“No,” he said.
Now she had gotten better control of herself. Folding her arms she took a deep breath and said in a low, strained voice, “Well, I hired you to make buying decisions.”
That could have meant anything, he realized. “That’s right,” he said. “And when you hire somebody to do something, the most practical business procedure is to leave them alone and let them do their work. Any big business organization will tell you that.”
She gazed at him with an expression that he could make nothing of.
“That’s how President Eisenhower operated in Europe,” he said.
After a time, Susan said, “Maybe you should keep one of these to use as a model.”
“It’s all written down,” he said. He spread out his notes. “See?”
Susan said, “Keep one as a model anyhow.”
“We’re going to have to figure out some kind of time-payment contract,” he said.
“Is that right,” she murmured, in a way that might have been sarcastic. But he could not hear her well enough to tell.
While she stood watching him, her arms folded, he finished up the unloading. Neither of them said anything. But as he worked he thought to himself, She has to recognize that this is what she hired me for. This is my job. I’m the one who decides.
That evening he worked late, by himself, down at the office, altering machines. He finished a couple and then, tired, he shut off the lights and drove across town to the house. Susan of course had already gone to bed. How nice to be back, he thought to himself as he took a shower in the familiar bathroom. He put on a pair of fresh pajamas and got into bed beside her.
The following morning he slept late. When he woke up he found that she had already gotten out of bed, dressed and eaten and gone. For a while he lay in the bed, on his back, enjoying the peace. Then he, too, got up. He ate a leisurely breakfast, shaved, put on a clean striped cotton shirt, tie, slacks, and then, savoring his possession of the house, wandered about into the different rooms.
From the living room window he could see the yard. The grass and rose bushes. The coiled-up garden hose.
Fine sight, he thought. Up high off the street. A milk truck came noisily along; he watched it stop, the driver hop out. The sight of the milkman hurrying up a long flight of cement steps across the street satisfied something in him. Nice to watch somebody else hustle, he decided. The world’s work. Every man has his niche, and I must say I’m not too dissatisfied with mine.
End of a long journey, he thought. Hell of a lot of hard driving.
Putting on his coat he left the house, walked down to his car, got in and started up the motor.
Presently he was driving along the street, toward the office.
At the curb, in front of the R & J Mimeographing Service office, a yellow pick-up truck was parked with its tailgate down. As he approached it he thought to himself, That truck’s familiar. He entered a parking slot, stopped his car, and shut off the motor. Sitting there, he watched the pick-up truck.
The front door of the office was open, propped back with a brick. After a moment a boy wearing a brown khaki shirt and trousers appeared, tugging a hand-truck. On the hand-truck were cartons. The boy wheeled the hand-truck expertly around, worked it up onto the tailgate of the pick-up, and then slid the cartons up into the bed. Cheerfully hopping down he started back into the office with the empty hand-truck and disappeared.
I know him, Bruce thought.
The son of a bitch, he thought, is from Consumers’ Buying Bureau, and that truck belongs to them. He’s picking up the typewriters. He’s loading them onto the truck while I’m home sleeping.
Throwing open the car door he jumped out and ran down the sidewalk to the pick-up truck. “Hey,” he said breathlessly. “What the hell are you doing?”
The boy, once more appearing from the office with his load of cartons, glanced at him and recognized him. “Hi,” he said, with some confusion. “Let me see—you used to work down at C.B.B. Wait a minute and I’ll think of your name.” Tilting the hand-truck back, he pondered, tapping his forehead. He was about seventeen, with short-cropped hair, heavy cheeks and large, muscular arms.
Bruce said, “Is she inside?”
“Mrs. Stevens, you mean?” the boy said. Then he waved his hand and said, “That’s who you are. Bruce Stevens.”
Bruce went into the office. In the back, Susan sat on the edge of one of the desks, smoking a cigarette. She had on a formal dark-green suit; her hair was made up and she looked somber and controlled. As he entered, she glanced up at him. But she said nothing.
Making his voice sound as natural as possible, he said, “What’s all this about?”
Susan said, “I’ve decided to let you go.”
Oh god, he thought.
“What you said was true,” she said. That I hired you to make buying decisions.”
“I’ll be god damned,” he said, and this time his voice shook and was weak. He had to stick his hands in his pockets to keep them from trembling. Meanwhile, behind them, the boy resumed his loading of the cartons; he discreetly wheeled the hand-truck back and forth, saying nothing and being as quiet as possible.
Facing Susan, Bruce said, “Are we still married?”
“Oh yes,” she said emphatically, blinking a little as if taken by surprise.
So she had fired him. He no longer had a job; during the night or the early morning she had thought things over and made up her mind. And she had phoned C.B.B. and now the truck was up getting the typewriters. How had it made the trip so fast? Maybe she had called last night, while he was working on the machines. She had already decided before he even got home and into bed. Made the arrangement with them as soon as possible; gone out of the office and directly to a phone. Possibly she had decided as soon as she saw the machines. But she hadn’t said a word.
“What’s the idea of not telling me?” he said. Bits of his voice returned.
“I was tired of arguing.”
To that, he could think of nothing to say.
“It seemed to me,” she said, “that it was a waste of time to talk about it any more. I knew that you had your mind made up and there was no way to reason with you.”
He said, “I think this is a hell of a thing.”
“It’s my store,” Susan said. “We both have to accept the fact that I’m the owner.” Looking up at him steadily, she said, “The machines belong to me. Isn’t that right? I hate to be hard about this, but they are mine. They were bought with my money.”
“Not all of the money was yours,” he said. “What about the money my folks gave us?”
“Half of that is mine,” Susan said. “That leaves only five hundred dollars.”
“And the money Milt gave us.”
“Half of that legally belongs to me.”
He said, “Some of the machines are mine.”
To that, she nodded. But it did not seem as if that was very important to her.
“I’m going to take mine,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” she said. She smoked her cigarette rapidly.
He walked outside, to the pick-up truck. There, the boy was putting the tailgate back up. He had tied the cartons down, so that they would not shift around during the trip back down to Reno. “Damn you,” Bruce said. “Some of those belong to me.”
At the office door, Susan appeared. “That’s right,” she said to the boy. “Some belong to him.” With a pad and pencil she made computations.
“The hell with it,” Bruce said. He turned and walked off, away from the pick-up truck and the two of them, back to his parked Merc. Getting inside he slammed the door, started the motor, and at once backed away from the curb and out into traffic. He drove by the pick-up truck and a moment later he had left it behind, still at the curb with its load of cartons, Susan and the boy standing beside it on the sidewalk, deep in discussion.