Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

“Oh, Rick, you make me so happy!”

Because I knew, of course, that this was his way of doing, to kind of make it look different, his not coming in with me, as, of course, if he was my father he couldn’t come to my bed, and it would be for that reason, not on account that he couldn’t, that he didn’t. So OK, I wasn’t kidded. At the same time it was just what I wanted if he and I were to go on. I mean that other was not what I really wanted, though I would have stood for it regardless to get what he was giving me now, kisses and pats and love. So now I had what I really did want, without having to do that other. So it helped, in the most wonderful way. I said, “Rick, I think that’s the nicest thing that’s been said to me, that ever was said to me, in my whole life until now.”

“Then OK. Now, little daughter, sleep.”

“You make me want to cry. But happy.”

He held me close in his arms, and next thing I knew it was dark. I whispered, “Rick, are you there?”

“Yes, Mandy. You’ve been asleep.”

“I’m sorry. I’m kind of tired, I guess.”

I looked then, and when I saw he was in his bed asked, “Did you sleep at all, Rick?”

“I guess so, little bit... much as I could, worried as I am. I can’t help how I feel. Tomorrow, if we get out of town, if nobody stops us, I mean, if we get started for Florida, I imagine I’ll feel different. Then it’ll be the worry was just for nothing.”

“I’m sorry I caused it, Rick.”

“Listen, what’s done is done, and when no harm is done, don’t beat yourself over the head. That’s how I look at it, Mandy.”

“What time is it?”

“Well, you got the watch on. Look.”

“It’s five of ten.”

“You hungry?”

“Rick, I hadn’t thought. Yeah, little bit.”

“I’ll order something sent up. How you do, you call room service. They’ll get you a paper too — I think I’ll have one sent up. The five-thirty if they still have one. It’ll tell more than the one I have here, the same one you read, I guess.”

“Have two sent up, one for me.”

“What do you want to eat?”

“The identical same I had in the coffee shop — tongue sandwich, buttermilk, and apple pie a la mode. It was all wonderful, and the pie was out of this world.”

“Guess that’s what I’ll have too.”

So he called down and ordered, and then we got up. It was fun walking around in pajamas and barefoot, with no reason to worry about a swipe being made at my breastworks. He had money, as I’d given him a package of five-dollar bills there in the plaza, but when the food came he signed, giving the waiter a five-dollar tip. It was a very nice guy who said he was going to college and seemed to know we were new at hotels. So he told us what to do with the tray when we finished our supper, to put it out in the hall on the rolling table he brought, and in the night they’d come and get it. So then we ate our sandwiches, and everything tasted so good. We put the tray out, then sat talking about our island, Rick in one chair, me in the other, our bare feet curled up under us. Then I said, “Rick, there’s just one thing.”

“Yeah, Mandy? What?”

“Mother. I ought to call her up.”

“...Call her up? What for?”

“To tell her... what’s been on my mind ever since I came back from talking to that rat, Vernick. Rick, I’ve been so ashamed to feel toward her like I did and to put what I did in that note. And the reason was that I blamed her for the way he had treated me, Vernick I’m talking about, never writing or calling me, or sending me something for Christmas. I thought it was because she’d never told him where we lived or anything. But now I know whose fault it was. I want to tell her how sorry I am for putting the blame on her.”

“...Mandy, no, no, no!”

“But, Rick, why not?”

“You’ll spill it to her, that’s why.”

“Spill what?”

“Everything!”

“Well, not about the robbery, if that’s what you’re talking about. Only about Vernick.”

“Oh, that’s all, about Vernick! Wasn’t it bad enough, Mandy, that you went to him with that coat, that you bought it with hot money? It was just our dumb luck that the store didn’t call the cops in and that he didn’t want any trouble. Now you got to start over with a crazy call to your mother! Isn’t there going to be any end to your battiness?”

“But I said I’m not going to tell her!”

“About anything, except Vernick and how you showed him the coat and how it flattened him out, with his talk about you wanting money. So she asks where you got it. What are you going to say?”

“I don’t have to say anything, do I?”

“OK, you don’t say anything, but she calls Vernick to ask what he knows about it. And he says you didn’t tell him. And she says, ‘I’m telling the cops, I have to, I dare not let it pass.’ What then?”

“Well, she wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know she wouldn’t?”

“You seem to forget she’s my mother.”

“On this I wouldn’t trust Jesus Christ.”

“Well, that’s not a nice thing to say.”

“O.K., I wouldn’t trust anyone.”

“Then, I won’t call. But you make me feel so guilty.”

“I was easier in my mind. Now I’m not.”

But in the morning we were nice and friendly again, and he let me dress in the bathroom, without peeping or anything. Then I came out and he went in, and when he came out he was shaved, combed, and fresh, with a clean shirt on, one of those he had bought, and his pants and jacket clean and pressed up, after being delivered by the valet the night before, enduring while I slept. So then we went down and had breakfast and talked over what we would do. We decided to hit for Miami, where we could ask about islands, where they were and what they cost. So we went up again and packed, then came down and paid and checked out, then took a cab to the bus terminal, at Howard and Center streets. But my heart almost stopped when we unchecked our bag, the one with the money in it, and the man suddenly asked Rick, “What you got in that thing, bricks?”

Rick told him, “Books.”

“Oh, that explains it. Boy, is that heavy.”

Walking away, we looked at each other, and Rick said, “Well, we found something out. Now we know what we got. In case the subject comes up. In case it does again.”

“I almost died.”

“Forget it. We made a gain.”

But when we asked at the ticket window, it turned out that to get to Miami, to get the express bus, we had to go to Washington by local. My heart did a little more skipping when we had to surrender our bags, check them through when we got on the bus, but no comment was made anymore about how heavy the big one was. We rode on the back seat, as we had on the local from Hyattsville going to Baltimore, and I whispered to Rick, “Hiya, Pop?” He squeezed my hand, so I felt happy and loved and safe. We changed in Washington, but bought tickets only as far as Raleigh so we could have lunch there before going further south. We decided to stop in Savannah and spend the night in a hotel, before going on next day. So we did have our lunch in Raleigh, more sandwiches and pie a la mode and buttermilk, and it wasn’t the same as it had been in the hotel, but not too bad either. Then we went on, with tickets bought to Savannah, checking the bags through again, riding the back seat again, and finally getting off again. And once more I almost died, as I was halfway up the aisle, leaving the bus, before I remembered the coat, which Rick had put topside on the rack. I ran back and got it and he sicked his finger at me. Then we unchecked our bags on the platform and right away rechecked the big one at the check-it-to-leave-it window, Rick taking the check that time, and then caught a cab to the hotel. Once more, I don’t say which one it was, except it was down by a square, near the City Hall and Cotton Exchange, with a view looking out on some river.