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Authors: John D. MacDonald
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already fired you.”
“So I’m a weak sentimental failure. Or I’m a cold superior person. And you haven’t decided which.”
“You are cold and indifferent and hateful. And if you’d done your job as well as I did mine, you’d have been running that company instead of just being some kind of clerk.”
“A vice-president, damn it!”
“And you’re proud of that? Gee! I remember you telling me when Vance made every salesman a vice-president so they could get in to see more purchasing agents.”
“You are not happy unless you’re pulling me down. What you are is an emasculator. Maybe I would have done better if you hadn’t been all the time right behind me, destroying my confidence.”
“Destroying! That’s a wicked thing to say. I always tried to make you feel as if—”
“I couldn’t do one damn thing right.”
“Oh, you are so rotten and unfair. So-o-o unfair to me.”
Elda stood there, facing him, her face crumpled with despair, and he knew that his next line was supposed to be an accusation about overacting, and then she would get back to his mother, and then transpose into his talent for spoiling things for everybody. Then he would go storming out in an enormous rage and come back later and they would comfort each other with a sexual solution.
But the little anger he had drummed up had dwindled. He felt tired and misplaced. Quarreling was an evening affair, or a weekendaffair. Not here in the sunlight, like this. He couldn’t storm out saying he was going to the office, or to the club. What he wanted to do, actually, was try the new reel.
The pain and drama ebbed from her small face and she looked at him with growing concern when he did not respond.
“What’s the matter, dear?” she asked earnestly.
“I don’t know. I feel confused, sort of.”
“What about?”
“I stopped being angry. I don’t think I could get sore no matter what you say.”
“Is that some new kind of way of saying you don’t …”
“No. No, Elda. We’re here. How we got here is past history. You do what you do, and I do what I do. Maybe we’ll live longer. Maybe, hell, it will seem longer.”
“Why do you say a thing like that?”
“You’re still wanting to fight. I’m trying to say I’d
like
to fight. Okay? It’s something I’m used to. But I got to be angry or it’s just saying lines I know by heart.”
“George!”
“Look, I want to try out casting with the new reel, okay? I’m going down to the bay side. Want to come along?”
“The bugs are fierce. Well … sure. Give me five minutes.”
As she changed she kept worrying about George, and she kept telling herself it was probably a good thing if they could stop having these nasty fights every so often, saying terrible things. She told herself she had always wished they could stop fighting. Maybe they had, now. She wondered why she should feel frightened. No, not frightened. Threatened.
5
WHEN HIS SECRETARY told him Loretta Rosen was on the line, Greg McKay’s heart gave a happy bound. Maybe, at long last, she had managed to rent one of those goddam apartments at Golden Sands to some off-season pigeon. To have at least one of the three rented would partially staunch a flowing wound.
“Hey, Loretta. What’s the good word?”
“The good word, darling, is one you won’t hear me saying over the phone. In fact, I don’t want to say any of this over the phone.”
“What’s the matter? Didn’t they like it?”
“They both thought the apartment was absolutely darling. They are a nice quiet couple, thinking in terms of a lease for one year before deciding whether or not to buy on the beach. I should have closed it right then and there, six hundred a month. But I always close in the office. How could I know? How could I guess?”
“Know what? Guess what?”
“A veritable plague of urchins, dearie. Little brown foulmouthedones. They came charging around a corner by the elevators and knocked Mrs. Granlund right onto her
“So I’m a weak sentimental failure. Or I’m a cold superior person. And you haven’t decided which.”
“You are cold and indifferent and hateful. And if you’d done your job as well as I did mine, you’d have been running that company instead of just being some kind of clerk.”
“A vice-president, damn it!”
“And you’re proud of that? Gee! I remember you telling me when Vance made every salesman a vice-president so they could get in to see more purchasing agents.”
“You are not happy unless you’re pulling me down. What you are is an emasculator. Maybe I would have done better if you hadn’t been all the time right behind me, destroying my confidence.”
“Destroying! That’s a wicked thing to say. I always tried to make you feel as if—”
“I couldn’t do one damn thing right.”
“Oh, you are so rotten and unfair. So-o-o unfair to me.”
Elda stood there, facing him, her face crumpled with despair, and he knew that his next line was supposed to be an accusation about overacting, and then she would get back to his mother, and then transpose into his talent for spoiling things for everybody. Then he would go storming out in an enormous rage and come back later and they would comfort each other with a sexual solution.
But the little anger he had drummed up had dwindled. He felt tired and misplaced. Quarreling was an evening affair, or a weekendaffair. Not here in the sunlight, like this. He couldn’t storm out saying he was going to the office, or to the club. What he wanted to do, actually, was try the new reel.
The pain and drama ebbed from her small face and she looked at him with growing concern when he did not respond.
“What’s the matter, dear?” she asked earnestly.
“I don’t know. I feel confused, sort of.”
“What about?”
“I stopped being angry. I don’t think I could get sore no matter what you say.”
“Is that some new kind of way of saying you don’t …”
“No. No, Elda. We’re here. How we got here is past history. You do what you do, and I do what I do. Maybe we’ll live longer. Maybe, hell, it will seem longer.”
“Why do you say a thing like that?”
“You’re still wanting to fight. I’m trying to say I’d
like
to fight. Okay? It’s something I’m used to. But I got to be angry or it’s just saying lines I know by heart.”
“George!”
“Look, I want to try out casting with the new reel, okay? I’m going down to the bay side. Want to come along?”
“The bugs are fierce. Well … sure. Give me five minutes.”
As she changed she kept worrying about George, and she kept telling herself it was probably a good thing if they could stop having these nasty fights every so often, saying terrible things. She told herself she had always wished they could stop fighting. Maybe they had, now. She wondered why she should feel frightened. No, not frightened. Threatened.
5
WHEN HIS SECRETARY told him Loretta Rosen was on the line, Greg McKay’s heart gave a happy bound. Maybe, at long last, she had managed to rent one of those goddam apartments at Golden Sands to some off-season pigeon. To have at least one of the three rented would partially staunch a flowing wound.
“Hey, Loretta. What’s the good word?”
“The good word, darling, is one you won’t hear me saying over the phone. In fact, I don’t want to say any of this over the phone.”
“What’s the matter? Didn’t they like it?”
“They both thought the apartment was absolutely darling. They are a nice quiet couple, thinking in terms of a lease for one year before deciding whether or not to buy on the beach. I should have closed it right then and there, six hundred a month. But I always close in the office. How could I know? How could I guess?”
“Know what? Guess what?”
“A veritable plague of urchins, dearie. Little brown foulmouthedones. They came charging around a corner by the elevators and knocked Mrs. Granlund right onto her
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