Mrs. Bridge (15 page)

She was of the opinion that at certain ages one wore certain articles of clothing each of the girls had received a girdle on her fourteenth birthday and she now suggested to Douglas that he was old enough to begin wearing a hat.

“I don’t need a hat/’ he said.

“It’s time you started wearing one,” she replied.

“They don’t feel good on my head,” said Douglas.

“Your father would look awfully silly without a hat/ she argued.

“Who knows?” he countered, flinging up his hands.

So it went for a period of several weeks until finally they drove downtown and picked out a hat, a very nice conservative hat. She never expected to see it on his head, but strangely enough he began to wear it everywhere. He wore it to school and while playing ball after school, and he wore it around the house and in his room at night while doing homework. Very shortly she was sick of seeing the hat, but now he would not think of going anywhere without it. Furthermore there developed, somewhere between the high school and the drugstore where he played the pinball games, the habit of wearing it on the back of his head; not only this but on the crown he pinned a glazed yellow button saying: LET’S GET ACQUAINTED!

That summer the family was invited to the wedding of a relative named Maxwell who was a postal clerk In the nearby town of Olathe. Carolyn was the only one who wanted to attend the wedding, but because It was an obligation of sorts the entire family except Mr. Bridge drove to Olathe. When the bride came down the aisle they discovered the rea-son for the wedding.

After the ceremony they put In an appearance at the reception and then, In silence, drove home.

About three months later they received the traditional announcement concerning the birth of a child. It happened that Ruth, Carolyn, and Douglas were at home when this announcement arrived, and Mrs. Bridge, having exclaimed, In spite of her disgust, “Isn’t that nice!” felt It necessary to add, “First babies are so-often premature.”

At this time Ruth was eighteen years old, Carolyn was sixteen, and Douglas, nobody’s fool, a shrewd fourteen. A profound silence, a massive,, annihilating silence, greeted her remark. Carolyn gazed out the window. Douglas became greatly interested In his fingernails. Ruth looked at Carolyn, then at Douglas, and she seemed to be considering. Finally she said, quietly, “Oh, Mother, don’t.”

None of them said anything further. The Maxwells were not mentioned again.

She was kneeling in the garden with a trowel in her hand when Harriet lifted the kitchen window to announce that some man who would not give his name was on the telephone asking for Ruth.

‘Til take it,” Mrs. Bridge said, getting to her feet. She entered the house and approached the telephone with a feeling of hostility, and taking up the receiver more firmly than usual she said, “Hello. Ruth is not in Kansas City at the mo-ment. Who’s calling, please?”

“Where’s she at?” a deep voice asked.

Mrs. Bridge signaled Harriet to stop running the vacuum cleaner.

“Ruth is visiting friends at Lake Lotawana. Who is calling, please?”

“What’s the number out there?” the man demanded,

Despite his rudeness and obvious coarseness, if he had been inquiring about Carolyn she would have given him the num-ber at the lake, but she had never liked or trusted the men who came after Ruth.

“I’m certain she would like to know who called.”

There was a pause. Mrs. Bridge thought he was going to hang up, but he finally answered, “Tell her Al called.” Then he added, “Al Luchek.” And faintly, from wherever he was, came the clink of glasses.

For some reason Ruth’s friends always had foreign names. Carolyn’s companions were named Bob or Janet or Trudy or Buzz, but there was a malignant sound to Al Luchek, and to the others the Louie Minillos and the Nick Gajadas. They sounded like gangsters from the north end. Mrs. Bridge had once or twice asked Ruth who they were, and how she met them, but Ruth replied evasively that she had simply met them at So-and-so’s house or at a New Year’s Eve party.

“But what do they do?” she asked, and Ruth would shrug.

“Tom Duncan was asking about you the other day/’ she would say, but Ruth would not be interested.

Now she said in cool and civil tones to the man on the telephone, “Thank you for calling, Mr. Luchek.”

Immediately the vacuum roared.

Mrs. Bridge was disturbed. Ruth was incomprehensible to her and with every year she became more so, more secretive and turbulent, more cunning and inaccessible, more foreign. Where had she come from? How could she be Carolyn’s sister? Mrs. Bridge was deeply worried and found it more and more difficult to call her by the pet names of childhood, and before long she was unable to call her by any name except Ruth, though it sounded formal and distant and tended to magnify their separation. Are you mine? she sometimes thought. Is my daughter mine?

It was to Carolyn, though she was younger, that Mrs. Bridge was in the habit of confiding her hopes for them all. The two were apt to sit on the edge of Carolyn’s bed until quite late at night, their arms half-entwined, talking and giggling, while across the room Ruth slept her strangely restless sleep mumbling and rolling and burying her face in her wild black hair.

Mrs. Bridge could never learn what Ruth did in the evenings, or where she went; she entered the house quietly, sometimes not long before dawn. Mrs. Bridge had always lain awake until both girls were home, and one evening during the Christmas holidays she was still downstairs reading when Carolyn returned, bringing Jay Duchesne, who was now considerably over six feet tall and was doing his best to grow a mustache. In certain lights the mustache was visible, and he was quite proud of it and stroked it constantly and feverishly, as if all it needed in order to flourish was a little affection. Mrs, Bridge liked Jay. She trusted him. There were moments when she thought she knew him better than she knew Douglas.

“What’s new, Mrs. B.?” he inquired, twirling his hat on one finger. And to Carolyn, “How’s for chow, kid?” So they went out to the kitchen to cook bacon and eggs while Mrs. Bridge remained in the front room with the book turned over in her lap and her eyes closed, dozing and dreaming happily, because it seemed to her that despite the difficulties of adolescence she had gotten her children through it in reasonably good condition. Later, when Duchesne roared out of the driveway he still drove as recklessly as ever and she was still not resigned to it she climbed the stairs, arm in arm, with Carolyn.

“Jay’s voice has certainly changed,” she smiled.

“He’s a man now, Mother,” Carolyn explained a bit impatiently.

Mrs. Bridge smiled again. She sat on the bed and watched as Carolyn pulled off the baggy sweater and skirt and seated herself at the dressing table with a box of bobby pins.

“Funny it’s so quiet/’ said Carolyn.

Mrs. Bridge looked out the window. “Why, it’s snowing again. Isn’t that nicel I just love snowy winter nights.”

Large wet flakes were floating down and clasping the outside of the window, and the street light shone on the evergreen tree in the back yard.

“There goes a rabbit!” she cried, but by the time Carolyn reached the window only the tracks were visible.

“Is Daddy asleep?” Carolyn asked.

“Yes, poor man. He didn’t get away from the office until after seven and insists he has to get up at five-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“That’s silly.”

“I know, but you can’t tell him anything. I’ve tried, goodness knows, but it never does any good.”

“Why does he do it?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Bridge irritably, for the thought of it never failed to irritate fier, “he insists we’ll all starve to death if he doesn’t.”

“That’ll be the day!”

Both of them were silent for a while, watching the snow descend.

“I do hope Ruth gets home soon/’

“She can drop dead for all I care/’

“You know I don’t like you to use that expression/’

Carolyn split a bobby pin on her teeth and jammed it into her curly blond hair. “Well, what’s the matter with her then? Who does she think she is, anyway?” She leaned to one side and opened the cupboard that belonged to Ruth. “Look at that! Black lace bras. Mademoiselle from Kansas City/’

Presently the grandfather clock in the hall chimed twice, and Mrs. Bridge, after brushing Carolyn’s cheek with her lips, went downstairs and into the kitchen, where she made herself some cocoa and moodily watched the snow building up on the sill. After a while she went upstairs again, changed into her nightgown, and got into bed beside her husband. There she lay with her hands folded on the blanket while she waited for the faint noise of the front door opening and closing.

She believed she was awake but all at once, without having heard a sound, she realized someone was downstairs. She heard a gasp and then what sounded like a man groaning. The luminous hands of the bedside clock showed four-fifteen. Mrs. Bridge got out of bed, pulled on her robe, and hurried along the hall to the top of the stairs, where she took hold of the banister and leaned over, calling just loud enough to be heard by anyone in the living room, “Ruth?”

No one answered.

“Ruth, is that you?” she asked, more loudly, and there was authority in her tone. She listened and she thought some delicate noise had stopped. The dark house was silent.

“I’m coming down,” said Mrs. Bridge.

“It’s me,” said Ruth.

“Is there anyone with you?”

“He’s leaving.”

And then Ruth coughed in a prolonged, unnatural way, and Mrs. Bridge knew she was coughing to conceal another noise.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, unaware that she was trembling from anger and fright, but there was only the sound of the great front door opening and shutting and seconds later the crunch of auto tires on the crust of yesterday’s frozen snow as whoever it was released the brake and coasted away.

A cold draft swept up the spiral staircase. Mrs. Bridge, peering down into the gloom, saw her daughter ascending. She snapped on the hall light and they met at the top step. Ruth was taking the last of the pins out of her hair. She reeked of whisky and her dress was unbuttoned. Idly she pushed by her mother and wandered along the hall. Mrs. Bridge was too shocked to do anything until Ruth was at the door of her room; there they confronted each other again, for Ruth had felt herself pursued and turned swiftly with a sibilant ominous cry. Her green eyes were glittering and she lifted one hand to strike. Mrs. Bridge, untouched by her daughter’s hand, staggered backward.

That was the year Ruth finally managed to graduate from high school. She was there five years and for a while they were afraid it would be six, though she had taken the easiest courses possible. Her electives were music, drawing, athletics, and whatever else sounded easy. She seldom studied, and even when she did study she did poorly. She had been a member of the swimming team and this was the only activity listed after her name in the yearbook: ”member of girls’ swimming team” that and the desperate phrase “interested in dramatics/’ She had once tried out for a play, but gave a rather hysterical reading and failed to get the part. When she finished high school Carolyn was only one semester behind her, although they had started two years apart.

A few days after the graduation she said she was going to New York to get a job. She did not like Kansas City; she never had. She had not made many friends. She had never seemed happy or even much at ease in Kansas City.

Mrs. Bridge tried to become indignant when Ruth announced she was going to New York, but after all it was useless to argue.

“What on earth would you do in New York?” she asked, because Ruth had been unable to learn shorthand, nor could she operate a typewriter as efficiently as Douglas, who tapped out his English themes with one finger.

“Don’t worry about me,” Ruth said. She had grown tall and beautiful, and somehow in the powerful arch of her nose and in her somber, barbaric eyes she looked biblical, swarthy and violent.

“I’m putting a thousand dollars in the bank for you,” said Mr. Bridge, “on one condition.” This condition was that if she could not support herself by the time the money ran out she would agree to return to Kansas City. She laughed and put her arms around him, and no one in the family had seen her do this since she was a child.

Mrs. Bridge was disturbed that she did not want to go to college, being of the opinion that although one might never actually need a college degree it was always nice to have; and yet, thinking the matter over, she realized Ruth would only be wasting four years obviously she was no student. But why New York? Why not some place closer to home?

Soon she was ready to leave. The entire family went to the station.

“You didn’t forget your ticket, did you?” asked Mrs. Bridge.

“Not quite/’ said Ruth drily.

“Be sure to look up the Wenzells when you get there. I’ve already written them you’re coming to New York, but of course they won’t know where to find you.” The Wenzells were people they had met one summer in Colorado and with whom they exchanged Christmas greetings.

“I will/’ said Ruth, who had no intention of getting in touch with them.

“Have a good trip,” her mother said as they were embracing at the gate- “Don’t forget to write. Let us know as soon as you arrive.”

“Here are your traveling expenses/’ her father said, handing her some folded bills. “For God’s sake, don’t lose it. And behave yourself. If you don’t, I’m coming after you.”

“I can look out for myself,” said Ruth.

He laughed, and his laughter rang out odd and bold, the laughter of a different man, a free and happy man, who was not so old after all. “That isn’t what I said,” he told her lightly, and Mrs. Bridge, glancing from one to the other, was struck by their easy companionship, as though they had gotten to know each other quite well when she was not around.

Once on the train Ruth kicked off her shoes and curled up in the seat. She unsnapped the catch of her traveling bag and reached in for a copy of Theatre Arts but felt a strange envelope. She knew immediately what it was it was called a “train letter/’ and a generation or so ago they were given to young people who were leaving home for the first time. She withdrew her hand and sat motionless for quite a while. Tears gathered in her eyes and presently she was shaken with dry sobs, although she did not know whether she was laughing or weeping. Before long she dried her face and lighted a cigarette.