“I like to walk fast,” she said.
Josephine giggled. “I can’t say the same for myself, right now. I’ve gotten so I just hate to move, unless Harold’s around to help me up out of chairs and things like that.”
“I should change my dress.”
“It’ll dry in a minute on a day like this.”
“I’ll go and change it. I shouldn’t be working around in the kitchen in a good dress like this. It’s wasteful.”
She went into her bedroom, shutting the door against Josephine. Quite frequently lately, the sound of Josephine’s gentle voice talking about Harold, and the sight of her distended abdomen and swollen breasts, set Ruth’s nerves on edge. She wasn’t sure why she had these violent reactions to Josephine. They came at her suddenly, in the midst of quite ordinary conversations about the baby’s name, or the number of diapers that would be necessary, or the house Josephine meant to have someday down by the sea.
“Not a big house. Two bedrooms, that will be enough.”
“You’ll get the fog down there.”
“I don’t care, I never get tired looking at the sea.”
“If you build above the fog line it would be better for the baby.”
“And wistaria vines over the front veranda. I’m crazy about wistaria.”
“It’s all right when it’s in bloom, but think of when it isn’t. It looks like old dead twigs.”
“And maybe a very small orchard, a couple of orange trees and an avocado. And a jacaranda, just to look at.”
“They say you’ve got to plant two avocados side by side, a single one won’t bear fruit.”
“I never heard of that.”
“You’ve got to be careful about jacarandas too. Some of them never bloom and some bloom in fits, maybe every few years. They’re very temperamental, someone told me.”
“My goodness, Ruth, you’ve said something kind of unpleasant about every single one of my ideas.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You have so. About the fog line and the wistarias and the jacaranda—”
“I was just urging you to be careful.”
“Well, it didn’t sound like it. It sounded like—”
Josephine couldn’t explain what it sounded like, and Ruth, who might have explained, didn’t try. It sounded as if she was jealous of Josephine with her baby who hadn’t arrived yet, the two-bedroom house that hadn’t been built, and the jacaranda that wasn’t planted. But she knew she wasn’t jealous of the baby, the tree, the house, only of Josephine’s capacity for dreaming of such things.
She took off the crepe dress she always wore to the Fosters’ on Saturday nights. Where the water had touched it, the crepe had puckered and the imprint of her hands was now indistinct and no larger than a child’s. She hung the dress on her side of the closet she shared with Hazel.
Standing in her white cotton slip, Ruth heard her heart knocking against the bones of her chest, extraordinarily loud and distinct in the stifling closet. It was the heartbeat of fear. She felt that her life was changing, but she didn’t know in which way and she was afraid to have it change at all. The indications of change were there. They were very small things that someone else mightn’t notice, little wings beating against the thin brittle walls of her world like moths at a window.
Dr. Foster had left, and though he scarcely knew she was alive, his leaving affected her. There would be no more Saturday nights for her, telling stories to Paul and Judith and giving the baby his bottle, and probably even no more job for Hazel. The four of them, and the fifth to come, would be forced to live on Hazel’s alimony and Harold’s wages, while the cost of living kept going up and up and up.
The excitement she felt when she entered the house had been only carbonated fear and now that the bubbles had disappeared she recognized it for what it was. She was terrified by the intricate complexities of even one small human act. A man who was almost a stranger to her had decided to leave his wife, and by this decision he had involved not only himself and his family and the girl, but herself and Hazel and Josephine and Harold and the baby, even the dog. Perhaps in the end, she thought desperately, everyone in the world was affected by the actions of every other person, a chain reaction was set up that never ceased. It went on and on, an interminable string tying them all together in an inextricably knotted mass. There was no escape, it was a universal law: one drop of water couldn’t be displaced without affecting all the other drops.
She stood in the narrow closet listening to her fearful heart and the pressing of the wind against the windows. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t take one step forward or backward for fear that step would be heard around the world.
At that moment she came, as close as she’d ever come, to some kind of revelation, but the moment passed and her mind had to withdraw to protect itself. She began to grope for some simple easy explanation that would shift the weight of responsibility. It’s this wind, she thought. I always get nervy like this when the wind blows in from the desert. It used to affect my classes too. The children were all cross and I had quite a time controlling them. They used to sag over their desks, their eyes reddened with dust—
She put on a wrap-around cotton dress that Josephine had given to her when Josephine had become too big to wear it any longer. She felt quite ashamed of herself for becoming irritated with Josephine. It was the wind, of course. Now that she realized that fact, she could discipline herself better. For the rest of the day she would force herself to be pleasant and to smile when she didn’t feel like it. She had the will power, she could do it. Ignore the desert wind.
She heard the front door slam and she knew it must be Hazel coming home because Harold always closed doors very softly to avoid startling Josephine. Bracing herself (against the wind, the drop of water, the knot of string) she went out to the living room.
She told Hazel the news while Hazel sat on the davenport rubbing her eyes.
“You don’t seem very surprised,” Ruth said.
“Not so very. My God, it’s hot. Is there some cold juice or something in the refrigerator?”
“Grapefruit juice. Don’t rub your eyes like that. You’re only rubbing the dust in, not getting it out.”
“It feels good anyway.”
“If you’re not surprised it means you must have had your suspicions all along. Mrs. Foster asked me that last night, and I said, of course not. Hazel’s never said a word except what a wonderful man Dr. Foster is. I said, I’m sure Hazel would never condone anything like that.”
“Like what?”
“His running around with other women.”
“He didn’t,” Hazel said deliberately. “There was just one woman.”
“How do you know?”
“Someone told me.”
“That’s even worse. It — it practically proves that they were — cohabiting.”
“If they weren’t, they soon will be.”
“I’m shocked to the core by your attitude, Hazel. You don’t seem to realize—”
“How’s Elaine taking it?”
“How would anyone take it? She’s beside herself, the poor woman. This morning he had the nerve to phone her and tell her, bold as brass, to go out and get a divorce. Naturally she refused. She said never, no matter what happens, will she disgrace her church and her parents and her children by becoming a divorced woman. And I agree with her. She’s convinced that divorce is wrong and I admire her for standing by her convictions.”
“Crap.”
Ruth’s face grew pale with disapproval. “I wish you — you really shouldn’t use words like that, Hazel. I know it’s your house and all that but—”
“All right, I’ll say baloney then, but it’s the same thing no matter how you slice it.”
“Really, Hazel!”