Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

“What else?”

“They show, here?” She reached up and touched her face, running her fingertips along her forehead and down her cheeks to the point of her jaw. “You can see them?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t—”

“I’ve always looked old for my age,” Ruby said stiffly. “It’s because I got such fine skin, it wrinkles easier than other people’s.”

“I didn’t mean you had wrinkles.”

“You were just trying to scare me, that’s what you meant.”

“I’m trying to warn you what you’re messing around in. The top’s been ready to blow off that house for years.”

“Let it blow.”

“You think you can pick up the pieces?”

“Yes.”

“Your own, maybe. Not Gordon’s. There’ll be nothing to pick up.”

Ruby leaned across the table. “You don’t want Gordon to go away with me and be happy, do you? You want things to stay like they are. You don’t care about Gordon, it’s your job you care about.”

“There are other jobs,” Hazel said grimly. “And probably other Gordons. But if there’s a sure thing on God’s green earth, there’s only one Elaine.”

“Trying to scare me — what can she do to me?”

“She can twist you out of shape like you were a pipe cleaner. I’ve seen what she does to him.”

“I can fight back. I’m stronger than I look. I’m tough.”

Hazel turned away. “Sure. Sure you are.”

“Wait and see. Someday, when everything’s settled and Gordon and I are married, I bet you’ll look back on tonight and have a big laugh about how you tried to scare me.”

“I like a big laugh,” Hazel said wearily. “Good luck to you anyway, Ruby.”

“Why do you say it like that, like I was going to die or something? I’ve got a future, me and Gordon. No matter what it is, it’ll be better than this. You can see that, can’t you?”

“I guess I can.”

“I’m strong and I’m tough.”

“Sure.”

The door from the hall swung open and George came in. His face was flushed and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and he was rubbing his hands together as if he’d just told a good joke and had led the laughing. George knew a million jokes.

“Time to break this up, isn’t it?”

Neither of the women answered.

“You girls been having a nice little chat?”

“Swell,” Hazel said. “Dandy.”

He approached Ruby’s chair, almost shyly. “I told you Hazel was a real tonic. You look better already, that’s a feet.”

She kept her eyes fixed on the table. “I look a mess.”

“No, you don’t.”

“My hair—”

“Your hair looks great.” He reached out to touch it, but she shrank away from his hand.

“I left,” she said, “I left my purse in the car.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

“No!”

“Is anything the matter?”

“No! I just want to get my purse so I can comb my hair.”

“All right,” he said. “All right.”

He stepped back and she darted toward the door, quick and frightened, like a bird. A moment later, through the open window, they could hear her frantic footsteps.

For a long time George didn’t move or speak. Then suddenly he reached down and picked up a whole slice of meat loaf and crammed it into his mouth. He began to chew, his cheeks distended like a squirrel’s. A moist blob of food dribbled out of the corner of his mouth and fell on his lapel. He didn’t wipe it off. He just stood there, chewing, out of rage and defiance and humiliation, chewing until his jaws ached and his throat contracted in revulsion and a lump formed in his chest like a knot of leather. And then, because he could not swallow, he opened the screen door and spat across the porch railing into the summer night. He came back into the kitchen, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, breathing noisily like a sprinter at the tape.

“You don’t,” Hazel said coldly, “have to act like a pig.”

“I am treated like a pig. I will be a pig.”

“Well, pick somebody else’s kitchen to—”

“Shut up.” Going to the sink he turned the cold water on full and splashed his face, sucking the water into his mouth. Then he dried himself carefully on a tea towel, folded the towel and replaced it on the rack,

“That’s a dish towel,” Hazel said.

He looked at her bitterly, his eyes bloodshot from the water. “Well, I’m a dish. That makes it all right. Ask Ruby what a fancy dish I am.”

“I didn’t have to ask her. She told me.”

“Give it to me straight.”

“I’d like a cigarette.”

“Here.”

He lit it for her and she took three quick puffs, as if she intended the smoke to blur George’s outlines and take the edge off reality.

She spoke slowly: “Ruby thinks you’re a fine man and all that, but she — well, you’re more of a father to her, see?”

“She said that?”

“Not exactly.”

“What did she say, exactly?”

“She implied that—”

“What did she say? ”

“Goddamn it, are you threatening me? Get your hands off me!”

“Tell me, tell me the truth.”

“Or you’ll what?”

“I’ll shake it out of you.”

“Try.”

His hand was still on her shoulder but force and urgency had gone out of it. It lay like a dead thing on Hazel’s black crepe shoulder, and when she moved to one side his hand fell away. He looked down at it, a little surprised, and then he put it in his pocket.

“Hazel?”

“Get out of here.”

“Tell me the truth, what she said.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’ve got to know one way or another.”

“You already know. You just can’t face it. You want me to face it for you, just like in the old days, I got to spell it out for you because it’s easier to take that way. Well, I won’t. Get out and leave me alone.”

“You can’t—”

“And the next time you come bursting in here with one of your two-bit heart-throbs I’ll have you both thrown out on your ear. Now start moving before she comes back. I don’t want her in here.”

“She’s not coming back,” George said. “She didn’t have any purse.”

He began moving toward the door, his head bent, and swinging slightly with each step like a bear’s.

“Listen, George—”

“No. I guess you won’t have to spell it out for me this time.”

“You’re lucky she’s not coming back. You may not think so right now, but you’re really lucky, George.”

“Sure. I’m a very lucky guy.”

He went out on to the porch and down the creaking steps. From the shadowy denseness of the live-oak tree the relentless mockingbird chortled his derisive little song: Lucky guy, lucky guy, oh my!

George picked up a pebble from the driveway and threw it hard and accurately into the heart of the tree. The mockingbird skittered through the prickly leaves and across the garage roof to a telephone pole where it sat in silence. But the alarm had sounded: the whole tree seemed to come alive with squawks and twitterings and the whirring of wings; the wood rats responded, and began their noisy racing up and down the walls of the garage and across the hood of Hazel’s car; and from a clump of bushes came the gentle regret of the mourning dove, lamenting the sad things of this world.

The sound reminded him of Ruby. He quickened his step, stung by a sudden wild hope that he had been wrong about her; she had had her purse with her after all, and she had just gone to the car to get it; she would be there now combing her hair.

“Ruby!” he shouted, and broke into a run.

There was no one in the car, no one on the street. He looked carefully around as if he half-expected to find her hiding somewhere behind a tree or hedge, needing only a little encouragement to come out, like a half-tamed animal.