“I really don’t know how I’d get along without you!”
Archer put his arms around her and kissed her. “I guess I’d just go all to pieces.”
“Oh, Archer!” Llona was all choked up.
“Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?”
“Just—-” Llona swallowed hard. “Nothing,” she decided.
“But you said it was important.”
“It was so important I've forgotten what it was," Llona lied.
“Oh. Okay . . . What’s for dinner?”
Bittersweet hearts of Llona. That was her fare. There was scant sustenance in it for Llona during the days which followed.
I don't know what I’d do without you.
Those Words of Archer’s haunted Llona. What would he do without her? How would he get along? What would stop him from going to pieces? He was so dependent on her! And she loved him; she really loved him so damn much! How could she leave him? How could she not?
There was really no choice. She was going to leave him whether she wanted to or not. The dice had been thrown and come up snake-eyes. She was passing out of the game.
But she couldn’t just leave Archer—so helpless, so dependent on her—to his own inept, floundering devices. He’d never survive without her. Somehow she had to make some sort of arrangements to insure his future. Somehow she had to make sure that he would be cared for. Somehow-—
And that’s when the idea hit Llona. When she was gone Archer would need someone to look after him. However, as Archer’s wife, Llona was well aware of his shortcomings. He was a bad judge of character, a poor evaluator of people -- particularly women. Any female could wrap him around her little finger. Llona was sure of that because of the ease with which she herself had done it.
Ergo! The greatest gift she could leave behind for Archer would be to save him from his own poor judgment, and at the same time to insure that he’d be looked after and not left alone. Llona would choose for him. Llona would find her successor.
Her heart brimming over with love, Llona decided to devote the time left to her to selecting Archer’s second wife.
It wasn’t going to be easy. She knew that. Archer wasn’t the easiest man in the world to live with. To be brutally candid with herself about it, Archer was a slob. He never picked up his dirty socks and underwear. He couldn’t keep track or the simplest things. He was a hypochondriac and a simple cold reduced him to a state of infantilism. And his utter dependence on his wife was a mixed blessing which was as often exasperating as it was gratifying.
Still, he was very loving. He was conscientious about his work. He was completely faithful and Llona doubted that he’d ever so much as looked at another woman since their marriage. There was a lot to be said for the feeling of security a wife got from that quality in a husband.
Yes, there is a lot to be said for myopia -- emotional myopia that is. It may fuzzy up one’s picture, but that very blurring may result in a soft pleasantness that sharper vision never knows. Reality can be harsh; how much more bearable it is when colored with the pastels of illusion.
Llona, of course, like most people, made no distinction between reality and illusion in the coloring book of her mind. Time was running short, her crayons were down to the nub and it never occurred to her to question long-held assumptions now. It never occurred to her until weeks after first meeting with Shirley Simpell.
The meeting took place in front of the local supermarket. Llona had gone there to distribute leaflets urging people to write the President and insist that he bring the troops home from Vietnam NOW. She was surprised to find that another girl was already there handing out pamphlets.
“Hi.” Llona greeted her. “I'm Mrs. Hornsby. Did we get our signals crossed?”
“Hello. I'm Mrs. Simpell. Shirley Simpell. I don’t think so.” She handed Llona a leaflet.
Llona glanced at the flyer and then looked at Shirley Simpell, surprised. What startled her was the dichotomy between the sentiments expressed on the leaflet and the appearance of the girl distributing them. It seemed as incongruous to Llona as a babe in swaddling clothes wielding a loaded tommygun.
That dewy-eyed quality of innocence was the first thing anybody noticed about Shirley Simpell. She was about Llona’s age--mid-twenties—-but she conveyed the impression of being a teen-ager. Not, however, a teen-ager of the present; rather an adolescent out-of-sync, a bobbysoxer lifted from the 1940s and dropped into the world of today.
Indeed, she dressed the part, wearing knee socks and a too-tight sweater and a ribbon in her hair. But it wasn’t just that. It was more a matter of the personality conveyed by her outward appearance.
Shirley Simpell was shorter than Llona and quite compactly built. Her face was heart-shaped, soft with a roundness that was childlike. Her blue eyes were large and wondering, the lashes so long that at first glance it seemed they must be artificial. Her hair was soft brown and very curly and fell to her shoulders in the fashion of yesteryear. The most memorable thing about her face was two deep dimples that would not have been out of place on the behind of a new-born infant. It was a visage that seemed both saccharine and empty.
Together with her schoolgirl figure, Shirley Simpell’s appearance was the kind that's usually described by such phrases as “cute as a button,” or “adorably girlish,” or “cuddly as a bunny-rabbit.” Teenage boys would whistle at her on the street and she would toss, her skirts provocatively and pretend to ignore them while smiling secretly to herself. Older men‘ would look at her with a fatherly eye and privately restrain themselves from patting her pertly jiggling fanny.
Llona’s impulse, after reading the leaflet, was to treat Shirley’s bottom somewhat more roughly. Llona had to remind herself that she was nonviolent. The flyer, in contrast to Shirley's soft facade, was a hard line call to mobilize the public to influence the President to win the Vietnam war by any means-—including nuclear weaponry if necessary. The “Yellow Peril” had to be stopped; the “Red Menace” had to be wiped out; “death before dishonor in Vietnam”--and preferably Oriental death —was Shirley Simpell’s bag.
“Have one of mine,” Llona said tightly, handing Shirley a peace leaflet.
Shirley glanced at it and then looked at Llona. Llona stared back at her defiantly. They stayed that way for a long moment, eyes locked. “We seem to be on opposite sides of the fence,” Shirley said finally, flashing her dimples.
Llona thought an instant and then smiled back. It was a sort of communication and the only way to change anybody’s mind is to relate to them. It can’t be done by slamming the door in their face. That’s what flashed through Llona’s mind. “I’ll tell you what,” she suggested. “Why don’t I buy us a cup of coffee and we’ll talk about it.”
“All right.”
The actual words spoken over coffee weren’t too meaningful. But beneath the surface of the conversation a very interesting dialogue was taking place. This unspoken dialogue went something like this:
“Albert Schweitzer!” was the sentiment expressed by Llona. “Gandhi, Martin Luther King.”
“Patrick Henry,” was the response. “Teddy Roosevelt. Barry Goldwater.”
“Peace. Brotherhood. Love.”
“God. Motherhood. Country.”
“Humanity!” Ping!
“Patriotism!” Pong!
“Hiroshima. Nuremberg. My Lai!” from Llona.
“Remember the Alamo! Remember the Maine! Remember Pearl Harbor!” Shirley with fervor.
“Pete Seeger! Bob Dylan! The Beatles!"
“Kate Smith! George M. Cohan! Martha Raye!’
“Civil rights!” Llona simmered. “Civil disobedience!”
“Laissez-faire!” Shirley simpered. “Law-and-order!”
“Guaranteed annual wage! Guh-nip."
“Personal initiative! Guh-nop!”