Jerome Salinger: Nine Stories

“No.”

“Eloise, you’re getting hard as nails.”

“Mm. What else’d she say?”

“Oh, she just got back from Europe. Her husband was stationed in Germany or something, and she was with him. They had a forty-seven-room house, she said, just with one other couple, and about ten servants. Her own horse, and the groom they had, used to be Hitler’s own private riding master or something. Oh, and she started to tell me how she almost got raped by a colored soldier. Right on the main floor of Lord & Taylor’s she started to tell me—you know Jackson. She said he was her husband’s chauffeur, and he was driving her to market or something one morning. She said she was so scared she didn’t even—”

“Wait just a second.” Eloise raised her head and her voice. “Is that you, Ramona?”

“Yes,” a small child’s voice answered.

“Close the front door after you, please,” Eloise called.

“Is that Ramona? Oh, I’m dying to see her. Do you realize I haven’t seen her since she had her—”

“Ramona,” Eloise shouted, with her eyes shut, “go out in the kitchen and let Grace take your galoshes off.”

“All right,” said Ramona. “C’mon, Jimmy.”

“Oh, I’m dying to see her,” Mary Jane said. “Oh, God! Look what I did. I’m terribly sorry, El.”

“Leave it. Leave it,” said Eloise. “I hate this damn rug anyway. I’ll get you another.”

“No, look, I have more than half left!” Mary Jane held up her glass.

“Sure?” said Eloise. “Gimme a cigarette.”

Mary Jane extended her pack of cigarettes, saying “Oh, I’m dying to see her. Who does she look like now?”

Eloise struck a light. “Akim Tamiroff.”

“No, seriously.”

“Lew. She looks like Lew. When his mother comes over, the three of them look like triplets.” Without sitting up, Eloise reached for a stack of ashtrays on the far side of the cigarette table. She successfully lifted off the top one and set it down on her stomach. “What I need is a cocker spaniel or something,” she said. “Somebody that looks like me.”

“How’re her eyes now?” Mary Jane asked. “I mean they’re not any worse or anything, are they?”

“God! Not that I know of.”

“Can she see at all without her glasses? I mean if she gets up in the night to go to the john or something.

“She won’t tell anybody. She’s lousy with secrets.”

Mary Jane turned around in her chair. “Well, hello, Ramona!” she said. “Oh, what a pretty dress!” She set down her drink. “I’ll bet you don’t even remember me, Ramona.”

“Certainly she does. Who’s the lady, Ramona?”

“Mary Jane,” said Ramona, and scratched herself.

“Marvellous!” said Mary Jane. “Ramona, will you give me a little kiss?”

“Stop that,” Eloise said to Ramona.

Ramona stopped scratching herself.

“Will you give me a little kiss, Ramona?” Mary Jane asked again.

“I don’t like to kiss people.”

Eloise snorted, and asked, “Where’s Jimmy?”

“He’s here.”

“Who’s Jimmy?” Mary Jane asked Eloise.

“Oh, God! Her beau. Goes where she goes. Does what she does. All very hoopla.”

“Really?” said Mary Jane enthusiastically. She leaned forward. “Do you have a beau, Ramona?”

Ramona’s eyes, behind thick, counter-myopia lenses, did not reflect even the smallest part of Mary Jane’s enthusiasm.

“Mary Jane asked you a question, Ramona,” Eloise said.

Ramona inserted a finger into her small, broad nose.

“Stop that,” Eloise said. “Mary Jane asked you if you have a beau.”

“Yes,” said Ramona, busy with her nose.

“Ramona,” Eloise said. “Cut that out. But immediately.”

Ramona put her hand down.

“Well, I think that’s just wonderful,” Mary Jane said. “What’s his name? Will you tell me his name, Ramona? Or is it a big secret?”

“Jimmy,” Ramona said.

“Jimmy? Oh, I love the name Jimmy! Jimmy what, Ramona?”

“Jimmy Jimmereeno,” said Ramona.

“Stand still,” said Eloise.

“Well! That’s quite a name. Where is Jimmy? Will you tell me, Ramona?”

“Here,” said Ramona.

Mary Jane looked around, then looked back at Ramona, smiling as provocatively as possible. “Here where, honey?”

“Here,” said Ramona. “I’m holding his hand.”

“I don’t get it,” Mary Jane said to Eloise, who was finishing her drink.

“Don’t look at me,” said Eloise.

Mary Jane looked back at Ramona. “Oh, I see. Jimmy’s just a make-believe little boy. Marvellous.” Mary Jane leaned forward cordially. “How do you do, Jimmy?” she said.

“He won’t talk to you,” said Eloise. “Ramona, tell Mary Jane about Jimmy.”

“Tell her what?”

“Stand up, please… . Tell Mary Jane how Jimmy looks.”

“He has green eyes and black hair.”

“What else?”

“No mommy and no daddy.”

“What else?”

“No freckles.”

“What else?”

“A sword.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know,” said Ramona, and began to scratch herself again.

“He sounds beautiful!” Mary Jane said, and leaned even farther forward in her chair. “Ramona. Tell me. Did Jimmy take off his galoshes, too, when you came in?”

“He has boots,” Ramona said.

“Marvellous,” Mary Jane said to Eloise.

“You just think so. I get it all day long. Jimmy eats with her. Takes a bath with her. Sleeps with her. She sleeps way over to one side of the bed, so’s not to roll over and hurt him.”

Looking absorbed and delighted with this information, Mary Jane took in her lower lip, then released it to ask, “Where’d he get that name, though?”

“Jimmy Jimmereeno? God knows.”

“Probably from some little boy in the neighborhood.”

Eloise, yawning, shook her head. “There are no little boys in the neighborhood. No children at all. They call me Fertile Fanny behind my—”

“Mommy,” Ramona said, “can I go out and play?”

Eloise looked at her. “You just came in,” she said.

“Jimmy wants to go out again.”

“Why, may I ask?”

“He left his sword outside.”

“Oh, him and his goddam sword,” Eloise said. “Well. Go ahead. Put your galoshes back on.”

“Can I have this?” Ramona said, taking a burned match out of the ashtray.

“May I have this. Yes. Stay out of the street, please.”

“Goodbye, Ramona!” Mary Jane said musically.

“Bye,” said Ramona. “C’mon, Jimmy.”

Eloise lunged suddenly to her feet. “Gimme your glass,” she said.

“No, really, El. I’m supposed to be in Larchmont. I mean Mr. Weyinburg’s so sweet, I hate to—”

“Call up and say you were killed. Let go of that damn glass.”

“No, honestly, El. I mean it’s getting so terribly icy. I have hardly any anti-freeze in the car. I mean if I don’t—”

“Let it freeze. Go phone. Say you’re dead,” said Eloise. “Gimme that.”

“Well … Where’s the phone?”

“It went,” said Eloise, carrying the empty glasses and walking toward the dining room, “—this-a-way.” She stopped short on the floor board between the living room and the dining room and executed a grind and a bump. Mary Jane giggled.

“I mean you didn’t really know Walt,” said Eloise at a quarter of five, lying on her back on the floor, a drink balanced upright on her small-breasted chest. “He was the only boy I ever knew that could make me laugh. I mean really laugh.” She looked over at Mary Jane. “You remember that night—our last year—when that crazy Louise Hermanson busted in the room wearing that black brassiere she bought in Chicago?”