The little kid was as game as anythink, Ernie told himself as he rubbed the bump that was comink up on the little kid’s head. Janie got red in the face; she bit her underlip, her eyes were stricken with effort, but she didn’t cry because she had found out a long time ago that no one paid much attention when she did.
Ernie didn’t know why he liked the little kid so much even if she was game as anythink. She had a lot of sense, he decided, and he had kept on rubbink the bump and sort of pattink her on the arm until the hurt began to go away. It was then that Janie fell in love for the first and, of its kind, the last time in her life. “Ernie,” she said, letting herself slide down against the wall and grabbing him fiercely around the knees.
After that, Janie started wearing her denture for Ernie although he seemed to like her just as well without it, and Ernie felt that he had to look out for the little kid, even if he still didn’t know why he liked her so much. He guessed he was sort of tired of old people, not that they wasn’t nice enough, the most of them, but they was aways havink attacts or somethink, and they sort of give him the creeps, especially that cruddy old pantrywoman that was aways tryink to make him eat somethink.
Ernie was used to looking out for people, what with his mother and his aunts and his Gram, but he didn’t have much time to think, on or off duty, because if his Gram didn’t want somethink, the Room Service Captain did. Ernie was zealous in the administration of all of his duties, he liked to please people, and people, generally, were pleased with him. That was why Ernie wasn’t a bus boy any longer, was practically a waiter.
At sixteen, Ernie was a success story and, at home, a man of parts, the head of the house, slippink his mother a five or a ten ever week, over and above his board money, and his board was clear profit. In the first place, Ernie didn’t have time to eat at home; he wasn’t there long enough except on his day off, and two meals a day was deducted from his wages anyhow. The food wasn’t very good, but it was nourishink, usually some sort of stew or hash and bread and margarine and a puddink with little pieces of fruit in it. Ernie felt that he ought to eat a lot of it because it didn’t cost him nothink.
That way, in addition to the fives and tens to his mother, Ernie could take home special treats on his days off. Ernie’s day off was a big day for all of them, particularly for his Gram. Probly no one would ever know just how much ice cream Ernie’s Gram could eat, if you set there and put it in her mouth. Ernie himself had never gotten beyond a quart on her birthday. He had never seen anythink like it, and later that night she had polished off a pint of raspberry sherbet; he didn’t see how she could do it. Ernie’s Gram’s arthuritis might not let her get around so good but they was certny nothink wrong with her appetite.
Ernie belonged to the V. F. G. S., too. The Youths for for Goodness Sake movement was sponsored by a young woman not quite so young as she had been, whose name was Miss Feerson. She was thirdy, thirdy-two, had crinkly hahr and nice pink cheeks, real pink, but she had legs like nothink human. Ernie always tried to look at her eyes instead but it was hard to do, the first think he knew, he was back to her legs.
Ernie didn’t like himself for it but he figured he had managed to look at Miss Feerson’s legs even when she had give him that slick wallet with Y. F. G. S. on it in gold letters and E. P. for Ernie Prosser, underneath. Ernie loved the meetinks. They had a pitnick. They all sang like anythink and Miss Feerson talked a lot, in a friendly, informal way about Playink Fair and Doink Your Duty, referrink familiarly to the Deity as The Man Upstairs. Ernie had aways played fair because he had never thought of doink anythink else: he certny tried to do his duty, and he thought of The Man Upstairs as Someone who wanted Everbody to have a real, nice time. Sort of soft and easy like he was himself.
Mam’selle had turned green at luncheon and retired to the adjoining suite with one of her sick headaches when Janie took out her denture and laid it in the dish of Spinach au Naturel in the middle of the table. Little Jane didn’t like Spinach au Naturel, and she didn’t like to eat with her denture. Little Jane accepted the denture only as full-dress insignia. Mam’selle, on the other hand, felt that everyone should have almost as many teeth at all times as she did.
Mam’selle had insisted on the denture for luncheon, with disastrous results for Mam’selle. The denture still rested in a nest of spinach on the table that Ernie had set up by the terrace and Janie had been chewing bubble gum and reading Le Chat Qui Rit et Simple Renard, when the door opened.
“Qui est là?” she asked without looking up, for Janie knew instinctively, as Julie did, that the best way to entice any man, even Ernie, was by sometimes ignoring him.
She waited for Ernie to say “Hi-ya, babe? Desiray voos unh Tootsie Roll?” but the door closed with an ominous click.
“Je me suis engagée Allez-vous-en,” little Janie murmured, and looked up to see two unsavory characters. She was only mildly surprised. The big one had a little blue automatic in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
“Candy!” he said, extending the paper bag ingratiatingly. He smiled in an unpleasant manner.
“Il me fait du mal au dents,” little Jane explained, lisping a little without her denture.
“C’mere,” the leader said again, extending the bag. “Nice can-dy,” he said.
“Je me suis fatigué,” little Jane replied and returned to Le Chat Qui Rit. “Alors!” she said. “Je m’en fiche . . .” and waved her hand imperiously.
“Nice can-dy,” the leader continued. “A little Hunky,” he informed his liege with a wink. “Me and Lefty here is going to take youse to see the flam-ing-oes.”
“Merde!” said little Jane, for her previous Mam’selle had not always been discreet. “Vous m’ennuiez. Je n’aime pas les oiseaux. Allez-vous en!” she repeated, and remembering Julie’s last picture, Shangri Sahib, “Chop-chop!” she added and clapped her hands.
“Walla, Walla,” the senior thug said. “Af-ghan-is-tan. The kid can’t talk English,” he explained, held out the paper bag and withdrew it, grabbed Janie’s arm roughly.
“C’mon, sister,” he said thickly, dragging her by the arm. “You and me and Lefty here is going to see the fla-ming-oes.”
Norn d’un nom d’un chien. “Cochons!” little Jane screamed. “Marquereaux!” realizing belatedly that these Unsavory Characters were not extras after all. “Julie!” she called. “Ernie!”
The grimy hand that pulled her to the door was revolting, with its ragged nails and overgrown cuticle, but Janie summoned such molars and bicuspids as she still had and bit into it anyway.
“Ernie!” she lisped stranglingly, and longed for her denture. “Ernie!” she articulated again.
Ernie had delivered Fresh Broiled Brook Trout and a pint of whipping cream to the Mellott suite, Dr. Anna Pomery had just finished givink him somethink for the infantigo, and he was headed for the Goodenows’ when he heard a bellow of male pain from Julie Templar’s suite.
Ernie sensed Trouble, and only hoped that nothink was wronk with the little kid when he heard a gargled “Ernie-ee-Scelerats! Assassins! Voleurs!”
Ernie didn’t know what little Jane was sayink, but he opened the door anyhow. “Anythink wronk?” he asked.
“On vent me conduir voir les grands oiseaux!” Janie gasped indignantly.
“Aw, I scarcey even touch her. Putcher hands up,” the big one with the gun told Ernie. Mam’selle was awake now, and her nose and teeth obtruded suddenly from the other suite, but little Jane knew how to handle her first big scene.
“Je me pâme . . .” she said, and fainted with considerable satisfaction.
Ernie woulda done amost anythink for the little kid, so it had been easy, even natural, for him to be a hero when them two greaseballs try to put the snatch on her.
When Ernie seen what they was up to, he had threw Mr. Goodenow’s pot of scalding coffee—just one but make it a big one—at the punk with the gun, and then he had hit the both of them over the head with his big, spun-aluminum room-service tray. He had
been still givink them a conk ever onct in a while with the tray, just to make sure, when the house dicks come and took them to the station.
Ernie hadn’t had time to think about it until everythink was all over, and then he had started to shake but he felt pretty good about it too.
When it was really all over, he had been scared as anythink, and sick to his stomach going home on the bus, when he thought about the gun, how little and blue it was, and how it could of ripped right through his insides. Thinking about his insides was what had made him sick to his stomach.
For a day or so Ernie and the little kid had been almost as celebrated as Michel Jeremy, or Julie Templar herself. On-the-spot news services had taken blinding fiash-fotos of Ernie in his white coat looking at the gun, beink presented with a new C-note by the Chamber of Commerce, makink like he was goink to throw the coffeepot. His tips reached, now, fantastic heights: even Miss Libya Hall sensed that he had done some think remarkable.
Ernie enjoyed being a hero, but it embarrassed him too. He blushed a lot and he press-pired somethink awful when they was takink the pictures, but his greatest satisfaction was in thinkin’ how well he had took care of the little kid. It seemed to him then that The Man Upstairs Himself knew what Ernie Prosser had done and, affably, approved it.
Servants’ Quarters
Furman, the Social Hostess, was very attractive and, when she remembered, she was from the deep, deep South. Furman wasn’t pretty. She had given up all that sort of thing simply ages ago. As it was now, the only time that Furman was at all pretty was after she had taken a hot bath. It was too, too dowdy and tiresome, of course.
Only Furman’s hazel eyes were the same once she had finished dressing. Her rosy flushes were subdued then under layers of pancake, wet ringlets curled into a sinuous pattern at her nape, her mouth was a flaring, scarlet curl of disdain.
When Furman was ready to go out, her hips shrank to inconsiderable proportions, her small breasts jutted bravely forward, and her soft, little old drawl became monumental. She was no longer pretty, but she was utterly, utterly smart. Furman admitted to twenty-six, and, for almost the first time in her life, she was in earnest. She had decided to get married.
Furman hadn’t thought much about who it would be; she had thought more about not getting up in the morning and a hot, comfortable dinner every night. Of course, she hoped he would be too, too attractive, but Furman was tired of working, tired of knocking around, and just thinking about getting married had made her feel so positively virginal that before she left Cleveland, she had been measured for a new diaphragm. It was a sentimental gesture. There were times when Furman supposed that she was just plain old-fashioned. When Furman was not yet Furman (Furman’s name had been Peggy Donovan then) her mother had started going out alone and acting sort of funny and excited, and one night, she hadn’t come home at all. Her father was in Oklahoma then, he was almost always in Oklahoma, but old Emma had stayed on with Peggy until Aunt Di arrived. Aunt Di swore and got red in the face when she read Peggy’s mother’s letter, and after a while she had asked Peggy how she would like to go back to Chicago with her and be her little girl.
Peggy had never liked Aunt Di very well, even with all the money she was supposed to have. But she had said that she’d like it very much, thank you, because she didn’t know what else to do. Peggy had stayed with Aunt Di for quite a while, and it was then that she had learned her technique with old ladies.
Peggy’s father came on from Tulsa, and when he saw what a pretty girl she was, he had taken her with him. It had been the most wonderful part of Furman’s life. Jim Donovan had dressed her like an idol and called her Peg O’My Heart. Peggy had been the first girl at St. Brighida’s to have two fur coats. Ad astra per aspera.
Furman still cried when she thought about the way her father had sort of slumped over at the breakfast table, just when they had been about to take that divine walking trip through Eire. After that, she had had to go back to Aunt Di’s big brownstone house in Chicago again, all in black, and Aunt Di had started being small—there was no other word for it—about money.
Aunt Di didn’t seem pleased or surprised or grieved. She had acted as if she had known all along that Jim Donovan, free spender that he was, would die without a penny to bless him. Aunt Di accepted Peggy as another Cross to Bear, along with tic doloreux and her lower plate.
Aunt Di had sniffed, though, and got red in the face when Peggy mentioned Coming Out, saying that she had never heard of a Donovan having a debut on waxed floor except on her hands and knees, and sending her off to the priest to be talked to on the sins of Pride and Vainglory.
Aunt Di was now increasingly pious, and every time Peggy mentioned anything that involved spending money, Aunt Di took to her bed and pulled the sheet over her head, looking out from the sheet with her good eye and saying Hail Marys.
Aunt Di seemed to feel pretty good as long as no one mentioned money, but when Peggy needed a new fur coat or wanted a bunch of old junk put into a divine new platinum setting, Aunt Di had one of her attacks.
Then Peggy would go to visit some of the girls she had known at St. Brighida’s, and after she had stayed long enough, her friends were usually glad to lend her enough to get back to Aunt Di’s.
Since Peggy was vivacious and gregarious, she was soon visiting not only her friends but her friends’ friends, and her friends’ friends’ friends. She did a little modeling, for fun, at teas and drives and charity bazaars, and occasionally—when she simply had to have money—professionally.
Peggy’s figure, and the way she walked and wore hats, were divine, but she hated to get up before noon and, in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help thinking that Aunt Di couldn’t live forever, and that then she could move into one of those divine new apartment buildings on the Drive and everything would be divine.
Aunt Di had shown no disposition to die, but a slight stroke had rendered her even more ill-humored and in bed all of the time.
After that, Peggy visited her friends more and more, and then she had met Mr. Furman. Mr. Furman was considerably older than Peggy, but he talked a lot about how much he loved her, and he was almost as lavish with presents and money as Jim Donovan himself.
They had dinner together frequently, and after a bit, Peggy sometimes went away for long week ends to discreet, expensive resorts with Mr. Furman. Peggy returned from the week ends with a fat wallet and some rather good clips and brooches and earrings. She didn’t like semiprecious stuff herself, but she needed to be told that somebody loved her, and she could usually sell the clips and brooches and earrings to her friends or her friends’ friends or her friends’ friends’ friends.
Mr. Furman told Peggy over and over again how much he loved her, how much he regretted his wife, his sons. He made heartening offers to set her up in business, a little apartment of her own. The business offers had never really appealed to Peggy, because that meant, she supposed, getting up early and going somewhere every day, and an apartment seemed too unattractive with Mr. Furman paying the rent, even if he did remind her of her father, for Peggy still remembered St. Brighida’s. Ad astra per aspera. And in spite of everything, Peggy couldn’t help feeling that something would happen to Aunt Di, old as she was and with all that money she was supposed to have.
Something had finally happened to Aunt Di all right, but the thing that had happened to Peggy in the meantime had made it of secondary importance. At first Peggy hadn’t known what was wrong with her, and then when she was pretty sure, she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone, not even Mr. Furman, All that Peggy had wanted to do was get out of Chicago.
When she thought about it now, she didn’t see how she or anyone else could have got two thousand dollars out of Aunt Di, but she had done it somehow. Of course, the old lady was maundering, and Peggy had made the money a Corporate Act of Mercy. Aunt Di had not, however, been so maundering that she had neglected to mention the two thousand in her will as a debt that need not be repaid, and then she had left everything
to the Sisters of Poverty.
Peggy had been in no position to break a will. She had been too busy writing to Mr. Furman and trying to get things straightened out. Mr. Furman was less gallant now than he had been in the days when he had gone off with her for long week ends to discreet, expensive resorts. Less gallant than might have been expected from a man who was prone to kiss her ten fingers and her ten toes, a man who loved her, he said, as he did his life.
In the end, Mr. Furman’s life had assumed an unwarranted importance to him. He had been having a little trouble with his blood pressure, and Peggy’s letters had made it higher still. Mr. Furman’s blood pressure had hovered around two forty before he created the annuity that helped keep little Donnie at school. Mr. Furman might have been more generous over a period of time, but his high blood pressure and Peggy’s letters had been too much for him, and there had been that awful piece in the papers, not that it was so very big. Little Donnie was so precocious that she had started school when she was three months old.
After that, Peggy had gone to Cleveland and done a little bit of everything. No one there remembered her as she was now; the annuity wasn’t quite big enough to pay for little Donnie’s school, and she had, somehow, to live herself. Donovan was, perhaps, a queer name for a little girl, but Peggy was accustomed now to girls with queer names.
The other models had names like Cinnamon and Zanzibar and Caramel and Parsley and Nougat. The queerer their names were, the more successful they seemed to be, and Peggy changed her name to Coral. They were all very gay, but the maddest, and Coral was the gayest of the lot.
Peggy/Coral wore great chokers and bracelets and anklets of white coral with )the well-cut basic blacks and whites and navies that she was able to buy at discount from the really smart shops. With a couple of quick ones in her, Peggy/Coral, barefoot and in a bathing suit, smiled engagingly at the photographer and threw real snowballs. In bare midriff and shorts, cotton play suits and resort dinner dresses, Peggy/Coral posed unflaggingly against prop cherry and magnolia and palm trees, tennis nets. It had something to do with real daylight, she knew that, but her gamin laugh froze to her face in the cold wind off the lake. She was lonely now too, and she sometimes thought about Aunt Di and about the boys who had wanted to marry her, but whom she hadn’t particularly wanted to marry, before she met Mr. Furman, when she had still thought that after Aunt Di died everything would be divine.
The Pink Hotel Page 15