"I just hate to talk to him about it."
"I'm telling you. I'll talk."
"But then he'll ask me what I think, and-I won't know what to say. It's got me worried sick."
She made another bunch of pleats. Then, after a long time, here it came. "Mr. Huff, would it be possible for me to take out a policy for him, without bothering him about it at all? I have a little allowance of my own. I could pay you for it, and he wouldn't know, but just the same all this worry would be over."
I couldn't be mistaken about what she meant, not after fifteen years in the insurance business. I mashed out my cigarette, so I could get up and go. I was going to get out of there, and drop those renewals and everything else about her like a red-hot poker. But I didn't do it. She looked at me, a little surprised, and her face was about six inches away. What I did do was put my arm around her, pull her face up against mine, and kiss her on the mouth, hard. I was trembling like a leaf. She gave it a cold stare, and then she closed her eyes, pulled me to her, and kissed back.
"I liked you all the time."
"I don't believe it."
"Didn't I ask you to tea? Didn't I have you come here when Belle was off? I liked you the very first minute. I loved it, the solemn way you kept talking about your company, and all this and that. That was why I kept teasing you about the Automobile Club."
"Oh, it was."
"Now you know."
I rumpled her hair, and then we both made some pleats in the blouse. "You don't make them even, Mr. Huff."
"Isn't that even?"
"The bottom ones are bigger than the top. You've got to take just so much material every time, then turn it, then crease it, and then they make nice pleats. See?"
"I'll try to get the hang of it."
"Not now. You've got to go."
"I'm seeing you soon?"
"Maybe."
"Well listen, I am."
"Belle isn't off every day. I'll let you know."
"Well-will you?"
"But don't you call me up. I'll let you know. I promise."
"All right then. Kiss me good-bye."
"Good-bye."
I live in a bungalow in the Los Feliz hills. Daytime, I keep a Filipino house boy, but he don't sleep there. It was raining that night, so I didn't go out. I lit a fire and sat there, trying to figure out where I was at. I knew where I was at, of course. I was standing right on the deep end, looking over the edge, and I kept telling myself to get out of there, and get quick, and never come back. But that was what I kept telling myself. What I was doing was peeping over that edge, and all the time I was trying to pull away from it, there was something in me that kept edging a little closer, trying to get a better look.
A little before nine the bell rang. I knew who it was as soon as I heard it. She was standing there in a raincoat and a little rubber swimming cap, with the raindrops shining over her freckles. When I got her peeled off she was in sweater and slacks, just a dumb Hollywood outfit, but it looked different on her. I brought her to the fire and she sat down. I sat down beside her.
"How did you get my address?" It jumped out at me, even then, that I didn't want her calling my office asking questions about me.
"Phone book."
"Oh."
"Surprised?"
"No."
"Well I like that. I never heard such conceit."
"Your husband out?"
"Long Beach. They're putting down a new well. Three shifts. He had to go down. So I hopped on a bus. I think you might say you're glad to see me."
"Great place, Long Beach."
"I told Lola I was going to a picture show."
"Who's Lola?"
"My stepdaughter."
"Young?"
"Nineteen. Well, are you glad to see me?"
"Yeah, sure. Why-wasn't I expecting you?"
We talked about how wet it was out, and how we hoped it didn't turn into a flood, like it did the night before New Year's, 1934, and how I would run her back in the car. Then she looked in the fire a while. "I lost my head this afternoon."
"Not much."
"A little."
"You sorry?"
"-A little. I've never done that before. Since I've been married. That's why I came down."
"You act like something really happened."
"Something did. I lost my head. Isn't that something?"
"Well-so what?"
"I just wanted to say-"
"You didn't mean it."
"No. I did mean it. If I hadn't meant it I wouldn't have had to come down. But I do want to say that I won't ever mean it again."
"You sure?"
"Quite sure."
"We ought to try and see."
"No-please…You see, I love my husband. More, here lately, than ever."
I looked into the fire a while then. I ought to quit, while the quitting was good, I knew that. But that thing was in me, pushing me still closer to the edge. And then I could feel it again, that she wasn't saying what she meant. It was the same as it was that first afternoon I met her, that there was something else, besides what she was telling me. And I couldn't shake it off, that I had to call it on her.
"Why 'here lately'?"
"Oh-worry."
"You mean that down in the oil fields, some rainy night, a crown block is going to fall on him?"
"Please don't talk like that."
"But that's the idea."
"Yes."
"I can understand that. Especially with this set-up."
"…I don't quite know what you mean. What set-up?"
"Why-a crown block will."
"Will what?"
"Fall on him."
"Please, Mr. Huff, I asked you not to talk like that. It's not a laughing matter. It's got me worried sick…What makes you say that?"
"You're going to drop a crown block on him."
"I-what!"
"Well, you know, maybe not a crown block. But something. Something that's accidentally-on-purpose going to fall on him, and then he'll be dead."
It nailed her between the eyes and they flickered. It was a minute before she said anything. She had to put on an act, and she was caught by surprise, and she didn't know how to do it.
"Are you-joking?"
"No."
"You must be. Or you must be crazy. Why-I never heard of such a thing in my life."
"I'm not crazy, and I'm not joking, and you've heard of such a thing in your life, because it's all you've thought of since you met me, and it's what you came down here for tonight."
"I'll not stay here and listen to such things."
"O.K."
"I'm going."
"O.K."
"I'm going this minute."
"O.K."
So I ran away from the edge, didn't I, and socked it into her so she knew what I meant, and left it so we could never go back to it again? I did not. That was what I tried to do. I never even got up when she left, I didn't help her on with her things, I didn't drive her back, I treated her like I would treat an alley cat. But all the time I knew it would be still raining the next night, that they would still be drilling at Long Beach, that I would light the fire and sit by it, that a little before nine the doorbell would ring: She didn't even speak to me when she came in. We sat by the fire at least five minutes before either one of us said anything. Then she started it. "How could you say such things as you said to me last night?"
"Because they're true. That's what you're going to do."