Charles Williams - Hill Girl

What the hell, I thought defensively, a girl is entitled to get something out of a wedding. Even if she is a mule-headed little punk who doesn’t know the meaning of civility, and even if the wedding is by courtesy of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, she should have something out of it she can remember without wanting to cut her throat. That’s right, let’s have a good cry. Let’s build her up. You know what always happens whenever you start feeling sorry for Angelina. Angelina, the young bride. Nuts! I poured the rest of the drink in the basin in the bathroom and went back to the store.

She and the saleswoman were still hard at it and the packages and opened boxes were scattered over the counter. Angelina’s back was turned toward me and she didn’t see me coming, but the clerk smiled and she turned around and it was an Angelina I’d never seen before who looked at me. She still had on the same clothes and nothing was changed except her eyes, but they were altogether different. I guess it wasn’t anything, really, except that they were happy, and I had never seen that expression in them before.

She smiled a little hesitantly and said, “Do you like these—Bob?” It was the first time she’d ever called me by name. She was holding up a pair of very sheer nylons, holding them as caressingly as a mother might a baby.

“They’re very nice,” I said, trying to overcome the traditional male indifference toward any stocking that doesn’t have anything in it.

“And look at the shoes I got.” She rummaged around in the pile of merchandise and came up with a pair of slender-heeled white shoes with practically no soles to them. Each time she would dredge up something else out of the confusion of stuff she would look happily at me for some approving comment and then before I could think of something to say she would be off after another item.

When they were all wrapped up and we were ready to go, I told the clerk to have them delivered to the hotel. Angelina’s face fell slightly. “Can’t we carry them, Bob?” she asked hopefully. “They’re not very heavy.”

“O.K.,” I said, and we gathered them up. We went out and when we were in the street and headed for the hotel she looked up at me over the bundles she was carrying, the ones she wouldn’t trust out of her own arms, and said, simply, “Thank you. I don’t know why you did it, but it was the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me since I was born.”

“You’re welcome, Angelina,” I said uncomfortably. Her eyes were beautiful, I thought, when she wasn’t using them as weapons.

Thirteen

We went up to the room so she could change into her new things before the ceremony. As soon as we were inside she threw the bundles on the bed and began unwrapping them excitedly.

She held up a slip and admired it and turned to me. “I can’t get over it, Bob. But I’ll never know why you did it.”

“I’m not very bright,” I said. “I was kicked on the head too much playing football.”

“I don’t think you’re as mean as you pretend to be.”

“I’m just a campfire girl at heart,” I said absently, pouring another drink and pushing some of the stuff off one end of the bed so I could lie down across it. I lay there glumly, propped on one elbow, sipping the whisky and water and watching her. Nobody will ever understand them, I thought. They’re in a class by themselves. You get one catalogued and classified and tagged and before you can tie the tag on she’s changed into something else. The sullen little brat who was in a jam from rolling back on her round heels once too often and getting caught is now the starry-eyed young girl going to her first prom and trying to decide which of her new dresses to wear. She didn’t look angry or defiant now. I tried to analyze just how she did look and watched her curiously. She was eager, and happy, and her eyes shone as she unwrapped her parcels, and I wondered if she had forgotten what we were here for.

She ran into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. “Oh, it’s such a beautiful bathroom,” she said eagerly. “Do you think I have time for a bath?”

“Sure,” I said. I went to the phone and ordered some soda and ice and when it came up I mixed a good drink.

It was hot, even with the overhead fan running. I took off my coat and swished the ice around in the glass. I could hear Angelina splashing around in the bathroom and wondered sourly what was keeping her so long. I cursed the heat and the waiting and Shreveport. And then I cursed Angelina and Sam Harley and Lee and then the heat again.

What do you suppose is keeping the young bride? Let’s get the hell out of here and get this thing over with so I can get going. Get going to New Orleans or somewhere. This is going to be a good one. I’d been living out there a long time alone, too long when you’re twenty-two, with that ache you get, and those dreams. Living in the country and farming is fun, but you have to take time off to relax. And you have to have the ashes hauled once in a while or you’ll go crazy. You’re overtrained. You get sour. You get so you want to fight everybody. No, not everybody, you phony bastard. You didn’t want to fight Sam Harley, did you? Not while he was carrying that gun. It didn’t take any six or seven men to hold you back then, did it? Now, don’t start that. You didn’t get into this stinking mess because you were afraid of Sam Harley. You got into it because you didn’t want Mary to find out about Lee and this Angelina and because you didn’t want Lee to find out what it’s like to be shot full of .38-caliber holes. At least, it sounds better that way. And a lot of good it’ll do. What about the next one? And the one after that? Are you going to marry them all? Lee is your brother and you love him and he’s a wonderful guy, but he’s not a husband. He’s a stallion.

I thought some more about New Orleans. It was going to take one hell of a good binge to get the taste of this business out of my mouth. Oh, well, I thought, I’ve got that money I’ve hardly even touched, and the time, and nothing stopping me. Except a wife, of course. Don’t forget the young bride.

I heard a padding of bare feet behind me. The young bride was out of the tub.

A voice said happily, “Well, aren’t you going to turn around? I want to show you the rest of my new clothes.”

I turned around and she was standing near where my feet extended over the side of the bed. I dropped the cigarette I had in my hand and it fell on the bedspread and started to burn it and I picked it up and ground out the coal between my fingers without feeling it.

I saw the rest of her new clothes, which weren’t extensive. She had on a pair of very brief pants and a thin robe of some sort and her hair was down around her shoulders. She smiled gently at me and said, “I think they’re awful nice, don’t you?”

I turned back to the window and said, “They’re very nice.”; I must have said it, for there wasn’t anybody else in the room, but it didn’t sound like my voice. It sounded like someone being strangled.

Remember, that’s Angelina. She’s a snotty little brat and you don’t like her and you’re just over here to marry her to untangle a messy situation that you don’t want to get any worse. You can’t stand the sight of her. You can bet your life on that, brother. You can’t stand many more sights of her like that.

“Go put your damn clothes on,” I said. I wondered how my voice sounded to her. It didn’t sound so promising to me.

She reached down and took hold of my ankle and shook it. “You turn around, Bob, and tell me what you think of them. You didn’t say a word, and you bought them for me, and I want you to like them.”

I turned around and she was smiling teasingly. I tried to put the drink on the window sill but I dropped it and the glass broke and the ice skidded across the rug. I got off the bed and caught her, roughly, as you would any old bag, not half knowing what I was doing and not caring much, heedless of anything but the wildness of having to get my hands on her. She took the first kiss without much more than a gasp, but the next time she hit me and she hit me hard, with her fist doubled up, and then she was pounding on my face with both hands and struggling. I let go of her and she ran back and picked up a glass off the dresser and threw it at me. It bounced off my neck and hit the wall but it didn’t break.