“She’s all right,” Zoe spoke up. “She just can’t stand hearing the facts of life.”
“He was just kidding you,” Bruce said.
“I think he was,” Susan agreed. ” But it’s so hard to tell with him. He has that ironic way.”
Of course, by that time Lumky had driven off in his Mercedes, dour to the last.
“He’s a very intelligent person,” Susan said to Bruce. “Did he tell you he graduated from Columbia? A B.A. in European history, I think it was.”
“How’d he get into the wholesale paper business?” Bruce said.
“His father is one of the partners in Whalen. You saw his car and his clothes. He has quite a bit of money. He’s a strange person … he’s thirty-eight and he’s never gotten married. He’s about the loneliest person I’ve ever know, but it’s impossible to get close to him; he’s so bitter and ironic.”
Over at her desk, Zoe de Lima clacked away at her typewriter.
“She doesn’t like him,” Susan said.
“You bet I don’t,” Zoe said, without pausing. “He’s vulgar and foul-mouthed. He’s the worst of the salesmen who come in. I’m afraid to turn my back on him for fear he’ll pinch; he’s that kind.”
“Has he ever?” Susan said.
Zoe said, “He’s never had a chance. Not with me, anyhow.” She raised her head and said meaningfully, “How about with you?”
“He’s not vulgar,” Susan said to Bruce, ignoring her. “He has extremely good taste. It’s an outside shell, some of the language he uses. I think he’s satirizing the men he has to work with. It’s his bitterness against the business world and salesmen in general. And many short men are unhappy and lonely. They keep to themselves.”
“Do you know him very well?” he asked her.
“We have coffee,” Susan said. “When he’s through here. One time he asked me to have dinner with him, but I couldn’t. Taffy was sick and I had to get right home. I don’t think he believed me. He was sure I wouldn’t do it anyhow. I just proved he was right.”
6
As he and Susan drove home that evening she said, “You didn’t mention anything to Milt about your staying at my house, did you? I know you didn’t.”
“No,” he said. He was well aware that salesmen carried tales from one end of the state to the other.
“We have to observe caution,” she said. “I’m tired. We really didn’t get much sleep. And this tension with Zoe … I’ll be relieved when she’s finally out. I saw you going through the invoices. Did you come across anything important you want to change?”
He outlined different matters he had discovered. Mainly he dealt with the need of buying in quantity. Halfway through, while stopped at a light, he glanced over and saw that she had her mind on something else; the rapt, faraway expression had again appeared on her face and he knew that she had heard little or nothing he had said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, when he managed to attract her attention. “But I’ve just got so much on my mind. I’m worried about Taffy’s reaction to not seeing Walt. He had become a father in her mind. I hope you will. That’s how it has to be. I really can’t interest myself in these little petty business details. I think Milt is right; it corrodes your self-respect.”
He said, “I don’t feel like that. I enjoy it.”
Leaning over she kissed him. “That’s why you’re no longer living in Reno. You know, we have a wonderful future to look forward to, you and I. Isn’t that how you feel? I feel as if I’m coming to life. I know that sounds corny, but that’s the way I feel. There’s probably a perfectly sound physiological basis for that sort of feeling … probably the whole metabolism is affected. The endocrine system, too. New enzymes unlock untouched energy.” She clutched his arm with such force that he almost lost control of the car. “Let’s stop and pick up something special for dinner. You know what I’d like? A can of crepe suzettes. When I was getting cigarettes over at the supermarket I noticed that they sell them there.”
He stopped the car in the supermarket lot, and while she sat waiting he trudged off and got the can of crepe suzettes and stood in line, paid, and returned.
“I also have to stop at the drugstore,” she informed him, as they drove on. “This one I’ll have to get myself; it’s not something you can go in and ask for.”
While he double-parked, Susan disappeared at a leisurely rate into the drugstore. A car behind him honked until he was forced to drive off and around the block. When he got back again he saw no sign of her, and he drove around once more. This time he found her waiting and pacing on the sidewalk.
“Where did you go?” she demanded, as she hopped in and slammed the door. “I thought you were going to wait.”
“I couldn’t,” he said.
On her lap she held a long square package wrapped with brown paper and white twine. He averted his eyes from it, feeling melancholy. This peculiar frankness of hers bothered him; it had from the start.
“You’re so quiet,” she said, once later on.
“Tired,” he said. He had bought the can of crepe suzettes with his own money, and he did not have much money. The arrangement about that still made no sense to him, and it remained to plague him.
“When do you feel you’ll be able to take over?” Susan said.
“Hard to say.”
“In a week?”
“Maybe.”
She sighed. “I hope so. Then I can devote all my time to taking care of Taffy.” With energy, she said, “You see, as soon as I’m in a position to let Mrs. Poppinjay go, I save two hundred and some dollars a month right there. And that’s a lot, even these days. And I’ll feel much healthier, too, when I can be home with her, take her to school and pick her up, and be with her after school.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to be down at the office?” This was the first time he had heard of that. “Two people have to be there. And I can’t do any of the typing and stencil-cutting.” He had watched Zoe doing it, and beyond any doubt it was a full-time job in itself.
“I can do quite a bit at home,” Susan said.
“You’ll have to be down at the office,” he said.
“I’ll be there some.”
He let the subject drop.
“You knew I wanted you to take over,” she said.
“If you let Zoe go,” he said, “you’ll have to spend almost as much time down there as you do now. If we can get anything to sell, that will be one job, that plus the general managing, and then the typing and stencil-cutting will be another. Later on we can probably give up the typing and stencil-cutting, but certainly not right away.”
“Whatever you say,” she said. “You know better than I.” But on the rest of the trip to the house she seemed aloof.
After dinner, while he and Susan were doing the dishes, the phone rang. She dried her hands and went off to answer it.
“For you,” she said, returning. “It’s Milt Lumky.”
He went to the phone and said hello, wondering what Milt wanted.
“Hi,” Milt growled. “I figured I had a good chance of finding you this way. Finished dinner?”
“Yes,” he said, with some resentment.
“How about a beer? I need somebody to talk to. I’ll drop by and we’ll go down town and have a beer.”
“You mean just me? Or me and Susan both?”
Milt said, “Doesn’t she have a little daughter?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“If you don’t want to just say so,” Milt said. “It was just an idea on the spur of the moment. I’ll be around town a couple more days and then I take off for Pocatello. And then I’ll be back in a week. All I have here is a room with a bath and private entrance. It’s not enough to keep me here. I eat all my meals out.”