Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

She opened the door and saw George, his outlines blurred by fog, his voice muffled.

“Is Ruby here?”

She looked at him dully, as if he had spoken a name she’d never heard before.

He coughed and said, “May I come in?”

“Yes. Yes, come in.” She closed the door behind him, trembling a little. “It’s cold, a cold night. I can smell winter in the air and here it isn’t even fall yet. But that’s Channel City for you, we get some of our best weather in December or January.”

“I suppose so, but—”

“We can talk in the dining room. I have the heater going.”

They sat down at the round oak table under the beaded chandelier. In spite of the gas heater hissing in the corner, the room was chilly, as if the old walls had absorbed one too many fogs.

“Ruby,” Mrs. Freeman said. “She didn’t call you?”

“No.”

“I asked her to. I said you must be sure and tell Mr. Anderson before you leave. He’ll want to know, I said, he’ll be around asking for you.”

“She’s gone, then?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Yesterday morning. It was very sudden.”

“It must have been.”

“Even so she ought to have told you. It’s not fair leaving it to me. She could have called you.”

“Maybe she tried. Maybe the line was busy.”

“I’ll bet you that’s what happened.”

He leaned across the table. “But you wouldn’t bet much, would you?”

“No,” she said, turning away. “Not much. She was — I tried to talk to her. She was a headstrong girl. Nothing mattered to her except what she wanted at the moment.”

“And what did she want?”

“Him,” Mrs. Freeman said quietly. “Just him. Nobody else counted. Some women are like that.”

Not many , she thought. But some. The unlucky ones. And the men they love are unlucky too. Like Robert.

She looked at the bowl of wax fruit in the center of the table. The fruit came from the dime store but Robert had made the bowl himself out of a cracked phonograph record according to directions he’d found in an old magazine, steaming the record over the teakettle and when it was soft shaping it into a scalloped bowl. “Why, Robert, it’s beautiful!” “It’s not bad, is it?” “It’s just beautiful.” “Maybe I can get hold of a bunch of old records and start a whole new business.” “That’s a wonderful idea.” “Honest to God, I think we got something here. I think we’re going to hit the jackpot, Carrie, old girl.” “Of course, of course we are, dear.”

Of course. Because she couldn’t bear to hurt him, she had encouraged him beyond all reason and reality. The hurt came anyway, and it was shattering and final. He tried to sell one of the bowls to Mrs. Haggerty next door and Mrs. Haggerty said her kids had been making bowls like that for years at the Y.M.C.A. crafts club.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Freeman said, but it wasn’t clear from her tone whom she was sorry for, George or Robert or Ruby or herself.

George lit a cigarette and the smoke curled up into the beaded chandelier and softened its glare.

“Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t be any use anyway, trying to find her.”

“But you know she went with him — with the man?”

“I saw them leave in his car. A nice-looking car. Green. When she said goodbye to me she put her arms around me, can you beat it?” Mrs. Freeman’s mouth tightened. “You’d think we’d been friends or something, the way she said goodbye to me like that, as if she was kind of sorry she had to leave. Well, I can’t be responsible for all the girls that cross my path. It’s just — I took kind of a personal interest in Ruby. She reminds me of someone I knew years ago. Ruby’s a little harder than this other girl I knew. Maybe she’ll have better luck. She’s not a bad girl.”

“Ruby,” George said carefully, “is a liar and a thief and a cheat.”

She shook her head. “It might seem that way to you, you’ve been hurt. She lies, yes. People lie when the truth is too hard to bear.”

“She didn’t tell me she was interested in someone else, never even hinted at it.”

“She didn’t tell me either. No one ever came here for her or called her except you. It was a shock to me when he turned up on Saturday night looking for her. I thought it was just a common drunk making all that noise outside. When I went out to quiet him down he asked for Ruby. That was the first I knew about it.”

“Saturday night,” George repeated.

“Early Sunday morning, more like it. He’d been to one of those Fiesta parties and was all dressed up like a caballero or whatever you call them. I couldn’t let him wander around in that condition and not even dressed proper, so I went upstairs and woke Ruby and between the two of us, we got him in here on the couch. He fell asleep right away.”

“What was he like?”

“Like?” Mrs. Freeman blinked. “Well, sometimes it’s kind of hard to tell when a man’s drunk, but he seemed nice enough. Nothing special that I could see except he had lovely manners. I guess you’d say he was a gentleman.”

“Would I?”

“It takes a gentleman not to forget his manners when he’s had a few too many. I asked Ruby, is he a drunk, I asked her. And she said, no, he hardly ever touched the stuff, this was an unusual occasion. I can’t tell you much more, Mr. Anderson, I don’t know any more. It all happened so fast and unexpected. Maybe I should have phoned you just as soon as—”

“No,” George said sharply. “No. I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I’d like to feel I did my best. I tried to talk to her, reason with her. But girls that age, they know everything, they know the score before they even find out what game they’re playing.”

She rose, and George rose too, and followed her down the long drafty hall to the front door. They shook hands soberly and formally, like mourners at a funeral.

“Thank you for your trouble,” George said and tried to smile but his mouth felt dry and stiff. “You’ve been very kind.”

“I tried, I wanted to help the girl. I wanted her to get interested in someone steady and dependable, well, like you, Mr. Anderson, no flattery intended. A girl like that needs a firm hand, a good strong marriage.”

“Maybe she’ll have it.”

“How can she? He’s already married, this man, married and with three kids.”

George looked at her in silence for a long time, then he turned and opened the door and stepped out on the porch.

“Mr. Anderson?”

“It’s getting late. I’d better—”

“I didn’t mean to tell you that. It just popped out.”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re not thinking of doing anything drastic, Mr. Anderson? I mean, it wouldn’t be any use trying to find her. She’s gone. She made that clear, she’s gone for good.”

“For good. Yes, I guess you’re right.”

They stood facing each other on the porch. The fog had shut everything else out, and it was as if they were alone together in a cold gray little world of their own.

Moisture condensed on Mrs. Freeman’s home permanent and wiry curls began to spring up all over her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson. She should have told you herself.”

“What’s the man’s name?”

“I don’t — I can’t remember.”

“You’ve remembered everything else.”

“Even so. Even so, I don’t think I ought to—”

“Tell me.”

“Gordon,” Mrs. Freeman said. “She called him Gordon.”

By ten o’clock the fog had covered the city. It hung from the old oak behind Hazel’s house like angel hair on a Christmas tree.

There were no lights on in Hazel’s house and when George knocked on the front door no one answered. He walked around to the back, found the key where Hazel always left it, under the doormat, and let himself into the kitchen.