“If you could only see what you look like!”
At this pert remark he dived in, and there ensued an immemorial chase, with the immemorial squeals, kicks, and splashes. She retreated out of his reach, he followed with slow, lazy strokes; sometimes they stopped and floated, then resumed, as he thought of some new stratagem to catch her. After a while she tired, and began circling to get back to the float. Then he was in front of her, having swum under water to cut her off. Then she was caught, and the next thing she knew was being carried bodily into the shack. As she felt its warmth again, the dopey South Seas feeling returned. She felt limp and helpless, and barely had strength to kick the beach bag off the bed.
It was dark when they got up, and they drove over to the tavern for dinner. When they got back it was cold, and they decided to build a fire, of pine knots. But then they decided they hadn’t had enough to eat, and got in the car, and drove down to San Bernardino, for a steak, which she offered to broil. When they got back it was late, but they gathered pine knots by the car lights, and carried them in, and started them going. When they were glowing red she laid the steak on them, to burn it, and then held it with the tongs while it cooked. Then he got plates, and they cut hungrily into it, chewing it down like a pair of wolves. Then he helped her wash up. Then he asked solemnly if she was ready to go home, and she solemnly replied that she was. Then he carried her into the bedroom, and they shivered at the unexpected cold, and in five minutes were exclaiming at how good the blankets felt.
After a while they got to talking, and she learned that he was thirty-three years old, that he had attended the University of California at Los Angeles, that he lived in Pasadena, that his family lived there too, or at any rate his mother and sister, who seemed to be all the family he had. When she asked him what he did, he said: “Oh I don’t know. Fruit I guess. Oranges, grapefruit, something like that.”
“You mean you work for the Exchange?”
“I should say not. That damned California Fruit Growers’ Exchange is taking the bread right out of my mouth. I hate Sunkist, and Sunmaid, and every other kind of a label with that wholesome-looking girl on it.”
“You mean you’re an independent?”
“Damn it, what difference does it make what I am? Yes, I guess I’m an independent. I have a company. Fruit export. I don’t have it. I own part of it. Land too, part of an estate I came into. Every quarter they send me a check, and it’s been getting smaller since this Sunkist thing cut it, too. I don’t do anything, if that’s what you mean.”
“You mean you just — loaf?”
“You can call it that, I suppose.”
“Aren’t you ever going to do something?”
“Why should I?”
He seemed quite nettled, and she stopped talking about it, but she found it disturbing. She had a complex on the subject of loafing, and hated it, but she detected there was something about this man’s loafing that was different from Bert’s loafing. Bert at least had plans, grandiose dreams that he thought would come true. But this loafing wasn’t a weakness, it was a way of life, and it had the same effect on her that Veda’s nonsense had: her mind rejected it, and yet her heart, somehow, was impressed by it; it made her feel small, mean, and vulgar. The offhand dismissal of the subject put her on the defensive too. Most of the men she knew were quite gabby about their work, and took the mandate of accomplishment seriously. Their talk might be tiresome, but it was what she accepted and believed in. This bland assumption that the whole subject was a bore, not worth discussing, was beyond her ken. However, her uneasiness vanished with a little ear-twiddling. At daybreak she felt cold, and pushed her bottom against him. When he took her in his arms she wriggled into his belly quite possessively, and dropped off to sleep with a sigh of deep content.
Next day they ate and swam and snoozed, and when Mildred opened her eyes after one of these naps, she could hardly believe it was late afternoon and time to go home. But still they dawdled, he arguing they should stay another day, and make a weekend of it. The Monday pies, however, were on her mind, and she knew she had to get at them. It was six o’clock when they drove over to the tavern for an early dinner, and seven before they got started. But the big blue Cord went down even faster than it had come up, and it was barely nine as they approached Glendale. He asked where she lived, and she told him, but then she got to thinking. “Want to see something, Monty?”
“What is it?”
“I’ll show you.”
He kept following Colorado Boulevard, and then at her direction he turned, and presently stopped. “You wait here. I won’t be a minute.”
She got out her key and ran to the door, her feet crunching on the gravel that had been dumped for the free parking. Inside, she groped her way to the switchbox, and threw on the neon sign. Then she ran out to observe its effect. He was already under it, peering, blinking. It was, indeed, a handsome work of art, made exactly as she had pictured it, except that it had a blazing red arrow through its middle. Monty looked first at the sign, then at Mildred. “Well what the hell? Is this yours?”
“Don’t you see whose name is on it?”
“Wait a minute. The last I heard, you were slinging hash in that-”
“But not anymore. Yesterday was my last day. I quit early to run off with you. From now on, I’m a businesswoman.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t get any chance, that I noticed.”
At this tribute to his prowess as a lover, he grinned, and she pulled him inside, to see the rest of it. She switched on the lights and took him through, lifting the painters’ cloths to show him the new maple tables, pointing out the smart linoleum floor covering, explaining it was required by the Department of Health. She took him to the kitchen, opened up the great range. He kept asking questions, and she poured out the whole story, excitedly flattered that a professional loafer could be interested. Yet it was an amended version. There was little in it of Wally, or Bert, or any of the circumstances that had actually figured in it, a great deal about her ambitions, her determination “to be something before I die.” Presently he asked when she was going to open. “Thursday. The cook’s night out. I mean everybody’s cook.”
“Next Thursday?”
“At six o’clock.”
“Am I invited?”
“Of course you are.”
She switched off the lights, and for a moment they were standing there in the dark, with the smell of paint all about them. Then she caught him in her arms. “Kiss me, Monty. I guess I’ve fallen for you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about all this?”
“I don’t know. I was going to, but I was afraid you might just think it was funny.”
“I’ll be here Thursday. With bells.”
“Please. It won’t be the same without you.”
He took her home, handed her to the door, made sure she had her key. As she was waving good-bye to the disappearing Cord she heard her name called. Automatically she looked toward the Gesslers’, but their house was still dark. Then she saw a woman coming across lawns, and saw it was Mrs. Floyd, who lived two doors away.
“Mrs. Pierce?”
There was a sharp note in the voice, and Mildred had a quick prescience that something was wrong. Then, in a tone of virtuous indignation that the whole street could hear, Mrs. Floyd cut loose. “Where in the world have you been? They’ve been a-trying to reach you ever since last night, and — where have you been?”
Mildred choked back an impulse to tell her it was none of her business where she had been, managed to inquire civilly: “What did they want with me, Mrs. Floyd?”