Let's go For Broke

by Mary Lasswell

  Miss Tinkham lined up the ten big cartons ready to hold the dyed feathers. In the morning sun they would dry quickly and prettily on the big work table and without any danger of prowling decorators stumbling onto them when they came to bring the deposit and vase money.

  N. Carnation excused herself immediately after she finished her beer.

  “Gawd,” Mrs. Feeley sighed sleepily, “we’re gonna have so much money people’ll think we was borned with a silver platter in our mouths.”

  Two days later Old-Timer returned bronzed and healthy looking. Mrs. Rasmussen sent him with the plastic bags to Boss Lady’s turkey plant to get more white feathers. They had used the last one. When he gave Mrs. Rasmussen the hundred dollars hauling money, she put it in her purse: “We’ll pay it on the truck. Don’t you need pocket money and lunch money on your garage job?”

  He shook his head and pulled out two fives.

  “He paid for your motel, but you come on home an’ saved it, didn’t you?” Mrs. Rasmussen laughed.

  He grinned and produced an ocarina from his back pocket. It looked like a big black sweet potato with holes in it. He started to play “Show Me the Way to Go Home” and the music was extremely pleasant and soft. When he put away the ocarina, he pulled a small paper bag from out of the bib of his overalls and handed it to Mrs. Rasmussen. It contained four scarves, gaudy as a calendar sunset, all alike, with writing in glitter paint on them that read: SOUVENIR OF YOSEMITE.

  She took the scarves upstairs to her friends along with a tray of cold beer.

  “Can’t do nothin’ till we get more feathers,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Then we’ll have to wait for ’em to dry ’fore we can cut ’em out.”

  “We look like the Picts,” Miss Tinkham looked ruefully at her blue-stained hands, “those people who used to paint their bodies blue.”

  “Reckon we’re gonna make it? Should we take outside help, mebbe?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “You think we got it bad now?” Mrs. Feeley grinned. “Just git somebody to work for you an’ find out what real misery is. All they want is somethin’ to complain about. We started it an’ we can finish it.”

  “There is madness in my method.” Miss Tinkham smiled. “We have made three hundred in less than three days. If we keep it up, we should finish ahead of schedule.” She pointed to the three full boxes and the seven empties. “We should work outdoors the rest of the day while the feathers are drying. We need a change of pace. It is a good time to plan our future, too, since in the normal course of events we can deliver the goods on schedule.”

  “Place is lookin’ so good, hadn’t we orta get that feller to send the inspectors ’fore it looks too good an’ he gets ideas about chargin’ money for rent?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Very sound reasoning,” Miss Tinkham said. “Let us run in this evening when dear James comes home and tell Mr. Gates that we want to put in a water heater ‘and et cetera,’ as Bim says, but that we feel insecure without a lease. I actually think we ought to pay a little something to make it legal and protect all our improvements. The caretaker deal can be terminated with ninety days notice.”

  “Yeah,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “don’t tell him we done done it.”

  “We have proven that we can make a good living out of nothing at all, so to speak, just by following our instincts for friendship,” Miss Tinkham said, “and we are all so happy here that we must arrange to have the place permanently.”

  “And for good!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  When Miss Tinkham and James returned to the Mansion about nine that evening, the three ladies and Old-Timer had tied and dyed more than enough bunches of feathers to make the thousand promised camellias. They were drying on newspapers upstairs. Miss Tinkham noticed that her friends were giggling and nudging each other as they showed the results of their labors.

  “Where is N. Carnation?” Miss Tinkham asked.

  Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen looked at each other. “Reckon it’s okay to go now?” Mrs. Rasmussen said. She led the way downstairs.

  Down the hall to the living room they marched. Across the big arch of the living room that formed a kind of vestibule, N. Carnation, assisted by Old-Timer on a stepladder, was directing the placing of the last tacks at the top of an unusual and elegant set of portieres. Long strings of red raffia hung to the floor, studded at regular intervals with silver glass balls held in place by knots. Shiny, crimped ornaments glittered every few inches along the strings of portieres.

  “Beads?” Miss Tinkham exclaimed. “It is simply spectacular! What on earth are those glittery things?” She came up close to examine them. They were beer caps clamped shut around the raffia cords. N. Carnation was one big smile.

  “Bonita? Le gustó?” she asked.

  “Do we like it! It’s fantastic!” Miss Tinkham hugged her.

  “So that’s what you been doin’ with the pliers!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “At our speed,” Mrs. Rasmussen grinned, “if she wants to make ’em, we can soon drape every window in the place.”

  “Muy elegantes, como la casa,” N. Carnation said.

  “They are elegant,” Miss Tinkham agreed. “And they certainly go with the house. Oh, the house! I forgot the lease in the excitement of N. Carnation’s portieres: he let us have it for five years.” She pulled out a legal-looking paper.

  “How much?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked.

  “I put up a dreadfully poor mouth,” Miss Tinkham smiled, “and I think I caught him at a propitious moment, one of the heirs had probably just given birth to triplets or something, so he let us have it for ten dollars a month.”

  “Now we can really go to town!” Mrs. Feeley cried.

  “No work, though,” Miss Tinkham said. “When this is done, we are going to loaf and invite our souls. No trabajar por mucho tiempo!”

  N. Carnation’s understanding was increasing rapidly, although she was too shy to try much conversation in English.

  “Qué bonito es no hacer nada, y luego descansar,” she laughed.

  “Let me see if I can do it.” Miss Tinkham smiled: “How pretty it is to do nothing, and then rest.”

  “Ain’t that good?” Mrs. Feeley clapped Mrs. Rasmussen on the back. “We ain’t done nothin’ like that for quite a spell.”

  Inspired by her success, N. Carnation said:

  “El indio dice: ‘A veces tengo ganas de trabajar, pero me aguanto como hombre.”

  “Sometimes I feel like working, but I resist manfully!” Miss Tinkham remembered that much from Katy’s Spanish class. “We have to resist more manfully.” She led the way to the kitchen with one backward glance at N. Carnation’s present to the house. “Right now I won’t resist a cold beer and a snack.”

  The end of the fifth day found the ladies sweating in the upstairs workroom. A sudden hot Indian summer day had struck and the feathers stuck to their fingers. The end was almost in sight.

  “That last mile is always the longest.” Miss Tinkham smiled wearily. “Perhaps a little music will help.” She snapped on the television and soon a barrel-shaped baritone was bellowing into the room. His voice was harsh and dry, loud and unmelodious. The feathers Miss Tinkham was fastening with wire kept falling out of place with the perversity of things inanimate. N. Carnation worked stoically. Mrs. Rasmussen paused and rubbed the back of her neck.

  “Maybe he’s got diabetuss.” Mrs. Feeley wagged her head at the baritone. “Bound to be somethin’ sweet about him. It sure ain’t his voice.”

  Fatigue and pressure had made Miss Tinkham giddy. She began to laugh so hard that the tears ran down her face. Her friends laughed to see her laugh, and everybody felt better.

  “My Spanish isn’t up to explaining that to N. Carnation,” she apologized. “Canta muy feo.” She wrinkled up her nose in distaste at the man’s ugly singing and let it go at that.

  “I don’t believe it,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “It jus’ can’t be so.”

  Her friends looked up from their work.

  “The tray’s em
pty. We done it.”

  “Tres de pilón.” N. Carnation smiled and pulled three extras out of her pocket.

  “Three over!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Come an’ get ’em, boys! Reminds me o’ that joke about California an’ the red geraniums. Goodbye, Fairy Oaks, an’ yer goddam blue camellias!”

  “It calls for a celebration,” Miss Tinkham said. “Vámonos!”

  “Cahm on!” N. Carnation said. “Drinky beer.”

  “You don’t have to ast me twicet.” Mrs. Feeley bounded down the steps after Mrs. Rasmussen. They were dizzy with relief.

  Miss Tinkham took a beer in each hand and went out under the trees. She lay down on the grass and closed her eyes. Her friends followed her example. They lay in blissful silence for several minutes.

  “As soon as James comes we’ll have him run over to the decorators and tell them to come for the flowers,” Miss Tinkham murmured.

  “Whyn’t we let Ol’-Timer deliver ’em to them nincompoots in the truck?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “We have to alert them so that they can bring the cash,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Thank God our mansion is rock, but even so, let us pray that no fire breaks out anywhere until those flowers are, like the title of the old gospel hymn: ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus.’”

  Mrs. Feeley had placed her beer can on top of her stomach for greater convenience. She laughed at Miss Tinkham’s figure of speech and the beer can jiggled and bounced up and down.

  “Jus’ look at my belly bounce!” Mrs. Feeley laughed.

  “Belly Bounce!” Miss Tinkham felt more than a little silly after her labors. “That could easily become the new national pastime! Much more relaxing and not lewd like hula hoops! Now: everyone place her beer can on her middle!” She set the example with some difficulty as she was slightly concave. She raised her head to inspect her friends. N. Carnation was having the same trouble. “The object of this relaxing game is to think of something funny. It has to make you laugh enough so that the can bounces. Unless the can bounces, we may not take another sip. Think of something hysterical!”

  “Ha!” Mrs. Rasmussen said in her dead-pan voice. The can jumped visibly, and the others laughed enough to justify a swig.

  Mrs. Feeley found a feather sticking to her shirt sleeve and proceeded to tickle herself under the chin until she laughed.

  “Wonderful!” Miss Tinkham cried. “That was in the finest tradition of the top television comedians of today, except that by rights they should provide the viewers with feathers, too. The advantage of this game is that it can be played with any beverage, even with glasses of milk poised on the belly, perish the thought!”

  The cans bounced again at the thought of Miss Tinkham drinking milk. James drove in, and almost drove over the ladies’ legs.

  “Zounds!” Miss Tinkham cried. “It reminds me of the incident of the night porter at a motel who went to sleep with his legs in the driveway and a car ran over them. ‘I’ll have to get lighter covers,’ he said.”

  The cans bounced gaily as James came up.

  “What would you call this?”

  “Belly Bounce,” Miss Tinkham said. “Try it for fatigue. We were so tired that we were walking around shivering in our naked nerves.”

  “I’ll get you some supper in a minute,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “You won’t do anything of the kind,” James said. “We are going out to eat at the V.F.W. It’s not too good, but it will be a change. You’ve waited on me too much already. C’mon. Get glamorized.”

  “Would you, dear, sweet James, run over to Fairy Oaks and tell them the flowers arrived ‘on the wings of a dove’ or by carrier pigeon, or something?” Miss Tinkham asked.

  James nodded and started to back his car out.

  “Want a body guard?” Mrs. Feeley shouted.

  James made a rude noise with his mouth.

  “I do wish I had something different and glamorous to wear,” Miss Tinkham sighed.

  “Take a bath an’ nobody’ll notice the difference.” Mrs. Feeley rolled to her feet.

  “Vamoose! Fiesta! Bailar…Cha cha cha!…” Mrs. Rasmussen had not listened in vain. Arm in arm she went with N. Carnation toward the house.

  “Red-letter day,” Mrs. Feeley said. “N. Carnation said ‘drinky beer’ an’ Mrs. Rasmussen talked Mess-kin.”

  “Anyone can do it if he wants to,” Miss Tinkham said. “You can communicate somehow if your heart is in it. I wonder if that last box has anything in it to wear?”

  Mrs. Feeley went to the upstairs bathroom to clean up and Miss Tinkham hauled out the box of antiques she had been too busy to open.

  It was heavy and did not promise much in the way of clothing. On the top was a moth-eaten ostrich feather fan in a sickly lilac color. Underneath that, she found a tissue paper package that contained a length of apricot Chinese silk brocade. Too bad it isn’t made up. I think I’ll get Mrs. Rasmussen to make me one of those slinky things Suzie Wong wore. She wondered how her legs would look sticking out of the slit.

  “Ah…this restores my soul!” She shook out a long silk chiffon scarf, shaded from palest forget-me-not to deep sapphire blue. “I never thought I’d like blue again,” she sighed blissfully, “but it will do something for my pink trapeze.” A box of some fine inlaid wood stared up at her. She slid it out of the carton. “Allah,” she murmured, “let it be what I think it is!”

  The inlaid mother-of-pearl wreath of flowers in the top was minus a few bits here and there, but when she lifted the lid, the mechanism seemed to be intact. There was the brass disk, perforated like the rolls of a player piano.

  “I feel like a greedy pig trying it out by myself,” she said aloud. The key needed winding. Then pull the lever forward. Faint, but unmistakable: a waltz tinkled into the room: “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

  Miss Tinkham loped to the foot of the stairs: “Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo!” She could make it sound Wagnerian when she had to.

  “What’s the matter?” Mrs. Feeley came running down clad only in her pink rayon bloomers, the whole pair she had saved back. Mrs. Rasmussen and N. Carnation came from the back bedrooms in various stages of undress.

  “What happened? Are you snake-bit?” Mrs. Rasmussen looked anxious.

  Miss Tinkham threw the blue scarf around her shoulders and let the ends float: “Listen to this! Oh, Ben Hur, you really should have taken inventory!”

  She backed away so her friends could see the music box and hear the delicate tune. They were speechless. There was a little click and the music soared in the opening cadence of “The Blue Danube.”

  Open-mouthed, they gazed as Miss Tinkham swooped and dipped to the irresistible melody that would make even Methodist feet dance. James and Old-Timer appeared in the door to the hall. Miss Tinkham soared on, seeming to drift about ten inches above the parquet floor.

  “All the colors of the sunset smiling at us,” she whispered, out of breath. She and the music box ran down together. “Can’t you see how effective it will be when customers come? Waltzing out to meet them to this melody?”

  “Yeup,” Mrs. Feeley agreed, “A full stomach, our nerves sound asleep, an’ a clean conscience. How’s that song go the cowboy sings on the raddyo?”

  Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen smiled and began to sing the incredible words that had stuck in their heads, but that now expressed their feelings to a T:

  Although this request may seem odd,

  God bless God!

  THE END

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright ©
1962 by Mary Lasswell

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3704-4

  Distributed in 2016 by Open Road Distribution

  180 Maiden Lane

  New York, NY 10038

  www.openroadmedia.com