Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [76]
Yes. I made it exactly as strong as mine. As a matter of fact I had an extra one while you were upstairs. Where d you go to school?
University of Missouri.
Oh, did you? I was thinking of going to one of the Western Conference schools one time.
Well, you wouldn’t have gone to Missouri, then. Missouri isn’t in the Conference.
Oh, I thought it was.
No, she said. I started at Missouri before we came to Gibbsville. I was thinking of transferring to Columbia, to save the expense of train fare and so on, but I decided to stay out there. I studied journalism.
Oh, I see, he said. Her breasts were small. Practically non-existent while she had her dress on, but they would be neat. I m sorry in a way I didn’t transfer, because I d like to have spent a year or two in New York. Soon as I get enough money I m going to try to get a job on a New York paper. The World is the paper I d like to work on, but it s awfully hard to get a job there. It s awfully hard to get a job anywhere nowadays, at least on a paper. I have this friend of mine on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the best men they have, getting an awfully good salary. He went to New York on his vacation and he dropped in just to look around at one of the papers, and do you know what they offered him?
What?
Forty dollars a week! Good Lord, I m getting twenty, and I don t know a thing compared to him, but forty dollars a week. That was as high as they d go. You can imagine what he told them. She shook her head and reminisced with her eyes, not looking at Julian. So she felt more at ease with married men. How on earth does a man support a family on forty dollars a week? Oh, I know it s done, but on a paper I should think you d have to dress pretty well? Julian asked. That s exactly what this friend of mine said. He has a wife and child. He couldn’t begin to afford to live in New York. His friends are always saying, why doesn’t he go to New York. Well, that s the answer.
It certainly was, Julian reflected. It certainly was the answer. So a man with a wife and child had done it? That meant, most likely, that it had been done with more skill and regularity than if it had been done by a college boy. Drink? he said. Oh, all right, she said. He made the drinks and went back to her with a drink in each hand. But instead of handing her hers he put both drinks down together on the small table and sat down beside her. He put his hand under her chin and she turned her face and smiled and then she closed her eyes and her mouth was open before it touched his. She brought up her knee and pushed herself full-length out on the couch, and held his head with her hands over his ears. Just kiss me, she said, but she put her hand under his coat and opened his vest and shirt. No, she said. Just kiss me, She was terribly strong. Suddenly she jerked away from him. Whew! Come up for air, she said. He hated her more than anyone ever had hated anyone. Drink? he said. No, I don t think so. I must go.
Don t go, he said. He wanted to call her all kinds of bitches. Now is the best time, she said, but she did not get up. Well, it s up to you, he said. Listen, Joo-lian, she apologized by exaggerating the u in his name, if I stay here you know what ll happen.
All right, he said. Not all right at all. You’re married to a swell girl. I don t know her at all, but I know she s swell, and you don t give a damn about me. Oh, I don t want to talk about it. I admit, I have a yen for you, but but all the same I m going. Good-by, she said, and she would not let him help her with her coat. He heard the wurra-wurra of the starter in her car, but he was not thinking of her. He was thinking of the time after time he was going to hear those words in the future. You’re married to a swell girl. I don t know her at all (or, Caroline s one of my best friends ). & I have a yen for you, but all the same I m going. Miss Cartwright was already deep in the past, the musty part of the past, but now her words came out of the mouths of all the girls he wanted to see. Telephone operators, department store clerks, secretaries, wives of friends, girls in the school crowd, nurses all the pretty girls in Gibbsville, trying to make him believe they all loved Caroline. In that moment the break with Caroline ceased to look like the beginning of a vacation. Now it looked worse than anything, for he knew that plenty of girls would do anything with a married man so long as he was married, but in Gibbsville for the rest of his life he was Caroline s husband. There could be a divorce, Caroline could marry again for that matter, but no girl in Gibbsville worth having would risk the loss of reputation which would be her punishment for getting herself identified with him. He recalled a slang axiom that never had any meaning in college days: Don t buck the system; you