“Nothing,” she said crossly, stirring about fitfully, unable to get comfortable. “You certainly enjoy talking about cars and driving, don’t you? I thought you and he would never stop. It’s so late. Don’t you realize that Zoe won’t be down to open up tomorrow—we have to get there ourselves!”
“Take it easy,” he said. “You’re tired. Calm down.”
Suddenly, with a harsh stricken cry, she blurted out, “Listen, I’m not going to give Zoe the money. I still have it; I’m going to keep it and keep her as half-owner.”
He felt as if he had lost control of everything around him; it was all he could do to keep driving the car. The familiar steering wheel felt in his hands as odd as if it were alive. It spun free of him, and he grabbed it back.
“I just don’t have what it takes,” she said, in a chanting, gasping voice. “I can’t do it; I’m sorry. I really am sorry. If I don’t give her the money then it’s all off. She stays on whether she wants to or not. I know I can back out; as long as I haven’t actually turned the money over to her. I asked Fancourt that originally. But that doesn’t affect you.” She swung around in his direction; in the darkness her eyes gleamed frantically. “You’ll still manage the place; I know Zoe won’t object.”
He could think of nothing to say. He drove.
“It wouldn’t keep us alive,” she said. “We can’t take the chance—don’t you see, it would have to start supporting us right away, because we don’t have any money. And we would never be able to lay in any stock to sell. Do you have any money?”
“No,” he said.
“Can you get any?”
“No,” he said.
“We can’t do it,” she said, with finality so bleak and bitter that he felt more sorrow for her than anything else.
“If Zoe stays on,” he said, “you can be sure it won’t support us. Isn’t that true?”
“But we’d have the three thousand,” she said. “That’s what keeps preying on my mind. Once I give it to her, it’s gone forever. See? We’ll keep the three thousand; we’ll have that, and then the place won’t have to support us.”
“Not for awhile, at least,” he said.
Susan said, with no warning, “Bruce, let’s give up the place. Why not? Zoe can have it. We’ll offer to sell it to her, for whatever she wants to pay. Maybe for a monthly payment. How much were you making at that discount house?”
With difficulty, he said, “About three-fifty.”
“That wouldn’t be enough, but with the three thousand we could get along until you were earning more, and I could do some manuscript typing in the evenings. Can you get your job back?”
For reasons unknown to him he told her the truth. “Yes,” he said.
“Let’s do that.” She had the urgency of a child. “Let’s move down to Reno. I thought it was glorious down there. The air is much healthier down there, isn’t it? That’s why you moved down; I remember, you told me. I forget when. It’s an excellent place to bring up a child; it’s so clean and modern. Very cosmopolitan.”
“That’s right,” he admitted.
“How would you feel?” Sitting beside him she yearned for him to say he’d like it fine. Her posture, her tension, begged him to agree.
“You change your mind too often,” he said.
“Bruce,” she said, “I have to be sure of a means of support. I know you’re talented, and you know how to buy and sell, but it’s too much of a gamble. This has nothing to do with you; it has to do with how much capital we can raise, and the business itself. It’s a bad business. I know. I’ve been in it for several years; you haven’t.”
He said, “I intend to try.”
“But that means buying Zoe out and giving up the three thousand,” Her need of retaining the cash stood out as a major factor in her thinking. Evidently now that the time had arrived to surrender it she simply could not do so.
“Buy her out,” he told her. “As you were going to.”
“No,” she said, but her voice wavered.
He repeated, “Buy her out. We’ll give it a try. If I can’t make it support us, I’ll get a job and you can either sell out for what you can get, or you can operate it yourself. We’ll see when the time comes.”
“Do you genuinely think you could make a profit? Right away?”
“I think so,” he said, firmly enough to affect her; he made it clear to her that he had no doubts.
“Suppose you’re wrong.”
“We won’t die. We won’t starve. The worst that could happen is that you’d lose your equity. But as soon as I get a job we’d be self-supporting. We’d be like any married couple; we can easily support ourselves and Taffy on what I’d be making. And we have the house. Most people don’t have that. Even if it isn’t paid off. Don’t be so timid. Nobody starves in this country.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” she said.
“Give her the money,” he said again.
“I’ll—think about it.”
“No,” he said. “Don’t think about it. Just hand it to her. We can drive over there now and give it to her now. Wake her up and stick it in her face. Where does she live?”
“I’ll give it to her tomorrow,” she said, falling into obedience to his certitude.
That night, in bed, she scrambled about until she was beneath him, clutching him with her knees and arms, with every part of her thin, smooth body. She wanted to go to sleep that way, but he found himself unable to sleep with her beneath him; she was too hard, top uneven a surface. Then she decided to see if she could spread herself out on top of him. She lay with her head on his chest, her arms around his neck, her legs within his. For a long time her pelvic bones pressed against him, but then at last she relaxed and fell into a doze. Around his neck her arms loosened. She had turned her head on one side, and her breath whistled down into his armpit; it tickled him and he still could not sleep.
Anyhow, he thought, she’s asleep.
The next he knew the alarm clock was ringing, and Susan was sliding from him to get up out of bed. She had managed to stay on him all night. As he pushed the covers back and arose from the bed he found himself stiff and aching all over. On his leg a dark bruise had formed. From the bony edge of her knee.
8
That morning, at the office, he sat down with Susan and kept at her until she telephoned Jack Fancourt and told him to come over. Then he made Zoe de Lima come down from her apartment. When he had the three of them together he prevailed on each of them in turn until at last Fancourt gave Susan the go-ahead. Her face stark with fear, she wrote out a check for three thousand dollars, blotted it, and passed it across to Zoe. The mood of the room was funereal.
As soon as she had the check, Zoe nodded frigidly to them and departed.
Fancourt said a few things, briefly glanced over various legal forms, and then he, too, left.
At the desk, Susan said, “I feel as if some horrible calamity is just about to happen. I don’t even want to get up. I just want to sit.”
He unlocked the front door, so that they would be in business.
“A ceremony,” he said.
“God,” she said. “Well, it’s done.”
An hour or so later the phone rang. When he answered it he found himself talking to Peg Googer.
“I hear you’re married,” she said.
“That’s right,” he said.
In the background, muffled voices simpered; no doubt she was phoning from her law office, and the other voices were her secretary pals.
“I just can’t believe it,” she exclaimed. “It’s true, then? Well, congratulations. I’ll have to send you two a wedding present.”
Her tone of voice did not appeal to him. “You can let it go,” he said.