Charley blushed and threw his cigarette in the grate. He began to walk back and forth in the tall narrow room. “Hadn’t we better sit down?” she said with her slow irritating smile. “What are you up to in New York?”
“Got to get me a job. I got plans… Say, how’s the baby? I’d like to see it.”
“All right, when he wakes up I’ll introduce you. You can be one of his uncles. I’ve got to do something about supper now. Doesn’t it seem strange us all being in New York?”
“I bet this town’s a hard nut to crack.”
She went into the back room through the sliding doors and soon a smell of sizzling butter began to seep through them. Charley caught himself just at the point of lighting another cigarette, then roamed round the room, looking at the oldfashioned furniture, the three white lilies in a vase, the shelves of French books, until Paul, red in the face and sweating, passed through with more groceries and told him he’d shake up a drink.
Charley sat down on the couch and stretched out his legs. It was quiet in the highceilinged room. There was something cozy about the light rustle and clatter the Johnsons made moving around behind the sliding doors, the Frenchy smell of supper cooking. Paul came back with a tray piled with plates and glasses and a demijohn of wine. He laid a loaf of frenchbread on the marbletopped table and a plate of tunafish and a cheese. “I’m sorry I haven’t got anything to make a cocktail with… I didn’t get out of the office till late… All we’ve got’s this dago wine.”
“Check… I’m keepin’ away from that stuff a little… Too much on my mind.”
“Are you round town looking for a job?”
“Feller goin’ in on a proposition with me. You remember Joe Askew on the boat? Great boy, wasn’t he? The trouble is the damn fool’s laid up with the flu and that leaves me high and dry until he gets down here.”
“Things are sure tighter than I expected… My old man got me into a grainbroker’s office over in Jersey City… just to tide me over. But gosh, I don’t want to wear out a desk all my life. I wouldn’ta done it if it hadn’t been for the little stranger.”
“Well, we’ve got something that’ll be worth plenty if we ever get the kale to put in to develop it.”
Eveline opened the sliding doors and brought in a bowl of salad. Paul had started to talk about the grain business but he shut his mouth and waited for her to speak.
“It’s curious,” she said. “After the war New York… Nobody can keep away from it.”
A baby’s thin squalling followed her out of the back room. “That’s his messcall,” said Paul. “If you really want to see him,” said Eveline, “come along now, but I should think it would be just too boring to look at other people’s babies.” “I’d like to,” said Charley. “Haven’t got any of my own to look at.” “How are you so sure?” said Eveline with a slow teasing smile. Charley got red and laughed.
They stood round the pink crib with their wineglasses in their hands. Charley found himself looking down into a toothless pink face and two little pudgy hands grabbing the air. “I suppose I ought to say it looks like Daddy,” he said. “The little darling looks more like our Darwinian ancestor,” said Eveline coldly. “When I first saw him I cried and cried. Oh, I hope he grows a chin.” Charley caught himself looking out of the corner of his eye at Paul’s chin that wasn’t so very prominent either. “He’s a cheerful little rascal,” he said.
Eveline brought the baby a bottle from the kitchenette next the bathroom, then they went into the other room. “This layout sure makes me feel envious,” Charley was saying when he caught Eveline Johnson’s eye. She shrugged her shoulders. “You two and the baby all nicely set with a place to live and a glass of wine and everything… Makes me feel the war’s over… What I’ve got to do is crack down an’ get to work.”
“Don’t worry,” said Paul. “It’ll happen soon enough.”
“Well, I wish people would come. The casserole’s all ready,” said Eveline. “Charles Edward Holden is coming… He’s always late.”
“He said maybe he’d come,” said Paul. “Here’s Al now. That’s his knock.”
A lanky sallow individual came in the door from the street. Paul introduced him to Charley as his brother Al. The man looked at Charley with a peevish searching grey eye for a moment. “Lieutenant Anderson… Say, we’ve met before someplace.”
“Were you over on the other side?”
The lanky man shook his head vigorously. “No… It must have been in New York… I never forget a face.” Charley felt his face getting red.
A tall haggardfaced man named Stevens and a plump little girl came in. Charley didn’t catch the girl’s name. She had straight black bobbed hair. The man named Stevens paid no attention to anybody but Al Johnson. The little girl paid no attention to anybody but Stevens. “Well, Al,” he said threateningly, “have recent events changed your ideas any?”
“We’ve got to go slow, Don, we’ve got to go slow… we can’t affront every decent human instinct… We’ve got to stick close to the workingclass.”
“Oh, if you’re all going to start about the workingclass I think we’d better have supper and not wait for Holden,” said Eveline, getting to her feet. “Don’ll be so cross if he argues on an empty stomach.”
“Who’s that? Charles Edward Holden?” asked Al Johnson with a tone of respect in his voice.
“Don’t wait for him,” said Don Stevens. “He’s nothing but a bourgeois muckraker.”
Charley and Paul helped Eveline bring in another table that was all set in the bedroom. Charley managed to sit next to her. “Gee, this is wonderful food. It all makes me think of old Paree,” he kept saying. “My brother wanted me to go into a Ford agency with him out in the Twin Cities, but how can you keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?”
“But New York’s the capital now.” It was teasing the way she leaned toward him when she spoke, the way her long eyes seemed to be all the time figuring out something about him.
“I hope you’ll let me come around sometimes,” he said. “It’s goin’ to be kinder hard sleddin’ in New York till I get my feet on the ground.”
“Oh, I’m always here,” she said, “and shall be till we can afford to get a reliable nurse for Jeremy. Poor Paul has to work late at the office half the time… Oh, I wish we could all make a lot of money right away quick.”
Charley smiled grimly. “Give the boys a chance. We ain’t properly got the khaki off our skins yet.”
Charley couldn’t keep up with the conversation very well so he leaned back on the sofa looking at Eveline Johnson. Paul didn’t say much either. After he’d brought in coffee he disappeared altogether. Eveline and the little girl at the head of the table both seemed to think Stevens was pretty wonderful, and Al Johnson who sat next to Charley on the sofa kept leaning across him to make a point with Eveline and shake his long forefinger. Part of the time it looked like Al Johnson and Stevens would take a poke at each other. What with not following their talk, after all he wasn’t onto the town yet, and the good food and the wine Charley began to get sleepy. He finally had to get up to stretch his legs.
Nobody paid any attention to him so he strolled into the kitchenette where he found Paul washing the dishes. “Lemme help you wipe,” he said. “Naw, I got a system,” said Paul. “You see Eveline does all the cooking so it’s only fair for me to wash the dishes.”
“Say, won’t those birds get in trouble if they talk like that?” Charley jerked his thumb in the direction of the front room.
“Don Stevens is a red so he’s a marked man anyway.”