Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“No.”

“I’m not, either. I was, but I’m not any more. Won’t you let me take you out sometime?”

“I really don’t care much about going out.”

“That’s that, then.”

“Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome.”

As soon as he drove off, she went straight to Mr. Gomez’s café. She sat there until closing time, drinking coffee. She kept her eye on the door, out of habit. Gordon didn’t even know she’d be waiting, so there wasn’t the slightest hope that he would come. But she got a certain bitter satisfaction in watching the door anyway, facing the hopelessness.

She sat there for an hour and a half, seeing quite clearly that there was no future for her and Gordon, and there was no easy way out. The wharf would not rot under her feet, no tidal wave would engulf her, no storm would carry her out to sea.

During the week she sent the fox fur back to her aunt, parcel post, and she let George drive her home two nights in a row. He assumed that she was becoming more friendly toward him and Ruby didn’t bother to correct him. She was slipping back into her old habits of evasiveness. It was hardly worthwhile to tell the truth to anyone or explain anything. Let Mr. Anderson assume whatever he wanted to assume, it didn’t matter.

On Thursday night she met Gordon at the café for the last time. She arrived full of enthusiasm about the new job Mr. Anderson had promised her. A new job meant a new life, new hope, new chances.

Gordon was waiting for her when she got there. He looked out of place in the regular Thursday-night crowd. He was not watching the door for her arrival. He was watching the people at the bar in sober bewilderment, as if he too was aware of the difference between them and himself, but could not figure out what this difference was. These people were not drunk, yet the possibility of becoming drunk was already coloring their evening. They could cut loose if they liked, and they relaxed into quick friendships, easy laughter, loose wallets. The regulars at the café formed a kind of club for the kind of people for whom ordinary clubs were impossible. They were Mr. Gomez’s Rotarian Kiwanis of the Masonic Order of the Elks and Lions. They convened to exchange slaps on the back, stories, political arguments, gossip and news of absentee members, and to mitigate their loneliness.

Gordon, watching them, wished that he could walk over and join the club, or that he could look forward to one night every week when he could relax and forget his responsibilities. One night, not to get drunk, but to sit up at the bar with the regulars and roll thirteenth-ace for the next quarter for the juke box. He felt like a wistful child, on the outside looking in, yet he knew quite well that what he was looking into was nothing that he could accept or enjoy. Gordon could never unlock his chains; they had been forged long before he met Elaine.

“Hello, Gordon.” Ruby sat down beside him. She had meant to blurt out her good news right away, but her throat felt clogged and furry and she spoke so softly he had to bend his head to hear her. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“I know.”

“I’ve missed you terribly. Have you missed me?”

“Yes.” He took her hand and held it. There was a desperate strength in his grip as if he knew that something valuable was slipping away from him and he was unable to stop it, unable even to assess its value.

“I missed you,” he said, “but I didn’t want to see you. I had to reason things out and give you a chance to do the same.”

“I didn’t want a chance to reason things out. Everything I’ve done is unreasonable if you look at it that way.”

“No, wait, Ruby. I tried — I tried to figure out a way where we’d all come out all right, you and Elaine and I and the kids.” He drew in his breath painfully. “And there isn’t any way. We all have to suffer for my selfishness.”

“We haven’t done anything so terrible. Why should you let your conscience bother you like this? Elaine isn’t hurt.”

“She is, and so are my children, and me, and you most of all, Ruby. What have you gotten out of all this except grief?”

“I don’t think of that, Gordon. I love you. I’ve told you that so often and you never understand it, do you?”

“Understand it? No, I don’t. I’ve tried to figure that out, too. I can’t understand why you should love me, I don’t know what love is. I only know it needs certain things in order to survive. It can’t grow like a mushroom in a pile of dirt in the cellar.”

She got up. Her head felt light and empty. “You shouldn’t have said that, Gordon. You’re right but you shouldn’t have said it. It wasn’t a very nice thing to say. You hurt me. You hurt me, Gordon.”

She walked toward the front door. Her eyes were dazed and her mouth still hung open a little in terrible surprise.

Mr. Escobar arrived for work on Saturday morning. He steered his bicycle with his right hand, and with his left he balanced over his shoulder his own tools, a rake, a spading fork, a hedge clipper and a shovel as polished and sharp as a carving knife. In his bicycle basket he carried an oiled rag, a small wooden box which he used to trap gophers, a bottle of Pepsi-Cola, and three bologna on rye sandwiches moistened with cold beans.

He drove up Mrs. Anderson’s lane and parked his bicycle in the garage. A small black and white dog came bouncing across the yard. When Escobar opened the gate the dog danced wildly around his legs and finally flung itself on his heavy boots, stomach up. Escobar leaned down and rubbed its stomach. The friendly dog was a good omen. Only friendly people kept friendly dogs.

“Little fellow,” Escobar said. “Hello, pretty little fellow.”

Wendy got up and shook herself. Then she started to explore with her nose every inch of his boots. Escobar cleaned his boots almost daily but they never quite lost the smell of fertilizer. Sometimes Lucia, his wife, complained of this. She was a city girl, born and raised in San Diego, and she considered manure (even steer manure swept off cement floors) as rather coarse and unpleasant. When Escobar tried to explain to her that manure was sometimes necessary as food for plants, Lucia wasn’t quite convinced. She kept two potted geraniums on the windowsill in the kitchen and they got along nicely without fertilizer, only a little water now and then.

The boots moved across the yard and Wendy followed them, sniffing, and yelping in frustration when they wouldn’t stand still.

Ruth came to the screen door. “Be quiet, Wendy.”

“He is a pretty little fellow,” Escobar said.

“It’s a she. A girl. Her name’s Wendy.”

“She’s a pretty little fellow.”

“She’s only a pup, eight months old. Naturally” — Ruth’s laugh came through the door, sharp and defensive — “naturally she’s not a thoroughbred.”

Escobar nodded cautiously. He was not certain what a thoroughbred dog was, since he had always connected the word with horses. He could not see Ruth clearly through the screen door, but he didn’t like her sound, and in spite of the omen of the friendly dog, Escobar was uneasy. He hoped the woman would stay on the other side of the screen door.

“Mrs. Anderson’s gone to work,” Ruth said. “I’m her cousin. I’ll be here all morning if you want to consult me.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Mrs. Anderson said just to start in. The tools are in the garage. I noticed, I happened to be looking out the window, and I noticed you brought some extra ones.”

He nodded again and began to back away from the porch. The dog followed him and Ruth called her back.

“Wendy, come here.”

“Go on, little fellow,” Escobar said, waving his hand toward the house. “Go on.”