J. Salinger - Three Stories

“I will not.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Darling,” said Hincher, sitting down again on the edge of his wife’s bed. “What a thing to say.”

Mrs. Hincher clasped her husband’s hand, as though to say what she had to say required his proximate strength. Mrs. Hincher spoke slowly. Her voice cool and brave, and yet Hincher detected a faint, a very faint note of fear.

“I so desperately want our baby born safely, darling. I’m afraid of falling. I’m afraid of a thousand things.” Mrs. Hincher paused, suddenly squeezed her husband’s hand, as though some sharp, horrible image had come to frighten her mind’s eye. She continued. “Cars and trucks and things. I’m so afraid. And if I stay in bed I’ll be sage with my thoughts of you and baby.”

The word “baby” sans the preceding definite article completely disarmed and waylaid Mr. Hincher’s heart. He replied to his wife in an exceedingly husky voice but with slight command in his voice.

“You stay in bed. You just stay in bed as long as you like.”

Mrs. Hincher’s reply, despite its brevity, seemed to identify Mr. Hincher’s immortality.

“Darling,” she pronounced simply.

Mr. Hincher patted his wife’s hand and repeated, “You just stay in bed as long as you like.”

They seemed to share a moment of profoundest silence. Mrs. Hincher broke it, but apparently only with great reluctance.

“Darling, there’s just one other thing. Don’t tell anybody. I mean don’t tell anybody that I’m in bed. Say I’ve gone back to New York to stay with my sister. Say my sister’s sick.”

“But why ?” Hincher inquired gently.

“They’ll laugh.” Said Mrs. Hincher simply. “They’ll all laugh. I know it.”

“No they won’t.” Hincher denied belligerently.

“They will. I know they will.” Said his wife thoughtfully. “Ruth Simpkins would. I can just hear her laughing at me.”

“ That fool woman,” dismissed Hincher.

“Yes, darling, but she’d laugh. They all would. I know it. —Darling, say you’ll tell them I’ve gone to New York to be with my sister. So they won’t know I’m home. You can make believe you’re coming to visit me weekends. You can go drive to the Cape and go fishing. You can go fishing. Sophie can do the marketing. She—”

Mr. Hincher was a little startled. Mrs. Hincher’s cool, lovely voice had begun to take on excitement. It was strangely unbecoming, Hincher found and abruptly held up the hand Mrs.’ Hincher wasn’t holding.

—wait a minute

—“Now.” Mr. Hincher held up a hand, mock traffic cop style. “Whoa there. Whoa there Nellie.”

He was a little startled. Mrs. Hincher’s cool lovely voice had begun to take on excitement. It was strangely unbecoming.

Abruptly, Mrs. Hincher removed her hand from her husband’s. She neither wrenched it away nor slipped it away. She merely removed it.

“You are laughing at me, too.” She said dully.

Hincher was frightened. “ No , honey!” he swore to her. “No, I’m not. I’ll do anything you say, little girl.”

Quietly, Hincher reclaimed his wife’s hand. “No, No, No, little girl,” he swore to Mrs. Hincher’s sudden profile.

She turned to him slowly. Hincher waited for exoneration, almost frantically for some look, some word of exoneration. Mrs. Hincher’s face conveyed nothing. She looked at her husband and yet beyond him.

“Well have it just the way you want it,” Hincher said. “Just the way you want it.”

Mrs. Hincher’s eyes gentled into focus.

“I knew you’d understand.” She said.

Almost every weekend Mr. Hincher went fishing off Cape Cod. It usually seemed that he had enjoyed his weekend immensely; for late Sunday nights when he stomped in his wife’s bedroom to let her peak under soggy newspapers at his catch, Hincher’s face under the watty little light of Mrs. Hincher’s bed-lamp was a happy one.

But it takes five weekdays to make a week-end.

Hincher was a very poor liar. But fortunately little enough skill was required of him. No one in Otisville doubted that Mrs. Hincher had gone to Akron, Oh to be with her sick sister. So when Hincher, with awkward gravity, reported his sister-in-law’s condition as Better, or Not Much better. Or They Can’t Tell Yet, the usual reply to him was It All Takes Time, or Send Paula Out Love. With practice Hincher’s lying improved. He learned in time that he felt surer of himself when he chuckled out his lies, rather than when he delivered them gravely.

“Guess I’ll have to get me a new wife,” Hincher innovated one day (with a chuckle).

“Why don’t you wait till the new models come out,” suggested Bud Montrose.

Hincher immediately pirated Bud Montrose’s wit. And the standard Hincher Chuckle Lie then sounded in full:

“Guess I’ll have to get me a new wife. Chuckle. Waiting for the new models to come out. (Chuckle, Chuckle.)

…But he never learned to lie expertly enough to rest assured of no justified, but extremely loud accusation in a small, crowded room.

Evenings, the Hincher’s usually played seven or eight eleven- point games of casino.

Evenings, the Hincher’s usually played casino. Mr. Hincher sat on the edge of Mrs. Hincher’s bed, and a pretty white bed table was straddled gently over Mrs. Hincher’s legs.

Evening, after Hincher had eaten alone in the dining room, he re-joined his wife, and usually the played several games of casino. Mr. Hincher would sit on the edge of Mrs. Hincher’s bed, and a pretty white bedtable was straddled gently over Mrs. Hincher’s legs. Generally they played until 9:30 or 9:45, at which time Mrs. Hincher often said: “Shall we read a little, darling?”

Grand, Hincher often said, and he would cross the room to fetch the book of Mrs. Hincher’s choice.

Of David Copperfield, Mrs. Hincher told Mr. Hincher:

“I love it, I’ve always loved it. How is it you’ve never read it, darling?”

“I don’t know.” Hincher said. “Never got the time.”

“I love it,” said Mrs. Hincher, “Only I hate the Murdstone’s. Ill skip all the parts about the Murdstone’s.”

“Who are they?” Inquired Hincher.

“Davy’s stepfather and his sister. They’re horrible, Wait and see. No, I’m going to skip the parts where the Murdstone’s come in.”

Paula laughed deliciously. [Handwritten note on manuscript.]

Hincher sat back in an easy chair drawn close to David Copperfield, deleting all Murdstone passages. She read magnificently, gruffing her voice to sound like Dan Peggoty’s, debonairing it to suggest Steerforth’s, clammied it for Uriah Heep’s sake, jeep’d it for the sake of Dora. She was perfectly cast in each role.

At midnight, usually, Mrs. Hincher stopped reading. She closed the book, and smiled at Mr. Hincher.

“Tired?” He’s say quickly.

“A little, darling.”

“You go to sleep, then. That’s enough reading for tonight?”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Swell book. Get under the covers, now. I’ll tuck you in.”

—Hincher slept in the guest room all during these months.

She first took to her husband, Bud, tell what he know to__ [crossed out in manuscript.]

Ruth and Carl Perkins were at Emily and Bud Edmundson’s. At first while, Bud talked Perkins constantly rummaged a hand through a bowl of assorted nuts, singling out the pistachios. Then Carl Perkins suddenly stopped eating altogether.

“He came here last Saturday Night.”

Emily and I had just come in from the movies. And I [handwritten in manuscript] see Frank’s car parked in the driveway. I pulled up behind it, threw on my night lights, and went around to see what was what. Frank was sitting in his car.