He grabbed the basket, we jumped into the skiff, and he cast off. He grabbed up the paddle, and spun us bow on to the shore. It was out of the question to paddle for the foot of the stairs for the wind was driving us about fifty yards farther down, and he didn’t even come back to the stern. He stayed in the bow using the paddle to keep us headed right, and it was only a few seconds before he jumped overboard, grabbed the bow of the skiff and ran it up on the shore with me, the basket, and all right in it. “Out!”
As I jumped out the sheet of rain hit us. He grabbed the basket and we raced into the rain for the stairs, then up and over the grass to the veranda. Lightning and thunder crashed as we ran up the stairs. We stood there panting and looking out at it.
When he got his breath he turned to me and half laughed. “Were you scared?”
“No.”
“I was.”
He put the paddle away, then carried the basket inside and I went in too. Suddenly he dropped the basket and caught me in his arms. “So scared, Carrie — I didn’t know what to do.”
“On account of me?”
“Who else?”
Next thing we were sitting on the big sofa, and he was holding me very close and we were watching the rain come down in sheets. He took off my bathing cap and began running his fingers through my hair. I pulled off the ribbon and it fell all over his bare shoulder. We sat there a long time that way, and every time the thunder crashed I was a little nearer to him and I felt terribly happy and didn’t want it ever to stop raining.
But it stopped, and the sun came out and when we went outside to look at the rainbow there were the Sunday papers, all wet and soggy on the grass where we hadn’t seen them in the morning. We took them in, and the middle sections weren’t so wet, and we looked at them for a while and then turned on the radio. I went to the powder room to straighten up — then decided to dress, and went to the bedroom where my things were. When I came out he wasn’t the same any more. He began marching around, then said he had to stow the sail, and went out.
I felt it had something to do with the radio. I turned it on and noticed the station, but Bergen was on and that didn’t seem to explain anything. The sail took a long time. When he came in he went in and changed into his regular clothes, then came out and kept up that restless tramping around.
By now it was getting dark and I kept thinking of the meeting. “Isn’t it time for us to be starting back?”
“Is it?”
“It must be getting on toward seven o’clock.”
“H’m.”
He sat down and began to glower at his feet. “I’ve been organizing a junior executives’ union. Or trying to.”
I didn’t think it was at all what had been bothering him, but just to be agreeable, I said: “Are you a junior executive?”
“Me? I’m nothing.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yes, I’m a junior executive, God help me. I’ve got a desk, a phone extension and a title. Statistician. You can’t beat that, can you? It sounds as important as a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. But all I can make out of it is slave. In the Army we had slaves and overseers, and I was both. Here I’m one, but I’m supposed to pretend I’m the other. But I’ve accepted my lowly lot. Did you hear me? I’ve accepted it.”
“I don’t accept my lowly lot. I’m nothing too. I’m only a waitress, but I have ambitions to be something more.”
“The emancipated slave wants to drive slaves.”
“All right, but they can get emancipated if they’ve got enough gump.”
“But you still see no objection to slavery.”
“It’s not slavery.”
“Oh, yes, it is, yes, it is.”
“To me, it’s work.”
“Suppose you wanted to do work that didn’t pay, and yet they made you be an office worker?”
“All real work pays.”
“Oh, no. That’s where you’re wrong. Some work doesn’t pay. And yet you want to do it, and you can choose between going to them with your hat in your hand — a junior executive. Either way you’re their slave.”
“Whose slave?”
“All of them. The system.”
“I don’t see any system. All I see is a lot of people trying to make a living.”
“Well, I see it. And I accept it. But I’m going to make them accept it too — accept the other side, show them there’s two sides to it. I’ve been trying to organize a junior executives’ union.”
“Any success?”
“...No!”
“Why not?”
“They won’t admit they’re slaves!”
“Maybe they’re not, really.”
“Maybe the dead are not dead, really. They want to pretend they’re something they’re not — white-collar workers thinking they’re part of the system, on the other side. They think they’re going to be masters, too—”
“Like me.”
“Like you, and a fat chance—”
“You can just leave me out. I don’t want to drive any slaves, but one day I’m going to be something, and I can’t be stopped—”
“You can be, and you will be!”
“Oh, no. Not me.”
There was a great deal more, all in the same vein, and finally I got very annoyed. “I don’t like this kind of talk and I wish you’d stop.”
“Because at heart you’re a cold little slave-driver.”
“No, that’s not it at all.”
“And what is it?”
“Because you sound so weak.”
He sulked a long time over that and then he said: “I am weak. You’re weak—”
“I am not!”
“We’re all weak, that’s why we’ve got to organize, it’s the only way to beat them!”
“All right, maybe I’m weak, I’m only a girl that came to the city a few months ago, and I’m nothing to brag about. But I’d die rather than admit it!”
“I admit it! I admit the truth! I—”
“You stop that kind of talk right now! The idea! A big, strong healthy galoot like you, only twenty-seven years old, admitting you’re licked before you even start!”
I was very angry. It was completely dark by now, and I knew I could never get to the meeting, so didn’t even say any more about it. I knew that he still wasn’t talking about what was really on his mind, although he certainly felt very strongly about this labor business, but in some way I felt it was important and I wanted to have it out with him.
When I called him a big strong galoot, I yelled very loud, and then he seemed to realize that there might be neighbors, and subsided for a time. I went out in the kitchen to see what there might be to eat. The icebox was empty, but there was plenty of English biscuit and canned things, so I made some canapes and coffee and served them on a table in the living room, although I had to use condensed cream with the coffee. He gobbled it down, as I did, for we were very hungry. Then I took the dishes out, and he came and helped me wash them, and then we went back. I took his hand in mine. “What on earth is the matter with you anyway? Why don’t you tell me what it’s all about — what it’s really all about?”
He gulped, and I saw he was about to cry, and I knew he wouldn’t want me to see him doing it. I snapped the lights out quick, and went to the door of the veranda. “Let’s sit out here. It’s such a pretty night.”
It was a pretty night, with no moon but the stars shining bright and frogs croaking down near the water. We sat in a big canvas porch seat and I took his hand in mine again. “Go on. Tell me.”
“What the hell? You want the story of my life?”