As Myra entered the busy cafe she immediately saw them sitting in the same booth as yesterday. The booth this side, however, was occupied by an elderly couple eating hot buttered rolls and fruit salad. The one on the far side held two giggling teenagers. Now Myra wished she had stayed at home. Her shyness returned, but she forced herself to walk toward a table on the floor that bordered the booth where Louise and Kaye sat with their heads close together over their lunch.
“I could kill her,” Myra heard Louise murmur in the throaty half-whisper that was hers. “I would like to see her dead!”
A prickly sensation crossed the back of Myra’s neck as she sat down and opened the menu.
“What did he say?” Kaye was asking, and Myra had difficulty trying to read the suddenly swimming print before her eyes.
“He insists that he has discussed a divorce with her. He told me that when he got home Sunday night he asked her again. And do you know what? I believe him.”
“Well—” Kaye said tonelessly, “I don’t suppose there is any reason why you shouldn’t. When did he tell you this? Last night?”
“No, I didn’t see him last night. It was yesterday, late in the afternoon, when we had a few minutes together in his office. He said I was the only one he cared about. The only one.”
“I’ll have a fruit salad and hot rolls and tea,” Myra told the crisp uniform beside her.
As soon as the waitress moved on, Louise said, “And I’m going to get my solitaire.”
“Congratulations,” said the cool voice. “You are making headway.”
“Am I?” Louise asked after a long moment. “It’s no wedding ring.”
From the corner of her eye, Myra saw Kaye shrug. “The way divorce laws are now in this state, frankly I don’t understand why—”
“It’s a sticky situation, he told me, and promised to explain it all later. He couldn’t say much there in the office, of course.” Louise took a deep breath, lit a cigaret and looked with narrowed eyes into space. “I could kill her,” she said again in a barely audible tone. “I’d like to see her dead.”
“Maybe, Louise, she’s quite wealthy, or something.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe she has something on him.”
“Could be.”
“Maybe he’s soft-hearted,” Kaye said.
“Oh, hell!”
“Doesn’t he tell you anything about her?”
“Not much. When we went on that trip to the mountains last May, he discussed her a little. All I really know is that she’s ten years older than I am and, in his words, she’s pretty and sweet. I told him I didn’t want to hear anymore. I hate women who are pretty and sweet. Ick!” Louise crushed her cigaret violently into the ashtray.
The wife, Myra was thinking, is my age. The salad now arrived and looked wilted. The rolls were dry. Stealing a glance at Louise, Myra felt disturbed and a kind of hollowness came over her, a chilling thing that arrived with another thought, one that crept into her mind and lay there, cold and grim.
Last may? Don had been away for three days during that month on a fishing trip. Two men from the office had accompanied him — at least, that’s what he had said. Her hand trembled as she lifted a glass of water to her lips, and the room blurred.
She realized the pair from the booth beside her were walking toward the cashier, and Myra found herself following. As she left the coffee shop, the two women were ahead of her. Louise, full blown and blond. Kaye, very slender with her long black hair hanging straight and limp down her back. Myra continued to walk a short distance behind them. Then with them and a surge of others, she crossed the intersection after the signal turned green and walked along the boulevard for another long block
It was when they reached the building at the corner, that the two women turned in and Myra stopped and stood still. Bill Long’s company was in there, but then, she reminded herself, so were fifteen floors of other offices as well. However—
The worm of suspicion stayed with her all afternoon. She tried to crush it with a book she had started to read last week. She tried to stab it to death with her knitting needles as she worked on a sweater that defied completion. While preparing dinner she attempted to drown it in two glasses of sherry.
From across the table she studied Don thoughtfully, levelly with her quiet eyes. During the evening she felt a kind of smothering dark shadow descending over her, an ominous storm cloud, and while Don was watching television, she was watching him. Eight o’clock. Nine. Ten o’clock.
“Don?”
“Mmmm?”
“If you were describing me to someone what would you say about me?”
He shot her a bewildered glance. “How’s that?”
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
“Myra, is something wrong?”
“No. I only wanted to know if—”
“Of course, you’re pretty. You’ve always been pretty. Why do you ask?”
“And what about my disposition?”
He turned again from the television screen and frowned. “What’s with you tonight?” he asked. “You’ve been looking at me ever since I got home, looking at me as if you’re wondering who I am and what I’m doing here.”
“Don, have you ever told anybody that I’m pretty and sweet?”
Again he regarded her quizzically, then slowly shook his head. “You’ve had too much sherry. You’re not accustomed to drinking, you know.”
“I only asked you a simple question. Did you tell anyone that I am—”
“Yes. Yes, many times. Many people. Why don’t you go to bed now and sleep it off?”
“I’m not sleepy.”
He shrugged. “You’ve been acting weird, real weird,” he said, as he looked again at the screen and she looked at him.
For the third consecutive day Myra entered the coffee shop. It was twelve-thirty and Kaye was seated alone at the counter eating a sandwich and reading a magazine. Where was Louise? Myra was asking herself, then her eyes narrowed and a wave of heat washed over her. Louise must be having lunch with — him.
Instantly Myra returned to the sidewalk, and when she reached the intersection the signal was green. To her it seemed significant, this green light. Her heels clicked as she drew nearer the large building at the next corner. When she entered it she nearly ran to the elevators. When she stepped off on the tenth floor her body was trembling, and when she tried to open the double doors of Long and Marshall Enterprises, she found them locked.
Everyone was at lunch, of course, she realized, and seethed as she left the building and again joined the noonday crowd. Looking in all directions she asked herself where they might be and what she would say to Don and this Louise if she found them together. No doubt, she thought, the right words would come to her later, and she hurried along the busy street. After entering and making quick exits from four restaurants, Myra realized it was one o’clock. Louise had said she always had to be back by one, had she not?
It was then that Myra knew she had made a foolish mistake. She would have waited near the entrance of the building for their return. Anger had made her stupid, plain stupid, she told herself. She would have waited and watched and seen the expression on Don’s face — that would have provided the proof. Then she would have known that what she suspected was true. Myra went home and waited in a dark well of dread and dismay and wrath.
“I’ve had a headache all afternoon,” Don said that evening at dinner. “Too many cocktails at lunch, I’m afraid.”
“Where did you eat?”
“At the Hilton. Mind if I turn in early tonight? It’s been a rough day.”
“Yes, it has been,” she said icily.