Hazel made an impatient gesture as if she were swatting at an invisible mosquito. “I saw her, the day she came to Dr. Foster’s office.”
“That’s right, you did. What did you think of her? She’s not an ordinary girl at all, is she?”
“I only saw her for a few minutes.”
“Couldn’t you tell she was different?”
“I told you I only saw her for a few minutes. What could have happened in a few minutes, that we should’ve become bosom pals or something?”
“Not exactly.” But it was too close for comfort, and George was unpleasantly surprised at the easy way Hazel could reach into his mind and pick out one of his dreams and pinch it out of shape like a marshmallow.
He said, “I’ll get Ruby,” and started across the yard, stepping slowly and carefully because he knew Hazel was watching him and he didn’t want to appear too eager.
She called after him, “Hey, George.”
He stopped.
“George, hold your stomach in.”
“Jes—”
“And stick out your chest more. You might as well show up to the best advantage.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, but Hazel didn’t hear him. She had gone back into the house and the slam of the screen door was loud and final.
Straightening his shoulders George walked back to his car. Ruby was half-sitting, half-lying, with her head pressed against the back of the seat and her eyes closed.
“Ruby?”
She blinked in a surprised way, as if she had been hundreds of miles away and couldn’t understand how George had gotten there.
“How are you feeling?”
“All right, I guess.”
“You’re looking better.”
“Am I?” She yawned, making a funny little squeaking noise like a puppy. George wanted to laugh at the noise, which seemed to him charming, but he didn’t dare. He was beginning to realize how deadly serious Ruby was about everything. She seldom laughed herself, and the laughter of others always carried a note of menace.
“We’ve been invited to come in,” George said.
“I heard laughing. Is it a party? I don’t like parties, I really don’t, I wish you’d take me home.”
“There’s no party. I just want you to come in and meet Hazel, my ex-wife.”
Her entire face seemed to tighten, around the eyes and the nostrils and the mouth, as if it had been splashed by a strong astringent. “I guess this is your idea of a big joke, Mr. Anderson.”
“It’s not a joke. Hazel asked me to bring you in.”
“Why?”
“I told her you were waiting in the car. Hazel likes people. She invites everybody to come in.”
“She won’t like me.”
“Sure she will, and I’ll bet a nickel you’ll like her too.” He spoke with confidence. Nearly everyone liked Hazel. She could always make people feel good about themselves, and George had such implicit faith in her generosity that it didn’t even occur to him that possibly she wouldn’t care to make Ruby feel good.
“It doesn’t seem proper,” Ruby said. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to inflict myself.”
“You won’t be. Come on.”
He opened the car door and Ruby got out. She brushed off her skirt and the shoulders of her suit, and smoothed down her hair. “Do I look all right?”
“You look fine.” He wanted to say, beautiful, but he was afraid that the word would only increase her self-consciousness and that she wouldn’t believe him anyway. “Let’s go around to the back. Hazel’s in the kitchen.”
“Is it your house?”
“Not any more. We had a property settlement and Hazel got the house.”
“It’s funny you’re still friends like this.”
“Like what?”
“Well, calling on her like this, and bringing me here.”
“It doesn’t strike me as funny. Why should it?”
“I thought when two people break up, they wouldn’t ever want to see each other again.”
“It’d be pretty hard not to see Hazel again,” George said dryly. “She’s all over the place. I don’t mean she checks up on me or anything. But it’s a small town and we have mutual friends, and so we bump into each other.”
“I’d hate that. If I ever got a divorce I’d run away, far away. I’d never want to see him again, never, I’d run away.”
“Well, don’t get excited. You’re not even married yet.” He paused. “Not even considering it, I guess.”
“No.”
“You’ll change your mind someday when you meet the right man.”
She didn’t bother to answer. In silence they went across the yard and up the steps of Hazel’s back porch.
Hazel opened the screen door, wearing a fixed smile on her face that looked as if it had been attached with glue. During the time it had taken George to go out to the car and get Ruby, Hazel had freshened her make-up and combed her hair, but already along her upper lip and the hairline of her forehead little pinpoints of sweat were oozing up through the new layer of powder.
When she spoke she used her office-voice which had a professional lilt to it intended to make Dr. Foster’s patients feel at ease. “Come on in and make yourself at home — Ruby, is it?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Hazel, dully, with no sign of recognition. It was as if the two days since they had met had lengthened into years for Ruby and these years had numbed her memory.
“George tells me you’re not feeling very well,” Hazel said.
Ruby shook her head. “I feel fine, just fine.”
“That’s good.”
“I get nervous sometimes, that’s all. Everybody does. It’s nothing. I wouldn’t dream of imposing—”
“You’re not imposing.” Hazel turned to George. “Harold’s in the front room. He wants to talk to you about the boat.”
“My boat?”
“Yes. He says it’s sprung a leak.”
“A leak? He must be imagining things. Sure, on a day like this, she ships a little water, naturally.”
“All right, so it doesn’t leak. Talk to Harold about it. I never said it leaked.”
“He didn’t either.”
“Go and ask him.”
“I will. If that suits Ruby.”
Ruby glanced at him listlessly, as if the conversation and the moods and tensions beneath it had been too difficult to follow. “What did you say?”
“Is it O.K. with you if I leave you here with Hazel for a while?”
“I don’t care.”
“I won’t be long.”
“I don’t care.”
He paused in the doorway and looked back, but she was no longer watching him. Letting the door swing shut behind him he was conscious of a feeling of relief, and of gratitude to Hazel for insisting that he go and talk to Harold. Sometimes he wanted to leave Ruby and couldn’t; he deluded himself into thinking that if he stayed another minute, or five, or ten, his words, his presence and the very passage of time would change her in his favor.
The door swung into place with a squeak of hinges. The noise seemed to focus Ruby’s attention more sharply than any human voice. She looked at the door thoughtfully, as if it had said something to her, without words to distort its meaning.
“It needs oiling,” Hazel said. “Everything does around here. Including me. Want some beer?”
“No. No, thanks. You go right ahead, though.”
“I don’t mind if I do.” She took a quart of beer out of the refrigerator and poured out a glassful. The beer was warm and foamed out over the sides of the glass like soapsuds. “Sit down, why don’t you, before you drop.”
“I won’t drop.” But she pulled out one of the straight-backed wooden chairs and sat down at the kitchen table. “I feel fine.”
“Ruby—”
“Just fine.”
“Ruby, snap out of it.”
“What?”
“Listen, you haven’t been taking drugs or anything, have you?”