Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“My goodness, I thought that’s what conventions were for! ”

He looked at her steadily. “Did you?”

“What’s the matter with you, Gordon? Can’t you take a joke any more?”

“It depends on the joke.”

“As if I didn’t know you have too much self-respect to go to a burlesque show,” Elaine said reproachfully. “What did you do with your evenings?”

“I went to the movies,” Gordon said. I fell in love with a girl named Ruby. At first I thought she was just an innocent, wide-eyed kid, and then afterwards at the movie I thought she was an ordinary pick-up. When it was too late I found out something else — she was a virgin.

Four days later he had a letter from her. During office hours he kept the letter in his pocket and at night he left it in the office safe.

Dear Gordon:

I guess by this time you’ve forgotten all about me and I wouldn’t blame you, really I wouldn’t Gordon, I’m not worthy to shine your shoes. In fact I’ve got some things on my conscience and I thought I’d tell you, then if you’ve forgotten me you can just read this and forget it too, but if you haven’t and if you still feel about me the way I do about you, you will know anyway that I’m trying to play fair and square with you. Well, here goes, Gordon.

I wasn’t waiting for anybody that night in the lobby, I was just sitting there. I was walking home and I got tired so I went and sat there pretending I was waiting for someone because otherwise it wouldn’t be good taste. Isn’t it funny Gordon that if my feet hadn’t been hurting I wouldn’t ever have met you. I’m glad I did, no matter what happens to us I’ll never be sorry. I swear on my honor I never did that before, talking to a strange man like that and I will never do it again. I haven’t even looked at another man since you left, what’s the use they look silly beside you.

Point two: I told you I lived with my parents, this isn’t true either because my parents are divorced and have married other people and I live with my aunt and cousin, my cousin is older than I and she has a good job. I guess you will think I am a terrible liar. I don’t know why I said that about my parents I haven’t seen them for years, but I want you to know the truth now anyway because I love you Gordon. I’ve never been in love before only crushes.

I guess that’s all Gordon. I hope you won’t hate me the way I hate myself for telling you those lies, but I wouldn’t blame you if you turned against me. I am not good enough for you maybe I never will be but I’m going to try hard. I think of you all the time, please write to me Gordon. I love you. Ruby.

Every evening, while Hazel was cleaning up the front office, Gordon went into the lab and sat down on the high stool. He read the letter over and over and then he put his head down on the lab table and wept without tears.

Ruby arrived in town three weeks later. She came by bus carrying a suitcase containing two letters from Gordon, a few clothes and her aunt’s red fox neckpiece (borrowed for a limited time only). She had nearly two hundred dollars, scraped together from various sources. Seventy dollars was her own, her cousin lent her twenty-five, and a hundred came from her father in Seattle. She had written to him for the first time in two years telling him she was going to be married and needed money for a trousseau. Her father sent her a check and a note wishing her happiness and telling her not to mention the check to her mother under any circumstances.

She took a room in a boarding house a couple of blocks from the bus terminal. Here she unpacked her suitcase, shook out the red fox neckpiece and washed her face. Then she went to the nearest café to phone Gordon and have something to eat.

She sat down in a booth, trembling with weariness and excitement. She was here at last, in the same city as Gordon, perhaps even just a few blocks from him right this minute. From now on all her days would be colored by the possibility of seeing Gordon. He might be walking past the café right now (she looked and could see nothing beyond the closed Venetian blind) and every time she stepped out of the door she might catch a glimpse of his car. She had memorized the license number on that first night, standing on the curb outside Gordon’s hotel. She had repeated it aloud over and over, without realizing why. Everything that concerned Gordon had become absorbingly important to her, with the exception of Elaine. She thought of Elaine vaguely as a shadow-figure crossing Gordon’s path now and then without touching him or interfering with him. Ruby’s one-sided imagination flung a veil over Elaine and her children, her own future, her financial difficulties, Gordon’s reputation, and any preconceived notions she had of right and wrong. Right was something you were going to do anyway, and if it didn’t justify itself afterwards it became wrong. Ruby’s mind worked with disastrous simplicity. It was “wrong” to lie to Gordon about her parents, but it was “right” to follow him here without telling him about it in advance or asking his opinion.

She wanted to surprise Gordon, and she did.

She dialed the number of his office while Mr. Gomez reheated a batch of French-fried potatoes and the juke box moaned a soft, disturbing song. The music brushed her ears and her lips like a kiss.

Watching her from behind the counter Mr. Gomez made one of his quick, wrong analyses of character: kid from a small town, on her way to Hollywood, due for a shock, no jobs around, lousy with pretty girls already, the kid’s asking for it.

“I’m not hungry,” Gordon told Elaine at dinner. “I think I’ll go out for a walk.”

Elaine glanced at him across the table. She believed nothing and so she could always spot a lie, an ability which was her pride and joy.

“A walk? I should think after standing on your feet all day a walk would be about the last thing you’d want.”

“I don’t get enough exercise.”

“You have your golf on Sunday afternoons.”

“If you’ve any objections to me going for a walk, say so. Don’t beat around the bush. Is there something you want me to do around the house, is that it?”

“You don’t have to get irritable, Gordon. I didn’t object to your going for a walk, it just seemed peculiar, that’s all.”

“Well, perhaps I am peculiar,” Gordon said.

Elaine sighed and thought, how true. Gordon was peculiar, and little did these people who were always telling her how lucky she was to have a good husband, little did they know what she had to put up with. It was quite possible that Gordon’s trouble was glandular. If this was the case, Elaine would stand by, she would even nurse him herself, if necessary, until Gordon’s glands readjusted and he had completely recovered. Complete recovery, in Elaine’s terms, meant that Gordon would be constantly sweet, affectionate, devoted to herself and the children. He would stay home at night and they would all play games together, a gay, happy, united little family. This was Elaine’s dream, this picture of Gordon and herself and the children sitting at a table reading aloud or playing Parcheesi and Casino and Snakes and Ladders... She and Gordon would touch hands and smile with pride and love at the children’s excitement... This was what she wanted but she had never told Gordon, and her own attempts in the direction of the dream were hopelessly inadequate. The boys were too young for such games and the girl Judith got overexcited and tried to cheat. Elaine was horrified by this cheating, she could not believe it was natural for a seven-year-old to try to cheat, and in the end she blamed Gordon for passing on his hereditary weakness to his daughter. The gay evenings with the children were nightmares for Gordon and agonizing frustration for Elaine.