Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Emma paid her. In cash. “And I promise,” she added, smiling, “that I’ll be very careful with the utilities so they won’t add too much extra onto your expenses.”

Nell thought: Who said anything about my paying the utilities? But she kept silent, more apprehensive now than ever.

The first month was quiet and calm and Nell could now figure on replenishing her savings account toward her retirement. Except, of course, that it wasn’t a full $75 since the gas and electricity and water took up well over $10.

And it soon became apparent that Emma was far from solvent herself, so she started looking for a job. She found nothing, until finally she put an ad in the paper as baby sitter, and was repaid by a rash of answers on the telephone — Nell’s telephone, of course, since Emma claimed she couldn’t afford one of her own. Therefore Nell gave her a key to her own apartment and Emma ran down her outside stairs whenever the phone rang.

And at night, when Nell answered, she had to go out and call Emma, who never answered until Nell had climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. If she can hear the telephone when I’m not at home, Nell asked herself, why doesn’t she hear me when I call? She finally resorted to banging her broom handle on the ceiling and Emma learned that if she didn’t respond Nell would simply hang up the phone.

No matter. Emma was delighted with the $2 an hour she was paid for her services, although occasionally she was called on to supply her own transportation which, of course, meant Nell’s, and soon this became intolerable as Nell was expected to pick her up any time alter midnight, as well as to take her earlier, and what with the telephone ringing almost constantly, Nell was soon at her wits’ end. Until finally she informed Emma that she must take jobs only where transportation was provided.

“Oh,” said Emma, looking downcast. “That means I’ll have to lose a lot of my jobs because most of them expect me to drive myself. Maybe I could learn to drive your car?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” said Nell, and that was that. Until the first of the following month w hen the rent was due. Emma did not offer it and finally, five days late, Nell brought up the subject.

“Oh,” said Emma. “Well, dear, would it be all right if I just paid half of the rent this time and made it up later? You see, with business falling off and everything, I’m a little short of cash. Just for this month, of course,” she added hastily.

Nell said, “Will next month be any better? Emma, I think you should have made your financial circumstances clearer before you pulled up stakes and came here. You told me you had an income from your brother’s estate and also your Social Security that you took at sixty-two instead of waiting till sixty-five when you’d have gotten more, and that you felt you would have no trouble getting a job here. After all, dear, seventy-five dollars a month, utilities included, is very low rent for these days.”

“Yes, I know,” Emma said hurriedly, “but it’s a lot more than I paid back home where I stayed with friends. Only I thought you needed me, that you were lonely and that’s why you wanted me to come and keep you company, and then I thought how you might be pleased for me to help with the work in your dear little house, cleaning and cooking and laundering, and that would take care of the rent, and so everything would turn out fine.”

Too late Nell remembered Emma’s proclivities of the past that had earned her the name of Pollyanna Emma, who always knew that tomorrow would be sunny and happy and that everything would turn out right for little Emma. But it never had, because little Emma, being so sure of God’s grace, had done little to prepare for the inevitable rainy day. “Oh, I’m sure everything will turn out for the best,” Emma was always saying, and it frequently did but only because of the services of people around her.

So now she said, “I’m sure everything will turn out fine for both of us,” and Nell could have slapped her. But she couldn’t bear to come down too hard on her. After all, she’d given up what home she’d had (whatever that was) to do something she thought would help her friend. Emma couldn’t pay, that was certain, and so Nell said resignedly, “All right, Emma, you can help with my place,” and went back to it in despair.

So now, she thought, I have a dependent for the first time since I got my divorce.

Emma was always under foot and always in need — she had to use the telephone, she had to go to the library, the dentist, the supermarket, everything for which she had no transportation and for which Nell did. Nell would come home tired out from her job of coping with people, her boss, her co-workers, the public; and even though she tried to be as quiet as possible, hoping for a few moments of peace, there would be Emma on her doorstep saying, “Oh, Nell dear, do you suppose you could run me down to the store — or would you have an extra can of tuna fish?” or, “Drat it, I have to go to the dentist’s tomorrow, only appointment I could get was three o’clock. Do you suppose you could take a weensy bit of time off and run me to his office?”

“Emma,” said Nell, pushed to the wall, “I’m afraid this arrangement isn’t going to work out very well after all—”

And then the little round face under the white bangs would grow old and pinched and frightened and Nell would sigh and say, “Well, we’ll see—” and the little face would brighten with relief and things would go on as before...

Emma was idle and lonely. She still had a few baby-sitting jobs when the transportation was included, but the rest of her time was spent without purpose. She didn’t really care much for reading, she hated any sort of handiwork, gardens did not interest her: she had no TV set nor the wherewithal to buy one since she did not even have the wherewithal to pay the rent. This last was an unmentioned, rather sordid matter that Emma refused to acknowledge, and which Nell, exhausted, would no longer bring up after the three times she had mentioned it and as a result suffered excruciatingly from guilt qualms when she’d seen the bleak frightened look on her little friend’s face.

Little friend, hell, Nell said to herself. She’s a leech! But she doesn’t know it. She keeps saying that she’d do the same for me if our positions were reversed, take me in and give me a home and look out for me — she knows damn well our positions could never be reversed, but in the meantime she gets credit for being noble enough to offer her beneficence to me!

Nell was getting frantic. Emma said, at various times: The roof leaks. The heater doesn’t work properly. Now that summer’s here the heat is terrible, perhaps if I could have an air conditioner—?

Winter again. Emma growing plumper, Nell growing leaner. And more tired. Pitter-patter up and down the outside staircase, knocking on the door the minute Nell got home, sitting there chatting but unable to keep the disapproval out of her eyes while Nell sipped her sherry and yearned to read the paper at the same time. Why am I such a fool? Nell asked herself countless times. So, okay, I made a mistake but God knows I’ve paid for it over and over. Do I have to pay forever?

One wintry day Emma tapped lightly on the door and when Nell appeared she said, “Dear, could I see you for a minute?”

“What?” said Nell. “I’m busy with supper.”

“O-oh, it smells wonderful. Swiss steak, is it? Haven’t had any for years, it seems. Just scrambled eggs. Or tuna. Gets kind of tiresome.”

The wind blew a blast of cold air into Nell’s cozy living room.

“What is it, Emma?” she asked impatiently. I’m damned if I’m going to ask her again to have supper with me. She’ll end up a permanent unpaid boarder.