Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“On you? How?”

“Like Flit. Or Larvex? Or Clorox?”

“No. Why?”

“Just wondered.”

She drank out, put down her glass, and went in where the party was, while I sat there. But then she was back. “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You got a husband?”

“Aren’t you his guest?”

“Then ask him why.”

“You mean it’s honor? Man to man? That stuff?”

“It could be.”

“I’ll be damned if I believe it.”

“There’s some of it around still, whether you believe it or not. A guy gives me a lift, invites me in, treats me fine — that would be swell, wouldn’t it, if I turned around then and made a pass at his wife.”

“There’s only one thing wrong with that.”

“Which is?”

“You did make a pass at her.”

“Says who?”

“You think a woman doesn’t know? It could be a mile away, but if it goes click, it’s a flash that goes from one to the other, and it’s like nothing else on this earth. And it could be an inch away and mean nothing, like that rotten little kiss you dusted me off with.”

“Maybe that’s when I remembered.”

“You mean, honor?”

“About time, I’d say.”

She thought that over, then said: “No. A woman does that. Remembers her honor, or whatever she winds her clock by. But when she does, it isn’t easy. It’s a struggle, and costs her plenty, and she sighs and sobs and moans. But you, you didn’t struggle. It went click, and then — nothing. It was just as though the juice had suddenly been turned off.”

“Somebody leaned on my disconnect switch, probably.”

“Oh, God, is there such a thing? Can I buy one?”

The party went on the rest of the day and most of the night, there and in town and all around. Pretty soon I got so I knew one from the other, and they began to have faces and names I could tell apart. It turned out nobody had come for social purposes especially, but had dropped by on business, just regular Saturday-afternoon powwows. The guy that had spotted me was named Dasso. He was tall, thin, and red-haired, maybe around thirty, with glasses so thick they had circles in them, and gave his eyes that gimlet look. He worked for Branch, as super at the wells. He had brought over a driller named Butler and some geological dope that they were taking to Bakersfield Monday. Then there was Mr. White, that seemed to be connected with the bank, and a couple of engineers he had brought with him, that managed to get in quite a few looks at the blueprints. Mr. White I went for pretty heavy. He was tall, square-shouldered, and around fifty, but quiet, with a little grin when something made him laugh, and dressed in white duck, that advertised him for an old-timer, as not many wear it any more. It was at his house we had supper, and of course cocktails, and in his pool I won the bet with Dasso, five dollars I could touch all the ladders under water, one time around, without coming up. Around midnight I was back at the Branches, with a room all to myself, and fresh pajamas, shirt, and underwear waiting for me. Next morning, in church, we did the Te Deum and two anthems, and I sang The Lord’s Prayer. That afternoon we fished off Mr. White’s boat, but were back in time for more anthems and Handel’s Largo. The singing I made pretty solemn, and maybe it wasn’t so hot, by Victor-Red-Seal standards, but at Sts. David and Joseph, in Long Beach, California, it went over fine.

During all that time she’d been out there, on the edges somewhere, drinking long drinks at the pool, sitting in a back pew of the church, stretched out on a hatch cover while we fished, rubbing herself with oil so the sunlight would get in its effect, quite something to see. I wasn’t talking to her, though, until Sunday midnight, after we’d all come back from the church, and she went out to the kitchen to fix lunch for Branch, Butler, and Dasso, on their trip next day, as the housekeeper’d been given the holiday off. I went out and helped, anyway to cut bread crusts off and spread butter while she sliced up ham and tongue and egg. She was in the same dark dress she’d worn to church, but when she put on a cellophane apron she looked more like herself. I mean, it was invented to display goods, and does. I strictly kept eyes front, but pretty soon she said: “Is there something I can get for you?”

“I’m not hungry, thanks.”

“Drink?”

“If I put down any more booze, I’ll fold.”

“If there’s anything you’d like, please ask for it. You did sing like an angel as perhaps I should have mentioned sooner, and are certainly entitled to something in the way of special indulgence.”

“Nothing I think of now.”

“Can’t you look at me?”

“I’m cutting bread.”

“... Jack, I can’t figure you out.”

“Any law you’ve got to?”

“Maybe not, but you can’t blame me for thinking. Yesterday I washed you out, for reasons we needn’t go into. But today, and especially tonight, you sang, and the reasons I had didn’t make sense. I mean, what came out of your throat was something a woman could go for. And yet, you’re cutting bread. What’s the answer?”

“If I told you, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“And I certainly want to.”

“It’s the same one: Your husband’s a nice guy.”

“And how would you know?”

“He’s been pretty nice to me.”

“But not to everybody, you might find.”

“Pretty near everybody, from what went on yesterday and today. He’s got an awful lot of friends, guys that seem to think the world of him. Guys in the oil business, with hard rock in their bones and something like it, anyway good solid stuff in their souls. And their wives. At the church, I noticed they like him. I didn’t notice them falling all over themselves over you. You were left off by yourself, I’d say — far left, and rear.”

“I don’t go for old fogeys.”

“Maybe they don’t go for you.”

“Maybe that’s the trouble.”

She got the tears going on that, and began a long song and dance about the lonely life she’d led, since she buried her father “beside my uncle and my mother, in the little cemetery on the hill.” Then she said: “I had to have somebody to run the wells, and these awful filling stations I’m afflicted with, and he came along, and it seemed like the thing.” But, she said, it “hadn’t worked out,” and she was beginning to wonder if it all wasn’t a “terrible mistake.” All it cut up to, to me, was a twenty-minute egg that had grabbed a good manager by marrying him, and then began shopping for a little excitement on the side. She let the cat out of the bag one time, I thought, while she was going to town on the way she was treated, when she said: “And what do I care what they think? What do I care if they all gang up on me? Maybe it’s mutual.”

“O.K., but why pick on me?”

“You really want to know?”

“Just for curiosity, I’d like to.”

“Your curls, for one thing.”

“Baby, I just need a haircut, that’s all.”

“You get them cut, and I’ll murder you. Right there, the way they peep out, over your ear, I could eat them. Them and your dimples.”

“My—? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t know about them?”

“I haven’t got any.”

“They’re right under your shoulder blades, on each side. I didn’t notice them till you made that crazy bet with Dasso, and I could see them, where you were swimming around down there. I thought at first it was water, the way it dapples in the sunlight, but today, when you were heaving that line, there they were again, the cutest things. Right — here—”