John D. MacDonald
Love, Inc
Jean Lewis, bride of six months, stood beside the driveway waving at the back of the blue coupe as it snapped briskly around the corner. After the car was out of sight, she stood there a moment considering morosely that Chris, in his haste, had planted a kiss on the side of her nose.
“And they lived happily ever after,” she said. “The rest of them.” The note of irony in her own voice shocked her because she was a girl not given to irony.
She turned as a window in the house next door, the house that was too much next door, rattled up. A dusty mop was poked out and banged against the lower sill. Mrs. Lermoody’s head followed.
“Saw your lights on at three,” she remarked in her very best gossipy voice.
“We had a guest,” Jean said.
“Another one?” Mrs. Lermoody said.
“Oh, yes.” Jean attempted to laugh. “A charming man. Chris met him in the barbershop yesterday. He sells yachts. Chris has always wanted a yacht. The man stayed until it was too late to go home. Did you ever want a yacht, Mrs. Lermoody?”
Hysteria began to move up into Jean’s laughter. She noticed Mrs. Lermoody’s startled eyes, then whirled and fled into the house.
Opposites are attracted to each other, her mother had said.
She rehearsed words she might say to Chris. “Darling, I’m a fireside girl. I’m a quiet kid. I want to curl up and be loved. So what happens to me? I spend our wonderful early months of marriage sitting on the edges of chairs and laughing at other people’s jokes.”
Chris wouldn’t understand. He was like a big, friendly puppy, the kind that wags its tail so hard that everything wiggles except the tip of its nose. And he was just as easy to hurt as a puppy. Chris adored people, all sorts of people. He was the perfect listener, his face alive with appreciation and unbounded love. She and Chris couldn’t take a walk without being stopped every fifteen feet or so by one of Chris’s devoted pals.
Jean, on the other hand, had always been a bit shy, a bit hard to know. Not unfriendly, just reserved.
It had started on their honeymoon. After they had gone a few miles on their wedding trip, Chris had to stop and untie the old shoes and the two Number Ten tin cans from the rear bumper. He killed two birds with one stone by picking up a hitchhiker as he removed the things.
The hitchhiker was a sailor.
“But, honey, I had to pick him up. He couldn’t be over seventeen. Isn’t he a nice kid, though? And he looks so lost.”
Jean hadn’t complained even when, in addition to picking him up, Chris had bought dinner for the kid and had driven eighty-four miles out of their way to deposit him at his doorstep. Then they had to go into the sailor’s house and sit for an hour and a half at the kitchen table drinking coffee, while the sailor’s mother told them how good a child he always had been.
After that there was the other couple, the Folsoms. The little blue coupe had soaked up so much of that woman’s scent that two months later it still was easy to remember her. Mr. Folsom’s special social attainment was a resounding, hysterical laugh. Chris had loved them both.
Guides and elevator boys and bankers and restaurant owners and hardware salesmen flocked around Chris. There was one insurance salesman who had called one evening and had stayed as a house guest for two days.
Jean was alarmed at the weariness she felt as she walked into the small living room. She couldn’t remember who had burned the hole in the rug. The yacht salesman had left a new ring on the end table, and had consumed an endless number of roast beef sandwiches at two in the morning. Now she couldn’t even remember his name. Chris always remembered names.
Whenever she and Chris were alone these days, she invariably was drugged with fatigue from their late hours and the constant battle to get the little house back in order.
Maybe I should put up a sign, she thought. Short-order cook. Inexpensive hotel. A laugh a minute. Come in and try your luck. See if you can bore us.
Oh, there was so much to talk about with Chris. And they still had a long way to go in learning to know each other.
She went to the kitchen, got the pumice and oil and began to work at the rings on the dark wood. As she worked she thought of her own small, quiet room at home, of the long Sunday afternoons with a fire burning, quiet records on the machine, good books at hand. If she could have just a few days of rest, without people...
But she couldn’t bear to hurt Chris. She couldn’t condemn him simply for being friendly.
Being an objective girl, she realized that there was jealousy mixed with her discontent. How many times had she watched Chris giving his attention to someone and wished that he would give it to her instead?
At ten o’clock, she called Chris at his office and lied for the first time in her short married life.
“Darling, I’ve just been invited to lunch by a girl I knew in school, so please don’t come home today.”
“Honey, that’s too bad. I wanted yon to meet an old pal of mine, Demmy Gaylord. I was just about to call and tell you I was bringing him...”
“Buy him a nice lunch downtown, darling. Maybe I can meet him some other time.”
The feeling of guilt persisted until quarter of twelve. By that time she was exhausted, but she had the little house gleaming. She took a long hot bath, heated some milk and sat on the edge of the bed while she drank it. Then she lay back and closed her eyes, hoping that the alarm would awaken her in time to get dinner.
She slept so soundly that when Chris shook her she didn’t know for a moment where she was.
He kissed her hurriedly, then stood aside. Jean looked at the doorway and saw that it was filled by a smiling man in tweeds, a husky, bronzed man who had the good grace to be embarrassed.
“Baby, this is Demmy Gaylord. I told you about him; he was my roommate for two years at college.”
“A pleasure,” Demmy said, and disappeared from the doorway. His voice floated back. “That’s a dirty trick to play on a woman, even your wife, Chris. Come on out of there.”
More people, she thought as she got dressed. This one looks as though he’d eat like Gargantua.
When she went downstairs, she heard them in the kitchen. She managed a smile and followed them. Chris sat at the kitchen table. Demmy Gaylord was at the stove, one of her aprons ludicrously protecting the tweed trousers from the spatter of grease from the skillet. Something smelled very good.
He grinned at her. “Sit down with Chris, Jean. I have his permission to call you Jean. I know this joker husband of yours from way back.”
“I didn’t do any marketing,” she said.
“I did the marketing,” Demmy said.
“Handy guy, isn’t he, baby?” Chris said.
“Very.” Jean sat down meekly beside her husband.
Gaylord turned away from the stove and gave her a long, steady look, which was so honest and direct that it didn’t embarrass her. When at last he smiled, Jean felt as though she had known him all her life.
“This is my party,” he said. “You two get in the front room. Quick!”
“Demmy,” Chris objected, “we’ve got a lot to talk...”
“Git!” Demmy said. He followed them in. Chris turned on the bright overhead lights. Demmy turned on one small table lamp, turned the overhead lights off. “Build a fire, Chris,” he said.
Chris grinned, took a few sticks of kindling from the brass basket and did as he was told. Demmy went back to the kitchen and they soon heard him rattling pots and pans.
In a few moments he returned with their best tray, a decanter of sherry, two glasses and a plate of canapés.
With the gestures of a perfect servant, he presented the glasses.
“Demmy, aren’t you going to have wine with us?” Chris asked. Demmy didn’t answer. He turned and went back to the kitchen.