She looked up at him. “Greg, tell me, how can you be so sweet in the daytime, and such a stinker nights?”
“So much happens at night. Did you hear me? I said I loved you.”
“You pick such romantic spots.” She looked at him sharply. “I still think you took a shot at D.C.”
“So help me, on my boy scout honor.”
He hurried on. “You know I love you or I wouldn’t’ve hired Ingrid and Mike to do P.R. work for me.”
“That was pretty sneaky.”
“I’m sorry about that, Patti. But you do crazy things when you’re in love. As you can see, I’m doing my own P.R. job now.”
“Greg, please, I’m working. Couldn’t we talk about this tonight?”
“But I’ve got to know now, I’m going out of my mind. Who is the fellow ? Is it serious?”
“What fellow?”
“Please. I couldn’t sleep, didn’t get an hour’s sleep all night. Inky said “
“Inky thinks I need a reputation.”
“You mean ?”
“Exactly.”
“But Mrs. Macdougall?”
“She’s an old gossip. You know that, Greg.”
“Yeah and is she far out. She told me she saw a man following D.C. last night. How crazy can you get?” He thought the matter over, then was forced to add, “But she was so positive she heard voices “
“Surely you don’t think a man spent the night in my bedroom, because if you think that “
“No, no, of course not. It’s only .. .”
“It’s only what, Greg?”
“I’ve got this temper, and when I hear something like that. ..”
“I knew a man once, had a violent temper. And then one day he saw it was ruining his life, ruining his business and his home, and he said to himself, never again. And today he’s the calmest, nicest human being you ever met. So you can do something about it, Greg, if you want to. I think it’s like drinking too much. Sometime or other you have to face up to it and call it quits.”
“I quit this morning. Believe me
” He walked too close to a display of Mexican pottery ware and his coat sleeve brushed a large bowl, which toppled. She caught it in time.
“I’m a bull in a china closet,” he said.
She looked at him dreamily. “I bet when you were a little boy your mother always held you tightly by the hand when she took you into a store.”
He could have kissed her, and would have before everyone if a young man had not suddenly lost interest in a barbecue he was pricing and turned to admire her; and his pretty wife, catching him in the act, said, “No, George, I’m not going to buy you that even if it is your birthday.”
When she left work that afternoon, Greg was waiting to drive her home. She emerged carrying a potted begonia. “With my regrets and D.C.‘s,” she said, handing it to him. “Clara Peabody.”
He inspected the plant with a critical eye. “I’ll accept your regrets but I don’t know about D.C.‘s. Are you sure he’s sincere about this?”
She laughed and, while he held the door, slid into the front seat. She asked solicitously about his bandaged arm. He pretended considerable pain but said, “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.” He asked then, “Are you positive he’s a cat? I mean, well, you know how they get babies mixed up in hospitals. Maybe he was a panther cub and they put the wrong tag on him.”
She sat close to him. “You know only one side of him.”
“You mean there’s another?”
“When he curls up in your lap and starts purring, you know that this little bit of life “
He broke in. “Tell me, are we talking about the same cat? Little bit of life? Two hundred pounds of savage fury. And I’ve got an arm to prove it.”
“You’re so prejudiced. If you’d just try to like him
“
“I’ll try. Because nothing could be all bad that you love so much.”
As he drove, the world turned into a fairyland set to music. Even the traffic signals seemed to play a melody. She scarcely heard Greg talking. He was asking about going to the Cocoa-nut Grove at the Ambassador Saturday for the dinner show.
He said, “I’ve got something to celebrate. I got those kids together who wanted a divorce. They came into the office today and you should’ve seen their faces. They just needed somebody to crack their heads together and tell them it was time they were acting like adults.”
He asked then, “How about me bringing my duck over tonignt and you roasting it?”
She stalled, and reality, stark and stern, padded back in. He was immediately suspicious. “I promised Inky I’d go to a PTA meeting,” she lied and, having done so, felt the warmth in her cheeks.
“Tomorrow night then?”
“Could I let you know in the morning? The folks will be home this weekend and
now, Greg, don’t get excited. Don’t be so suspicious. I want to, you know that, even if nights do have a rather peculiar effect on you.”
He turned back the temper admirably, and even produced a half-hearted smile. As he let her out at her front door, they saw the tree movers cleaning up the last vestiges of the apricot they had cut down. “I’m sorry,” he said, “although frankly, I don’t think Blitzy had anything to do with it.”
She thanked him for the ride and said she would give him a ring the next morning. Crossing the sidewalk, she passed Mr. Macdougall, who gave her an old rake smile along with a greeting. We are all bounders together, the smile seemed to say. Hurrying up the walk, she shot a quizzical glance backward. What’s got into him, she wondered.
As Mr. Macdougall let himself into the living room, his wife looked up from the front window where she had been manning the outposts of decency. “Just look at her, all sweet innocence, and her with a man in her room again tonight, and her folks so nice.”
”Terrible, terrible,” Mr. Macdougall agreed.
“I don’t know what this generation’s coming to.”
“Same as the last. No good.”
“Wilbur!”
21
Humming to himself, Greg parked the car in the driveway and walked around to inspect the front yard, which Mike was mowing.
“Nice job,” Greg said. He stripped three one-dollar bills from a roll he was carrying.
“My sister says I can take only a dollar,” Mike announced sorrowfully. “She says you’re trying to corrupt me and I should be ashamed. I thought she’d pat me on the back for being such a good businessman.” He added thoughtfully, “She should encourage me since I’ll probably have to take care of her in her old age.”
Greg said, “She’s a wonderful person, Mike.”
Mike grinned. “That’s what everybody tells me. Oh, well
“
Greg handed him the dollar. “We’ll see what we can do about fringe benefits. Maybe a movie now and then. Your sister couldn’t object. It’s all a part of modern business. You know, pensions, free aspirin, Blue Cross, free haircuts, paid vacations, free bail bonds, and, of course, free psychiatric service since everybody’s nuts these days.”
Mike grinned broadly and headed for the garage to put up the mower. Still humming, Greg entered the house by the front door, picking up a newspaper on the way in. As he closed the door behind him, he was slowed by the abnormal quiet. “Blitzy,” he called, and hurried into the living room where he stopped suddenly, stunned.
Blitzy, curled up on the floor by the divan, looked dead. Greg stood a moment, paralyzed. Blitzy dated to his high school days. In his sophomore year, Greg had sneaked him home one night. His friend, Hal, who lived the next street over, had found the puppy wandering aimlessly about, half-starved, but Hal’s folks refused to let him keep the dog and were going to call the pound.
Now Greg dropped beside the little dachshund, and, with a swell of relief, saw he was breathing. “Blitzy,” he said softly, “Blitzy.” He rubbed the dog’s head gently for several minutes and kept calling his name, but failed to bring him back to consciousness. He then telephoned Blitzy’s old “family doctor,” a veterinarian who had brought the dachshund through several illnesses.