“Just a second,” he said. He re-entered the kitchen.
“What did he want?” Susan said. “All he said to me was hello and were you there.”
“He wants me to go downtown and have a beer with him.”
“Oh, he must be feeling lonely. Why don’t you do that? I’m tired anyhow; I think I’ll probably go to bed as soon as Taffy does. I might read awhile in bed or watch TV.”
As he returned to the phone he mulled it over. “Thanks anyhow,” he said to Lumky. “We have a lot of business to talk over. Maybe some other time, and I’ll buy.”
“What!” Lumky said.
He said, “I’ll have to take a rain check on it.”
“What are you, Red or something? Okay, if that’s how you feel. Maybe I can find somebody in Pocatello.”
“I hope this doesn’t mean our relationship is finished,” Bruce said.
“No,” Lumky said. “Probably not.”
They both said good night and hung up.
“I told him no,” he said to Susan. He did not especially feel like sitting around in a bar listening to anyone’s troubles. “I’m happy where I am,” he said, which certainly was true. Down in Reno he had sat around in bars, as lonely as possible; he hoped all that was over. There were, in the world, millions of lonely unattached men drinking beer by themselves. Wanting to tell someone all about it.
“As long as you’re not going,” Susan said, as she finished up the dishes and put away her apron, “I won’t go right to bed. I said that so you’d feel free to come and go as you please. I don’t want you to feel tied down, with me. In that connection I have something I picked up for you this afternoon but I forgot to give it to you.” She went into the living room for her purse. From it she brought forth a doorkey, which she presented to him. “To the house,” she said. “Oh, and also.” She fished around in the purse and this time produced a key ring on which hung many keys. “To the office,” she said, maneuvering a key from the ring. “See how free and relaxed I feel with you?”
The two keys improved his disposition. They gave him a moment of elation and he said, “I hope you never wish you hadn’t.”
“I know I won’t,” she said. “You wouldn’t let me down, Bruce. It isn’t so hard to tell one way or another about people. We haven’t talked very much about love. Has it been on your mind, though?”
“Somewhat,” he said, feeling clumsy.
“It’s not so much what you tell me,” she said. “Because a person finds himself saying almost anything in a situation where there’s so much involved. It’s what you feel that you don’t say. I’ve never been very articulate. And I don’t demand elaborate expressions of sentiments … if I can’t give it I don’t see that I have any right to ask. I think I can tell what you’re thinking. This gives you … a lot, doesn’t it? I actually know so little about how you used to be, before. I can only guess what you were like before you met me. Were you lonely that night at Peg’s?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I had driven up from Reno. It’s a lonely trip.” He did not want to say that he went around habitually lonely; for some reason he shrank from conceding that. Perhaps because it would seem that he had been drawn to her through sheer loneliness, and that was not true.
Susan said, “I don’t even know how many girls you’ve been in love with. Or how strongly you get to feel, emotionally I mean. Maybe you’re not one who gets involved with other people very often or for very long. I guess time will tell. I mean about this.”
“Don’t sound depressed,” he said.
“Oh, I’m not depressed. I’ve never given anyone the key to the office before. Except of course Zoe has hers.”
“What about the key to the house?”
“Mrs. Poppinjay has one. Naturally Walt had his key. I know what you mean. No, Bruce.” She said it in a small-girl voice, very low and positive.
At about twelve o’clock they heard something thumping outdoors on the front porch. They had been together in the bedroom, and even though the doorbell did not ring they ceased and returned to the living room, both of them ruffled.
“Somebody’s out there,” Susan said, smoothing her hair.
He opened the door. Standing on the porch, in the dark, was Milt Lumky. “Is that your Merc out there?” Lumky said. “With the Nevada plates?” Entering the house, he held out a bit of dried, wrinkled, torn paper to Bruce. “I took the liberty of tearing this off it,” he said.
It was the remains of the C.B.B. sticker that had been glued to the rear window.
Milt nodded hello to Susan. His face, flushed, radiated heat. He wore a bright yellow short-sleeved sports shirt, a crinkly nylon. And soft gray slacks, without belt. And crepe-soled shoes.
“What’s the good word?” Milt said. “You can’t kill a guy for dropping by. I drove by and saw your car still here, so I knew you hadn’t left yet.” He seated himself on the sofa.
“If I don’t seem glad to see you,” Susan said, “it’s because I’ve got a lot on my mind.” Turning her back to him she made a face of lamentation to Bruce. For both of them this could become an ordeal. It depended on how determined Milt was to stay.
“Nice place you have here,” Milt said, entrenched in the center of the living room, his hands on his knees. He seemed ill at ease, conscious that he had butted himself into the house against their wishes, but at the same time he intended to stay. He wanted to be there. Obviously he had no other place to go. “I guess you’re wondering how to get rid of me,” he said in his rough, humbled, but determined growl. “I won’t stay long. I’ll leave when Bruce does.”
What he meant by that, only God knew. It made Bruce uneasy; he had an intuition that the man would crash around until he accidently or deliberately did some damage … he wondered if Susan knew any more. She continued to eye Milt with suspicion, but at the same time she seemed amused. Perhaps because he had been drinking. He exasperated and amused her at the same time, and Bruce thought of all the times he had felt like that about friends of his when they had had something to drink. The need to be alert … and in this situation, an additional need. But Milt did not have anything against them; that was obvious. He wanted to be around them, as he said. He needed their company, as friends.
But it was not a good time. They had no use for visitors; they were not in the mood to be good company. He had made a mistake. His purposeful manner showed that he recognized that, although possibly he did not understand why it was such a mistake. Now he would begin to ponder that. Why did they seem so displeased to see him? Bruce saw that kind of thought begin to circulate through the man’s mind. They had to be friendly to him or he would grasp the nature of the relationship between them. In a second or so he would discover that Bruce was not going to leave. And then they would have to be careful with him.
The sight of Milt Lumky in his yellow nylon sports shirt, all tanked up with beer, started in Susan a mischievous, heedless quality that Bruce had never seen before. He had known people who got perpetual amusement from the sight of drunks. Milt, of course, was not drunk. But he had lost the capacity to hold his tongue. And that released Susan from the obligation to be polite. It buoyed her up. She, too, could say what she wanted; she could shed at least some of her concern. She could rattle back at him with impunity, and Bruce thought to himself, If that’s something she enjoys men there must be a lot inside her bottled up that she’s either afraid to express or doesn’t know how to express. It’s a bad sign, he thought, watching the two of them. Suppose she takes advantage of him. He hated that. He could never understand anyone tormenting a person whose reflexes had slowed down after a few drinks. Cripples, drunks, and animals had never inspired him. In fact they generally depressed him. He always felt that he should do something for them, but he never knew what.