Read Online Ice-Cream Headache by James Jones - Free Book Online Page B

The tall curly-haired Tom came in, swinging his left side in a peculiar rhythm. After him came the two women, one tall and blonde, the other short and dark. They both smiled shyly as they entered. They both were young.
    “Oh,” said the short one. “This is pretty.”
    “Its awful pretty,” the blonde one said, looking around.
    “You goddam right its pretty,” George said belligerently. “And its built for utility. Look at them cupboards.”
    George introduced the girls by their first names, like a barker in a sideshow naming the attractions.
    “An this heres Tom Hornney,” he said, “and when I say Hornney, I mean Hornney.” George laughed and Tom grinned and the two girls tittered nervously.
    “I want you all to meet Miss Sandy Thomas,” George said, as if daring them.
    “Sure,” Tom said. “I know all about you. I use to read your letters out in Utah.”
    George looked at Sandy sheepishly. “A man gets so he can’t believe it himself. He gets so he’s got to show it to somebody. That’s the way it is in the Army.”
    Sandy smiled at him stiffly, her eyes seeming not to see. “How do you want your drinks? Soda or Coke?”
    “They want Coke with theirs,” Tom pointed to the girls. “They don’t know how to drink.”
    “This is really a beautiful place,” the blonde one said.
    “Oh my yes,” the short one said. “I wish I ever had a place like this here.”
    Sandy looked up from the drinks and smiled, warmly. “Thank you.”
    “I really love your place,” the blonde one said. “Where did you get those funny spotted glasses? I seen some like them in a Woolworth’s once.”
    George, laughing over something with Tom, turned to the blonde one. “Shut up, for god sake. You talk too much. You’re supposed to be seen.”
    “Or felt,” Tom said.
    “I was only being polite,” the blonde one said.
    “Well, don’t,” George said. “You don’t know how.”
    “Well,” said the blonde one. “I like that.”
    “Those are antiques, dear,” Sandy said to her. “I bought them off an old woman down in the country. Woolworth has reproductions of them now.”
    “You mean them are genuine antiques?” the short one said.
    Sandy nodded, handing around the drinks.
    “For god sake, shut up,” George said. “Them’s genuine antiques and they cost ten bucks apiece, so shut up. Talk about something interesting.”
    The short one made a little face at George. She turned to Sandy and whispered delicately.
    “Surely,” Sandy said. “I’ll show you.”
    “See what I mean?” Tom laughed. “I said they couldn’t hold their liquor.”
    Sandy led the girls out of the kitchen. From the next room their voices came back, exclaiming delicately over the furnishings.
    “How long were you in the Army?” Sandy asked when they came back.
    “Five years,” Tom said, grinning and shaking his curly head. “My first wife left me three months after I got drafted.”
    “Oh?” Sandy said.
    “Yeah. I guess she couldn’t take the idea of not getting any for so long. It looked like a long war.”
    “War is hard on the women too,” Sandy said.
    “Sure,” Tom said. “I don’t see how they stand it. I’m glad I was a man in this war.”
    “Take it easy,” George growled.
    Tom grinned at him and turned back to Sandy. “I been married four times in five years. My last wife left me day before yesterday. She told me she was leaving and I said, Okay, baby. That’s fine. Only remember there won’t be nobody here when you come back. If I wanted, I could call her up right now and tell her and she’d start back tonight.”
    “Why don’t you?” Sandy said. “I’ve got a phone.”
    Tom laughed. “What the hell. I’m doin all right. Come here, baby,” he said to the blonde one, and patted his right leg. She came over, smiling, on his left side and started to sit on his lap.
    “No,” Tom said. “Go around to the other side. You can’t sit on that one.”
    The blonde one obeyed and walked around his