U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [512]
"The lad's got looks," said the girl. "But has he any brains?" Dick began to feel better with the onionsoup and the third cocktail. He began to tel them how he envied them being kids and getting married. He promised he'd be bestman. When they asked him why he didn't get mar-ried himself he confusedly had some more drinks and said his life was a shambles. He made fifteen thousand a year but he never had any money. He knew a dozen beautiful women but he never had a girl when he needed her. Al the time he was talking he was planning in the back of his head a release on the need for freedom of selfmedi-cation. He couldn't stop thinking about that damned Bing-ham account. It was beginning to get dark when they came out of
"63". A feeling of envy stung him as he put the young people into a taxi. He felt affectionate and amorous and nicely buoyed up by the radiating warmth of food and alcohol in his bel y. He stood for a minute on the corner of Madison Avenue watching the lively beforechristmas crowd pour along the sidewalk against the bright show-windows, al kinds of faces flushed and healthylooking for
-483-once in the sharp cold evening in the slanting lights. Then he took a taxi down to Twelfth Street.
The colored maid who let him in was wearing a pretty lace apron. "Hel o, Cynthia.""How do you do, Mr. Dick." Dick could feel the impatient blood pounding in his temples as he walked up and down the old uneven par-quet floor waiting. Eveline was smiling when she came out from the back room. She'd put too much powder on her face in too much of a hurry and it brought out the drawn lines between her nostrils and her mouth and gave her nose a floury look. Her voice stil had a lovely swing to it. " Dick, I thought you'd given me up."
"I've been working like a dog. . . . I've gotten so my brain won't work. I thought it would do me good to see you." She handed him a Chinese porcelain box with ciga-rettes in it. They sat down side by side on a rickety old-fashioned horsehair sofa. "How's Jeremy?" asked Dick in a cheerful tone.
Her voice went flat. "He's gone out west with Paul for Christmas."
"You must miss him . . . I'm disappointed myself. I love the brat."
" Paul and I have final y decided to get a divorce . . . in a friendly way."
" Eveline, I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"I dunno. . . . It does seem sil y. . . . But I always liked Paul."
"It al got just too tiresome. . . . This way it'l be much better for him." There was something cool y bitter about her as she sat beside him in her a little too frizzy afternoondress. He felt as if he was meeting her for the first time. He picked up her long blueveined hand and put it on the little table in front of them and patted it. "I like you better
. . . anyway." It sounded phony in his ears, like something
-484-he'd say to a client. He jumped to his feet. "Say, Eveline, suppose I cal up Settignano and get some gin around?
I've got to have a drink. . . . I can't get the office out of my head."
"If you go back to the icebox you'l find some perfectly lovely cocktails al mixed. I just made them. There are some people coming in later.""How much later?""About seven o'clock . . . why?" Her eyes fol owed him teas-ingly as he went back through the glass doors. In the pantry the colored girl was putting on her hat.
" Cynthia, Mrs. Johnson al eges there are cocktails out here.""Yes, Mr. Dick, I'l get you some glasses.""Is this your afternoon out?""Yessir, I'm goin' to church."
"On Saturday afternoon?""Yessir, our church we have services every Saturday afternoon .
. . lots of folks don't get Sunday off nowadays.""It's gotten so I don't get any day off at al .""It shoa is too bad, Mr. Dick." He went back into the front room shakily, carrying the tray with the shaker jiggling on it. The two glasses clinked.
"Oh, Dick, I'm going to have to reform you. Your hands are shaking like an old greybeard's.""Wel , I am an old greybeard. I'm worrying myself to death about whether that bastardly patentmedicine king wil sign on the dotted line Monday."
"Don't talk about it. . . . It sounds just too awful. I've been working hard myself . . . I'm trying to put on a play."