The children fell asleep on the carpet. Keith had his thumb in his mouth. Carlyle was still talking when Mr. Webster came to the door, knocked, and then stepped inside to collect Mrs. Webster.
“Sit down, Jim,” Mrs. Webster said. “There’s no hurry. Go on with what you were saying, Mr. Carlyle.”
Carlyle nodded at the old man, and the old man nodded back, then got himself one of the dining-room chairs and carried it into the living room. He brought the chair close to the sofa and sat down on it with a sigh. Then he took off his cap and wearily lifted one leg over the other. When Carlyle began talking again, the old man put both feet on the floor. The children woke up. They sat up on the carpet and rolled their heads back and forth. But by then Carlyle had said all he knew to say, so he stopped talking.
“Good. Good for you,” Mrs. Webster said when she saw he had finished. “You’re made out of good stuff. And so is she—so is Mrs. Carlyle. And don’t you forget it. You’re both going to be okay after this is over.” She got up and took off the apron she’d been wearing. Mr. Webster got up, too, and put his cap back on.
At the door, Carlyle shook hands with both of the Websters.
“So long,” Jim Webster said. He touched the bill of his cap.
“Good luck to you,” Carlyle said.
Mrs. Webster said she’d see him in the morning then, bright and early as always.
As if something important had been settled, Carlyle said, “Right!”
The old couple went carefully along the walk and got into their truck. Jim Webster bent down under the dashboard. Mrs. Webster looked at Carlyle and waved. It was then, as he stood at the window, that he felt something come to an end. It had to do with Eileen and the life before this. Had he ever waved at her? He must have, of course, he knew he had, yet he could not remember just now. But he understood it was over, and he felt able to let her go. He was sure their life together had happened in the way he said it had. But it was something that had passed. And that passing—though it had seemed impossible and he’d fought against it—would become a part of him now, too, as surely as anything else he’d left behind.
As the pickup lurched forward, he lifted his arm once more. He saw the old couple lean toward him briefly as they drove away. Then he brought his arm down and turned to his children.
THE BRIDLE
THIS old station wagon with Minnesota plates pulls into a parking space in front of the window. There’s a man and woman in the front seat, two boys in the back. It’s July, temperature’s one hundred plus. These people look whipped. There are clothes hanging inside; suitcases, boxes, and such piled in back. From what Harley and I put together later, that’s all they had left after the bank in Minnesota took their house, their pickup, their tractor, the farm implements, and a few cows.
The people inside sit for a minute, as if collecting themselves. The air-conditioner in our apartment is going full blast. Harley’s around in back cutting grass. There’s some discussion in the front seat, and then she and him get out and start for the front door. I pat my hair to make sure that it’s in place and wait till they push the doorbell for the second time. Then I go to let them in. “You’re looking for an apartment?” I say. “Come on in here where it’s cool.” I show them into the living room. The living room is where I do business. It’s where I collect the rents, write the receipts, and talk to interested parties. I also do hair. I call myself a stylist. That’s what my cards say. I don’t like the word beautician. It’s an old-time word. I have the chair in a corner of the living room, and a dryer I can pull up to the back of the chair. And there’s a sink that Harley put in a few years ago. Alongside the chair, I have a table with some magazines. The magazines are old. The covers are gone from some of them. But people will look at anything while they’re under the dryer.
The man says his name.
“My name is Holits.”
He tells me she’s his wife. But she won’t look at me. She looks at her nails instead. She and Holits won’t sit down, either. He says they’re interested in one of the furnished units.
“How many of you?” But I’m just saying what I always say. I know how many. I saw the two boys in the back seat. Two and two is four.
“Me and her and the boys. The boys are thirteen and fourteen, and they’ll share a room, like always.”
She has her arms crossed and is holding the sleeves of her blouse. She takes in the chair and the sink as if she’s never seen their like before. Maybe she hasn’t.
“I do hair,” I say.
She nods. Then she gives my prayer plant the once-over. It has exactly five leaves to it.
“That needs watering,” I say. I go over and touch one of its leaves. “Everything around here needs water. There’s not enough water in the air. It rains three times a year if we’re lucky. But you’ll get used to it. We had to get used to it. But everything here is air-conditioned.”
“How much is the place?” Holits wants to know.
I tell him and he turns to her to see what she thinks. But he may as well have been looking at the wall. She won’t give him back his look. “I guess we’ll have you show us,” he says. So I move to get the key for 17, and we go outside.
I HEAR Harley before I see him.
Then he comes into sight between the buildings. He’s moving along behind the power mower in his Bermudas and T-shirt, wearing the straw hat he bought in Nogales. He spends his time cutting grass and doing the small maintenance work. We work for a corporation, Fulton Terrace, Inc. They own the place. If anything major goes wrong, like air-conditioning trouble or something serious in the plumbing department, we have a list of phone numbers.
I wave. I have to. Harley takes a hand off the mower handle and signals. Then he pulls the hat down over his forehead and gives his attention back to what he’s doing. He comes to the end of his cut, makes his turn, and starts back toward the street.
“That’s Harley.” I have to shout it. We go in at the side of the building and up some stairs. “What kind of work are you in, Mr. Holits?” I ask him.
“He’s a farmer,” she says.
“No more.”
“Not much to farm around here.” I say it without thinking.
“We had us a farm in Minnesota. Raised wheat. A few cattle. And Holits knows horses. He knows everything there is about horses.”
“That’s all right, Betty.”
I get a piece of the picture then. Holits is unemployed. It’s not my affair, and I feel sorry if that’s the case—it is, it turns out—but as we stop in front of the unit, I have to say something. “If you decide, it’s first month, last month, and one-fifty as security deposit.” I look down at the pool as I say it. Some people are sitting in deck chairs, and there’s somebody in the water.
Holits wipes his face with the back of his hand. Harley’s mower is clacking away. Farther off, cars speed by on Calle Verde. The two boys have got out of the station wagon. One of them is standing at military attention, legs together, arms at his sides. But as I watch, I see him begin to flap his arms up and down and jump, like he intends to take off and fly. The other one is squatting down on the driver’s side of the station wagon, doing knee bends.
I turn to Holits.
“Let’s have a look,” he says.
I turn the key and the door opens. It’s just a little two-bedroom furnished apartment. Everybody has seen dozens. Holits stops in the bathroom long enough to flush the toilet. He watches till the tank fills. Later, he says, “This could be our room.” He’s talking about the bedroom that looks out over the pool. In the kitchen, the woman takes hold of the edge of the drainboard and stares out the window.
“That’s the swimming pool,” I say.
She nods. “We stayed in some motels that had swimming pools. But in one pool they had too much chlorine in the water.”
I wait for her to go on. But that’s all she says. I can’t think of anything else, either.
“I guess we won’t waste any more time. I guess we’ll take
it.” Holits looks at her as he says it. This time she meets his eyes. She nods. He lets out breath through his teeth. Then she does something. She begins snapping her fingers. One hand is still holding the edge of the drainboard, but with her other hand she begins snapping her fingers. Snap, snap, snap, like she was calling her dog, or else trying to get somebody’s attention. Then she stops and runs her nails across the counter.
I don’t know what to make of it. Holits doesn’t either. He moves his feet.
“We’ll walk back to the office and make things official,” I say. “I’m glad.”
I was glad. We had a lot of empty units for this time of year. And these people seemed like dependable people. Down on their luck, that’s all. No disgrace can be attached to that.
Holits pays in cash—first, last, and the one-fifty deposit. He counts out bills of fifty-dollar denomination while I watch. U. S. Grants, Harley calls them, though he’s never seen many. I write out the receipt and give him two keys. “You’re all set.”
He looks at the keys. He hands her one. “So, we’re in Arizona. Never thought you’d see Arizona, did you?”
She shakes her head. She’s touching one of the prayer-plant leaves.
“Needs water,” I say.
She lets go of the leaf and turns to the window. I go over next to her. Harley is still cutting grass. But he’s around in front now. There’s been this talk of farming, so for a minute I think of Harley moving along behind a plow instead of behind his Black and Decker power mower.
I WATCH them unload their boxes, suitcases, and clothes. Holits carries in something that has straps hanging from it. It takes a minute, but then I figure out it’s a bridle. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t feel like doing anything. So I take the Grants out of the cashbox. I just put them in there, but I take them out again. The bills have come from Minnesota. Who knows where they’ll be this time next week? They could be in Las Vegas. All I know about Las Vegas is what I see on TV—about enough to put into a thimble. I can imagine one of the Grants finding its way out to Waikiki Beach, or else some other place. Miami or New York City. New Orleans. I think about one of those bills changing hands during Mardi Gras. They could go anyplace, and anything could happen because of them. I write my name in ink across Grant’s broad old forehead: MARGE. I print it. I do it on every one. Right over his thick brows. People will stop in the midst of their spending and wonder. Who’s this Marge? That’s what they’ll ask themselves, Who’s this Marge?
Harley comes in from outside and washes his hands in my sink. He knows it’s something I don’t like him to do. But he goes ahead and does it anyway.
“Those people from Minnesota,” he says. “The Swedes. They’re a long way from home.” He dries his hands on a paper towel. He wants me to tell him what I know. But I don’t know anything. They don’t look like Swedes and they don’t talk like Swedes.
“They’re not Swedes,” I tell him. But he acts like he doesn’t hear me.
“So what’s he do?”
“He’s a farmer.”
“What do you know about that?”
Harley takes his hat off and puts it on my chair. He runs a hand through his hair. Then he looks at the hat and puts it on again. He may as well be glued to it. “There’s not much to farm around here. Did you tell him that?” He gets a can of soda pop from the fridge and goes to sit in his recliner. He picks up the remote-control, pushes something, and the TV sizzles on. He pushes some more buttons until he finds what he’s looking for. It’s a hospital show. “What else does the Swede do? Besides farm?”
I don’t know, so I don’t say anything. But Harley’s already taken up with his program. He’s probably forgotten he asked me the question. A siren goes off. I hear the screech of tires. On the screen, an ambulance has come to a stop in front of an emergency-room entrance, its red lights flashing. A man jumps out and runs around to open up the back.
THE next afternoon the boys borrow the hose and wash the station wagon. They clean the outside and the inside. A little later I notice her drive away. She’s wearing high heels and a nice dress. Hunting up a job, I’d say. After a while, I see the boys messing around the pool in their bathing suits. One of them springs off the board and swims all the way to the other end underwater. He comes up blowing water and shaking his head. The other boy, the one who’d been doing knee bends the day before, lies on his stomach on a towel at the far side of the pool. But this one boy keeps swimming back and forth from one end of the pool to the other, touching the wall and turning back with a little kick.
There are two other people out there. They’re in lounge chairs, one on either side of the pool. One of them is Irving Cobb, a cook at Denny’s. He calls himself Spuds. People have taken to calling him that, Spuds, instead of Irv or some other nickname. Spuds is fifty-five and bald. He already looks like beef jerky, but he wants more sun. Right now, his new wife, Linda Cobb, is at work at the K Mart. Spuds works nights. But him and Linda Cobb have it arranged so they take their Saturdays and Sundays off. Connie Nova is in the other chair. She’s sitting up and rubbing lotion on her legs. She’s nearly naked—just this little two-piece suit covering her. Connie Nova is a cocktail waitress. She moved in here six months ago with her so-called fiancé, an alcoholic lawyer. But she got rid of him. Now she lives with a long-haired student from the college whose name is Rick. I happen to know he’s away right now, visiting his folks. Spuds and Connie are wearing dark glasses. Connie’s portable radio is going.
Spuds was a recent widower when he moved in, a year or so back. But after a few months of being a bachelor again, he got married to Linda. She’s a red-haired woman in her thirties. I don’t know how they met. But one night a couple of months ago Spuds and the new Mrs. Cobb had Harley and me over to a nice dinner that Spuds fixed. After dinner, we sat in their living room drinking sweet drinks out of big glasses. Spuds asked if we wanted to see home movies. We said sure. So Spuds set up his screen and his projector. Linda Cobb poured us more of that sweet drink. Where’s the harm? I asked myself. Spuds began to show films of a trip he and his dead wife had made to Alaska. It began with her getting on the plane in Seattle. Spuds talked as he ran the projector. The deceased was in her fifties, good-looking, though maybe a little heavy. Her hair was nice.
“That’s Spuds’s first wife,” Linda Cobb said. “That’s the first Mrs. Cobb.”
“That’s Evelyn,” Spuds said.
The first wife stayed on the screen for a long time. It was funny seeing her and hearing them talk about her like that. Harley passed me a look, so I know he was thinking something, too. Linda Cobb asked if we wanted another drink or a macaroon. We didn’t. Spuds was saying something about the first Mrs. Cobb again. She was still at the entrance to the plane, smiling and moving her mouth even if all you could hear was the film going through the projector. People had to go around her to get on the plane. She kept waving at the camera, waving at us there in Spuds’s living room. She waved and waved. “There’s Evelyn again,” the new Mrs. Cobb would say each time the first Mrs. Cobb appeared on the screen.
Spuds would have shown films all night, but we said we had to go. Harley made the excuse.
I don’t remember what he said.
CONNIE NOVA is lying on her back in the chair, dark glasses covering half of her face. Her legs and stomach shine with oil. One night, not long after she moved in, she had a party. This was before she kicked the lawyer out and took up with the long-hair. She called her party a housewarming. Harley and I were invited, along with a bunch of other people. We went, but we didn’t care for the company. We found a place to sit close to the door, and that’s where we stayed till we left. It wasn’t all that long, either. Connie’s boyfriend was giving a door prize. It was the offer of his legal services, without charge, for the handling of a divorce. Anybody’s divorce. Anybody who wanted to could draw a card out of the bowl he was passing around. When the bowl came our way, everybody began to laugh. Harley and I swapped glances. I didn’t draw. Harley didn�
�t draw, either. But I saw him look in the bowl at the pile of cards. Then he shook his head and handed the bowl to the person next to him. Even Spuds and the new Mrs. Cobb drew cards. The winning card had something written across the back. “Entitles bearer to one free uncontested divorce,” and the lawyer’s signature and the date. The lawyer was a drunk, but I say this is no way to conduct your life. Everybody but us had put his hand into the bowl, like it was a fun thing to do. The woman who drew the winning card clapped. It was like one of those game shows. “Goddamn, this is the first time I ever won anything!” I was told she had a husband in the military. There’s no way of knowing if she still has him, or if she got her divorce, because Connie Nova took up with a different set of friends after she and the lawyer went their separate ways.
We left the party right after the drawing. It made such an impression we couldn’t say much, except one of us said, “I don’t believe I saw what I think I saw.”
Maybe I said it.
A WEEK later Harley asks if the Swede—he means Holits—has found work yet. We’ve just had lunch, and Harley’s in his chair with his can of pop. But he hasn’t turned his TV on. I say I don’t know. And I don’t. I wait to see what else he has to say. But he doesn’t say anything else. He shakes his head. He seems to think about something. Then he pushes a button and the TV comes to life.
She finds a job. She starts working as a waitress in an Italian restaurant a few blocks from here. She works a split shift, doing lunches and then going home, then back to work again in time for the dinner shift. She’s meeting herself coming and going. The boys swim all day, while Holits stays inside the apartment. I don’t know what he does in there. Once, I did her hair and she told me a few things. She told me she did waitressing when she was just out of high school and that’s where she met Holits. She served him some pancakes in a place back in Minnesota.
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