“What old man?”
“The boss: the President of the Californian Air Transport Corporation,” he said impatiently. “How was I to know he'd sneak out the back just when I . . .” He broke off and looked thoughtfully at her. “Well, I guess you'd better know the sordid details, Glorie. You and I have got on pretty well these past months. If I can't tell you the truth, then I guess I can't tell anyone.”
“I hope you really mean that,” she said, wanting to cry.
He leaned forward and put one large hand over both of hers.
“Of course I mean it. I don't know what it is about you, Glorie, but you're a good scout. We've had fun; you've been good to me. I could kick myself for being such a dim-brain. I was a little high. You know how a guy feels when he's carrying a load. That's what I like about you. You've been around. You know how it is.”
Yes, she had been around, she thought bitterly, and she knew how a guy felt when he was carrying a load. Sometimes she wished she didn't.
“Well, Harry?”
“Yeah.” He patted her hands and drew back, frowning again.
“Well, the air hostess . . . she had been giving me the come-on these past three trips. She's a pretty kid; bright as a diamond. It suddenly occurred to me it might be an idea . . . well, I don't have to draw you a map. I was crazy enough to bring a pint on board with me and I'd been hitting it. I got Tom to handle the kite and I went back stage. Right at the psychological moment, the old buzzard appeared like Hamlet's ghost. Boy! I thought he'd blow his top. He could scarcely wait for the touch down before he booted me out.”
The airhostess . . . a pretty kid . . . as bright as a diamond.
Those were the only words she really heard.
Somehow she managed to force a sympathetic smile.
“That was bad luck. I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry.” She tried to stop herself from going on, but she had to know. “And the girl? She and you . . .”
Harry shook his head.
“For heaven's sake! She's just a kid. She means nothing to me.
I don't know what I was thinking of. It was just one of those things: the come-on and too much liquor . . . you know how it is.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I could strangle her! If she hadn't made eyes at me, I wouldn’t be out of a job now.”
Glorie drew in a long, slow breath. She suddenly felt light headed.
“Well, you can get another job, Harry. This isn't the end of the world.”
He got abruptly to his feet and began to move around the room, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.
“It's the end of my world,” he said. “My world's in an aircraft. That's the only thing I care about: the only thing I'm any good at. The old man will see I don't get employment in the air again: he told me so. He has plenty of influence and he'll spread the good word. I can get some sort of job, but, let's face it, as a career man, I'm washed up for good and all.”
“Oh no, Harry. You'll get something good. You're smart. After all, being a crew captain was all right, but it wouldn't have led anywhere. You must know that. They don't want you when you get old.” Listen to who's talking about getting old, she thought bitterly.
“This may be a good thing for all you know. You're still young. You can start . . .”
Her voice died away as she saw him staring at her.
“Oh, skip it, Glorie. What do you know about it?” he said curtly.
She saw at once that she had made a mistake. She was intruding into part of a world he considered entirely his own.
“You're right,” she said. “I can't even look after my own life, let alone tell you how to look after yours. I'm sorry.”
He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another.
“Forget it.” He came over to sit by her side on the settee. “I had it coming. I can't blame the old buzzard really. What else could he have done? I was nuts to have fallen for that dizzy blonde. But it's tough on you Glorie. There won’t be any more dinners and movies for some time. I guess you'd better give me the gate. I'm not much use to you now.”
Her heart contracted. Perhaps after all this was a subtle brush off. Perhaps this story of losing his job was a lie: his idea of letting her down lightly.
“Of course it's not tough on me,” she said. “It's you I want: not your dinners and movies.”
He laughed, but she could see he was pleased.
“When you look like that I'm almost ready to believe you.”
“You must believe me.” She got up and lit a cigarette in sudden panic that her feelings might betray her and scare him away. She had a sudden idea and without pausing to think, she went on, “They say two can live cheaper than one. Do you want to move in here, Harry?” She waited, her heart pounding, waiting for him to refuse, sure he would refuse.
“Move in here? Do you mean it?” he asked, looking blankly at her. “I was wondering where I was going to find a cheaper place. I can't afford to keep on my apartment now. Anyway, the rent's due at the end of the week and I haven't got it. You really mean I can move in here?”
“Of course. Why not?” She turned away so he couldn't see the tears that blinded her. Even without money, without a career, she wanted him more than she wanted anything else in the world.
“Well, I don't know,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “People will think I'm living on you. Anyway, we'll probably get on each other's nerves. I'm pretty tough to live with. You're sure you're not kidding?”
“No.”
He stared at her back, puzzled by the unsteadiness of her voice. Then he moved to her and turned her around and stared at her.
“Why, Glorie! You're crying. What's there to cry about?”
“I wish I knew,” she said, pulled away from him and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I guess I just hate things going wrong for you, Harry.” She pulled herself together and smiled at him. “Are you going to move in?”
“I'd like to. It's good of you, Glorie. I'll get a job. I'll get something to carry us over; any damn thing. Look, suppose I go back to the apartment and pack right now? Okay for me to move in tonight?”
“Of course.” She slid her arms around his neck. “I'm so glad, Harry. I'll come with you. I'm good at packing, and then let's hock something and celebrate. Shall we?”
“You bet,” he said, grinning. “I'm looking forward to living here with you. We're going to have fun, baby.”
II
A week later, a few minutes after eight o'clock, Glorie came from the bathroom into her bedroom where Harry lay sleeping. She moved quietly so as not to disturb him, and sitting before the triple mirrors on her dressing table, she began to brush her hair.
It was only when you lived with people that you really got to know them, she thought looking at Harry in the reflection of the mirrors. The experiment had worked out better than she had hoped, but she was worried about him.
He had said he would get work to carry them over, but he hadn't. It was she who had managed to get a job as a manicurist at the Star hotel, a couple of blocks from her apartment. She wasn't making more than fifteen to twenty dollars a week, but it was better than nothing.
She wished Harry would take job-hunting more seriously. He seldom got up before eleven, then he would spend the rest of the morning studying the situations vacant ads in the paper. He would mark two or three of them and then wander out in the afternoon to see what was being offered.
He would come back soon after six, depressed and surly tempered, saying that he wasn't going to work for thirty bucks a week.
“Take a job like that, Glorie,” he told her, “and you're sunk. You get a thirty-buck mentality. I've got to stick out for something better.”