“Because I want to. There’s nothing, well, personal in it. I know you need a job, and you’re just a kid. In fact — well, to tell you the truth, I’m old enough to be your father.”
“You are?” Ruby giggled nervously. “My goodness, you certainly don’t look it. You don’t look a day over forty.”
George, who was forty, thanked her and pulled in his stomach. He knew by her expression that she had meant the remark as a compliment and that she probably thought he was at least fifty.
He felt a little sick, but he smiled and said, “I’ll do the best I can for you.”
“Oh, I know you will.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to come out and have some dinner with me.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t.”
“Oh.”
“I really can’t. I’m so tired. All this excitement, getting fired first and then having you appear out of the blue with a wonderful new job—”
“I haven’t found you one yet.”
“But you will, with all your connections and everything.”
“I hope so... Meanwhile, you’d better come back to the Beachcomber. At least it’s a living.”
“All right, if you say so, Mr. Anderson.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“All right.”
They shook hands, in a friendly way, and George opened the parlor door. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mrs. Freeman descending on him from the dining room. He walked rapidly in the opposite direction to avoid a meeting.
“In a hurry, isn’t he?” Mrs. Freeman commented.
“He’s a very important businessman,” Ruby said. “He’s got things to do.”
“I knew it the minute I looked at him. A businessman, I said to myself. What business?”
“He owns the Beachcomber.”
“All by himself?”
Ruby nodded. Though she knew that George had only a quarter interest in the Beachcomber she didn’t think it worthwhile to mention this to Mrs. Freeman. It was a small point, and Ruby believed that it was ridiculous to keep to the strict facts when a few variations served a better purpose. In this respect she was a true spiritual daughter of the house.
“He’s got an eye for you,” Mrs. Freeman said, with a satisfied nod. “I could tell it the minute I saw him.”
“Oh, that’s silly, I never heard anything so silly.”
“Mark my words, he’s a goner.”
Ruby colored. “Well, I certainly didn’t encourage him.”
“Why, I bet you could have him in a minute if you just snapped your fingers. Mark my words, I know men and he’s got that look.” It occurred to Mrs. Freeman at this point that possibly George was a married man and that she had gone too far in encouraging Ruby. She added, “If he’s married, well, that’s a horse of another color. I believe in the sanctity of the home and I think that any woman who comes between a man and his wife ought to be horsewhipped.”
Mrs. Freeman’s eyes hardened, applying the horsewhip to the guilty Ruby. But instead of cringing, Ruby said coldly, “He’s divorced, you don’t have to worry.”
“Not that I was actually worried. I knew as soon as I laid eyes on you that you were a girl that came from a respectable family. There’s a lady, I said to myself.”
Ruby was unable to resist this blandishment. Over a cup of Mrs. Freeman’s hot, bitter coffee she described her parents and their beautiful home atop Nob Hill whence they could see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate. Her father, a retired gentleman of the old school, spent all his time now on his collection of rare stamps and coins. Her mother, who had been a beauty in her youth, was now silver-haired but she still rode every day. She was a brilliant horsewoman.
“I know that horsy set,” Mrs. Freeman contributed.
“I was terribly spoiled. Then one day I guess I just suddenly grew up. I wanted to live my own life and earn my own way. Daddy nearly had a fit and Mummy cried and cried, but it was no use, they couldn’t keep me home. When I make up my mind to do a thing, it’s as good as done. Naturally I’ll go back someday, but not until I’ve proved I can stand on my own feet. And now that Mr. Anderson’s getting me a job as a receptionist, I feel I’m finally getting some place. I suppose I should really sit down right now and write and tell Mummy and Daddy the good news, but I’ve got to dress and meet someone.”
When Ruby had gone back to her room, Mrs. Freeman poured herself another cup of coffee and sat down at the dining-room table to finish the newspaper.
“What a liar,” she said aloud, yet she felt genuinely sorry for Ruby, who was a victim of circumstance like herself. To a lesser degree she felt sorry for George too, because he had what Mrs. Freeman called a “nice open face” and a shrewd eye. From this shrewd eye Mrs. Freeman deduced that George knew quite a lot about women, and it was her opinion that men who understood women could be more easily duped by any individual woman than one who didn’t. Take her husband, Robert, for instance. Robert had never understood women, never wanted to, never pretended to, yet he’d had a wife as faithful as the day was long.
As faithful as the day is long, Mrs. Freeman thought, sighing. She turned for comfort to the City News Briefs. Here, in blunt paragraphs, were recorded the mistakes and sorrows, and the petty complaints and transgressions of that large but neglected and anonymous section of the community to which Mrs. Freeman unwittingly belonged. Names were seldom mentioned in the News Briefs. More tactful devices were used for identification: “A woman in the 500 block of W. Los Olivos complained to police of a dog barking in the neighborhood.” “An intoxicated middle-aged man was found sleeping in an alley and was given lodging by the police overnight.” “A rancher from the Arroyo Burro district reports that two sorrel mares have strayed or been stolen from his premises.” “Several juveniles were warned by police when they were found aiming rocks at a boulevard sign near the swimming pool.” “Two Mexican nationals were arrested in a local café after becoming involved in an argument with the proprietor.”
These items were cunningly spaced between advertisements, so that to make sure of not missing anything Mrs. Freeman read all the advertisements too: slenderizing salons, used cars, potato chips, lost dogs, apartments, lending libraries, Swedish Massage and Hawaiian chocolates.
While she read Mrs. Freeman talked half-aloud to herself. “Seems a lot of money for a 1939 Ford... I wonder what café they were arrested in, seems silly not to mention the name... that friend of Mrs. Lambert’s lives on Los Olivos, but that’s east not west, but it could easily be her anyway, newspapers are always making mistakes like that... trying to stop a dog barking. Might as well stop the wind blowing, what are dogs for, I’d like to know... sorrel mares, never heard of sorrel, but mark my words they were stolen, human nature can get very low.”
She heard one of the girls coming downstairs and she stopped talking abruptly. She didn’t want any of them to think she was balmy, talking to herself like that, and she was certain that none of them had enough sense to realize that if you have no one else to talk to, you talk to yourself.
It was Ruby.
“Dressed already?” Mrs. Freeman said cheerfully. “That’s a pretty suit. It goes with your eyes.”
Ruby blushed with pleasure and averted her eyes, afraid, breathlessly afraid that if she let Mrs. Freeman look at her eyes again Mrs. Freeman might change her mind and say, no, the suit didn’t go with her eyes.
She went down the hall, hugging the thin compliment to her heart, letting it nestle there, warm and protected, until it grew fat: she said I have nice eyes. She said, what a pretty suit, it goes with your beautiful eyes. Like stars, she said.
She pictured herself telling Gordon about it tonight, if he could get away from the house to meet her. She would say to him, “Oh, she’s a funny old bird, Gordon. You know what she said to me as I was leaving tonight? She said I was beautiful. Me, beautiful! Gosh, you could have knocked me over with a feather! She said, with eyes like that, you ought to be in the movies, Ruby.”