Mollified, I said that, as a matter of fact, she could do something. There were some USD A brochures in the top drawer of my topmost filing cabinet, and if she would hold a chair while I climbed up on it, I would dance at her wedding or render any other small favor to her.
“You just stay right where you are,” she said firmly. “I’ll do any climbing that’s done around here!”
She dragged a chair over to the stack of files, hiked her skirt, and stepped up on the chair. Standing on tiptoe, she edged out the top file drawer and reached inside. She fumbled blindly inside, trying to grasp the documents inside. And, then, suddenly, she gasped and her face went livid.
For a moment, I thought she was going to topple from the chair, and I jumped up and started toward her. But she motioned me back with a grim jerk of her head, then jumped down from the chair, white-faced with anger.
She was holding a large, dead rat by the tail. Without a word she marched out of the room, and, by the sound of things, disposed of it in the rear-porch garbage can. She returned to my office, stopping on the way to scrub her hands at the kitchen sink.
“All right, Britt—” she confronted me again “—I hope you’re going to do something now!”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “I’m going to go up to my room, and lie down.”
“Britt! What are you going to do about that awful woman?”
“Now, Kay,” I said. “That rat could have crawled in there and died. You know it could! Why—”
Kay said she knew it could not. The rat’s head had been smashed. It had been killed, then put in the file.
“The shock of finding it could have killed you, Britt. Or if you were standing on a chair, you could have fallen and broken your neck! I just can’t allow this kind of thing to go on, Britt. I’m responsible, and — You’ve got to fire her!”
I pointed out that I couldn’t fire Mrs. Olmstead. Not, at least, until she returned from shopping. I pointed out — rather piteously — that I was not at all well. This in the opinion of medical experts.
“Now, please help me up to my bed. I implore you, Kay Nolton.”
She did so, though irritably. Then, looking up at her from the pillow, I smiled at her and took one of her hands in mine. I said that perhaps she would not mind discussing Mrs. Olmstead when I was feeling better — say, tomorrow or the next day or, perhaps, the day after that. And I gave her a small pinch on the thigh.
She drew back skittishly, but not without a certain coyness. Which was all right with me. I wanted only to avoid a problem — Mrs. Olmstead — not to walk into another one. But Kay had her wants as well as I. And to get one must give. So when she said that she had to go to her room for a moment but would be right back, I told her I would count on it.
“I’ll hold your place for you,” I promised. “I’ll also move over on the bed, in case you want to sit down, in case you cannot think of a more comfortable position than sitting.”
Well.
When we heard Mrs. Olmstead return an hour later, we were locked together as the blissful beast-with-two-heads. We sprang apart, and she trotted into the bathroom ahead of me, her white uniform drawn high upon her sweet nakedness. I used the sink, while she sat on the toilet, tinkling pleasantly. And then I went over to her and hugged her red head against my stomach, and she nuzzled and kissed its environs in unashamed womanliness.
I congratulated myself.
For once, Britton Rainstar, I thought, you bridged a puddle without putting your foot down in stinky stuff. You’ve closed the door to debates on Mrs. Olmstead. Without compromising yourself, you’ve had a nice time and given same to a very nice young lady.
That’s what I thought — and why not?
I nourished that thought, while I returned to bed and Kay went downstairs to prepare my dinner. It began to glimmer away, due to a kind of bashful shyness of manner as she served said dinner to me. And at bedtime, when she came into my room in an old-fashioned, unrevealing flannel, lips trembling, eyes downcast, a pastel symphony of embarrassment — bingo. The sound was the sound of my comforting thought leaping out the window.
But I didn’t think of that then. All I could think of was drawing her down into my arms and holding her tight and trying to pet away her sadness.
“You won’t like me anymore, now,” she sobbed brokenheartedly. “You think I’m awful, now. You think I’m not a nice girl, now…” And so on, until I thought my heart was breaking, too.
“Please, please don’t cry, darling,” I pleaded. “Please don’t, baby girl. Of course I like you. Of course I think you’re a nice girl. Of course I think — I don’t think you’re awful.”
But she continued to weep and sob. Oh, she didn’t blame me. Not for a moment! She knew I was married, so it was all her fault. But men never did like you afterwards. There was this intern, and she’d liked him a lot and he’d kept after her, and finally she’d done it with him. And he’d told everyone in this hospital that she did it, and they’d all laughed and thought she was awful. Then there was this obstetrician she d worked for, a wonderfully sweet, considerate man — but after she did it with him a while, he must have thought she was awful (and not very nice, either) because he decided not to get a divorce after all. Then there was this—
“Well, pee on all of them!” I broke in. “Doing it is one of the very nicest things girls do, and any guy who wouldn’t treat her nice afterwards would doubtless eat dog hockey in Hammacher Schlemmer’s side window.”
She giggled, then sniffled and giggled simultaneously. She asked if she could ask me something, and then she asked it.
“Would you — I know you can’t, because you’re already married — but would you, if you weren’t? I mean, you wouldn’t think I was too awful to marry, just because I did it?”
“You asked me something, my precious love pot,” I said, “so let me tell you something. If I was not married — and please note that I use the verb ‘was,’ not were,’ since ‘were’ connotes the wildly impractical or impossible, as in ‘If I were you,’ and no one but a pretentious damned fool would say, ‘If I were not married’ because that’s not only possible but, in my case, a lousy actuality. But, uh, what was the question?”
“Would you marry me if you were not — I mean, was not — already married?”
“The answer is absotively, and, look, dear. ‘Were’ is proper when prefixed by the pronoun ‘you.’ That’s one of those exceptions—”
“You really would, Britt? Honestly? You wouldn’t think I was too awful to marry?”
“Let me put it this way, my dearest dear,” I said. “I would not only marry you, and consider myself the luckiest and most honored of men, but after God’s blessing had been called down upon our union and the minister had given me permission to raise your bridal veil, I would raise your bridal gown instead, and I would shower kisses of gratitude all over your cute little butt.”
She heaved a great shuddery sigh. Then, her head resting cozily against my chest, she asked had I really meant what I had said.
“My God,” I said indignantly, “would I make such a statement if I didn’t mean it?”
“I mean, honest and truly.”
“Oh,” I said. “So that’s what you mean.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I cannot tell a lie,” I said. “Thus, my answer must be, yes: honest and truly, and a pail of wild honey with brown sugar on it.”
She fell asleep in my arms, the untroubled sleep of an innocent child; and flights of angels must have guided her into it, for her smile was the smile of heaven’s own.