Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

He went up the steps of the back porch and rapped, hesitantly, on the screen door.

Harold and Josephine were at the kitchen table, making sandwiches. Harold was buttering bread and Josephine was slicing some meat loaf. Whenever a crumb of meat fell on the table Josephine picked it up and popped it in her mouth in a natural, unselfconscious way. They were both sunburned from their afternoon in the sailboat, and a row of freckles had sprung up out of nowhere along the bridge of Josephine’s nose.

George rapped again and said, “Hey.”

“Well, for crying out loud.” Harold put down the butter knife and wiped his hands on the apron of Ruth’s that he was wearing. “Come on in. Josephine, look who’s here.”

“I see him,” Josephine said placidly. “Hello, George. What brings you to these parts?”

“I just dropped in to see Hazel for a minute.”

“She’s got company.”

“Yeah, I saw the car.”

Harold whistled. “Some car, eh? They say a Caddy like that will do over a hundred miles an—”

“How fast a car goes doesn’t matter,” Josephine said, giving her husband a glance of disapproval. “If its owner happens to be married. Which he is.”

“Sure, honey. Sure—”

“Mr. Cooke’s interest in Hazel is purely businesslike, and vice versa. After all, she used to work for Mr. Cooke and there’s nothing more to it than that.”

Although both Harold and George were inclined to doubt this statement, neither of them cared to argue with Josephine. She had reached the stage where every remark, every incident, had a personal application for her. Harold knew this, and George sensed it.

The two men exchanged glances, then Harold said, hurriedly, “Say George, I didn’t get a chance to thank you for the boat this afternoon.”

“That’s all right.”

“We had a wonderful time. Josephine wasn’t scared a bit. Were you, Josephine?”

“I was so, at first,” Josephine said. “I would have been scared to death without Harold. Harold kept asking me if I was getting seasick, and finally he was the one got seasick!”

Harold looked very proud, as if he had deliberately shouldered the burden of seasickness to spare Josephine. “Josie makes a swell sailor. You’d think, with the baby and everything, she’d feel queasy.”

“Well, I didn’t, not one bit. And don’t think those waves weren’t high, George. They came at us, whoosh, didn’t they, Harold?”

She and Harold exchanged contented smiles. Together they had braved a new element, the sea. They had fought and won, and now after their shared victory they were relaxed, united.

“You’re both looking fine,” George said.

“I’m certainly not losing any weight, am I?” Josephine laughed. “The doctor thinks maybe I’ll have twins.”

“Holy cats.”

“That’s what I told Harold, holy cats. But Harold says it’d be sort of a bargain to get two for the price of one. Considering how much everything costs nowadays, it’d be nice to get a bargain for a change... How about a sandwich, George?”

“No thanks.”

“Well, the least you can do is sit down and make yourself at home.”

“I can’t. I’m in kind of a hurry.” George shifted his weight from one foot to another, already regretting his decision to bring Ruby here. Everything was so normal — the warm little kitchen, the pungent smell of the meat loaf, Harold with his pride and Josephine with her unborn child — that by contrast Ruby seemed eccentric, even depraved. “I’ve got someone waiting for me in the car.”

“Aha.”

“I’d like to speak to Hazel a minute, though.”

“Sure thing,” Harold said. “I’ll get her.”

When Harold had gone, Josephine said, casually, “Is it anyone we know?”

“No.”

“I just thought if it was, bring her in.”

“Thanks just the same.”

“If you ask me, George, you’re acting sort of jumpy.”

“Not as jumpy as I feel.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“Call it business.”

“I didn’t mean to be nosy,” Josephine said rather stiffly. “It just surprises me when a man of your iron constitution starts acting jumpy.”

“I left my iron constitution behind years ago.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. It makes me nervous. After all, I’m not terribly much younger than you are, and here I am, going to have twins.” She turned to him, her eyes suddenly anxious, seeking reassurance. “Maybe I waited too long and my bones are too set or something?”

“Baloney,” George said cheerfully. “Listen, any time you’re in doubt about your health take a look in the mirror. Go on, do it now.”

“No.”

“Go on. Look at yourself.”

Awkwardly, Josephine rose from her chair and approached the small oblong mirror hanging between the two windows over the sink. Her eyes were clear and glowing, her dark hair glossy, her cheeks pink from the sun.

“I do look healthy, don’t I, George?”

“Wonderful.”

“There can’t be anything wrong if I look so healthy.”

Harold came back with Hazel, who was wearing her pearl choker and her black crepe dress, an outfit she reserved for sober and important functions. She looked warm and strained, and when she walked she took mincing little steps because her feet hurt; flesh bulged from her new patent-leather pumps like rising dough.

“I tried to get you on the phone,” she said to George. “Willie told me you weren’t there. You just up and blew, didn’t say a word to anybody, just blew. That’s no way to run a business, George.”

“I’ll make a note of that. Thanks loads.”

“Whenever you’re in the wrong you always sound like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what. Whenever you make a mistake you get sore. Isn’t that right, Harold?”

“You leave Harold out of it,” Josephine said sharply. “Harold and me, we mind our own business. Live and let live.”

“All right, all right, skip it.” Hazel dabbed at her moist forehead with the back of her hand. “My God, it’s hot. Come on out and I’ll show you the yard.”

“I saw it,” George said. “It looks fine.”

“Cost me eleven bucks. I need some air.” She opened the screen door and went outside on the porch. George followed her, feeling a little hurt that she wasn’t in a friendlier mood. “The place looks pretty good, eh?”

“Just great.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Maybe you don’t realize how a nice yard increases the value of a home.”

“Sure, sure I do,” George said. “It increases it plenty.”

“You can’t tell. After all, some day I might want to sell the place, I might get married.”

“I guess you might.”

She leaned against the porch railing, easing a little of the weight off her feet. “I suppose Harold and Josephine told you I have company?”

“Yes.”

“You remember Arthur Cooke that I used to work for.”

“Sure.”

“He’s very refined.”

“Hazel—”

“Doesn’t drink or smoke and always dresses in the best of taste.”

“I’m sorry to bust in on you like this.”

“That’s all right. He was just leaving anyway. He’s a very busy and important man, he—”

“Look, Haze, I don’t mean to change the subject or anything, but I’m in kind of a hurry. I’ve got someone waiting for me in the car.”

Hazel raised her eyebrows. “So?”

“She’s not feeling very well, and I thought if you had a little brandy or one of those pills you used to take when you got upset, the ones the doctor gave you—”

“I’ve got a quart of warm beer and some aspirin,” Hazel said curtly. “Who is it, the new girlfriend?”