U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [475]
Agnes rushed in from the diningroom. "Oh, how dread-ful," she said. "I was listening. I thought maybe poor Mr. Anderson had left a trustfund for you.""That boy's got bats in his belfry," said Margo. A minute later the phone rang. It was Cliff with tears in his voice, apologizing, ask-ing if he couldn't come back to talk it over. "Not on your tintype," said Margo and hung up. "Wel , Agnes," said Margo as she came from the telephone, "that's that. . . . We've got to figure these things out. . . . Cliff's right about that old fool Cassidy. He never was in the picture
-389-anyways.""Such a dignified man," said Agnes, making clucking noises with her tongue.
Raymond announced dinner. Margo and Agnes ate
alone, each at one end of the long mahogany table covered with doilies and silverware. The soup was cold and too salty. "I've told that damn girl a hundred times not to do anything to the soup but take it out of the can and heat it," Margo said peevishly. "Oh, Agnes, please do the housekeeping . . . I can't get 'em to do anything right."
"Oh, I'd love to," said Agnes. "Of course I've never kept house on a scale like this.""We're not going to either," said Margo. "We've got to cut down."
"I guess I'd better write Miss Franklyn to see if she's got another job for me."
"You just wait a little while," said Margo. "We can stay on here for a couple months. I've got an idea it would do Tony good down here. Suppose we send him his ticket to come down? Do you think he'd sel it on me and hit the dope again?""But he's cured. He told me himself he'd straightened out completely." Agnes began to blubber over her plate.
"Oh, Margo, what an openhanded girl you are . . . just like your poor mother . . . always thinking of others."
When Tony got to Miami he looked pale as a mealy-worm but lying on the beach in the sun and dips in the breakers soon got him into fine shape. He was good as gold and seemed very grateful and helped Agnes with the
housework, as they'd let the maids go; Agnes declared she couldn't do anything with them and would rather do the work herself. When men Margo knew came around she introduced him as a Cuban relative. But he and Agnes mostly kept out of sight when she had company. Tony was tickled to death when Margo suggested he learn to drive the car. He drove fine right away, so they could let Raymond go. One day when he was getting ready to drive her over to meet some big realtors at Cocoanut Grove,
-390-Margo suggested, just as a joke, that Tony try to see if Raymond's old uniform wouldn't fit him. He looked fine. in it. When she suggested he wear it when he drove her he went into a tantrum, and talked about honor and man-hood. She cooled him down saying that the whole thing was a joke and he said, wel , if it was a joke, and wore it. Margo could tel he kinder liked the uniform because she saw him looking at himself in it in the pierglass in the hal . Miami realestate was on the skids, but Margo managed to make a hundred thousand dol ars' profit on the options she held; on paper. The trouble was that she' couldn't get any cash out of her profits.
The twins she'd met at Coral Gables gave her plenty of advice but she was leery, and advice was al they did give her. They were always around in the evenings and Sun-days, eating up everything Agnes had in the icebox and drinking al the liquor and talking big about the good things they were going to put youal onto. Agnes said she never shook the sand out of her beachslippers without expecting to find one of the twins in it. And they never came across with any parties either, didn't even bring around a bottle of scotch once in a while. Agnes was kinder soft on them because Al made a fuss over her while Ed was trying to make Margo. One Sunday when they'd al been lying in the sun on the beach and sopping up cock-tails al afternoon Ed broke into Margo's room when she was dressing after they'd come in to change out of their bathingsuits and started tearing her wrapper off her. She gave him a poke but he was drunk as a fool and came at her worse than ever. She had to yel for Tony to come in and play the heavy husband. Tony was white as a sheet and trembled al over, but he managed to pick up a chair and was going to crown Ed with it when Al and Agnes came in to see what the racket was about. Al stuck by Ed and gave Tony a poke and yel ed that he was a pimp and that they were a couple of goddam whores. Margo was scared. They