Ruby smiled, her mouth still wet from the water. “That was good. It’s funny, I didn’t even know I was thirsty. Daddy says I was always like that — I never let physical things bother me, I never squalled for food the way some babies do.”
“Have you had any lunch?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting till I go to work. Lunch and dinner are free.”
“You got the job, then?”
Ruby widened her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you? I guess I forgot. Mr. Anderson hired me right off the bat.”
“Good.”
“Of course I’m only a waitress, there was no opening as a hostess, but Mr. Anderson says I have a chance to work up... I did just what you told me. I went over to the bartender and I said someone had told me he needed a waitress and practically the next minute I was hired. I didn’t even have to mention your name, it was that quick.”
Hazel didn’t bother informing her that this was the way George did all his hiring, and firing, too.
“Are you and Mr. Anderson friends?”
“We were at one time,” Hazel said dryly. “We haven’t seen much of each other lately.” She was usually very quick to tell anyone, even a total stranger, about her personal affairs, including the complete history of her marriage to George, but she had no wish to confide in this girl. Ruby’s strange talk disturbed her. It was like listening to a bird talk; the words sounded real, they could be understood well enough, but they had no connection with the bird’s thoughts.
“Well, I won’t keep you.” Ruby rose and picked up the red fox and slung it across her arm with a show of elegant indifference as if she had a hundred such furs stashed away in her drawers at home. But every now and then, as she talked, Hazel had caught her glancing at the fox with anxiety and affection the way a mother glances at a loved but wayward child.
One thing Hazel was sure of — the fox had seen better days; Ruby hadn’t.
She said, “What kind of place are you looking for?”
“Oh, just a room. I can’t afford anything fancy like I was used to at home. I’m standing on my own two feet now, that’s what I wrote and told Daddy.”
“My cousin Ruth has a friend who runs a rooming house. She calls it a tourist home. It’s on El Camino del Mar.”
“That sounds like a very high class location.”
“It’s the highway. 101.”
“Oh.” Ruby’s jaw tightened but when she spoke again her voice was as gay and blithe as ever: “Well, none of my friends up north will know the difference. They’ll think it’s high class just like I thought.” She paused. “Is it far from here?”
“Ten blocks or so.”
“Oh God.” Ruby sat down again, holding the fox’s head close against her face.
Hazel looked away. Dead things made her nervous.
“I can call you a cab,” she said.
“No. No thanks.”
“It’s a long way, in this heat.”
“I don’t — I don’t mind the heat like most people. I’m just a little tired, but I’ll manage. I always do. I’m stronger than I look.”
To prove her point she got back onto her feet. She wore winter shoes, black suede pumps scuffed at the toes and heels. Her stockingless legs were very white, as if they’d been frozen.
“I’d better be on my way.”
“Hold it a minute while I phone and see if Mrs. Freeman has a vacancy. It might save you a trip.”
“You’re kind, Miss Philip, you’re a kind person,” Ruby said, in a surprised voice.
It was too hot to argue so Hazel merely shook her head.
She used the extension phone in the operating room, partly because she didn’t want Ruby to overhear her conversation, and partly because she liked to sit in the dental chair while she was telephoning.
Ruth answered the telephone: “Hello? Hazel? I was just doing the lunch dishes.” Ruth always made a point of telling people what she was doing, had just done or was about to do. In this way she gave the impression that she did as much work as any six people and so could never be accused of being lazy or not earning her keep. “What do you want? I was just about to start on the Venetian blinds.”
“There’s a young girl here looking for a room. I thought I’d send her over to Mrs. Freeman’s.”
“Is the girl respectable?”
“She’s a friend of one of Dr. Foster’s relatives from up north.”
“Then she should certainly be respectable.” Ruth was the official baby sitter for the Fosters’ three children, and while she hadn’t much interest in, or use for, Gordon, she admired Elaine Foster tremendously.
Hazel said, “I don’t want to send the girl all the way over there unless Mrs. Freeman has a vacancy. Could you give me her phone number?”
“She doesn’t have a phone. What with the girls using it all the time, she had it taken out. But I know she has a vacancy. I saw her last night at the organ recital at church.”
“What’s the house number?”
“1906.”
“Thanks.”
“Hazel? Are you still there?... When I finish the blinds, I have to go over to the Fosters’ to baby-sit, but when I come home I thought I’d wax all the window sills.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Wax is a preservative.”
“All right, then. All right.” There was no use in arguing with Ruth. Hazel knew that by evening the window sills would all be waxed and Ruth would be lying on the bed with a wet cloth across her eyes.
Gordon came in from the lab and began washing his hands at the basin.
Hazel climbed awkwardly out of the dental chair. “Have you finished?”
“With the bridge, yes. I still have that inlay to cast.”
“I can help you.”
“It’s your afternoon off as well as mine.”
“In this weather there’s nothing I want to do anyway.” There was something, but she would never have admitted it to anyone: she wanted to go down to the beach in a brand-new bathing suit and look the way she had twenty years ago when she and George were married. She had changed in those twenty years, and so had George, but it was characteristic of Hazel that she noticed more changes in herself than in him.
Gordon dried his hands on a linen towel. “Who was at the door?”
“That girl, the one who was here last week.”
“Girl?”
“Ruby MacCormick.”
“Well,” he said, carefully. “What did she want?”
“She’s still here.”
“Oh.”
“She wants a room. She’s moving. I was just trying to find a place for her to go.”
“And did you?”
“I think so. It’s on the highway, 1906.”
“Not a very good location.”
“The best she can afford, that’s my opinion. She talks big, but I can tell. Any woman could.”
He threw away the towel and stood for a moment with his clenched fist pressed against the left side of his chest. It was a way he had of standing lately, as if all his problems had gathered together in a tight little bunch around his heart, and the pressure of his fist was meant to dispel them.
Hazel leaned over and picked up the towel and put it in the laundry container. She spoke quietly: “Maybe you’d better go out and say hello to her, just for politeness’s sake.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
“All right then, I’ll say it for you.”
“Do that.” He hesitated a moment. “Did you bring your car this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t be too much out of your way to drive the girl as far as the highway. I feel a certain obligation to her because she’s a stranger in town.”
“Well, so do I, only I wanted to stay and help you cast the inlay. I’ll pour it up for you.”
“I can do it alone. Or you can come back later, if you insist.”
“I’ll come back.”
“Thank you, Hazel.”
He sounded so deeply grateful that she wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for; it couldn’t be for anything so trivial as offering to help him with the inlay, or driving Ruby over to the highway.