Suddenly, something caught Mrs. McLatchy’s eye. Something awful. One of her two couples, Number 93, was in the soup. The woman, whom Mrs. McLatchy had come to know familiarly by her given name, Velma, was slipping through the arms of her partner, Antonio. Velma had bright red hair with only the remnant of a Marcel wave. Her build was slight — as slight and willowy as Antonio’s was solid. Yet Antonio was having trouble keeping her aright. Velma had sunk into the deepest recesses of sleep at just the moment that Antonio’s strength had begun to fail him. Mrs. McLatchy rose quickly to her feet and began to shout, “Hold onto her, Antonio! Don’t let her fall! For God’s sake, don’t let her fall!”
Antonio let her fall.
Velma lay on the floor, still fast asleep. Antonio dropped to his knees and wept. Mrs. McLatchy and Mrs. Trestle knew their whole story by now. He worked at the sawmill — the one where the strike was taking place. They had two little girls. Once, early in the Walkathon, Velma’s mother had brought the girls to see their mother and father compete. But the chastened grandmother was strictly forbidden ever to bring them back.
Two days later, one of Mrs. Trestle’s two favorite couples was also eliminated: Couple Number 13. They were the losing pair in the heel-and-toe derby. Unlike Mrs. McLatchy’s Couple, Number 93, Jake and Angeline weren’t married. But they had planned to wed as soon as the marathon was over, as soon as they won the $1,750 cash prize. Mrs. Trestle had shared in their high hopes. The duo often danced over to visit her at the box. Mrs. Trestle knitted a sweater for Angeline. Angeline had two deep scars on her face that she never talked about. They seemed invisible to Jake, who sometimes kissed her right on the cicatrix tissue.
Jake got a charley horse. It brought him down like a crippled pony. There was a pile-up on the track where he fell. Someone kicked him in the head. An athletic shoe came down hard upon his right shin. Mrs. Trestle found it difficult to watch.
The emcee encouraged the crowd to throw money at Jake and Angeline as Jake was being carried away on a stretcher. Angeline stayed behind to collect all the coins. Mrs. Trestle asked if Mrs. McLatchy would send them a silver dollar. The heavy coin hit Angeline in the head, but she smiled when she saw it on the floor and blew the two women a grateful kiss. Then she shambled off, the show smile having been replaced by a look of deep, hopeless despondency. Mrs. McLatchy wondered aloud if there would ever be a marriage.
It was over eight hundred and fifty hours into the competition that Mrs. McLatchy’s second couple met defeat.
It was a terrible thing.
Stella of Couple Number 47 went “squirrelly” upon her cot. It was “Cot Night,” in which the dancers took their hourly rest periods upon cots that had been pulled out in full view of the audience. Mrs. Trestle had overheard someone, tongue loosened, no doubt, by too much beer, remark that the dancers’ only bodily function still left to the audience’s imagination was taking a shit. His companion had cynically replied that public shit-taking generally came after hour one thousand.
Stella began hallucinating. She was seeing the sky. A bird-congested sky. At first the sight of the imagined birds fascinated her. She stood upon her cot and pointed and stared and smiled. But as the sky turned black with them, she became frightened and began to scream. She woke all of the other contestants, all thirty-one other couples still left in the competition. All watched the trainers and the nurses try to quiet squirrelly, screaming Stella. Her partner, Dermot, vaulted over the rope that separated the men’s public slumber quarters from the women’s, and hurried to her side. It was quite some time before she could be sedated by a doctor’s hypodermic; it took no time at all, though, for the contest managers to expel Couple Number 47 from the marathon.
Mrs. Trestle put her hands over her eyes while it was happening. “Poor, poor dear. Oh, poor dear.”
Mrs. McLatchy patted her friend on the knee. “The whole thing has become barbaric, Lydia. I’m not sure if I have it in me to come back tomorrow.”
“Is it also because your other favorite couple is now out of the competition?”
Mrs. McLatchy bridled. “No, my dear. I should certainly stay and root for your Number 62. But I just don’t know if I have the willpower. I agree with you that it’s become very hard to watch. You can take your hands down now, Lydia. The girl has been removed. All is quiet again. Have a Crackerjack.”
Mrs. Trestle pulled her hands from her eyes. She pushed the Crackerjack box away. “I would break a filling.”
The next morning Mrs. Trestle came and claimed her seat in the first row of the box she shared with Mrs. McLatchy. She took out her knitting and got to work. She waved at Gloria and Tom, the remaining couple on whom she had staked her hopes. They waved back. Gloria and Tom looked very tired. It had been a long night. It had been hard for them to sleep well during the rest breaks with so many eyes on them.
For over two hours Mrs. Trestle looked for her friend, having not quite believed it when Mrs. McLatchy said she might stop coming. Mrs. Trestle wondered if she should telephone her. Why should the two of them limit their friendship to only watching the Walkathon together?
The next day Mrs. Trestle did that very thing: She called Mrs. McLatchy. The maid who answered the telephone said that Mrs. McLatchy was unavailable and would call her back.
She never did.
Four days later, sitting by herself, Mrs. Trestle watched as Tom of Couple Number 62 was stabbed in the shoulder by Pavel of Couple Number 88. Pavel had convinced himself that Tom had made a pass at his wife Katrina, also of Couple Number 88. It wasn’t true. Pavel had only imagined it in a sleep-deprived brain that often played tricks on him these days. Mrs. Trestle would have been happy to explain to Pavel that Tom would never have done something like that. Tom and Gloria were good kids. She would have been happy to have them for her own children. Tom collected stamps. Gloria lived with her sister, who was a beauty operator.
The following evening Mrs. Trestle came back. Both of her couples were out of the competition now, but still she returned. There were nineteen pairs barely moving on the dance floor. After that evening’s grind there would be eighteen. The couples stumbled and staggered. The sight of it saddened Mrs. Trestle. She didn’t know why she’d come.
Later that night, someone sat down in the chair next to her. It wasn’t Mrs. McLatchy. It was the girl, Gloria, previously of Couple Number 62. She came with her sister Lulu. Lulu, standing next to Gloria, was wearing her beauty parlor smock. Gloria gave Mrs. Trestle a hug. “I came to tell you that Tom will be okay. They’re hoping to send him home from the hospital in a couple of days. I thought you’d like to know.”
“I did want to know. Thank you so much for telling me, honey,” said Mrs. Trestle, who was touched by Gloria’s thoughtfulness.
“So this is what it looks like,” said Gloria, studying the couples still left on the ballroom floor.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Trestle.
Lulu bought a bag of popcorn. The three women munched in silence and watched the show. The band was playing “I Won’t Dance” by Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, and Jimmy McHugh.
The bandleader had a sense of humor.
1936 SHABBY-GENTEEL IN CALIFORNIA
The older of the two women set the tea tray upon the table.
“Oh, it’s right lovely!” exclaimed the younger, who was a guest of the older.
“The set was my great-grandmother’s, and it was passed down to me. I made sure to pack it very carefully when we moved west. As you can see, not a single piece was chipped.”
Lois held up her cup and turned it slightly to give it a full inspection. There wasn’t a chip or scratch anywhere on it. Nor were any of the other porcelain pieces damaged in any way. Arrayed between the two women was a teapot, sugar bowl, and creamer, each with the same colorful, hand-painted design as could be found on the teacups: violets and ferns set off against an almost perfect white background.