He stood up. The interview was over.
Johnny walked over 48th Street to Fifth Avenue, then caught a downtown-bound Fifth Avenue bus to Washington Square. He walked through the park and down Sullivan Street to a neat unprepossessing four story brick building. He climbed the stairs to the third floor, fitted a key in the lock and opened the door. He walked into the apartment.
“I got the job,” he said.
She came into his arms squealing jubilantly like the little girl which, in point of fact, she was. He picked her up off the floor and hugged her and kissed her and laughed. “Take it easy,” he said. “For Christ’s sake, it’s all of a yard a week. I used to make more than that in a night.”
“But it’s a job!”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s also a pretty good starting place. I was kind of certain they weren’t going to bother checking me out. They fell for the college stuff all the way. And the age. Not even a question.”
Her eyes were shining. “They just picked the best man,” she said. “That’s all. They read the copy you wrote and realized they couldn’t get anybody like you in a million years.”
“Well—”
“What do you do, exactly?”
“Filler copy. I write around things. I guess. It’s hard to say — I don’t start until Monday. You know when they have a commercial on television and there are some words you read while the announcer shouts at you? I’ll be writing those words to fit. Things like that. Somebody else supplies the idea and somebody else tells me what to write and I grind out the garbage. That’s all there is to it.”
“It sounds wonderful!”
“It does?”
“Uh-huh. Oh, it may not be the exciting stuff in the world, but when they see how good you are they’ll give you something better. See?”
He grinned at her.
The apartment was pleasant and roomy, on a fairly good street in Greenwich Village. They’d moved in just a week ago, two days after their mutual discovery that they were in love. It had been an interesting week.
One thing was obvious to both of them. They couldn’t go on as part-time whore and full-time gigolo and expect to get anywhere worthwhile. From where they sat, that road could lead only downhill. Before long they would either fall out of love or just quit because the situation was impossible. And neither of them wanted that. They both felt that what they had was far too valuable to be given up for that.
At first Johnny had wanted her to marry him. It hadn’t taken her long to talk him out of that. She was all of fourteen working on fifteen and you had to be eighteen to get married. She couldn’t fake the age requirement.
The next best thing, she explained, was to fake being married. People might ask to see a birth certificate, but no one ever asked to see a marriage license. All they had to do was take an apartment as man and wife and live there.
Which is what they did.
They settled on Greenwich Village — they wanted a nice neighborhood at a rental they could afford, and the Village seemed to be the answer. People were pleasant and interesting, the apartment they found was cheap and relatively clean, and transportation to any part of the city was easy.
And they set up shop.
It wasn’t all that easy, Johnny knew. For one thing, he had busted his hump to get a job that paid him what he said — less than he earned in a good night. He had seven thou put away and he had clothes bought, but until he proved himself at Craig, Harry and Bourke he would be lucky if they lived on his salary, much less saved a penny. And no matter how much you told yourself that love was the only thing that mattered, it was going to be tough living on a yard a week when you were accustomed to luxury.
It would be tough to eat home or grab hamburgers when you were accustomed to eating in a good restaurant seven nights a week. It would be tough to start counting your change when you were used to letting the pennies go to hell. It was tough to take buses instead of cabs and to walk instead of taking a bus.
Tougher for him than for her. He was used to luxury and she was not. For her, their family income was a high one. For him it was low and he knew it would take him some time to get used to it.
He wouldn’t even have looked for the job if it hadn’t been for her. From where he sat, it seemed as though any job that was any good at all would be closed to him. But she kept after him, kept telling him how bright he was and how much he knew and how well polished he was in speech and appearance, until she finally made him believe he could pass for a college man on the move.
It took him a day or two to figure out what career would be best. He picked advertising because it was a field where brains and talent were more important than preparation. He had a feeling he might be good in that area, and also it appealed to him in a way. It was salesmanship on a higher level. You took a product and stuck it down the nation’s throat, and you did your damnedest to make every man and woman buy the rotten thing whether it was any good or not, whether he or she needed it or not. He thought it might even be fun.
Now he was ready to go.
“I’ve got dinner ready,” Linda said. “You like fish?”
“Sure.”
“I made these swordfish steaks. You just fry them in butter and serve them. Wash up and come on in.”
He put down the paper and went into the bathroom, washed up quickly and went to the table for dinner. The food was good — Linda cooked well for a girl with no previous experience. But it galled him that she had to cook. A girl with breasts like those shouldn’t be frying them over a hot stove. She should have somebody to do the cooking for her. She should eat out at steak houses. She should—
Some day, he told himself. Some day we’ll have the whole bit, from a stone house on the Hudson to a Cadillac three blocks long. The whole routine, one of these days.
In the meantime, they had a goal. That was the important thing. When you had nothing to work for, either because you were on the bottom with no drive or on the top with no feeling of satisfaction for what you were doing, then it was bad. But when you were going places you could put up with a lot of crap in order to get where you were going.
They had a goal and they had each other. They were working together, working for something which was important to both of them.
That was plenty.
“Hey, Mr. Phony Husband, was the meal okay?”
“Delicious.”
“Did your little old wife do a good job?”
“A great job,” he assured her. “Best meal I ever ate. A magnificent meal.”
“Do I get a reward?”
“Sure. What do you want?”
She frowned. “I get my choice?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well,” she said, “how about a little old toss in the little old hay?”
“You’re beginning to sound like a little bit of a tramp, Mrs. Phony Wife.”
“If you give me half a chance I’ll act like one. Mr. Phony Husband.”
He laughed aloud. Then he picked her up in his arms, feeling the familiar surge of excitement that never failed to course through him when he got near her.
He carried her to the bedroom.
“Put me down, you!”
He put her down.
On the bed.
And undressed her.
And undressed himself.
And lay down beside her.
And—
“God,” she moaned. “When you do that to me it’s like the world is going to end. Being kissed like that drives me out of my mind!”
“I can’t help it if your breasts are extraordinarily sensitive, can I?”
“Just shut up and kiss them some more.”
He shut up and kissed them some more.