Hannah looked pleased at this concession. “All right,” she agreed. “We can do a lot of getting acquainted in a couple of hours. Give me your coat again.”
She wasn’t bad. What she lacked in finesse, she more than made up for in enthusiasm.
I got back to the Shamrock at 4:00 A.M.
Chapter VI
Mavis was asleep when I got in, but my switching on the light awakened her. Sitting up, she glanced at her watch and gave me an inquiring look.
“It looks good,” I said. “She’s around forty and wants a man so bad, she’s ready to do anything to get one. She decided she wanted to marry me two minutes after we met.”
I started to undress.
“Does she have any money?” Mavis asked.
“Her husband left some insurance. I didn’t ask how much, but she implied it was twenty thousand at least.”
Mavis’s eyes lit up. “Have you worked out a plan yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But she’s overboard enough to rise to almost anything. I’ll dream up some kind of an investment for her.”
Mavis watched as I hung my suit up. “Is she pretty?” she asked finally.
“She’s forty, or close to it, and weighs a hundred forty-two pounds.”
“She could still be pretty,” Mavis said. “They say Venus di Milo weighed a hundred and forty.”
“Standards of beauty have changed since then,” I told her. “You can see for yourself tomorrow. You’re going to meet her. I told her my sister was with me. Incidentally, she thinks we’re staying in a motor court. We’ll have to move to one tomorrow. Do you still have the outfit you wore when we met?”
“Of course. I’ve worn it every time I played Mary Applebee.”
“Wear it again tomorrow,” I said. “We’re supposed to be in the middle-income class.”
I switched out the light and climbed into bed. Mavis moved to snuggle in my arms. “Love me?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Her arms went about my neck and she pressed her body against mine.
“Not tonight,” I said. “I’m worn to a frazzle.”
The next morning we checked out of the Shamrock and moved to a motel. I had Mavis remove her wedding band and engagement ring. We registered in separate cabins as Samuel Plainfield and Miss Mavis Plainfield.
I had arranged to take Hannah to lunch and introduce her to my “sister.” We arrived at the house at noon, and I took Mavis inside with me. Mavis looked relieved when she saw the woman, deciding she wasn’t even in the running as competition. Why she had been worried in the first place, I don’t know, because even before she met Hannah, she knew she had a fifteen-year youth advantage.
Hannah greeted her politely, asked how she liked Houston, then inquired what had brought Mavis down there. This surprised me a little, as she hadn’t even asked me that. She hadn’t asked me anything at all, as a matter of fact, apparently being so overwhelmed by my appearance in her life that she was afraid questioning her good luck might awaken her from her dream and cause me to disappear.
Mavis said, “When Sam came down here, I just decided to come along. So I quit my job. I figured I wouldn’t have any trouble getting another one here. I’m a trained stenographer.”
I took both women to a moderately-priced restaurant downtown for lunch.
In Mavis’s presence Hannah was a little more subdued than she’d been the previous night. She didn’t even mention marriage. But she kept her bright eyes on me constantly, and there was a proprietory air about her that I could tell rankled Mavis a little.
Mavis didn’t show it, however. On the surface she was politely friendly to the woman. Hannah failed to detect the slight edginess beneath the surface politeness. As a matter of fact, she paid little attention to Mavis after their brief conversation at the house. She was too wrapped up in me.
After lunch we dropped Mavis off to do some shopping, and Hannah and I went back to her house for further discussion. The minute the door closed behind us, the woman flew into my arms. It was apparent we weren’t going to get any discussing done in the front room. I gave in gracefully and took her upstairs.
Later, lying side-by-side in bed, we finally got around to future plans. Hannah was all set to apply for a marriage license the moment I said the word.
“I think you’re the woman I’ve been looking for, Hannah,” I told her. “But I still think we ought to wait a short time until we’re both sure.”
“I’m sure,” she said, leaning over to give me a resounding smack on the cheek. “But you take all the time you want, honey.”
I said, “The only thing that bothers me is I don’t like the idea of living on a woman. I’ve only got a couple of thousand bucks. And you’ve got so much more.”
Her huge bosom pushed against my chest as she snuggled up against me. “You’ll pay your way by running the gym, Sam. Don’t worry about it.”
“You’ll still have all the money,” I said. “You own the house, the business, and you have the bank account.”
“I won’t after we’re married, honey. With me marriage is fifty-fifty. Gaylord and I always had everything in both our names. With you and me it’s gonna be the same. We split right down the middle. I’ll have a lawyer put half the business and half the house in your name. And change the rest that Gaylord left me over the same way.”
I said, “That insurance money ought to be invested instead of just lying idle in a bank.”
“It’s drawing good interest, honey.”
“Not what solid, gilt-edged securities would draw. I have a broker friend in New York who knows the market inside out. With ten or twenty thousand capital, I could build a fortune in a year.”
“Gaylord always said to stay clear of the stock market,” she said disapprovingly. “Neither one of us went for gambling.”
“There’s a difference between investment and gambling, Hannah.”
“Well, we’ll talk about that after we’re married,” she said. “No point even discussing it till then.”
I spent the rest of the day and that evening with Hannah. We dined at the house, as she said she wanted to demonstrate how well she could cook. She could, too. She served a delicious meal.
Several times I swung the conversation back to the subject of investments, but each time got the same firm answer. Despite her eagerness to get married, there was a grain of hard common sense in her. I’d been over-optimistic in thinking that merely taking her to bed would make her putty in my hands. Obviously she had no intention of loosening up with a single nickel until she had me safely married.
I got back to the motel about midnight to find Mavis waiting in my cabin. A freshly-opened bottle of whisky with about two ounces gone stood on the dresser next to a bowl of melting ice. Mavis was nursing the dregs of a highball. The ashtray next to her contained a half-dozen lipstick-stained butts. She had been waiting for some time.
She watched silently as I mixed myself a drink, then drained the last sip from her glass and held it out. I made her one too.
She sampled it before asking, “Any progress?”
I said, “It’s going to be tougher than I expected. It looks as though she has no intention of loosening up until after we’re married.”
Mavis frowned. “What are you going to do?”
I took a large swallow of my drink. “I thought that over on the way home. There’s only one thing to do.”
“What?”
“Marry her,” I said.
Mavis’s eyes grew wide. “Bigamy?”
“Why not? It’d be under a fake name. It wouldn’t affect the legality of our marriage even if I used my own name.”
“But you’d have to sleep with her,” Mavis protested.