Girls In 3-B, The (20 page)

"Annie, for Christ's sake, how many men have you slept with?"

"Just him. Getting him started was no problem, though.”

"You didn't really think you could go through with it, did you?"

"I thought I had to." The dreadful pallor was vanishing; he looked more like himself, and she began to relax. This was Jackson. Now there was no plot between them, she could talk to him
--
and how she needed somebody to talk to! She sat down again and looked at him, square and honest. "I'm pregnant with this baby and I'm going to have it. It belongs to me. I won't put it in any stinking old orphanage, either. And I won't have an operation, so you don't need to bring
that
up. I haven't got any money, anyhow."

Jack asked mildly, "How are you going to raise this kid?"

"I've got my name in at the employment office. I’ll find something any day now."

"And I suppose you're going to strap it on your back, like a papoose, and carry it to work with you."

"Oh God," Annice said, "I'm too tired to think that far ahead. Just let me take one thing at a time, will you? Other people get along, young widows and all, their husbands get killed in accidents. How do you suppose they manage
?
"

"So now you're a young widow."

"Well, if you think I'd get along any better single, in my condition
--
"

Jack took a deep breath. He brought his cup over to the table and set it down beside hers. His hands were shaking. "You've got it all figured out, haven't you?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking."

"I bet you have," Jack said dryly. "Annie, was there anything the matter with him
?
I mean, any reason a kid of his wouldn't be okay?"

"Like was he diseased, or something?"

"Oh, God, no. I meant, anything a child would inherit."

"Well," she said, "he was smart enough. He didn't always act like he had much sense, but then, neither did I. I think it's mostly the way you bring up a child that matters, not what he inherits. And believe me, I'm going to bring this one up to be a good man
--
even if it kills me."

"How?"

"I told you I don't know yet. But I'm smart and healthy."

"I like kids," Jack said. "Makes no difference what kind of kids they are." He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, took one out, looked at it carefully, then put it back again. "I'm quitting school in June," he said. "Going home to help my brother run the place. The old man's got to have a hernia operation
--
he'll have to take it easy for a while. He's not so young."

"I'll miss you."

"God damn it, you don't make it any easier for a man, do you
?
" He took the cigarette out again, looked at it, and decided to try it this time. "I don't know why I'm doing this. I'll probably be sorry afterwards. The point is, if you still want to marry me I'll take you along when I go. Nobody needs to know when it was." He narrowed his eyes. "And get this straight, if I ever catch you looking at another guy after we're married I'll beat the living daylights out of you."

"I'd hate you if you didn't."

"How about it?"

"It's a lousy idea. One of the worst ideas I ever heard in my whole life. Every time you got mad at me you'd bring it up. Besides, how do I know you wouldn't hold it against the baby?"

He shook his head. "I wouldn't do that. I'm not saying we wouldn't ever fight. Sure, I guess most couples have some grudge they save up for when they're mad at each other. If it isn't religion it's their families or something. I wouldn't take it out on an innocent kid, though. Besides," said reasonably, "if you hated it too much you could always divorce me, after."

"Oh no. If I go into this it'll be for keeps.”

"Okay, then. Give me a kiss and well be engaged.”

They kissed. He said, "See how easy it is to get a man riled up?" and kissed her again, harder. At that moment the door buzzer sounded. Jackson said, "Saved by the bell," and went to answer it, with Annice a step behind him. A small red-haired woman with familiar features stood in the lower hall, looking around dubiously; behind her, a burly weatherbeaten man, in a pretty good topcoat. Annice shrieked, "Hey!" and flew to them.

"Your mother got a little worried because you didn't write," her father explained, "so we thought we'd come in and see what kind of a place you girls have got here. Brought your winter clothes along. It gets kind of quiet around the place with just us old folks." He followed them into the living room, dropped the suitcase, and looked around.
Plainly,
Jack thought,
looking around for the other girls and wondering what the hell was going on.

"It's my fault. Mr. Harvey. Annice was scared to tell you
--
afraid you might be mad at her. We've been married
--
how long is it now, honey?"

"Seven weeks," Annice said calmly. She reached past him and fished the dimestore ring out of the fruit dish, slipping it on her finger to the astonishment of the other three. "We were just waiting to find a place of our own and go to keeping house. This is Jackson Carter, mom, dad. His folks have a place in Missouri."

I'll be dammed,
Jackson thought, motioning his amazed in-laws to chairs while Annice darted to take down cups and pour coffee. Wifeliness sat on her like an apron, cut and stitched to measure.
Women are sure enough devious. I'll never be able to put anything over on her.
His grin broadened. "Here," he said bossily, "I'll take another cup myself while you're at it."

Annice said meekly, "Of course, dear." She filled his cup first, skimping on her mother's and father's. Over Mrs. Harvey's head their eyes met, and he had to tuck in the corners of his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

Dreams are crazy things. Robert Morrison sat on the side of his bed, one hand still holding the just-throttled alarm clock, trying to piece together the splintering fragments of his nighttime fantasy. Not that it meant anything, of course. He didn't have any faith in all that psychological stuff; nothing could convince him that people, normal decent people like himself, were as dirty-minded as Freud and those fellows insisted. He was just curious about his dreams, like anybody else.

He had been at a funeral. He could see the coffin, silver-colored and blanketed with pink carnations, standing beside the chancel railing at the First Methodist Church. Could hear the choir soprano shrilling off-key
--
had that been the alarm clock? His neighbors were all around him, looking at him, and there was no place to hide from their eyes.

He hadn't wanted to look at the still figure in the coffin, but he knew without seeing that Helen lay there, and that he ought to be frightened at the sight of her. Why? He couldn't tell, but a remembered horror echoed in the farthest chambers of his waking mind.

Then he was at home, in one of those sudden transitions that seem so reasonable in dreams, searching from room to room and finding nothing but silence. Outside on the street were people waiting to harm him
--
who? He had to keep the shades down. That was important.

A girl came out of the bedroom door. Naked. She was slender and young, with a mass of dark hair hanging to her white shoulders. Barby. She came into his arms without a word, and laid her head against his chest, and his arms tightened around her. Then
--

He smiled sheepishly, remembering what had waked him.
Dreams,
he thought scornfully.
I
shouldn't have eaten that last piece of pie before I went to bed; makes you dream all kinds of wild things, a bedtime snack does.
But he sat there a moment longer, hearing the reassuring housewifely thump of Helen's low-heeled shoes on the kitchen floor below.

Of course, it was easy to see how Barby got mixed up in that kind of a dream. He had been missing her, the way a father does miss a child who's away from home. The house seemed empty without her, although Helen was the sort of wife who chatters and clatters. In the vacuum left by her going he felt himself becoming the dried-up shell of a man, moving through days that had no value or meaning. Was it to go on indefinitely
?
How much longer could he endure it?

She hadn't even come home for Christmas, although Helen had expected her and had fixed all the traditional trappings
--
a special dinner, foil-wrapped gifts, baubles on an electric-lighted tree. She'd wired to say that she couldn't make it; no explanation. Helen had spent the evening of the twenty-fifth writing to her, a long prosy letter no doubt. He didn't write. There was nothing he could say to his bright and shining girl except that he missed her, and there were no words that could convey the depth and intensity of his missing.

Four months of emptiness, a hundred and twenty-six days counting today. He had them marked off on the store calendar, on the wall of the shoe department. The days to come stretched ahead, page after barren page of them.

Barby would never have been separated from him so long of her own accord. Something was keeping her away, either this woman she was sharing an apartment with
--
all they knew was her name, which didn't tell a thing
--
or more likely her recognition of her mother's attitude. It was all wrong, whatever the reason might be. She needed him. He was the only one who could give her the guidance and affection she needed. She had never made any decisions for herself, because he had cherished and protected her.

Especially since
--

It came to him, as he went about the dull business of dressing and shaving, that the thing to do was go and see her. He hardly ever went to Chicago. Times as good as these, if you had a 1-A credit rating the jobbers came to you. But there was no reason why he couldn't take a day off and go, telling Helen he had to make a business trip. If she suspected that he was planning to see Barby she might want to go with him.

Just walk in, that was the way to do it, and see how she looked and where she was living, what this girl friend of hers was like. He had been opposed to the whole crazy idea of leaving home from the start
--
three young girls on their own, eating God-knows-what and staying out until all hours, probably. But Pat and Annice were harmless enough youngsters even if they weren't in Barby's class. Now he was afraid she might have fallen in with some immoral, promiscuous type who would encourage her to run around with men, might even introduce her to the kind of men who prey on young girls.

At the thought of a man's hands on that young body he burned with anger.

He stood with his finger on the bathroom light button, weighing the pros and cons of the trip.
Play it slow and easy,
he admonished himself.
Go and look, see which way the land lies, and then decide what to do.
By this time Barby might have had enough of independence, and be ready to come home. If not, he'd have to be careful not to antagonize her.

All he wanted
--
good God, all he'd ever wanted
--
was her happiness. He'd meet this roommate, see what kind of girl she was, and so on. A father ought to do that much.

Over bacon and eggs he said to Helen, making his voice casual, "By the way, I'm going to run in to Chicago today. There are a couple of new wholesale houses I want to check up on."

She extracted his toast from the pop-up toaster, reached for the butter. He couldn't see her face. "Will you see Barby?"

"I hadn't thought about it. She’ll be at work, won't she
?
" A flicker of something
--
amusement or contempt
--
crossed her cheerful features and disappeared. "You might take her to lunch. I suppose she does get off for lunch. Or you could stay in and take her to dinner. I'd like to see her myself."

The skin along his neck and arms crawled with chill. This was what he had been afraid of. If she insisted on going with him, he had no defense. He said quickly, "I don't even know if I'll have time. I've got a dozen things to do. I’ll phone her, though."

"Oh."

He bent over his plate. That was a close one! Now he would have to make a few business calls, maybe order some merchandise he didn't particularly need. The miles and hours that had to be traveled before he could see her stretched endlessly ahead.

All the way to the station he was terrified that she might not be willing to come home yet. He would have to find out tactfully, without sounding like a parent. Make her see that he wanted her here for her own sake.

She'd had her fling, proved that she could earn her living. That was the only reason a girl of eighteen ever wanted a job, unless she actually had to earn her own living. The little salesgirls and office clerks at the store quit as soon as they got tired of getting up early, or as soon as they could catch a man to support them.

She needed him. So pretty, so soft that men turned to look after her on the street, she was in danger all the time. And then she had those disabling headaches.

He had worked hard to build up the business; she could have anything she wanted. Clothes, Parties, maybe a cruise
--
Helen's idea of what a young girl should have. Or if she wanted more education, there was a good junior college right here on the outskirts of Huntsville, an all-girl school
--
no silly adolescent boys dangling around to distract her from her studies. That was what he wanted for her, to develop her mind.

He greeted the ticket agent with more warmth than usual, even though he was a Methodist, a Lion, and a former schoolmate. "Got to see some people about business. It's a bother, but there's no help for it." He moved toward the pay telephone booth, seeing the day suddenly bright with promise and unwilling to put off any longer the delight of hearing her voice.

Breakfast was the best part of the day. They never had it in the bijou dining room, but in the kitchen, with electric light winking off the hanging copper saucepans and the coffeepot within easy reach of the pilot light. Barby had never wanted a home of her own, thinking of it as a byproduct of marriage
--
husband, home, and children. But now she had one, and it was wonderful.