Ruth chose to answer this letter one night while she was in bed with a man named Dowdey, whom she had met the previous week. She wrestled the pillow away from him and put it behind her back in order to sit up more comfortably, and with an airmail pad on her knees she began: “The weather in New York has been lovely, but otherwise there isn’t very much news. I can’t stand my boss because he’s an absolute tyrant, but everybody else is nice, and we’re trying a new format that I like better. A man who works in the next office” and she dropped one hand to give Dowdey a pinch on the buttocks “has been awfully sweet although I don’t know him very well yet. I haven’t been going out much lately, I usually come home after work and get to bed early. It was marvelous seeing everybody in Kansas City.” Here she paused and tapped the pen against her teeth, and finally added that she hoped to visit Kansas City again before long.
Dowdey, having rolled over and raised himself to one elbow, was reading the letter with his chin propped on Ruth’s shoulder.
“Jus’ like I aim to get back to San Antone,” he said, and began kissing her throat.
“Hush/’ she said. “And stop. You’re bothering me!”
“Come on down here and le’s bother all over/’ said Dowdey, “on account of you can write yo’ little mama in the morninY’
“Cut that out/’ said Ruth. “Now cut that out!*’
“Yo* mama look like you?” he asked, sliding his arms around her waist.
“She’s my sister’s mother!”
And as if by hearing these words she realized what she had said, Ruth touched her lover gently and looked down into his unblinking hazel eyes. She caressed the wind wrinkles of his leathery face; he became solemn and expectant.
“I’ll only be a little while/’ she said. For a few minutes she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin and gazed across the river and the buildings on the western shore, and she was able to see her home, not as it was now, but ten years before, at a time in her life when she would never have thought to say her mother was not her own: when she had been as tall as the new evergreen trees in the yard, when her brother was a baby. Now this was gone, and it was gone forever. She wondered why she was in New York, why she would soon give herself to this man for whom she had no feeling.
“I don’t think it’s her fault/’ Ruth whispered, with her head on her knees, and when Dowdey asked what she had said she did not answer. Presently she sighed and continued with the letter, thanking her mother for sending a box of oatmeal cookies Harriet had baked, and said they were wonderful, though in truth they had arrived broken and crushed, and she had sprinkled them on the window sill for the pigeons. Having signed the letter with love, as she always did, she ordered Dowdey to open his mouth and hold out his tongue to lick the envelope.
“That all?” he asked, grinning, as she leaned across him to place the letter on the night table.
“It depends on what you mean,” Ruth said. She turned out the light. When he covered her she was looking across the dark river, gravely thinking of her home.
97. Frozen Fruit
With Ruth gone and with Carolyn at home only an occasional week end, with Mr. Bridge continuing to spend long hours at the office, and with Douglas appearing only for meals, Mrs. Bridge found the days growing interminable; she could not remember when a day had seemed so long since the infinite hours of childhood, and so she began casting about rueful and disconsolate for some way to occupy the time. There were mornings when she lay in bed wide awake until noon, afraid to get up because there was nothing to do. She knew Harriet would take care of ordering the groceries, Harriet would take care of everything, Harriet somehow was running the house and Mrs. Bridge had the dismal sensation of knowing that she, herself, could leave town for a week and perhaps no one would get overly excited. At breakfast lunch if she chose to call it so she would consider the newspaper with sober apathy, sighing at the events in Europe, lethargically eating whatever Harriet prepared toast and orange juice, chipped beef and cinnamon rolls, fruit salad, bacon and tomato sandwich, a dish of sherbet; whatever it happened to be Mrs. Bridge would eat some of it though it seemed tasteless. Summer had come again, another summer, another year.
One warm windy morning in June she could hardly open her eyes; she lay in the stuffy bedroom and listened to the wind in the trees, to the scratching of the evergreen branches against the house, and wondered if she was about to die. She did not feel ill, but she had no confidence in her life. Why should her heart keep beating? What was there to live for? Then she grew cheerful because she recalled her husband had told her to get the Lincoln waxed and polished. In fact he had told her that three weeks ago but she had not yet gotten around to it. Now, in any event, there was something to do; she would do the work herself. She would drive to the Plaza to an auto-supply store and buy a can of wax and some polish and a chamois, or whatever the salesman recommended, and she would spend the day working on the Lincoln. It had been years since she had done any work, with the exception of puttering in the garden, and it would be refreshing. But then, still in bed, she became doubtful and more reasonable. She had never attempted to polish an automobile, she knew nothing about it, nothing whatso-ever, and if she should ruin the finish of the Lincoln what on earth could she say to her husband? He would be amazed and furious because it was so nonsensical; he would manage to control his temper but he would be infuriated all the same, and want to know why she had done it. Could she explain how the leisure of her life that exquisite idleness he had created by giving her everything was driving her insane?
However, she reflected, as she got out of bed holding a hand to her brow to prevent herself from collapsing, she could at least drive to the Plaza and wander around while the Lincoln was being polished. She could look into Bancroft’s; perhaps they had some new imports. She could have a late luncheon in the tea shoppe. Surely something else would come to mind by then and soon the day would be over.
Once out of bed she felt more alive, and while getting dressed she thought of telephoning Grace Barron. Perhaps they could spend the day together. No one answered the Barrens’ phone. After a few minutes she tried again with no success and then dialed Madge Arlen. The line was busy. She knew from past experience that Madge stayed on the telephone for hours, but now the Plaza idea had begun to sound exciting with or without company and she began to hurry around getting ready to go, and was annoyed with herself for having wasted the entire morning. It was fifteen minutes to one when Mrs. Bridge came downstairs. Harriet was vacuuming the hall. Mrs. Bridge signaled her to stop the machine, and when the roaring died away she said, looking quickly into her purse to see she had not forgotten anything, ‘I’ve got to run to the Plaza to have the car taken care of. It needs waxing. If anybody calls, tell them I’ll be home about five/’
Harriet replied that Mr. Bridge had had the car waxed and polished the previous Saturday.
Mrs. Bridge stopped and looked at her in stupefaction. “He did? I wonder why he didn’t mention it.”
Harriet did not say anything.
“Are you sure?” asked Mrs. Bridge.
Harriet nodded.
“Oh. Well, then,” she said doubtfully, “I suppose it doesn’t need to be done again. Isn’t that strange? He must have forgotten to tell me.” She noticed Harriet looking at her without expression, but intently, and she became embarrassed. She dropped the car keys back in her purse and slowly took off her hat. She had driven the Lincoln several times since Saturday and it was odd she had not noticed the difference.