She sat down across from me, sipping from her cup as I ate. I complimented her on the dinner, and made other small talk. In the midst of it she broke in with a curt question.
“Why isn’t Miss Aloe coming here to the house anymore, Britt? I know she isn’t, but I don’t know why.”
“You mean you missed part of our conversation?” I said.
“Answer me! I’ve got a right to know.”
I lifted the tray from my lap and set it on a chair. I shook out my napkin and dropped it on top of the tray. Then I leaned back in my chair, and looked thoughtfully out the window.
“Well?” she said sullenly.
“I was just mulling over your remark,” I said, “about your having a right to know. I don’t feel that you have a right to know anything about my personal affairs. But I can see how you might, and I suppose it’s my fault that you do. So, to answer your question: Miss Aloe is giving up her position here and going back East. That’s why I won’t be seeing her again.”
Kay said “oh” in a rather timid tone. She said that she was sorry if she’d said or done anything that she shouldn’t have.
I shook my head, brushing off her statement. Not trusting myself to speak. I was suddenly overwhelmed by my sense of loss, the knowledge of how much Manny had meant to me. And I jumped up and went over to the window. Stood there staring out into the gathering dusk.
Behind me, I heard Kay getting up quietly. I heard her pick up the dinner tray and leave the room, softly clicking the door shut behind her.
Several minutes passed. Then she knocked and came in again, carrying the phone on its long extension cord. She handed it to me and started to leave, but I motioned for her to remain. She did so, taking the chair she had occupied before.
“Britt?” It was Jeff Claggett. “How was your visit with Miss Aloe?”
“All right,” I said. “At least partly all right. She’s leaving town and going back East. Yes, within the next day or so, I believe.”
“The hell!” He grunted with surprise. “Just like that, huh? She give you any reason?”
“Well...” I hesitated. “I don’t need to consult with her anymore. I’m going ahead with the work on my own.”
“Yes? Nothing else?”
“I couldn’t say,” I said carefully. “What else could there be, and what does it matter, an way? I am sure that I have nothing more to fear from her. I’m positive of it, Jeff. And that’s all I’m concerned about.”
“So who said no?” He sounded amused. “Why so emphatic?”
“Let it go,” I said. “The point is that there’s no longer any reason to continue our present arrangement. If you’d like to make it official, Miss Nolton is right here and—”
“Hold it! Hold it, Britt!” Claggett snapped. “I think we can close things out there very soon. But you leave it to me to say when, okay?”
“Well, all right,” I said. “I think it would be better to—”
“Why guess about something when you can be sure? Why not wait until Miss Aloe actually leaves town?” He paused, then lowered his voice. “Nolton throwing her weight around? Is that it, Britt?”
“Well...” I sidled a glance at Kay. “I imagine it would be difficult to make a change, wouldn’t it?”
“It would.”
“All right, then,” I said. “I’ll manage.”
We hung up, and I passed the phone back to Kay. She took it silently, but at the door she turned and gave me a stricken look.
I faced around to my typewriter and began pounding on the keys. And I kept at it until I was sure she had gone.
I had had about enough of Kay Nolton. What had started out as a pleasant giving, something that we could both enjoy, had wound up as an attempt to take me over.
I wasn’t ready to be taken over, and I never would be. Nor would I ever want to take anyone else over. Love isn’t tantamount to ownership. Love is being part of someone else, while still remaining yourself.
That was the way it had been with me and Manny. And now that she was gone from my life...
Well. Kay could not fill the space Manny had left. It was too great for any other to fill.
Kay left me alone that night. Which was just as well for her. I had discovered that confronting people when they insisted on it was not nearly so fearful as I had thought, and I was all ready to do it again.
The mood was with me the next day, and when Mrs. Olmstead appeared in my office doorway and announced that she needed more money to go shopping, I flatly refused to give her any.
“You’ve had far too much already,” I told her coldly. “You’ve constantly emptied that cashbox in the telephone desk and then come grumbling to me for more. You must have had over six hundred dollars in less than two weeks’ time. The best thing you can do now is to pack up your belongings and clear out.”
“That don’t make me mad none!” She glared at me defiantly. “You just pay me my wages, an’ I’ll be out of here faster’n you can say scat!”
“I don’t have to pay you,” I said. “You’ve already paid yourself several times over.”
If she had given me any kind of argument, I probably would have relented. But surprisingly she didn’t argue at all. Oh, she did a little under-the-breath cursing on her way out of my office. In no more than ten minutes, however, she was packed and gone from the house.
Kay, who had been standing by during the proceedings, declared that I had done exactly the right thing. “You should have done it long ago, Britt. You were far too patient with that woman.”
“I’ve been that way with a lot of people,” I said. “But it’s a fault I’m going to correct.”
She dropped her eyes, toeing in with one white shod foot, a slow blush spreading up her cheeks to blend with the auburn of her hair. It was all beautifully calculated. I have never seen such control. She was saying, as clearly as if she had spoken, that she had been a naughty, naughty girl and she was truly sorry for it.
“Will you forgive your naughty girl, Britt?” She spoke in a cute-child’s voice. “She’s awfully sorry, and she promises never to be naughty again.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Forget it.”
“Why, of course, it matters. But I’ll be good from now on, honey. I swear I’ll—”
“I don’t care whether you are or not,” I said. “I can hang by my thumbs a few days if I have to. If it takes any longer than that to wrap things up here, and if I still need a cop-nurse, you won’t be her.”
She gave me no more argument than Mrs. Olmstead had. I was amazed at how easy it was to tell people off — without being very proud of it — although, admittedly, my experience was pretty limited.
I didn’t feel much like working; the thought of Manny, my Manny, being married to another was too much on my mind. But I worked, anyway, and I was still at it when Claggett arrived in midafternoon.
Manny was back in the hospital, he informed me. The same reputable hospital she had been in before with the same reputable doctors in attendance.
And, as before, she was in absolute seclusion, and no information about her condition or the nature of her illness was being given out.
26
“I could probably get a court order and find out,” Claggett said, “if I could show any reason why it was necessary for me to know. But I can’t think what the hell it would be.”
“Probably there isn’t any,” I said. “Nothing sinister, I mean. She told me yesterday that she wasn’t feeling well. Possibly she got to feeling worse and had to go to the hospital.”
“Possibly. But why so secretive about it?”