More qualms. Why was Emma in such a hurry? What was she doing that she could pack up and leave her way of life and her job and what friends she had, without another thought — too eager, perhaps, to join Nell’s life? Well, no matter, they could still lead their individual lives. Emma would be getting a cheap apartment and Nell would be getting an increased income.
Nell spent the following weekend giving the little apartment — sitting-room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath — a thorough cleaning. She laundered the curtains, put everything in place, even added a little bouquet of flowers from the garden just before she went off to the bus station to greet her friend.
“I can’t believe it!” Nell exclaimed over and over as they drove back to the house. “You seem just the same, dear. I just can’t believe it, how long has it been, you’ve hardly changed at all—”
“Nor you,” said Emma, beaming, both of them fully aware they were lying. “How could we ever have been separated for so long?”
“Well, like everyone else, we got busy with our own lives. Here we are,” and she pulled into the carport at the side of the house. “Do come into my little nest for a bite before I take you upstairs.”
“What a darling place!” Emma exclaimed, looking around Nell’s cozy living room. “Don’t bother with anything, dear, I won’t want to put you to any trouble.”
Nell beamed. “Well, if you’re not hungry, how about some sherry?”
“No, thanks, but you go ahead.”
They sat there, in Nell’s charming little living room, and for a moment said nothing. What was left to say? They had chattered all the way from the bus station, but now there was nothing left that hadn’t already been said in their long exchange of letters. They had changed, indeed: Nell, the tall, graceful, darkhaired high-school girl, was now lean rather than slender, her dark hair mostly white, her once lovely eyes shadowed by glasses, her lipstick not quite even; and Emma, the plump, plain little high-school girl was now plumper and plainer. Her faded blonde-white hair was cut in a Buster Brown fashion, making her look like a prematurely aging kindergartener, her dress was flowery, her shawl askew, and her face, as always, bland.
Out of the silence Emma finally said, “What a lovely home you have here, dear. Shall we go upstairs and look at mine?”
She exclaimed joyfully over the neat little apartment. “Just right for me!” she said. “And with you downstairs for company I’ll never get lonely—”
Apprehension washed over Nell like a sudden splash of cold water. “Well, I keep pretty busy all the time,” she explained hastily. “Working all day, then doing my chores at night, and I’ve kind of taken up painting — oh, not commercially, of course, just for my own amusement though it might develop into something someday. Now about the rent, dear. As I told you, seventy-five a month for you, though I usually get a lot more, but I decided I just didn’t want strangers up there any longer.”
“Oh, yes,” said Emma. And then, “But I don’t guess you want a deposit of a month’s rent or a lease or anything like that, do you? Being friends and all.”
“No,” said Nell patiently. “I don’t think a lease is necessary between us. Just the month’s rent.”
Emma paid her. In cash. “And I promise,” she added, smiling, “that I’ll be very careful with the utilities so they won’t add too much extra onto your expenses.”
Nell thought: Who said anything about my paying the utilities? But she kept silent, more apprehensive now than ever.
The first month was quiet and calm and Nell could now figure on replenishing her savings account toward her retirement. Except, of course, that it wasn’t a full $75 since the gas and electricity and water took up well over $10.
And it soon became apparent that Emma was far from solvent herself, so she started looking for a job. She found nothing, until finally she put an ad in the paper as baby sitter, and was repaid by a rash of answers on the telephone — Nell’s telephone, of course, since Emma claimed she couldn’t afford one of her own. Therefore Nell gave her a key to her own apartment and Emma ran down her outside stairs whenever the phone rang.
And at night, when Nell answered, she had to go out and call Emma, who never answered until Nell had climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. If she can hear the telephone when I’m not at home, Nell asked herself, why doesn’t she hear me when I call? She finally resorted to banging her broom handle on the ceiling and Emma learned that if she didn’t respond Nell would simply hang up the phone.
No matter. Emma was delighted with the $2 an hour she was paid for her services, although occasionally she was called on to supply her own transportation which, of course, meant Nell’s, and soon this became intolerable as Nell was expected to pick her up any time alter midnight, as well as to take her earlier, and what with the telephone ringing almost constantly, Nell was soon at her wits’ end. Until finally she informed Emma that she must take jobs only where transportation was provided.
“Oh,” said Emma, looking downcast. “That means I’ll have to lose a lot of my jobs because most of them expect me to drive myself. Maybe I could learn to drive your car?” she asked hopefully.
“No,” said Nell, and that was that. Until the first of the following month w hen the rent was due. Emma did not offer it and finally, five days late, Nell brought up the subject.
“Oh,” said Emma. “Well, dear, would it be all right if I just paid half of the rent this time and made it up later? You see, with business falling off and everything, I’m a little short of cash. Just for this month, of course,” she added hastily.
Nell said, “Will next month be any better? Emma, I think you should have made your financial circumstances clearer before you pulled up stakes and came here. You told me you had an income from your brother’s estate and also your Social Security that you took at sixty-two instead of waiting till sixty-five when you’d have gotten more, and that you felt you would have no trouble getting a job here. After all, dear, seventy-five dollars a month, utilities included, is very low rent for these days.”
“Yes, I know,” Emma said hurriedly, “but it’s a lot more than I paid back home where I stayed with friends. Only I thought you needed me, that you were lonely and that’s why you wanted me to come and keep you company, and then I thought how you might be pleased for me to help with the work in your dear little house, cleaning and cooking and laundering, and that would take care of the rent, and so everything would turn out fine.”
Too late Nell remembered Emma’s proclivities of the past that had earned her the name of Pollyanna Emma, who always knew that tomorrow would be sunny and happy and that everything would turn out right for little Emma. But it never had, because little Emma, being so sure of God’s grace, had done little to prepare for the inevitable rainy day. “Oh, I’m sure everything will turn out for the best,” Emma was always saying, and it frequently did but only because of the services of people around her.
So now she said, “I’m sure everything will turn out fine for both of us,” and Nell could have slapped her. But she couldn’t bear to come down too hard on her. After all, she’d given up what home she’d had (whatever that was) to do something she thought would help her friend. Emma couldn’t pay, that was certain, and so Nell said resignedly, “All right, Emma, you can help with my place,” and went back to it in despair.
So now, she thought, I have a dependent for the first time since I got my divorce.
Emma was always under foot and always in need — she had to use the telephone, she had to go to the library, the dentist, the supermarket, everything for which she had no transportation and for which Nell did. Nell would come home tired out from her job of coping with people, her boss, her co-workers, the public; and even though she tried to be as quiet as possible, hoping for a few moments of peace, there would be Emma on her doorstep saying, “Oh, Nell dear, do you suppose you could run me down to the store — or would you have an extra can of tuna fish?” or, “Drat it, I have to go to the dentist’s tomorrow, only appointment I could get was three o’clock. Do you suppose you could take a weensy bit of time off and run me to his office?”