The Wayward Bus (34 page)

He got to his feet and brushed the seat of his trousers as though the paper had not protected him from dust. The rain was only misting a little now, and in the west there were patches of blue sky. Everything was going to be all right. He walked over to the bus and climbed the steps. Van Brunt was stretched out on the seat at the rear which went across the width of the bus. Van Brunt seemed to be asleep. Pimples and the girls were talking softly so that they wouldn't disturb him.

“What I want in a wife is to be true,” Pimples said.

“How about you?” Camille asked. “You figure to be true too?”

“Sure,” said Pimples, “if she's the right kind of wife I will.”

“Well, suppose she isn't?”

“Well, then I'll show her a thing or two. I'll show her two can play that game, like Cary Grant done in that movie.”
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An empty pie tin and another with only a quarter of a pie left were on the seat across from the group. The two girls sat together and Pimples, sitting sideways on the seat ahead of them, dropped his arm over the back.

They all looked up as Mr. Pritchard came in. “You mind if I sit in?” he said.

“Sure, come on in,” said Pimples. “You like to have a piece of pie? Here's a piece right here.” And he handed the pie to Mr. Pritchard and moved the empty tins so he could sit down.

“Have you got a girl now?” Camille continued.

“Well, kind of a one. But she's—er—well, she's kind of silly.”

“Is she true to you?”

“Sure,” said Pimples.

“How do you know?”

“Well, I never could—I mean—yeah, I'm sure.”

“I guess you'll be getting married pretty soon,” Mr. Pritchard said playfully, “and going in business for yourself.”

“No, not for a while,” said Pimples, “I'm studying by mail. There's a big future in radar. Make up to seventy-five dollars a week inside of a year.”

“You don't say?”

“There's fellas that took that course that wrote in and said that's what they're making,” said Pimples. “One of them is a district manager already, after one year.”

“District manager of what?” Mr. Pritchard asked.

“Just district manager. That's what he said in his letter, and it's printed right in the ad.”

Mr. Pritchard was beginning to feel good again. Here was ambition. Not everybody was cynical.

Camille said, “When do you think you'll get married?”

“Oh, not right yet,” said Pimples. “I think a fella ought to see the world a little before he settles down. He ought to get around some. I might get on a ship. If you know radar, why, you know radio too. I thought I might get on a ship and be a radio operator for a while.”

“But when are you going to finish your course?” Mr. Pritchard asked.

“Well, the lessons are going to start pretty soon now. I've got the coupon all made out and I'm saving up for the down payment. I took a test and they say I got plenty of talent. I had three or four letters from them.”

Camille's eyes were very weary. Mr. Pritchard looked at her face. He knew his eyes were shielded by his glasses. He thought she had a fine face when you looked at it closely. Her lips were so full and friendly now, and only her eyes were tired. All the way from Chicago on a bus, he thought. She didn't look strong enough. He could see the fullness of her breasts under her suit and the suit was wrinkled. She had turned the French cuffs of her shirt inside out so that the edges would be clean. Mr. Pritchard noticed this. It meant neatness to him. He studied little details.

He felt this girl almost like a perfume. He felt an excitement and a hunger. It's just that you don't often see a girl like this, so attractive and so nice, he told himself. And then he heard himself talking and he hadn't even known he was going to talk.

“Miss Oaks,” he said, “I've been thinking, and it occurred to me that you might like to listen to a little business idea I had. I'm president of quite a large corporation and I thought—well, I'm sure these young people would excuse us for a little while if you'd care to hear my ideas. Would you step over to the cliff there? I have some newspapers to sit on.” He was astonished at his own words.

“Oh, Jesus!” Camille said to herself. “Here it comes.”

Mr. Pritchard got down first and gallantly helped Camille off the bus. He held her elbow as she stepped across the ditch and he guided her gently to the spread newspapers where he and Ernest had sat. He pointed downward.

“Oh, I don't know,” Camille said. “I've been sitting a long time.”

“Well, maybe the change in position will rest you,” said Mr. Pritchard. “You know, when I'm working long hours at my desk I change the height of my chair about every hour, and I find it keeps me fresh.” He helped her to sit down on the newspapers. She covered her knees with her skirt and sat hugging her knees against her breast.

Mr. Pritchard sat down beside her. He took off his glasses. “I've been thinking,” he said. “You know, a man in my position has to look ahead and plan. Now, technically, I'm on a vacation.” He smiled. “Vacation—I wonder what a real vacation would be like.”

Camille smiled. The ground felt very hard. She wondered how long this was going to take.

“Now the main raw product of a successful company is human beings,” Mr. Pritchard said. “I'm always looking for human beings. You can get steel and rubber any time, but brains, talent, beauty, ambition—that's the difficult product.”

“Look, mister,” Camille said, “I'm awful tired.”

“I know, my dear, and I'll come to the point. I want to employ you. That's as simply as I can say it.”

“As what?”

“As a receptionist. It's quite a specialized job, and from there you could become—well, you might even become my personal secretary.”

Camille was played out. She looked toward the cave entrance where Mrs. Pritchard was. She couldn't see anything. “What'll your wife have to say about that?”

“Well, what's she got to do with it? She doesn't run my business.”

“Mister, like I said, I'm tired. We don't have to go through all that. I'd like to be married. I'd be a good wife, and with a settlement so I wouldn't have to worry for a while, why, I could even be good to a man.”

“I don't see what you're getting at,” Mr. Pritchard said.

“Yes, you do,” said Camille. “You won't like me because I don't play it your way. You'd like to take months to get around to it and surprise me with it, but I'm nearly broke. You say your wife doesn't run your business, but I say she does. You and your business and everything about you. I'm trying to be nice but I'm tired. She probably picks your secretaries and you don't even know it. That's a tough woman.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Camille said. “Who bought your tie?”

“Well—”

“She would know about me in a minute. She would. Now let me talk a little bit. You couldn't ask a girl outright. You'd have to go round about. But there's only two ways, mister. You either fall in love or you make a business proposition. If you'd said, ‘Here's the way it is. So much for an apartment and so much for clothes,' why, I could have thought it out and I could have come to a conclusion, and it might have worked. But I'm not going to be nibbled to death by ducks. Did you want to surprise me after two, three months of me sitting at a desk? I'm getting too old to play.”

Mr. Pritchard's chin was stuck out. “My wife does not run my business,” he said. “I don't know where you got that idea.”

“Oh, skip it,” said Camille. “But I'd just as soon come up against a nest of rattlesnakes as your wife if she didn't like me.”

“I'm a little surprised at your attitude,” Mr. Pritchard said. “I hadn't thought of any of these things. I was just trying to offer you a job. You can take it or leave it.”

“Oh, brother!” said Camille. “If you can kid yourself into believing that, God help any girl you get. She'll never know where she stands.”

Mr. Pritchard smiled at her. “You're just tired,” he said. “Maybe when you get rested you'll think it over.”

The enthusiasm was gone out of his voice and Camille was relieved. She thought maybe she had made a mistake because he'd be very easy to handle, a real sucker. Loraine could have taken his shirt in one day.

Mr. Pritchard saw her face differently now. He saw hardness in it and defiance, and now that he was this close he saw the make-up and how it was put on, and he felt naked before this girl. It bothered him to have her talk this way. He had thought if everything worked out—well, he would—well—but the trouble was that she knew. Only he wouldn't have called it— well, there was such a thing as being a lady about such things.

He was confused, and in his confusion he was getting angry again. Twice in one day to be angry was unusual with him. His neck was getting red with anger. He had to cover up. He had to for his own sake. He said crisply, “I simply offered you a job. You don't want it—all right. There's no reason to be vulgar about it. There's such a thing as being a lady.”

An edge came into her voice. “Look, Mac,” she said, “I can play rough too. This lady business does it. I'm going to tell you something. You thought you recognized me. Now, do you belong to any clubs like The Octagon International or The Birds of the World or The Two Fifty-Three Thousand Club?”
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“I'm an Octagon,” Mr. Pritchard said stiffly.

“You remember the girl that sits in the wine glass? I've seen what you boys look like. I don't know what you get out of it and I don't want to know. But I know it isn't pretty, mister. And maybe you'd know a lady if you saw one. I don't know.” Her voice came in little breaks and there was almost a hysteria of weariness in her. She jumped to her feet. “I'm going to take a stroll now, Mac. Don't give me any trouble because I know you, and I know your wife.”

She walked away quickly. Mr. Pritchard watched her go. His eyes were wide and there was a heavy weight in his chest, a kind of played-out, physical horror. He watched her pretty body swaying as she went, and he saw her pretty legs, and his mind took her clothes off, and she was standing beside the huge glass and the wine was running down in red streams over her stomach and thighs and buttocks.

Mr. Pritchard's mouth was open and his neck was very red. He looked away from her and studied his hands. He took out his gold nail file and put it back in his pocket again. A dizziness came over him. He stood up uncertainly and walked down under the cliff to the little cave where Mrs. Pritchard lay.

She opened her eyes and smiled as he entered. Mr. Pritchard lay down beside her quickly. He pulled up her coat and crawled under it.

“Dear, you're tired,” she said. “Elliott! what are you doing? Elliott!”

“Shut up,” he said. “You hear me? Shut up! You're my wife, aren't you? Hasn't a man got any rights with his wife?”

“Elliott, you're mad! Someone'll—someone'll see you.” She fought him in panic. “I don't know you,” she said. “Elliott, you're tearing my dress.”

“I bought it, didn't I? I'm tired of being treated like a sick cat.”

Bernice cried softly in fear and in horror.

When he left her she cried with her face nestled close to her fur coat. Gradually her crying stopped and she sat up and looked out the cave entrance. Her eyes were ferocious. She raised her hand and set her nails against her cheek. She drew them down experimentally once and then she bit her lower lip and slashed downward with her fingernails. She could feel the blood oozing from the scratches. She put out her hand and dirtied it on the cave floor and rubbed the dirt into her bleeding cheek. The blood flowed down through the dirt and down her neck to the collar of her waist.

CHAPTER 18

Mildred and Juan came out of the barn and she said, “Look, the rain has stopped. Look at the sun on the mountains. It's going to be beautiful.”

Juan grinned.

“You know, I feel wonderful,” she said. “I feel wonderful.”

“Sure,” said Juan.

“Do you feel wonderful enough to hold my mirror? I couldn't see in there.” She took a little square mirror from her purse. “Here. No, a little higher.” She combed her hair quickly and patted some powder on her cheeks and put on lipstick. She peered very closely in the mirror because she could see only at short range. “Do you think I'm flippant for a violated girl?”

“You're all right,” he said. “I like you.”

“But just that? No more?”

“Do you want me to lie?”

She laughed. “I guess I do a little. No, I don't. And you won't take me to Mexico?”

“No.”

“This is the end then? There isn't any more?”

“How do I know?” Juan asked.

She put the mirror and the lipstick back in her purse and smoothed the lipstick on, one lip over the other. “Brush the straw off my coat, will you?”

She turned as he brushed her coat with his hand. “Because,” she went on, “my father and mother don't know about these things. I'm sure I was conceived immaculately. My mother planted me, a number one bulb, before the snow came and covered me with soil and sand and manure.” She was giddy. “Can't go to Mexico. What do we do now?”

“Go back and dig out the bus and drive to San Juan.” He walked toward the entrance gate of the old farm.

“Can I take your hand just for a little?”