“I don’t know if I can,” he muttered, but the armload was dropped into his hands and he found himself holding it. “I’ve never been there.”
“It’s not hard to find.” She took hold of the sleeve of his coat and led him over to a large lacquered wall map of the city. “Here,” she said, pointing to a red ‘X’ on the map. “This is where we are. You drive out this way.” She explained the route in detail and wrote down the address, obviously relieved that she had found someone to deliver the things to her partner. “I really appreciate it,” she finished up. “I have so much to do here, with Susan away. She’s been away, you know, out of the country. I’ve had it all to do,” she called, as she went back behind the counter and seated herself at a big old-fashioned electric typewriter. Smiling at him over her glasses, she began to type. “I hope you’ll excuse me,” she said.
“Thanks for telling me how to get there,” he said, disturbed that she would give the firm’s checkbook to a stranger simply because he mentioned the other owner’s name. What a guileless soul, he thought. And what a haphazard way to run a business. “Do you think there’s any medicine or anything I can pick up for her?” he said. “As long as I’m going out there?”
“No,” she said cheerfully. “The mail and the checkbooks are the important thing. And don’t forget to remind her that she or I have to call that student—his name’s on the manuscript—before we start on it, so he’ll know how much it’ll be. He only has fifty dollars.”
Saying good-bye, he left the office. A moment later he had opened his car door and was depositing the heap of papers, envelopes, and the heavy board check ledger on the car seat.
Now I have to go out there, he realized.
He started up the car, drove out into traffic, and in the direction of Susan Faine’s house.
Years ago, when he had been in high school, he had been a paper boy. He had delivered papers after school, in Montario, and Miss Reuben had lived along his route. For the first few months he had had no contact with her, because she had not subscribed to the paper. But one day, when he had picked up his bundle, he found a notice of a new subscriber on route 36, plus one additional newspaper to add to his pack. So he walked up the wide cement steps, past the trees and flower beds, until he stood below the second-story balcony, and from there he had lobbed a folded-up paper over the railing and onto the porch of the house. And six times a week he did the same after that, for almost a year.
This house now did not resemble that fine stone mansion with its trees, fountain, fish pool and bird bath, its outdoor sprinkling system. In those days, she had been single and she had shared the house with three other women. They did not own it; they only rented it. This house, smaller, stuck up square and regular, wood, not stone. The windows were small. The yard, in front, had no trees in it, only a few bushes, flowers, no grass at all. The steps were brick. But it was a modern house, in good condition, and he saw that behind it a long grassy yard stretched out, flat and well-kept, with what appeared to be a ping pong table in the middle of it, and roses growing up into an arbor … The house had recently been painted a pleasant off-white. Dried drops of paint on the leaves of the shrubs suggested that the job had been done during the last month or so.
He closed and locked the car door, crossed the sidewalk, and then stepped up to the porch and rang the bell before he could have time to suffer any further doubts.
Nobody answered the ring. He rang again.
Off somewhere within the house a radio could be heard, tuned to a program of dance music. After waiting and ringing, he walked back down to the path and around the side of the house, through an open gate and into the back yard.
At first the garden seemed empty. He started back toward the front again, and then he saw Susan Faine; motionless, she blended with the garden. She sat on the back step, with a lap of brightly-colored clothes; apparently she had been darning or sewing, because on the step beside her lay a pair of scissors and a number of spools of thread. What she had were children’s socks. And now he noticed toys strewn about the yard, a rusted metal horse, blocks, parts of games. Susan had on a white frilly blouse, short-sleeved, and a great long unpressed wrinkled green skirt of some thin material that whipped about her legs each time a breeze moved through the yard. Her legs and arms seemed unusually white. Her feet were bare, but he saw a pair of canvas shoes that had been kicked off, nearby.
If she had been darning socks she certainly had stopped, now. She sat bent over, with one red sock across her right wrist and hand, her fingers inside it. A thimble sparkled from the second finger of her left hand. But he saw no sign of needle or thread.
“Where’s your needle and thread?” he said.
She lifted her head. “What?” she said slowly, squinting at him to see who it was. Her movements were retarded, as if she had been almost asleep. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” Reaching down, she brushed her fingers across the ground at her feet. “I dropped it,” she said.
As he approached, she found her needle, held it up and inspected it, and then resumed her darning. The bright midday sunlight made her frown; lines scoured her forehead, and her eyes, fixed on the dazzling sock, became almost shut.
“I have a lot of stuff for you,” he said, balancing his armload.
Again she raised her head.
“From your office.” He held out the armload.
“Did Mrs. de Lima give them to you?” Susan said.
“That woman who was there,” he said. “Middle-aged, brown hair.”
“I told her I wasn’t feeling well,” Susan said. “I really ought to be down there. I haven’t been down there more than one day in the last month.”
“Don’t go down if you’re not feeling well,” he said.
“I feel okay,” she said. “I just can’t bring myself to go down there. It’s so depressing. I’m just not cut out to be a businesswoman. I used to teach school.”
He nodded at that.
Susan sighed. “Put them inside. The checks and the mail. What’s that big packet?”
“A manuscript.” He related to her the details that Mrs. de Lima had asked him to pass on.
Susan put down her lap of socks and got to her feet. “I know what she wants; she wants me to type it here at home. She knows I have an Underwood electric here. I suppose I should. What’s the matter with me? I shouldn’t make her do all the work … she’s really been very good about it, the last month. Come on in. Excuse me for being so slow … I can’t seem to focus on anything today.” She disappeared on inside the house, and he followed.
The back porch, with its laundry tubs and shelves, was cool. Susan had gone on into a yellow, brightly-decorated kitchen, and then on along a hall and into a front room. When he arrived there he found her collapsed in a deep, old-fashioned easy chair, her arms resting on its fuzzy, black-fabric arms, her head back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Setting his armload down on a table he said, “I was surprised when she gave me this stuff.”
“Why?” Susan said, her eyes shut.
“She doesn’t know me.”
“Poor Zoe,” Susan said. “She’s a nut. She trusts everybody. She’s as bad as I am. Neither of us have any business sense. I don’t know how we ever got started.”
“Anyhow you’re making a living,” he said.