Nine Stories (5 page)

"What
happened to Jimmy?" Eloise said to her.

"He
got runned over and killed. I saw Skipper with a bone, and he
wouldn't--"

"Gimme
your forehead a second," Eloise said. She reached out and felt
Ramona's forehead. "You feel a little feverish. Go tell Grace
you're to have your dinner upstairs. Then you're to go straight to
bed. I'll be up later. Go on, now, please. Take these with you."

Ramona
slowly giant-stepped her way out of the room.

"Throw
me one," Eloise said to Mary Jane. "Let's have another
drink."

Mary
Jane carried a cigarette over to Eloise. "Isn't that something?
About Jimmy? What an imagination!"

"Mm.
You go get the drinks, huh? And bring the bottle . . . I don't wanna
go out there. The whole damn place smells like orange juice."

At
five minutes past seven, the phone rang. Eloise got up from the
window seat and felt in the dark for her shoes. She couldn't find
them. In her stocking feet, she walked steadily, almost languidly,
toward the phone. The ringing didn't disturb Mary Jane, who was
asleep on the couch, face down.

"Hello,"
Eloise said into the phone, without having turned the overhead light
on. "Look, I can't meet you. Mary Jane's here. She's got her car
parked right in front of me and she can't find the key. I can't get
out. We spent about twenty minutes looking for it in the
wuddayacallit--the snow and stuff. Maybe you can get a lift with Dick
and Mildred." She listened. "Oh. Well, that's tough, kid.
Why don't you boys form a platoon and march home? You can say that
but-hopehoop-hoop business. You can be the big shot." She
listened again. "I'm not funny," she said. "Really,
I'm not. It's just my face." She hung up.

She
walked, less steadily, back into the living room. At the window seat,
she poured what was left in the bottle of Scotch into her glass. It
made about a finger. She drank it off, shivered, and sat down.

When
Grace turned on the light in the dining room, Eloise jumped. Without
getting up, she called in to Grace, "You better not serve until
eight, Grace. Mr. Wengler'll be a little late."

Grace
appeared in the dining-room light but didn't come forward. "The
lady go?" she said.

"She's
resting."

"Oh,"
said Grace. "Miz Wengler, I wondered if it'd be all right if my
husband passed the evenin' here. I got plentya room in my room, and
he don't have to be back in New York till tomorrow mornin', and it's
so bad out."

"Your
husband? Where is he?"

"Well,
right now," Grace said, "he's in the kitchen."

"Well,
I'm afraid he can't spend the night here, Grace."

"Ma'am?"

"I
say I'm afraid he can't spend the night here. I'm not running a
hotel."

Grace
stood for a moment, then said, "Yes, Ma'am," and went out
to the kitchen.

Eloise
left the living room and climbed the stairs, which were lighted very
faintly by the overglow from the dining room. One of Ramona's
galoshes was lying on the landing. Eloise picked it up and threw it,
with as much force as possible, over the side of the banister; it
struck the foyer floor with a violent thump.

She
snapped on the light in Ramona's room and held on to the switch, as
if for support. She stood still for a moment looking at Ramona. Then
she let go of the light switch and went quickly over to the bed.
"Ramona. Wake up. Wake up."

Ramona
was sleeping far over on one side of the bed, her right buttock off
the edge. Her glasses were on a little Donald Duck night table,
folded neatly and laid stems down.

"Ramona!"

The
child awoke with a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes opened wide, but
she narrowed them almost at once. "Mommy?"

"I
thought you told me Jimmy Jimmereeno was run over and killed."

"What?"

"You
heard me," Eloise said. "Why are you sleeping way over
here?"

"Because,"
said Ramona.

"Because
why? Ramona, I don't feel like--"

"Because
I don't want to hurt Mickey."

"Who?"

"Mickey,"
said Ramona, rubbing her nose. "Mickey Mickeranno."

Eloise
raised her voice to a shriek. "You get in the center of that
bed. Go on."

Ramona,
extremely frightened, just looked up at Eloise.

"All
right." Eloise grabbed Ramona's ankles and half lifted and half
pulled her over to the middle of the bed. Ramona neither struggled
nor cried; she let herself be moved without actually submitting to
it.

"Now
go to sleep," Eloise said, breathing heavily. "Close your
eyes.... You heard me, close them."

Ramona
closed her eyes.

Eloise
went over to the light switch and flicked it off. But she stood for a
long time in the doorway. Then, suddenly, she rushed, in the dark,
over to the night table, banging her knee against the foot of the
bed, but too full of purpose to feel pain. She picked up Ramona's
glasses and, holding them in both hands, pressed them against her
cheek. Tears rolled down her face, wetting the lenses. "Poor
Uncle Wiggily," she said over and over again. Finally, she put
the glasses back on the night table, lenses down.

She
stooped over, losing her balance, and began to tuck in the blankets
of Ramona's bed. Ramona was awake. She was crying and had been
crying. Eloise kissed her wetly on the mouth and wiped the hair out
of her eyes and then left the room.

She
went downstairs, staggering now very badly, and wakened Mary Jane.

"Wuzzat?
Who? Huh?" said Mary Jane, sitting bolt upright on the couch.

"Mary
Jane. Listen. Please," Eloise said, sobbing. "You remember
our freshman year, and I had that brawn-and-yellow dress I bought in
Boise, and Miriam Ball told me nobody wore those kind of dresses in
New York, and I cried all night?" Eloise shook Mary Jane's arm.
"I was a nice girl," she pleaded, "wasn't I?"

Just
Before the War with the Eskimos

FIVE
STRAIGHT SATURDAY MORNINGS, Ginnie Mannox had played tennis at the
East Side Courts with Selena Graff, a classmate at Miss Basehoar's.
Ginnie openly considered Selena the biggest drip at Miss
Basehoar's--a school ostensibly abounding with fair-sized drips--but
at the same time she had never known anyone like Selena for bringing
fresh cans of tennis balls. Selena's father made them or something.
(At dinner one night, for the edification of the entire Mannox
family, Ginnie had conjured up a vision of dinner over at the
Graffs'; it involved a perfect servant coming around to everyone's
left with, instead of a glass of tomato juice, a can of tennis
balls.) But this business of dropping Selena off at her house after
tennis and then getting stuck--every single time--for the whole cab
fare was getting on Ginnie's nerves. After all, taking the taxi home
from the courts instead of the bus had been Selena's idea. On the
fifth Saturday, however, as the cab started north in York Avenue,
Ginnie suddenly spoke up.

"Hey,
Selena. . ."

"What?"
asked Selena, who was busy feeling the floor of the cab with her
hand. "I can't find the cover to my racket!" she moaned.

Despite
the warm May weather, both girls were wearing topcoats over their
shorts.

"You
put it in your pocket," Ginnie said. "Hey, listen--"

"Oh,
God! You've saved my life!"

"Listen,"
said Ginnie, who wanted no part of Selena's gratitude.

"What?"

Ginnie
decided to come right out with it. The cab was nearly at Selena's
street. "I don't feel like getting stuck for the whole cab fare
again today," she said. "I'm no millionaire, ya know."

Selena
looked first amazed, then hurt. "Don't I always pay half?"
she asked innocently.

"No,"
said Ginnie flatly. "You paid half the first Saturday. Way in
the beginning of last month. And since then not even once. I don't
wanna be ratty, but I'm actually existing on four-fifty a week. And
out of that I have to--"

"I
always bring the tennis balls, don't I?" Selena asked
unpleasantly.

Sometimes
Ginnie felt like killing Selena. "Your father makes them or
something," she said. "They don't cost you anything. I have
to pay for every single little--"

"All
right, all right," Selena said, loudly and with finality enough
to give herself the upper hand. Looking bored, she went through the
pockets of her coat. "I only have thirty-five cents," she
said coldly. "Is that enough?"

"No.
I'm sorry, but you owe me a dollar sixty-five. I've been keeping
track of every--"

"I'll
have to go upstairs and get it from my mother. Can't it wait till
Monday? I could bring it to gym with me if it'd make you happy."

Selena's
attitude defied clemency.

"No,"
Ginnie said. "I have to go to the movies tonight. I need it."

In
hostile silence, the girls stared out of opposite windows until the
cab pulled up in front of Selena's apartment house. Then Selena, who
was seated nearest the curb, let herself out. Just barely leaving the
cab door open, she walked briskly and obliviously, like visiting
Hollywood royalty, into the building. Ginnie, her face burning, paid
the fare. She then collected her tennis things--racket, hand towel,
and sun hat--and followed Selena. At fifteen, Ginnie was about five
feet nine in her 9-B tennis shoes, and as she entered the lobby, her
self-conscious rubber-soled awkwardness lent her a dangerous amateur
quality. It made Selena prefer to watch the indicator dial over the
elevator.

"That
makes a dollar ninety you owe me," Ginnie said, striding up to
the elevator.

Selena
turned. "It may just interest you to know," she said, "that
my mother is very ill."

"What's
the matter with her?"

"She
virtually has pneumonia, and if you think I'm going to enjoy
disturbing her just for money . . ." Selena delivered the
incomplete sentence with all possible aplomb.

Ginnie
was, in fact, slightly put off by this information, whatever its
degree of truth, but not to the point of sentimentality. "I
didn't give it to her," she said, and followed Selena into the
elevator.

When
Selena had rung her apartment bell, the girls were admitted--or
rather, the door was drawn in and left ajar--by a colored maid with
whom Selena didn't seem to be on speaking terms. Ginnie dropped her
tennis things on a chair in the foyer and followed Selena. In the
living room, Selena turned and said, "Do you mind waiting here?
I may have to wake Mother up and everything."

"O.K.,"
Ginnie said, and plopped down on the sofa.

"I
never in my life would've thought you could be so small about
anything," said Selena, who was just angry enough to use the
word "small" but not quite brave enough to emphasize it.

"Now
you know," said Ginnie, and opened a copy of Vogue in front of
her face. She kept it in this position till Selena had left the room,
then put it back on top of the radio. She looked around the room,
mentally rearranging furniture, throwing out table lamps, removing
artificial flowers. In her opinion, it was an altogether hideous
room--expensive but cheesy.

Suddenly,
a male voice shouted from another part of the apartment, "Eric?
That you?"

Ginnie
guessed it was Selena's brother, whom she had never seen. She crossed
her long legs, arranged the hem of her polo coat over her knees, and
waited.

A
young man wearing glasses and pajamas and no slippers lunged into the
room with his mouth open. "Oh. I thought it was Eric, for
Chrissake," he said. Without stopping, and with extremely poor
posture, he continued across the room, cradling something close to
his narrow chest. He sat down on the vacant end of the sofa. "I
just cut my goddam finger," he said rather wildly. He looked at
Ginnie as if he had expected her to be sitting there. "Ever cut
your finger? Right down to the bone and all?" he asked. There
was a real appeal in his noisy voice, as if Ginnie, by her answer,
could save him from some particularly isolating form of pioneering.

Ginnie
stared at him. "Well, not right down to the bone," she
said, "but I've cut myself." He was the funniest-looking
boy, or man--it was hard to tell which he was--she had ever seen. His
hair was bed-dishevelled. He had a couple of days' growth of sparse,
blond beard. And he looked-well, goofy. "How did you cut it?"
she asked.

He
was staring down, with his slack mouth ajar, at his injured finger.
"What?" he said.

"How
did you cut it?"

"Goddam
if I know," he said, his inflection implying that the answer to
that question was hopelessly obscure. "I was lookin' for
something in the goddam wastebasket and it was fulla razor blades."

"You
Selena's brother?" Ginnie asked.

"Yeah.
Christ, I'm bleedin' to death. Stick around. I may need a goddam
transfusion."