Stuart—Ted and I have broken completely. I’m through with the Society; it’s not for me. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Maybe tomorrow? I’ll come by the store; I’m staying in San Mateo with friends. Sorry I kept your pictures so long—I want to talk with you about them—they’re pretty good.
Marsha
He sat for a long time holding the penciled note. It wasn’t until Ellen roused him that he put it away and got to his feet.
“Time to eat,” she was saying. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t go to sleep until later—get yourself a chair and let’s get started.”
Blindly, dazed with growing fury, he searched for a chair.
“Are you hungry?” Ellen asked hopefully.
“I’m starved,” he muttered savagely.
“I hope you can stand lamb chops again.”
Hadley didn’t answer. He seated himself and stiffly began unfolding his napkin.
Polkas and ballads, and a Spanish guitar. She closed her eyes, and the people danced wildly to the accordions and violins. Clapping their hands, guzzling beer, long skirts whirling, laughter, warmth…the tinny blur of simple people enjoying themselves… Marsha Frazier listened as long as she could stand it, and then she snapped off the radio and opened her eyes.
Across the dark street Modern TV Sales and Service was glowing. Her wristwatch told her it was almost nine; he could be coming out any minute. Impatiently, she reached down and clicked on the car’s ignition. The motor came on with a muffled roar and she backed away from the curb, out into the slow-moving evening traffic. Sitting and watching drove her crazy; she stabbed down on the accelerator, and the little Studebaker coupe leaped forward.
Twice she drove around the block, slowed to a crawl by the leisurely creeping cars, the drifting clots of pedestrians stalling traffic at each intersection. Store signs, red and green and flashing white, blazed up and down the avenue; on Friday night everything was open wide for business. The sleepy sprawl of August haze lay over the town, dust and moisture blown in from the nearby Bay. At drive-ins and cafés teenagers collected in bright swarms, devouring ice cream, Cokes, greasy hamburgers. Young, healthy, they wandered around town laughing and wiping their chins, sprawling in their stripped-down cars, lounging around drugstores, killing time smoking and punching each other.
As again she came even with the television store she slowed almost to a stop. She peered out and shaded her eyes against the glare of the big overhead neon signs. The glare bothered her; frowning, she drove on a short way, trying to see into the blaring store entrance. Shapes moved, men and women. The dim outlines of big TV sets stationed here and there. The counter, to the left. For a moment the form of a man emerged from the confusion of lights and objects; it was Stuart Hadley. Talking to a young couple, showing them a television combination, he stood outlined in the doorway, a tall, youthful shape in white shirt, tie, neatly pressed slacks. Hadley gestured, bent to adjust the knobs of the TV set; then he faded back into the depths of the store.
Once more Marsha drove the car slowly around the block. This time when she came around and passed by Modern, the front door had been closed. The lights still blazed, but the shade had been pulled down. Up and down the avenue the neon signs were winking off one by one. Merchants closed and locked their doors; aimlessly drifting groups of people appeared, stood listlessly, wandered toward their parked cars and home. Marsha pulled the Studebaker into a parking space and turned off the motor. It couldn’t be much longer; the dark face of the Bank of America clock read nine-ten. As she watched she saw a man and woman approach the door of Modern TV and try the handle. The door was locked; the man and woman stood for a moment and then gave up. Marsha exulted as they walked off… No more people would be getting in. As soon as those already inside were taken care of, that was it.
One by one the people left the store. Each time, Hadley stood a moment holding the door wide, saying good night to them, smiling and waving out into the evening darkness. Laughter, the easy banter of summer-evening business. Marsha gritted her teeth and suffered through the interminable. It was nine-thirty before the last person was out, and the door finally locked.
Laboriously, Hadley began turning off television sets and lights. She watched him go from set to set, trying the knobs, inspecting the plugs. The door shade had been rolled back up; now the overhead fluorescents dimmed off and the interior of the store became a pool of darkness. Vaguely, the tall shape moved here and there, emptying the cash register, setting the tape, plugging in the night-light over the safe, disappearing into the back-probably for his jacket. The minutes passed like hours… She could have screamed aloud when Hadley stopped at the telephone to make a call. For an endless interval he stood leaning against the tube checker, the phone to his face, staring blankly out into the night darkness, his jaw slack, jacket over his arm, kicking intermittently at an unopened stack of brown packages on the floor in front of him.
Somehow she lived through it. At last Hadley laughed, put down the phone, groped in his pocket for his key, and approached the door. He stopped briefly to tick off the outside lights; then he straightened, pulled the door shut after him, and locked it. For a moment he tried the knob; satisfied that it was locked, he swung his jacket over his shoulder and headed away from the store.
Lips pressed tight, Marsha started the motor of the car and hurriedly backed out into traffic. Ignoring a honking bus, she swung over to the center lane; at the next intersection she made a screeching left turn onto the side street. Jamming on the brakes, she halted just beyond the lights of the intersection, the rear of the Studebaker blocking the white-painted crosswalk.
Hadley came down the sidewalk, swinging his jacket and whistling soundlessly. She waited until he had stepped off the pavement and into the crosswalk before she pushed open the car door. Apparently he was a trifle nearsighted; he didn’t recognize her until she spoke to him.
“Hop in.” She gunned the motor. “Hurry up.”
For an instant he stood in the crosswalk facing her and the car. A dark, ugly curtain settled over his face, a closed hardness that made her suddenly uneasy. His eyes dimmed and faded; an impersonal film gathered, a blind innerness from below the level of individual consciousness. It was as if Hadley had gone away and something awful had come and looked out through his eyes, peered at her from behind his face. Chilled, she pulled away.
Another car had made the turn after her; it slowed to a resentful halt and shifted into second.
“Come on,” she repeated nervously, her composure shattered. “I have to get the hell out of here.”
Hadley came slowly around the side of the Studebaker and climbed into the seat beside her. She reached past him, slammed the door, and bucked the car urgently forward. Rapidly, shifting, not looking at the man beside her, she gunned the motor and swiftly shot away from the intersection. Satisfied, the car behind her followed and went on its way. That car, that unknown random object, had decided things.
Marsha settled back against the seat and tried to concentrate on the cars and lights.
For quite a long time, as long as possible, Hadley said nothing. The familiar interior of the dapper little Studebaker coupe annoyed him; he hated the sight of the clean, simple dashboard, the grille of the radio, the low-swept hood beyond the windshield, the bulging pulled-out ashtray. He knew every inch of it; he had stared at it long enough to memorize every screw and bit of chrome. In a way he hated the car more than he hated Marsha.
“You’re acting childish,” Marsha said finally.
Hadley grunted and slumped down. He didn’t want to talk to her; he didn’t even want to look at her. Instead, he followed the outlines of a bread factory to the right, a towering redbrick building with trucks lined up in rows, waiting for their loads. Through the open windows of the car rushed the smell of warm baking bread. Concentrating on the simple, fresh odor, he managed to ignore the woman beside him until she said sharply:
“Damn it, look at me! You’re not going to sit the
re like a sullen child; sit up and behave like an adult!”
“What the hell do you want?” Hadley said brutally. “I thought I’d seen the last of you.”
The hard, smooth flesh of the woman’s face drained perfectly white. Like polished bone her cheeks glistened, cold and stark in the reflected streetlight. “Don’t talk to me like that,” she said in a thin, icy voice. Without warning she jammed on the brakes; the car screeched to a bucking, jerking halt. “Get out of here. Go on—get out!”
He made no move to go. He sat with his arms on his knees, hands dangling loosely in his lap, still not looking at her. There was no incentive to go; he had made up his mind to get in the car and that was that. The decision had been made; he had no intention of unmaking it.
“Look,” Marsha said in a choked, uneven voice. “There’s no point in going on acting like this. Is there? You don’t have to treat me like an enemy… I’m not your enemy.” Pleadingly, she muttered: “Did you get my note?”
“Sure.” Hadley stirred a trifle to rest his arm on the windowsill. “You walked right into the apartment and handed it to my wife; how could I miss it?”
They were parked in the middle of the street, in a black, deserted block of the factory district. A few blocks ahead was the railroad track, the loading platform and opaque shape of the station building. Inert cars were parked here and there. Nothing moved.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hadley said morbidly. “I hate this kind of neighborhood.”
Marsha shifted into low and started up the car. As the car crawled forward her hands were visibly shaking; she bit her lip and gazed convulsively straight ahead. Swallowing, she asked: “Were you surprised?”
“About what?”
“That—I’d left Ted.”
He thought about it. “No,” he answered finally. “It seems natural. He probably wasn’t the first.”
“Not at all,” Marsha admitted in a stricken whisper. “One of a long line. But he was the first—” She couldn’t get out the word. “What you said. Ted was the only Negro. There never was any other; I wanted to tell you that.”
“It’s not important.”
“You brought it up. About him—that night. I know what you said; so do you.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Hadley said distantly. “Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. Let’s forget it.” He pointed out the window at the red glow of the Farmers’ Commercial Trust Building. “If you turn on that way you’ll pass my place. You can let me off practically anywhere.”
Presently, as they drove along, Marsha said faintly: “I liked your pictures.”
“So you said in the note.”
“I mean it.” She appealed to him, agitated, eyes wild. “You don’t believe me? Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t it important to you anymore?”
“In a way,” Hadley said noncommittally. “I’m glad to know what you think.”
Gripping the wheel rigidly, Marsha said: “When we get hold of some money we’re going to try some lithographs. Have you worked with lithography?”
“No.”
“Are—you interested?”
Hadley sighed. “No.” He really wasn’t. He felt tired; it had been a long, arduous day. His legs, his arms, ached with fatigue. The bones of his feet hurt; he had been standing up for thirteen hours. It had been some time since he had had a decent bowel movement. The dozen cups of coffee he had taken in during the day had coated his stomach with a gritty, metallic deposit. He wished idly for a glass of fruit juice. Orange juice, plenty of it. Cold and thin and clear. And also, perhaps, a lettuce and cheese sandwich.
The car was moving reluctantly toward Bancroft, in the direction of his apartment house. Actually he had no desire to go home; he didn’t expect to go home. He was here; he had come of his own free will. He had made up his mind and he did not mean to back out of it. Everything had been thought over, examined and considered, in the silent hours of the previous night. But he enjoyed hurting her; he could see the pain in the harsh, taut lines of her face. Settling back against the upholstery of the car, he grimly enjoyed the ride.
“There it is,” he said, indicating the building. “You want to come in awhile? You can meet my family… You met Ellen already. I’ll show you Pete.” Sadistically he continued: “How about having dinner with us? We haven’t eaten… I eat when I get home.”
The woman had more courage than he had realized. Or he had misjudged her feelings about him. “No thanks,” she said icily. “Maybe some other time. I don’t feel very well tonight; I don’t want anything to eat and I don’t want to meet anybody.”
Apparently she had accepted the fact that he was going to get out and leave her. She had rallied; he had to admire the stoic jutting of her chin and the bleakness of her eyes. Beyond doubt, she would be able to weather it. It was tearing her apart, but she could endure it; she, too, had made up her mind.
“Well,” she said thinly, “it was nice talking to you again.” She glanced at him briefly. “You’re looking well.”
“I should be. I’m manager of the store now.”
“Oh?” She nodded, “Fine. More money?”
“Lots more. Power, too… I get to boss people around.” He added, “All my responsibility, the whole place. Ordering, buying, making decisions. My little kingdom.”
Marsha parked the car across from his apartment house; it was, he noticed, almost the same place where she had let him off that night. Turning off the motor and lights, Marsha swung around to face him. Defiant and pale, she said: “I can see you’re going to make me pay for that night. All right, I’m paying. But why? What was I supposed to do?”
“Forget it,” Hadley said, his hand on the door handle.
Her gray eyes moved, flickered; gasping, she hurried on: “I knew I should have told you…but damn it, that’s not something you can tell people. Is it? I put it off; I waited too long. I got interested in you and then I was afraid to tell you. So I got myself boxed in… I couldn’t go to bed with you, could I? Not when I was living with Ted; it isn’t fair, I can’t do that sort of thing. You wouldn’t want me to do that, would you?”
“No,” he said idly.
“All this last month I wanted to get in touch with you. I wanted to come down here; I wanted to see you and talk to you. I started to write; God, I started letters, put them into envelopes—tore them up. I’ve been thinking about you all this time. Everything’s gone to pieces…” She turned away, clenched her fist and shuddered. A choking, grating sob shoved open her mouth and forced its way between her rigid jaws; she buried her face against the upholstery of the car, and for a time neither of them said anything.
“Stop acting,” Hadley said cruelly.
“I’m—” She cleared her throat; her voice was weak, almost inaudible. “I’m not acting. I’m in love with you.”
Hadley was shocked. A slow, painful burning sensation crept up into his cheeks. Angered and embarrassed, he wrenched away from her, as if something disgusting had happened. As if she had done a bestial thing, admitted to an unspeakable depravity. He wished violently that he hadn’t made her say it; that he hadn’t pushed her so far. It was something he hadn’t anticipated. Revolted, shaken, he yanked open the car door and half stepped to the pavement.
“Are you going?” Marsha said, the ragged edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. “Good night, Stuart Hadley. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”
“Calm down,” he told her.
“I’m calm.”
“Then lower your voice.” He pulled the door shut and reseated himself. “I’m too tired to stand any shouting. I’ve been working in that store thirteen hours; I’ve had my share of noise for the day.”
With a tremendous effort Marsha managed to get control of herself. “Can I expect you to stay?” she asked haltingly. “For a couple of minutes, at least?”
“A couple of minutes, yes,” Hadley answered.
With great care Marsha said: “It offends you to have me say how I feel? But that doesn’t cha
nge it; I still mean it. I still feel it.”
“Don’t say it again,” Hadley said fiercely. Restlessly, he shifted around, trying unsuccessfully to make himself comfortable. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s empty, worthless.”
“Not to me,” Marsha managed.
“Then keep it to yourself!” Darkly, he went on: “It’s like your standing up and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Who takes that seriously? Who believes in that? Somebody must believe in it, they make you say it, they make you stand there with your hand over your heart every morning, all the time you’re growing up in school. But you never expect to meet anybody who believes it… Like the lyrics of popular songs. You never expect anybody in real life to talk like that.”
“That’s what I sound like?” Marsha asked briskly.
“To me, yes. It would sound different to somebody else. Maybe there’re a whole lot of people who take stuff like that seriously. Maybe I’m the only person who can’t stand to hear about it.” He rubbed his forehead moodily. “I don’t know. Hearing you say it makes me ashamed of you… I want to look away and pretend it didn’t happen. The way I feel when somebody makes a disgusting noise. Something that reveals a different layer, an animal layer.”
Marsha laughed, a dry brittle humorless breaking sound. “You’re bourgeois—it reminds you of sex. You’re afraid it’ll lead to something physical.”
“Don’t kid yourself.” Hadley turned to gaze intently at her. He continued to study her until, self-conscious and uncertain, Marsha shrank away and involuntarily glanced over her blouse and skirt. “No,” Hadley said, “that’s not it. I’m not worried about realities; I’m not avoiding things that exist. Are you?”
Marsha started to speak, then changed her mind.
“You’re the one,” Hadley said. “You’re afraid; that’s why you talk like that… That’s why you pour out phony talk of that kind. You don’t really feel love—you feel what I feel. But you can’t say it; you can’t talk about it. You’re like everybody else; they talk that way because they’re afraid to talk about real things.”