With an air of impatience Mrs. Freeman got up and rinsed out the coffee cups at the sink.
“Not anyone I care about,” Ruby said.
“And that nice Mr. Anderson—” She turned off the oven and banged the door shut. “Well, that’s the way it goes. You better set your alarm early. Miss Hodgins gets up at seven and I don’t want her to find him sleeping on the couch like that. It wouldn’t look right, him in costume and everything.”
“I’ll get up at six.”
“Well, good night then.”
“Mrs. Freeman — thanks for all your kindness.”
“Kindness,” Mrs. Freeman said. “You’re going to need more than kindness before you’re through. Well. I told you I get feeling blue at night like this, don’t pay any attention to me. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Ruby set her alarm for six. Then she took off her coat and hung it in the closet, moving slowly because she dreaded to go to bed and lie in the darkness, thinking. I get feeling blue at night like this. She would have liked to read for a while but there was no reading light in the room. The crudely painted Mexican pottery lamp on the bureau didn’t work, and the only other light in the room was the ceiling light with a chain suspended from it. The chain was too short to reach, so someone had tied a strip of pink cloth to the end of it. Ruby pulled the strip of cloth, then lay on the bed with her eyes open, wondering why Gordon had come and what he was going to do.
We’re a pair, both victims, can’t fight back. In the darkness she shook her head violently as if Gordon was there to witness her denial. In the same motion she denied Mrs. Freeman too: You’re going to need more than kindness.
No, no, her head rocked back and forth on the pillow. They don’t understand about me, I’m tough. I’m tough.
When she came downstairs in the morning Gordon was already awake. He was sitting on the couch holding his head in his hands. She came toward him, very shyly, as if she were half-afraid he wouldn’t remember who she was.
“Are you all right, Gordon?”
“I’m fine.”
She sat down beside him. He was pale and his eyes were bloodshot. The pulse in his temple was beating hard and fast.
“Thanks for letting me sleep here,” he said. “What time is it?”
“A little after six.”
“The beginning of a new day.” He turned to look at her, smiling. “You brushed your hair out. Last night you had a scarf around it, you looked very pretty.”
“I didn’t think you’d remember.”
“I remember everything, I think. I’ve got to go out and buy some clothes.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“I forgot. Well, I’ve got an old outfit at the office, I can wear that.”
“You have clothes at home.”
“I’m not going home. It’s too bad it’s Sunday. That’s going to make things harder, getting some money, etcetera.”
“Why do you need money today?”
“I told you, I’m not going home. I’m running away, I suppose you’d call it. I haven’t run away since I was seven and I’ve forgotten how you go about it, but I think money is pretty essential. I hope you’ll come with me, will you, Ruby?”
“Gordon — listen Gordon, you’re not still sort of half-drunk?”
“I’m sober.”
“What about Elaine? Did you talk to her?”
“Yes, we had quite a talk,” Gordon said dryly. “Last night.”
“Did you tell her you were going away? With me?”
“No, I’m going to let her be surprised.”
She looked at him anxiously for a moment. “Gordon, what is this? Are we just going on a little holiday, or are we going to stay together for good? I know, maybe I shouldn’t ask that—”
“We’re staying together. God knows what she’ll do. I’m hoping she’ll get a divorce. I’m hoping she’ll realize when I’m gone that that’s what she’s wanted all along.” He got to his feet. His head felt heavy and brittle, and for a minute he could see nothing but blackness shot with flashes of light. But his physical discomfort merely accentuated the peace in his mind. Elaine had freed him. She didn’t intend to, but she had, and now he was free. He said, “We’ll drive over to my office for some clothes and then we’ll have breakfast, I’ll bring you back here and you can pack your things while I’m trying to gather together some money.”
“I haven’t much to pack.”
“More than I have.” He glanced down at her, smiling at her earnestness. He would have liked to bend over and kiss her but he was afraid his head might split in two. He put his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll never come back to this town, Ruby.”
“We’ll have to. This is where your work is.”
“I’ll sell my practice and start another one, wherever you want to go.”
“I’ll help you,” she said. “I’ll work hard.”
“We’ll start all over. I hate this town, I never want to see it again.”
She stared up at him, thinking, he will never love me the way I do him, I am looking forward just to being with him, and he’s looking forward to getting away from Elaine — not the town, he doesn’t hate the town, it’s just that she’s in it. But it doesn’t matter. I’m lucky and I’m tough.
She turned away and began to fold the blankets on the couch. A desert wind had began to blow over the mountains in the middle of the night and the blankets felt dry and dusty. Everything in the house was covered with a film of powdered sand, and there was a rawness in Ruby’s throat and nasal passages.
When they went outside the wind was still blowing, warm and furious. Gordon’s car was gray with dust, and still the dirt came spinning along the road. The houses trembled, as if a procession of freight cars was lunging up the tracks.
The keys were in the car.
“It’s a nice day to get out of town,” Gordon said.
They drove to his office and Ruby waited in the car while he went inside. It was quite a while before he returned, wearing the gabardine slacks and shirt that he kept for golfing. He looked very stern when he got back into the car.
“Gordon, you’re sorry to be leaving?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I was just looking around for the last time. Sentimental, isn’t it? I’m not sorry I’m leaving. I would just like to take some things with me. It’s funny how you can get attached to an electric machine. Habit, ownership.”
“You don’t have to sell your practice, Gordon. Couldn’t we just go away for a while and then we could come back and you could start to work just where you left off?”
“That’s the hard way.”
“Why? You haven’t tried it. People in this day and age don’t look down on a man for living with a woman.”
“An insurance man, maybe not, or a truck driver. But a schoolteacher, a doctor, a dentist — it’s not enough to be able to teach or perform an operation or fill a tooth. We have to set an example. This isn’t L.A. or Hollywood, Ruby. They’re a hundred miles and fifty million light years away. My ability to fill teeth isn’t half as important as my morals.” He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t swing it, I’m too soft. It would hurt me if they said, ‘I certainly will not pay him any five dollars for cleaning my teeth just so he can spend it on that woman he’s living with.’ Don’t look surprised. People are funny, they’re pretty hard on people who do some of the things they themselves would like to do. So what I’d get if I stayed here is just that — unpaid bills, patients who want a bargain because they figure I couldn’t afford not to cut my prices, and maybe a few new patients who believe that any dentist who lives in sin should be willing to sell drugs on the side. No, I couldn’t face it.”