove? Would you mind telling me?”

“Sure,” he'd say. “Proves I'm well, that's all. Well man's got no business moping around the house all day making work for his wife. Ought to be out earning a living, providing a little security for her. Anything wrong in that?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” she would say. “That's just lovely. You stay right there and make yourself ill, and come home tonight and collapse, and go to work tomorrow and come home in an
ambulance
. That's just
fine
, isn't it. That'll give me lots and
lots
of security, won't it?”

“Aw, now, honey, you're all excited about nothing. You've just got this stubborn idea in your head that I'm—” But probably about this point George would walk into his office, the way he always used to do when Jean was on the phone. “Say, Bill, here's a couple of reports you might want to look—oh, sorry.” And he'd sit down, well within earshot, to wait until Bill was free.

“All right, Bill,” Jean's voice would say coldly in the receiver. “I'll put it this way; either you come home right now—”

“Okay,” he'd say, cheerily, trying to convey by the false tone that he was no longer alone, “okay, then, honey, I'll see you at six o'clock.”

“Either you come home right now—”

“Right, honey. Six o'clock.”

“—Or don't expect to find me here when you
do
come home. I'll be on the train for Mother's, and so will Mike. I've had just about enough of your kind of security.” And there would be a little dry click as she hung up the phone.

Bill rubbed his head, sweating, looking at the note. He had never felt more thoroughly beaten in his life. He walked over to the table, crumpled the note and threw it into the wastebasket. That was that. And suddenly he stopped caring about the whole thing. Let her say or do whatever she wanted. Let anything happen. He was through. He surrendered. All he wanted was to go out and sit down in a bar and have a drink. Or two drinks or three. He grabbed his hat out of the hall closet, wrenched open the front door and stopped short. There she was, just coming in, about to put her key in the door he had flung open, looking up startled into his face. She was carrying only a few light packages, and Mike was neither crying nor pulling her skirt—he was grinning, in fact, and eating an apple.

“Well!” she said. “Where are
you
going?”

He jammed on his hat and brushed past them. “Out for a drink.”

“Like that? With your suspenders hanging down?”

One sickening glance confirmed the fact: the suspenders hung in loops against his trouser legs. He spun around and glared at her, then started back toward her at a slow and menacing gait. “Listen. It's a good thing you came back before I left, because I've got a few things to tell you.”

“Is it necessary to tell the neighbors too?” she inquired.

Grimly, controlling himself with a supreme effort of will, he followed her back into the apartment, took off his hat and followed her around while she disposed of the groceries and shooed Mike off to his room. Then she confronted him with a prim smile. “Now.”

He planted his fists on his hips, rocked on his heels a few times and grinned evilly at her. “You know that soap dish? Well, it's broken.”

“Oh.” Annoyance flickered briefly on her face; then she resumed her thin little smile. “So
that's
what it is.”

“Whaddya
mean
that's what it is? Another thing. You know those new cups? One of
them's
broken too! And the
saucer
too!”

She closed her eyes for an instant and sighed. “Well,” she said. “I guess we don't need to discuss it. I'm sure you feel bad enough about it already.”

“Feel
bad
? Feel
bad
? Why the hell should I feel
bad
? It wasn't my
fault
!”

“Oh,” she said.

“Whatsa matter, don'tcha believe me? Don'tcha believe me? Huh? No, of
course
you don't. You're like a Communist
court,
aren'tcha? Everybody's guilty until proved innocent, aren't they? Huh? Oh no, not everybody, I forgot. Just me, right? Just poor stupid old Bill who drops ashes on the rug all day, right? Who's always ‘resting,' right? Pretending to be sick while you bear your burdens with a smile, right? Oh, you
like
that, don'tcha? Love every minute of it, don'tcha? Huh? Don'tcha?”

“I will
not
take this, Bill,” she said, her eyes blazing. “I will
not
take—”

“
Is that so? Is that so?
Because there's a couple things
I'm
not gonna take any more, and you better get 'em straight right now. I'm not gonna take any more of your wisecracks about ‘resting,' understand? That's one thing. And I'm not gonna take any more of your—” His voice failed; he was out of breath. “Ah, never mind,” he said at last. “You wouldn't understand.” He took off his jacket, flung it on the couch and started to fix his suspenders; then with a gesture of disgust he let them fall again and plunged his hands in his pockets, staring out the window. He didn't even want a drink, now. He just wanted to stand here and look out the window and wait for the storm to pass.

“I certainly
wouldn't
understand,” she said. “I'm afraid I
don't
understand why I should have to come home and find everything broken, and then get all this raging abuse from you
too.
Really, Bill, you
do
expect a lot.”

The only thing to do was stand there and let her get it out of her system. He was spent now, unable to strike back or even to defend himself, a fighter hanging groggy on the ropes.

“What
does
go on in that mind of yours, anyway?” she demanded. “You're just like a child! A big, spoiled, stubborn child . . .”

It went on and on, but her voice lacked the shrill, nagging quality he had expected—instead it sounded hurt and almost tearful, which was worse. In the small part of his mind that remained clear he decided grimly that this quarrel would probably be a long one, the kind that lasted two or three days. The shouting and recriminations would stop soon, but there would be a long interval of cold silence, of polite little questions and answers over meals, of going to sleep without even saying goodnight, before he could decently go to her and say the big, simple thing that might have averted it all in the first place: “I'm sorry, darling.”

Her tirade came to an end, and he heard her flounce off into the kitchen. Then there was a series of curt, businesslike kitchen noises—the refrigerator opened and shut, pots rattled, carrots scraped—and in a little while she came back again and started briskly straightening a slipcover right behind the place where he stood. What would she do, he wondered tensely, if I turned around and said it right now?

But at that moment a remarkable thing happened behind his back. Her fingers took hold of the dangling suspenders, pulled them up and deftly slipped them over his shoulders, and her voice—a new voice with laughter in it—said, “Fix your suspenders, mister?” Then her arms went around him and squeezed, tight, and her face pressed warm between his shoulder blades. “Oh Bill, I
have
been awful since you came home, haven't I? I'm so busy being tired and heroic I haven't given you a
chance
to get well—I haven't even let you know how terribly glad I am to have you
back.
Oh Bill, you ought to break
all
the dishes, right over my dumb head.”