by Anita Shreve
“You know,” Vivian says, tilting her head and peering at her plate with unusual interest, “I don’t believe I’ve ever had a bologna sandwich.”
Sexton
Sexton inspects another sheet and cranks the cylinder with more force than is probably good for the machine. He cannot believe that just an hour ago his own wife sat at the table and made a fool out of him by not supporting what he had to say about guns. It’s perfectly obvious that without guns they cannot possibly win this thing, that it will go on forever.
And that’s the interesting part, he thinks, because he cannot quite make out why he does not want it to go on forever. It’s not having the men in his house — he likes that; it was always too quiet with just Honora and him. And it certainly isn’t wanting to go back into the mill, because he doesn’t expect ever again to work there. He’s betting Mironson will be able to use him somewhere within his organization; or, better yet, maybe now he can get a job in sales. In January and February, when he went out looking for a job, he had a sorry attitude; he was defeated before he’d even begun. Now he feels anything but defeated. What he feels now is . . . Well, what he feels now is that he’s just itching for something to happen.
He thought he could make that sale.
He was sure he could convince Ross and Mironson and Tsomides — Ross a kind of sergeant mobilizing supplies and troops, Mironson a tactical general, thinking things through in that droopy way of his, and Tsomides because he’d been injured. As for McDermott, Sexton isn’t sure where he fits in, but McDermott wasn’t there at lunch, so it was only Ross and Mironson and Tsomides Sexton really had to sell. But none of them was buying. Sexton argued that at the very least they should give guns to the strike leaders so they could protect themselves against the special deputies, who everyone knows are no more than thugs hired by the bosses. He was concerned that the special deputies might one day show up at Fortune’s Rocks, he said, thinking that the image of a man protecting his home might sway the others. They couldn’t keep this place a secret forever, he said, and, frankly, he was amazed they’d kept it a secret this long.
Still Mironson wouldn’t bite.
Maybe McDermott is the guy to convince, Sexton thinks. No, McDermott would never go against Ross and Mironson. You can just tell the guy’s not on board one hundred percent. Kind of a dreamy fellow, actually — probably because he can’t hear too well. And that’s another thing that’s got Sexton stumped. Why do they have a deaf guy on the team? Seems like a big liability to him.
He cranks the sheets out as fast as he can now. It galls him that he prints only the agendas. Nobody reads the stuff anyway, as far as he can tell. The real juice is in the newsletter with that dopey name. Amazing how that thing has gotten so popular. It seems like they spend half of their supply money these days on paper. At least Mironson has got Sexton running the books. Mironson could hardly work the adding machine they bought, and no one else wanted to, so that job fell to Sexton, which was something. But it’s a backroom kind of job, and Sexton wants to be out front, which is where he should be. Making sales.
As for Honora, he will deal with her later. Tell her to button her lip. Well, he won’t put it quite that way, but he’ll let her know that he didn’t like it, doesn’t want it to happen again. Although when he’ll tell her this is a mystery. She’s always doing the dishes when he goes up to the bedroom these days, and usually he is so tired — with a little help from the booze — he can’t stay awake long enough to wait for her. And when he opens his eyes in the morning, she’s already up and in the kitchen making breakfast. He’ll have to corner her before he leaves, though he doesn’t want another scene like the one they had in the kitchen that first weekend. McDermott heard that one, Sexton is sure of it.
A wife should be respectful. Not contradict her husband at the table. Not in front of the men.
He wonders if he should start looking now for a job, see what’s out there in sales. Even if he has to go a little distance, say back to Portsmouth. Honora is used to living with him away for stretches at a time. She could manage by herself; she’s good at that. But who knows how long this strike thing will last? He can’t see abandoning the team until it’s over. It had better be over by October, he thinks, or those poor bastards will all freeze to death over there in that tent city. What a dump. He hates it when he has to go in there with Mironson and Ross. The place smells like an outhouse that hasn’t been emptied in years.
He checks the height of the pile of printed papers against his other stack. He has to collate and staple now. Most of the time he feels like a goddamn secretary. The adding machine and the Copiograph are women’s tools — not a man’s. And he should be in the front office, not the back room. He should be making his sales.
Honora
On Friday evenings, when Sexton comes home from a week in the city, he is carrying a bag of laundry. The smell of metal is in the shirts, and sometimes it snows lint when Honora upends the clothing from the bag. On Saturday mornings, she washes the clothes against the metal rungs of the scrub board and puts them through the wringer. She hangs the clothes out to dry — six shirts, two pairs of pants, neither of which is really suitable for work in the mill (or picketing, for that matter), five pairs of underwear, and five pairs of socks. She doesn’t mind the washing, though the winter washing was the worst. The clothes froze into stiff shapes on the line, and sometimes Honora had to bring them in to warm them over the stove one by one. She worried about fire, and she minded not having money sometimes for proper soap.
Since the strike, however, the laundry has been sporadic, and she gets it done when she can. Thus it is that shortly after she has finished the lunch dishes (every bit of the bologna sandwiches and coleslaw and oatmeal cookies eaten) and has shooed Alphonse, who arrived midlunch and who followed Honora into the kitchen (like a stray animal, she thinks fondly), out of the house, she takes Sexton’s bag of dirty laundry from its place by the back door and upends it onto the porch. Nearly a week’s worth of clothing tumbles out: the shirts, the pants, the underwear, the socks, and various assorted handkerchiefs. She looks at the pile of clothing, ordinary enough, and thinks how much easier the laundry is to do since Sexton has been out of the mill.
A blot of orange catches her eye.
She bends to pick up a handkerchief. Once before, she saw a similar smear of orange on the front of a blue work shirt, and she thought at the time, insofar as she thought of it at all, that it was a spill of food from the boardinghouse — squash or turnip, possibly, or Campbell’s tomato soup. But this time, the imprint on the handkerchief is so distinctive that it cannot be mistaken for food of any sort. Honora’s fingers open, and the handkerchief floats to the floor. She puts her hand to her chest, unable to make a sound — the sort of essential nonsound she might make if confronted by a man with a gun. When at last she can breathe, she picks up the handkerchief and fingers the blot. She knows precisely what it is. She even knows the brand. Ruth Shaw used to wear it to McNiven’s on Saturday nights.
Honora walks upstairs to the bedroom and lays the handkerchief upon the bed, smoothing the corners as she does so. She sits on a chair and waits. She knows that Sexton will come. He had ink on the front of his shirt at lunch, and he will, sooner or later, want to change it for a fresh one.
She is sitting by the window when he enters the room. “What are you doing over there?” he asks, already pulling the tails of his shirt from his trousers.
The handkerchief is spread out upon the bedspread like a scarf displayed on a department store counter, the orange blot a price tag. She watches him study the handkerchief, the moment of recognition.
Of course he will feign ignorance, she thinks. He will try to bluff his way through. He is, after all, a salesman who has not entirely lost his touch.
“It’s lipstick,” she says.
“What?” He seems completely unconcerned as he unbuttons his shirt.
“It’s lipstick,” she repeats. “The orange bit.”
“So?�
��
“So?” she repeats.
“So there’s lipstick on a handkerchief,” he says, slipping the shirt off and tossing it on the bed — almost but not quite covering the offensive handkerchief. “It must be yours,” he says.
“No,” she says, mildly astonished that he seems unaware of the fact that she hardly ever wears lipstick now.
“Maybe I lent the handkerchief to Vivian,” he says.
“You’d have to shoot Vivian before she’d wear that brand of lipstick,” Honora says.
“How would I know who used the handkerchief?” he says. “I could have lent it to almost anyone.”
Neither of them moves — she by the window, Sexton peering down at the bed as if he stood at the precipice of the Grand Canyon.
“Honora,” he says.
“What?” she asks, looking up at him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she says, rubbing her eyes.
“You’re exhausted,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” he says, pulling a clean shirt from a shelf in the closet. “I guess I’ll just have to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Benefit of the doubt?” she says, looking up.
“Today at lunch. That was uncalled for.”
“That was my opinion,” she says.
“But it was humiliating,” he says. “A wife doesn’t contradict her husband in public.”
“It was merely an opinion,” she says. “It wasn’t meant to humiliate you. It’s what I think. I think guns are a terrible idea.”
“And what are you going to do when thugs show up here with sledgehammers and baseball bats?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she says, “because most of the time I’m alone here.”
“Just my point,” he says.
“For heaven’s sake, Sexton. Surely you don’t expect me to carry a gun.”
And, no, he does not expect her to carry a gun; it is he who wants a gun. “I really don’t understand you,” he says, turning toward her and tucking in the shirt. “First you make a fool of me at lunch, and then you suggest I’ve been . . . what? . . . playing around? You used to have more sense than this, Honora.”
The marriage might so easily end, she thinks. It could end right this minute. It is both a frightening and a thrilling thought.
Her silence makes him anxious. And anxious, he isn’t at all handsome. His eyes seem to settle closer together even as she watches. He puts a hand to his forehead, a man in anguish. “I’ve never given you a single reason to suspect a thing,” he says, and perhaps he sounds a bit more righteous than he needs to.
Honora glances out the window and then back again. Is it possible she has made a mistake?
“Cooking and cleaning for all these people,” he says, deftly collecting both the dirty shirt and the handkerchief in one swipe with his hand. She watches as he balls the shirt and throws it into a corner. Though she doesn’t see him do it, she is almost certain that he has pocketed the handkerchief. “I’ll tell them to leave,” he says.
“Don’t do that,” she says.
“I probably just lent it to someone on the line,” he says.
Is it possible she has misread the orange blot, that it’s as innocent as he says?
“Come on, Honora,” Sexton says, moving toward her. He touches her shoulder and she flinches. He stands behind her chair and begins to rub the back of her neck. “Why don’t you take a nap?”
Perhaps it is only the strike, she thinks. Or the men in her house. Or the work on the newsletter. She is not herself. No, she is not herself at all.
Sexton walks to the bed and turns the chenille bedspread down invitingly. Honora can hear the printing press with its clunky, rhythmic movements, a high feminine laugh, men’s voices on the porch. Out on the beach, McDermott and Alphonse are throwing a ball, with Sandy running back and forth between them. A gull swoops down in front of the window and flutters in place for a moment.
Honora stands and moves to the bed. She climbs inside and closes her eyes. She can feel her husband’s lips on her cheek.
“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he says.
She hears him crossing the room, opening the door and then closing it with a soft click. She rolls away from the door and sleeps as she has not slept in weeks.
Delicate fingers are smoothing the hair off her forehead.
“Hey, sweetie,” Vivian says.
Honora struggles to sit up. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight-thirty.”
“Really? I slept that long? You’ve all eaten?”
“We’ve all eaten. Ross cooked.”
Honora rubs her eyes. “You’re kidding,” she says.
“I kid you not. And it was good, if you can believe it.”
“What was it?”
“Some kind of lamb stew. Irish, he says. But listen.” Vivian sits at the edge of the bed. “Sadie’s downstairs. She arrived before dinner. Ross says he knows of a dance hall in Rye, and Louis says we all deserve a night off. So how about it?”
“Now?” Honora asks.
“We’ll wait for you,” Vivian says.
“He doesn’t look old enough. They won’t let him into the dance hall,” Ross is saying. He has combed his hair and has on red suspenders for the special occasion.
“Bet they will,” Tsomides answers.
* * *
“If he can’t get in, someone will have to come back with him,” Ross says, a bit of a grumble in his voice.
“I’ll wait outside,” Alphonse says quietly, looking as though he wishes he could disappear through the floor.
“For crying out loud, he’s taller than I am,” Sadie Vassos says, and this is, of course, perfectly true. Sadie, barely five feet, stands next to Alphonse in her denim overalls and a white blouse. Often she wears a worker’s cap, but not tonight. Tonight she is going dancing. She hooks an arm through Alphonse’s. “You’ll be my date,” she says.
“Okay, that’s settled,” Sexton says, patting his oiled curls in place. He glances over at Honora and then away. “Let’s head out, gang.”
Ross, Alphonse, Sadie, Sexton, and Tsomides, who still wears a bandage on his head, ride in Mahon’s bread truck, while Honora and Louis and McDermott slide into Vivian’s wagon. McDermott has a bottle, and Louis, who is wedged between Honora and McDermott, takes a swig and wipes his mouth. He passes the bottle to Honora, who has a drink as well, at once realizing that this is probably a very bad idea; she hasn’t eaten since lunch. “Gin?” she asks.
“Mahon’s best,” McDermott says.
“Good to blow off some steam,” Louis says. The gin spreads slowly inside Honora and makes the idea of a dance hall in another town seem immensely appealing.
“I couldn’t agree more,” she says.
“Need a break once in a while,” Louis says.
It is more roadhouse than dance hall, and no one looks askance at Alphonse. Next to the band, an area has been roped off, and at this early hour there are only three couples moving to the music. Ross and McDermott slide two round tables together, stealing chairs from other parts of the room. Alphonse, in his best white shirt, looks thoroughly pleased with himself. He orders a Coca-Cola, and Ross, while McDermott has his head turned, pours a dollop of rum from a bottle badly hidden in a paper bag into Alphonse’s drink. The paper bags are everywhere, Honora notes, their necks twisted at the top, fooling no one. She thinks that the Rye police must have a generously blind eye; all the patrons seem relaxed, not expecting a raid anytime soon.
Theoretically one can get food at a roadhouse, though Honora has not seen a waitress pass by their table. She is hungry and shouldn’t be drinking until she has eaten, and, well, she is just not a very good drinker anyway. But Alphonse is clearly so happy and Vivian is just hooting away and Sexton is locked in conversation with Sadie and McDermott has returned with two glasses and a bottle of tonic water and seems to be making drinks for both of them.
“Somebody shut the mick up,” Tsomides says from the end of the table.
“Hey, Tsomides, I think a little brains spilled out when you got hit,” Ross says.
“Marriage is bondage,” Sadie Vassos is saying, holding a glass filled mostly with ice to her cheek. “The sexual act should not be subject to the state.”
Honora glances quickly at Alphonse and notes that he is even more bug-eyed than usual. She is going to have to tell Ross to cut it out with the rum. “I’m sorry we missed our swimming lesson today,” she says to the boy. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“You believe in free love, Louis,” Sadie says emphatically. She spits tobacco juice into an ashtray on the table, and Vivian says Really.
“I believe in it,” Louis says, “though I don’t know that I’ve ever practiced it.”
“Whereas I,” Vivian says, “have practiced it and don’t believe in it.”
“Hey, baby,” Ross says with a low whistle.
“I am, however, very, very discriminating,” Vivian says, giving Ross the eye.
“Did you get to try the peach ice cream?” Honora asks Alphonse, who has his feet hooked around the rungs of the wooden chair.
“I had two bowls,” he says.
“I was thinking about trying blueberry,” Honora says, “since it’s the season now.” She takes a sip of her gin and tonic, which tastes unaccountably good tonight.
“I used to live on a blueberry farm,” Alphonse says.
“Did you?” asks Honora, truly surprised. She knows so little about Alphonse. “When was this?”
“Until I was nine,” he says. “The farm went bad.”
“You say a vow, you make a commitment, and then you have to honor that commitment,” Sexton, astonishingly, is saying from his place at the middle of the table. Honora has noticed that whenever they gather, whether for a meal or a meeting, Sexton manages to insinuate himself into the center of it. His hair is perfectly parted, the dark blond curls as sleek as a movie star’s. His mustache is groomed and waxed. It would be impossible to tell, she thinks, looking at him, that he is a ring spinner in the Ely Falls Mill.