“What do you think you are, a court of justice?” I demanded resentfully. “Did she complain about it? Did she say she’s got a kick coming?”
“No, all she said was, ‘That may surprise you in a man, Maxine, but it doesn’t me any more.’ ”
“I notice you got pretty chummy, calling each other by your first names,” I said enviously. “What’d you do, sign a blood pact together? Too bad you didn’t both keep on bleeding a while longer!” It made me almost as furious at Bernice as at Maxine herself to think they had gotten on so well together — especially without my being there. I suppose, subconsciously, it would have suited the male in me much better to know that they had clawed and scratched each other’s eyes out over me.
“I almost like Bernice, in spite of everything,” Maxine mused. “I suppose a lot of women would call me crazy — because, after all, she’s stepped in where she has no right to — but I don’t blame her for that, not one bit. If I were single and had been through all she’s been through—”
“Single!” I thought to myself bitterly, “around the noon hour each day, and that’s about all!”
She looked at me a very long time, just sat there and looked at me like a calf looking at a man with a butcher knife in his hand. I didn’t speak either; what was there to say? Then she began to make her plea, the big plea that she must have been preparing all afternoon. It wasn’t very eloquent; but eloquent or otherwise, what chance did it have with me?
“What was in your mind all the time. Wade? You weren’t thinking of anything — anything permanent, were you? You mustn’t. It’ll blow over—”
“Will it?” I thought, and didn’t answer.
“We’ve had so much fun together. Wade. Even when we’ve fought it’s almost been like fun — compared to — compared to this. Fun to sulk, and fun to make up. Do you remember the time we got so sore at each other on the train, and we each swore we’d have separate rooms when we got there? And then, when we got to Atlantic City, there was only one double room left in the whole hotel? And we had that big screen brought in and put up between us? And it fell over in the middle of the night? And we were each of us sitting in exactly the same position, on the sides of our beds with our hands around our knees, listening? Wade, darling, we were like lovers in a musical show in those days. Boy-husband and child-wife. Let’s carry the thing through. Let’s sing our duet, kiss and make up. Let’s not throw it all away. It’s here with us now. Why should you, why should I, begin all over with somebody else?”
“All right, can all the chatter,” I said brutally. “I’d much rather hear what the upshot of it all was this afternoon. I suppose you drank tea and ate ladyfingers together! And then what? What was the final word when you left?”
“Why, nothing,” she said, “what could we say? I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself and ask her not to see you any more; what would be the sense of such a thing? You’re the only one can decide that, Wade. Which is exactly how she feels about it herself. ‘I’m the passive party in this,’ she told me, ‘it’s something that’ll have to be settled between you two. You go home and talk to him about it,’ she said when I left, ‘and more power to you—’ ”
“Traitor!” I thought poignantly.
“ ‘—and if you can get him to look at it your way,’ she said, ‘why, tell him to give me a ring and let me know, that’s all. I’ll understand.’ ”
“Hypocrite!” I fumed inwardly. “I’d like to kiss all the lies away from your lips, I’d like to kiss you and punch you for that until you squeal!”
“So there it is,” she concluded with a dismal sigh, “and here we are.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to say,” I answered crisply.
“Say what you mean,” she said. “Say just exactly what you feel like saying. God knows, no one’s trying to bully you!”
“Thanks!” I laughed coldly.
“You don’t need to hide anything from me, either, Wade. I know just how far this thing’s gone.”
“What kind of women are there in this world today, anyway!” I exclaimed disgustedly, throwing my cigarette deliberately on the floor and flattening it with my foot, then kicking it away.
“Oh, she didn’t have to tell me that,” Maxine answered with equal disgust. “Don’t, you suppose I can tell?”
“Good!” I said with feigned briskness. “Then you know the worst!”
“It isn’t that!” she tried to tell me. “Oh, Wade, Wade, don’t you understand it isn’t that! Weeks ago, already, when you stayed out like you did, I felt there was something doing — only I thought maybe it was some drifter you’d picked up in a speakeasy or on the street and then never seen again afterwards. Every married woman has that happen to her at some time or another. But this — this isn’t as disrespectful to me, maybe, but it’s a whole lot more dangerous. That’s what I’m driving at, that’s what I’m trying to get out of you — what do you intend doing? Is it going on like this, or what? You surely must have known I’d find out at one time or another; you didn’t expect to be able to lead a double life under my very nose indefinitely, did you?”
“Double life!” I mimicked. “Don’t be so dramatic, will you?”
“Dramatic is good!” she laughed bitterly. “I’m supposed to sit back and not say a word while everything I’ve got goes up the flue. Maybe you would if it happened to you!”
“Ah, baloney!” I said.
She stepped into the bedroom a minute to get a fresh handkerchief. “Better bring a few of ’em with you,” I called after her. “No telling how long this thing’s liable to keep up.”
She came back holding the new handkerchief over the lower part of her face. “Even ten-year-old schoolboys know enough not to hit a fellow when he’s down,” she said through it, her watery eyes peering at me above it.
“Cut out the martyr stuff,” I advised her. “That won’t help any.”
To my surprise, she did immediately, and became coldly disdainful.
“Nothing would with you,” she said. “You’re not worth my letting you see me cry over you. And if I feel like crying over you when you’re not around, I suppose that’s my tough luck.”
“Good!” I said to myself, “maybe she’s going to get sore; then I’ll have an excuse to walk out of here.”
She didn’t say anything for a while after that; just sat staring out of the window at nothing. Then, after fully ten minutes, she turned around and remarked, “You must be hungry, Wade. Why don’t you run down to the corner and get yourself something to eat? I haven’t got anything here for you.”
“What about you?” I said, standing up immediately. “Get your hat and come on.”
She looked at me pityingly. “I’m not a man,” she said. “I couldn’t eat right now — or any time tonight. You go ahead—”
At the door I said, “Want me to bring you back some sandwiches?”
“No, thanks, Wade,” she said, “but do you want to—”
“Do I want to — what?”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
I went over to her, bent over her, and felt her lips reach up to mine.
When I got to the door a second time, I remarked, “I’ll be right back.”
“That’s up to you, Wade,” she told me.