The Price of Salt

by Highsmith, Patricia

  "Oh, Carol—why talk about it?" A feeling of despair came over her suddenly. Her hands were shaking as she lighted a cigarette. She gave the cigarette to Carol, and lighted one for herself.

  "Because I want to talk about it. Can you take another three weeks off?"

  "Of course." Of course, of course. What else mattered except being with Carol, anywhere, anyhow? There was the Harkevy show in March, Harkevy might recommend her for a job somewhere else, but the jobs were uncertain and Carol was not.

  "I shouldn't have to stay in New York more than a week at most, because the divorce is all set, Fred, my lawyer, said so today. So why don't we have a few more weeks in Arizona? Or New Mexico? I don't want to hang around New York the rest of the winter." Carol drove slowly. Her eyes were different now. They had come alive, like her voice.

  "Of course I'd like to. Anywhere."

  "All right. Come on. Let's get to Des Moines. How about you driving a while?"

  They changed places. It was a little before midnight when they got to Des Moines and found a hotel room.

  "Why should you go back to New York at all?" Carol asked her. "You could keep the car and wait for me somewhere like Tucson or Santa Fe, and I could fly back."

  "And leave you?" Therese turned from the mirror where she was brushing her hair.

  Carol smiled. "What do you mean, leave me?"

  It had taken Therese by surprise, and now she saw an expression on Carol's face, even though Carol looked at her intently, that made her feel shut off, as if Carol had thrust her away in a back corner of her mind to make room for something more important. "Just leave you now, I meant," Therese said, turning back to the mirror. "No, it might be a good idea. It's quicker for you."

  "I thought you might prefer staying somewhere in the West. Unless you want to do something in New York those few days," Carol's voice was casual.

  "I don't." She dreaded the cold days in Manhattan, when Carol would be too busy to see her. And she thought of the detective. If Carol flew, she wouldn't be haunted by his trailing her. She tried to imagine it already, Carol arriving in the East alone, to face something she didn't yet know, something impossible to prepare for. She imagined herself in Santa Fe, waiting for a telephone call, waiting for a letter from Carol. But to be two thousand miles away from Carol, she could not imagine that so easily.

  "Only a week, Carol?" she asked, drawing the comb along her part again, flicking the long, fine hair to one side. She had gained weight, but her face was thinner, she noticed suddenly, and it pleased her. She looked older.

  In the mirror, she saw Carol come up behind her, and there was no answer but the pleasure of Carol's arms sliding around her, that made it impossible to think, and Therese twisted away more suddenly than she meant to, and stood by the corner of the dressing table looking at Carol, bewildered for a moment by the elusiveness of what they talked about, time and space, and the four feet that separated them now and the two thousand miles. She gave her hair another stroke. "Only about a week?"

  "That's what I said." Carol replied with a smile in her eyes, but Therese heard the same hardness in it as in her own question, as if they exchanged challenges. "If you mind keeping the car, I can have it driven East."

  "I don't mind keeping it.".

  "And don't worry about the detective. I'll wire Harge that I'm on my way."

  "I won't worry about that." How could Carol be so cold about it, Therese wondered, thinking of everything else but their leaving each other? She put the hairbrush down on the dressing table.

  "Therese, do you think I'm going to enjoy it?"

  And Therese thought of the detectives, the divorce, the hostility, all Carol had to face. Carol touched her cheek, pressed both palms hard against her cheeks so her mouth opened like a fish's, and Therese had to smile. Therese stood by the dressing table and watched her, watching every move of her hands, of her feet as she peeled off her stockings and stepped into her moccasins again. There were no words, she thought, after this point. What else did they need to explain, or ask, or promise in words? They did not even need to see each other's eyes. Therese watched her pick up the telephone, and then she lay face down on the bed, while Carol made her plane reservation for tomorrow, one ticket, one way, tomorrow at eleven a. m.

  "Where do you think you'll go?" Carol asked her.

  "I don't know." I might go back to Sioux Falls."

  "South Dakota?" Carol smiled at her. "You wouldn't prefer Santa Fe? It's warmer."

  "I'll wait and see it with you."

  "Not Colorado Springs?"

  "No!" Therese laughed, and got up. She took her toothbrush into the bathroom. "I might even take a job somewhere for a week."

  "What kind of a job?"

  "Any kind. Just to keep me from thinking of you, you now."

  "I want you to think of me. Not a job in a department store."

  "No." Therese stood by the bathroom door, watching Carol take off her slip and put her robe on.

  "You're not worrying about money again, are you?"

  Therese slid her hands into her robe pockets and crossed her feet. "If I'm broke, I don't care. I'll start worrying when it's used up."

  "I'm going to give you a couple of hundred tomorrow for the car." Carol pulled Therese's nose, as she passed by. "And you're not to use that car to pick up any strangers." Carol went into the bathroom arid turned on the shower.

  Therese came in after her. "I thought I was using this John."

  "I'm using it, but I'll let you come in."

  "Oh, thanks." Therese took off her robe as Carol did.

  "Well?" Carol said.

  "Well?" Therese stepped under the shower.

  "Of all the nerve." Carol got under it, too, and twisted Therese's arm behind her, but Therese only giggled.

  Therese wanted to embrace her, kiss her, but her free arm reached out convulsively and dragged Carol's head against her, under the stream of water, and there was the horrible sound of a foot slipping.

  "Stop it, we'll fall!" Carol shouted. "For Christ's sake, can't two people take a shower in peace?"

  CHAPTER 20

  IN SIOUX FALLS, Therese stopped the car in front of the hotel they had stayed in before, the Warrior Hotel. It was nine-thirty in the evening.

  Carol had got home about an hour ago, Therese thought. She was to call Carol at midnight.

  She took a room, had her bags carried up, then went out for a walk through the main street. There was a movie house, and it occurred to her she had never seen a movie with Carol. She went in. But she was in no mood to follow the picture, even though there was a woman in it whose voice was a little like Carol's, not at all like the flat nasal voices she heard all around her. She thought of Carol, over a thousand miles away now, thought of sleeping alone tonight, and she got up and wandered out on the street again. There was the drugstore where Carol had bought cleansing tissues and toothpaste one morning. And the corner where Carol had looked up and read the street names—Fifth and Nebraska streets. She bought a pack of cigarettes at the same drugstore, walked back to the hotel and sat in the lobby, smoking, savoring the first cigarette since she had left Carol, savoring the forgotten state of being alone. It was only a physical state. She really did not feel at all alone. She read some newspapers for a while, then took the letters from Dannie and Phil, that had come in the last days at Colorado Springs, out of her handbag and glanced over them.

  I saw Richard two nights ago in the Palermo all by himself [Phil's letter said]. I asked about you and he said he wasn't writing to you. I gather there has been a small rupture, but I didn't press for information. He was in no mood for talking. And we are not too chummy lately, as you know.... Have been talking you up to an angel named Francis Puckett who will put up fifty thousand if a certain play from France comes over in April. Shall keep you posted, as there is not even a producer yet....

  Dannie sends his love, I am sure. He is leaving soon for somewhere probably, he has that look, and I'll have to scout for new winter quarters
or find a roommate.... Did you get the clippings I sent you on Small Rain?

  Best, Phil

  Dannie's short letter was: Dear Therese, There is a possibility I may go out to the Coast at the end of the month to take a job in California. I must decide between this (a lab job) and an offer in a commercial chemical place in Maryland. But if I could see you in Colorado or anywhere else for a while, I would leave a little early. Shall probably take the California job, as I think it has better prospects. So would you let me know where you'll be? It doesn't matter.

  There are a lot of ways of getting to California. If your friend wouldn't mind, it would be nice to spend a few days with you somewhere. I'll be in New York until the 28 of February anyway.

  Love,

  Dannie

  She had not yet answered him. She would send him an address tomorrow, as soon as she found a room somewhere in the town. But as to the next destination, she would have to talk to Carol about that. And when would Carol be able to say? She wondered what Carol might already have found tonight in New Jersey, and Therese's courage sank dismally. She reached for a newspaper and looked at the date. February fifteenth. Twenty-nine days since she had left New York with Carol. Could it be so few days?

  Upstairs in her room, she put the call through to Carol, and bathed and got into pajamas. Then the telephone rang.

  "Hel-lo," Carol said, as if she had been waiting a long while. "What's the name of that hotel?"

  "The Warrior. But I'm not going to stay here."

  "You didn't pick up any strangers on the road, did you?" Therese laughed.

  Carol's slow voice went through her as if she touched her.

  "What's the news?" Therese asked.

  "Tonight? Nothing. The house is freezing and Florence can't get here till day after tomorrow. Abby's here. Do you want to say hello to her?"

  "Not right there with you."

  "No-o. Upstairs in the green room with the door shut."

  "I don't really want to talk to her now."

  Carol wanted to know everything she had done, how the roads were, and whether she had on the yellow pajamas or the blue ones. "I'll have a hard time getting to sleep tonight without you."

  "Yes." Immediately, out of nowhere, Therese felt tears pressing behind her eyes.

  "Can't you say anything but yes?"

  "I love you."

  Carol whistled. Then silence. "Abby got the check, darling, but no letter. She missed my wire, but there isn't any letter anyway."

  "Did you find the book?"

  "We found the book, but there's nothing in it."

  Therese wondered if the letter could be in her own apartment after all.

  But she had a picture of the letter in the book, marking a place. "Do you think anybody's been through the house?"

  "No. I can tell by various things. Don't worry about that. Will you?"

  A moment later, Therese slid down into bed and pulled her light out.

  Carol had asked her to call tomorrow night, too. For a while the sound of Carol's voice was in her ears. Then a melancholy began to seep into her.

  She lay on her back with her arms straight at her sides, with a sense of empty space all around her, as if she were laid out ready for the grave, and then she fell asleep.

  The next morning, Therese found a room she liked in a house on one of the streets that ran uphill, a large front room with a bay window full of plants and white curtains. There was a four-poster bed and an oval hooked rug on the floor. The woman said it was seven dollars a week, but Therese said she was not sure if she would be here a week, so she had better take it by the day.

  "That'll be the same thing," the woman said. "Where're you from?"

  "New York."

  "Are you going to live here?"

  "No. I'm just waiting for a friend to join me."

  "Man or a woman?"

  Therese smiled. "A woman," she said. "Is there any space in those garages in back? I've got a car with me."

  The woman said there were two garages empty, and that she didn't charge for the garages, if people lived here. She was not old, but she stooped a little and her figure was frail. Her name was Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper. She had been keeping roomers for fifteen years, she said, and two of the three she had started with were still here.

  The same day, she made the acquaintance of Dutch Huber and his wife who ran the diner near the public library. He was a skinny man of about fifty with small curious blue eyes. His wife Edna was fat and did the cooking, and talked a great deal less than he. Dutch had worked in New York for a while years ago. He asked her questions about sections of the city she happened not to know at all, while she mentioned places Dutch had never heard of or had forgotten, and somehow the slow, dragging conversation made them both laugh. Dutch asked her if she would like to go with him and his wife to the motorcycle races that were to be held a few miles out of town on Saturday, and Therese said yes.

  She bought cardboard and glue and worked on the first of the models she meant to show Harkevy when she got back to New York. She had it nearly done when she went out at eleven thirty to call Carol from the Warrior.

  Carol was not in and no one answered. Therese tried until one o'clock, then went back to Mrs. Cooper's house.

  Therese reached her the next morning around ten thirty. Carol said she had talked over everything with her lawyer the day before, but there was nothing she or her lawyer could do until they knew Harge's next move.

  Carol was a little short with her, because she had a luncheon appointment in New York and a letter to write first. She seemed anxious for the first time about what Harge was doing. She had tried to call him twice without being able to reach him. But it was her brusqueness that disturbed Therese most of all.

  "You haven't changed your mind about anything?" Therese said.

  "Of course not, darling. I'm giving a party tomorrow night. I'll miss you."

  Therese tripped on the hotel threshold as she went out, and she felt the first hollow wave of loneliness break over her. What would she be doing tomorrow night? Reading in the library until it closed at nine? Working on another set? She went over the names of the people Carol had said were coming to the party—Max and Clara Tibbett, the couple who had a greenhouse on some highway near Carol's house and whom Therese had met once, Carol's friend Tessie she had never met, and Stanley McVeigh, the man Carol had been with the evening they went to Chinatown. Carol hadn't mentioned Abby.

  And Carol hadn't said to call tomorrow.

  She walked on, and the last moment she had seen Carol came back as if it were happening in front of her eyes again. Carol waving from the door of the plane at the Des Moines airport, Carol already small and far away, because Therese had had to stand back of the wire fence across the field.

  The ramp had been moved away, but Therese had thought, there were still a few seconds of time before they closed the door, and then Carol had appeared again, just long enough to stand still in the doorway for a second, to find her again, and make the gesture of blowing her a kiss.

  But it meant an absurd lot that she had come back.

  Therese drove out to the motorcycle races on Saturday, and took Dutch and Edna with her, because Carol's car was bigger. Afterward, they invited her to supper at their house, but she did not accept. There hadn't been a letter from Carol that day, and she had expected a note at least. Sunday depressed her, and even the drive she took up the Big Sioux River to Dell Rapids in the afternoon did not change the scene inside her mind.

  Monday morning, she sat in the library reading plays. Then around two, when the noonday rush was slacking off in Dutch's diner, she went in and had some tea, and talked with Dutch while she played the songs on the juke box that she and Carol had used to play. She had told Dutch that the car belonged to the friend for whom she was waiting. And gradually, Dutch's intermittent questions led her to tell him that Carol lived in New Jersey, that she would probably fly out, that Carol wanted to go to New Mexico.

  "Carol does?" Dutch said, t
urning to her as he polished a lass.

  Then a strange resentment rose in Therese because he had said her name, and she made a resolution not to speak of Carol again at all, not to anyone in the city.

  Tuesday the letter came from Carol, nothing but a short note, but it said Fred was more optimistic about everything, and it looked as if there would be nothing but the divorce to worry about and she could probably leave the twenty-fourth of February. Therese began to smile as she read it. She wanted to go out and celebrate with someone, but there was no one, so there was nothing to do but take a walk, have a lonely drink at the bar of the Warrior, and think of Carol five days away. There was no one she would have wanted to be with, except perhaps Dannie. Or Stella Overton. Stella was jolly, and though she couldn't have told Stella anything about Carol—whom could she tell?—it would have been good to see her now. She had meant to write Stella a card days ago, but she hadn't yet.

  She wrote to Carol late that night.

  The news is wonderful. I celebrated with a single daiquiri at the Warrior. Not that I am conservative, but did you know that one drink has the kick of three when you are alone?... I love this town because it all reminds me of you. I know you don't like it any more than any other town, but that isn't the point. I mean you are here as much as I can bear you to be, not being here...

  Carol wrote: I never liked Florence. I say this as a prelude. It seems Florence found the note you wrote to me and sold it to Harge—at a price. She is also responsible for Harge's knowing where we (or at least I) were going, I've no doubt. I don't know what I left around the house or what she might have overheard, I thought I was pretty silent, but if Harge took the trouble to bribe her and I'm sure he did, there's no telling. They picked us up in Chicago, anyway. Darling, I had no idea how far this thing had gone. To give you the atmosphere—nobody tells me anything, things are just suddenly discovered. If anyone is in possession of the facts, it is Harge. I spoke with him on the phone, and he refuses to tell me anything, which of course is calculated to terrorize me into giving all my ground before the fight has even begun. They don't know me, any of them, if they think I will. The fight of course is over Rindy, and yes, darling, I'm afraid there will be one, and I can't leave the 24th. That much Harge did tell me when he sprang the letter this morning on the phone. I think the letter may be his strongest weapon (the dictaphone business only went on in Colorado S. so far as I can possibly imagine) hence his letting me know about it. But I can imagine the kind of letter it is, written even before we took off, and there'll be a limit to what even Harge can read into it. Harge is merely threatening—in the peculiar form of silence—hoping I will back out completely as far as Rindy is concerned. I won't, so there will come some kind of a showdown, I hope not in court.