“Oh, don’t be an Airedale,” she said.
“Just a real good girl,” he said. “Some little looker, too. Where did you get those big, blue eyes from, anyway? Don’t you know I’m the guy that always falls for big, blue eyes?”
“You would,” she said. “You’re just the tripe.”
“Hey, listen, listen,” he said. “Lay off for a minute, will you? Come on, now, get regular. Aren’t you going to tell me where you got those big, blue eyes?”
“Oh, don’t be ridic,” she said. “They are not big! Are they?”
“Are they big!” he said. “You don’t know they’re big, do you? Oh, no, nobody ever told you that before. And you don’t know what you do to me, when you look up like that, do you? Yes, you don’t!”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said.
“Ah, stop that, will you?” he said. “Go ahead, now, come clean. Tell me where you got those big, blue eyes.”
“What’s your idea in bringing that up?” she said.
“And your hair’s pretty cute, too,” he said. “I suppose you don’t know you’ve got pretty cute hair. You wouldn’t know about that, would you?”
“Even if that was good, I wouldn’t like it,” she said.
“Come on, now,” he said. “Don’t you know that hair of yours is pretty cute?”
“ ’S wonderful,” she said. “ ’S marvelous.”
“That you should care for me?” he said.
“Oh, don’t be an Airedale,” she said.
“I could care for you in a big way,” he said. “What those big, blue eyes of yours do to me is nobody’s business. Know that?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that,” she said.
“Hey, listen,” he said, “what are you trying to do—run me ragged? Don’t you ever stop kidding? When are you going to tell me where you got your big, blue eyes?”
“Oh, pull yourself together,” she said.
“I’d have to have a care with a girl like you,” he said. “Watch my step, that’s what I’d have to do.”
“Don’t be sil,” she said.
“You know what?” he said. “I could get a girl like you on the brain.”
“The what?” she said.
“Ah, come on, come on,” he said. “Lay off that stuff, will you? Tell me where you’ve been keeping yourself, anyhow. Got any more like you around the house?”
“ ’S all there is,” she said. “ ’R’ isn’t any more.”
“That’s Oke with me,” he said. “One like you’s enough. What those eyes of yours do to me is plenty! Know it?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said.
“That dress of yours slays me,” he said. “Where’d you get the catsy dress? Hm?”
“Don’t be an Airedale,” she said.
“Hey, where’d you get that expression, anyway?” he said.
“It’s a gift,” she said.
“ ‘Gift’ is right,” he said. “It’s a honey.”
“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” she said.
“You slay me,” he said. “I’m telling you. Where do you get all your stuff from?”
“What’s your idea in bringing that up?” she said.
The hostess, with enhanced sparkles, romped over to them.
“Well, for heaven’s sakes!” she cried. “Aren’t you two even going to look at anybody else? What do you think of her, Jack? Isn’t she cute?”
“Is she cute!” he said.
“Isn’t he marvelous, Alice?” asked the hostess.
“You’d be surprised,” she said.
The hostess cocked her head, like a darling, mischievous terrier puppy, and sparkled whimsically at them.
“Oh, you two!” she said. “Didn’t I tell you you’d get on just like nothing at all?”
“And how!” said the girl.
“ ‘And how’ is right!” said the young man.
“You two!” cooed the hostess. “I could listen to you all night.”
The New Yorker, August 18, 1928
The Garter
There it goes! That would be. That would happen to me. I haven’t got enough trouble. Here I am, a poor, lone orphan, stuck for the evening at this foul party where I don’t know a soul. And now my garter has to go and break. That’s the kind of thing they think up to do to me. Let’s see, what shall we have happen to her now? Well, suppose we make her garter break; of course, it’s an old gag, but it’s always pretty sure-fire. A lot they’ve got to do, raking up grammar-school jokes to play on a poor, heartsick orphan, alone in the midst of a crowd. That’s the bitterest kind of loneliness there is, too. Anybody’ll tell you that. Anybody that wouldn’t tell you that is a rotten egg.
This couldn’t have happened to me in the perfumed sanctity of my boudoir. Or even in the comparative privacy of the taxi. Oh, no. That would have been too good. It must wait until I’m cornered, like a frightened rat, in a room full of strangers. And the dressing-room forty yards away—it might as well be Sheridan. I would get that kind of break. Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, O sea, and I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me. Boy, do I would that it could! I’d have this room emptied in thirty seconds, flat.
Thank God I was sitting down when the crash came. There’s a commentary on existence for you. There’s a glimpse of the depths to which a human being can sink. All I have to be thankful for in this world is that I was sitting down when my garter busted. Count your blessings over, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done. Yeah. I see.
What is a person supposed to do in a case like this? What would Napoleon have done? I’ve got to keep a cool head on my shoulders. I’ve got to be practical. I’ve got to make plans. The thing to do is to avert a panic at all costs. Tell the orchestra for God’s sake to keep on playing. Dance, you jazz-mad puppets of fate, and pay no attention to me. I’m all right. Wounded? Nay, sire, I’m healthy. Oh, I’m great.
The only course I see open is to sit here and hold on to it, so my stocking won’t come slithering down around my ankle. Just sit here and sit here and sit here. There’s a rosy future. Summer will come, and bright, bitter Autumn, and jolly old King Winter. And here I’ll be, hanging on to this damned thing. Love and fame will pass me by, and I shall never know the sacred, awful joy of holding a tiny, warm body in my grateful arms. I may not set down imperishable words for posterity to marvel over; there will be for me nor travel nor riches nor wise, new friends, nor glittering adventure, nor the sweet fruition of my gracious womanhood. Ah, hell.
Won’t it be nice for my lucky hosts, when everybody else goes home, and I’m still sitting here? I wonder if I’ll ever get to know them well enough to hang my blushing head and whisper my little secret to them. I suppose we’ll have to get pretty much used to one another. I’ll probably live a long time; there won’t be much wear on my system, sitting here, year in, year out, holding my stocking up. Maybe they could find a use for me, after a while. They could hang hats on me, or use my lap for an ash-tray. I wonder if their lease is up, the first of October. No, no, no, now I won’t hear a word of it; you all go right ahead and move, and leave me here for the new tenants. Maybe the landlord will do me over for them. I expect my clothes will turn yellow, like Miss Havisham’s, in Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, an English novelist, 1812-1870. Miss Havisham had a broken heart, and I’ve got a broken garter. The Frustration Girls. The Frustration Girls on an Island, The Frustration Girls at the World’s Fair, The Frustration Girls and Their Ice-Boat, The Frustration Girls at the House of All Nations. That’s enough of that. I don’t want to play that any more.
To think of a promising young life blocked, halted, shattered by a garter! In happier times, I might have been able to use the word “garter” in a sentence. Nearer, my garter thee, nearer to thee. It doesn’t matter; my life’s over, anyway. I wonder how they’ll be able to tell when I’m dead. It will be a very thin line of distinction between me sitting here holdin
g my stocking, and just a regulation dead body. A demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body. That’s from Nicholas Nickleby. What am I having, anyway—An Evening with Dickens? Well, it’s the best I’ll get, from now on.
If I had my life to live over again, I’d wear corsets; corsets with lots of firm, true, tough, loyal-hearted garters attached to them all the way around. You’d be safe with them; they wouldn’t let you down. I wouldn’t trust a round garter again as far as I could see it. I or anybody else. Never trust a round garter or a Wall Street man. That’s what life has taught me. That’s what I’ve got out of all this living. If I could have just one more chance, I’d wear corsets. Or else I’d go without stockings, and play I was the eternal Summer girl. Once they wouldn’t let me in the Casino at Monte Carlo because I didn’t have any stockings on. So I went and found my stockings, and then came back and lost my shirt. Dottie’s Travel Diary: or Highways and Byways in Picturesque Monaco, by One of Them. I wish I were in Monte Carlo right this minute. I wish I were in Carcassonne. Hell, it would look like a million dollars to me to be on St. Helena.
I certainly must be cutting a wide swath through this party. I’m making my personality felt. Creeping into every heart, that’s what I’m doing. Oh, have you met Dorothy Parker? What’s she like? Oh, she’s terrible. God, she’s poisonous. Sits in a corner and sulks all evening—never opens her yap. Dumbest woman you ever saw in your life. You know, they say she doesn’t write a word of her stuff. They say she pays this poor little guy, that lives in some tenement on the lower East Side, ten dollars a week to write it and she just signs her name to it. He has to do it, the poor devil, to help support a crippled mother and five brothers and sisters; he makes buttonholes in the daytime. Oh, she’s terrible.
Little do they know, the blind fools, that I’m all full of tenderness and affection, and just aching to give and give and give. All they can see is this unfortunate exterior. There’s a man looking at it now. All right, baby, go on and look your head off. Funny, isn’t it? Look pretty silly, don’t I, sitting here holding my knee? Yes, and I’m the only one that’s going to hold it, too. What do you think of that, sweetheart?
Heaven send that no one comes over here and tries to make friends with me. That’s the first time I ever wished that, in all my life. What shall I do if anyone comes over? Suppose they try to shake hands with me. Suppose somebody asks me to dance. I’ll just have to rock my head and say, “No spik Inglese,” that’s all. Can this be me, praying that nobody will come near me? And when I was getting dressed, I thought, “Maybe this will be the night that romance will come into my life.” Oh, if I only had the use of both my hands, I’d just cover my face and cry my heart out.
That man, that man who was looking! He’s coming over! Oh, now what? I can’t say, “Sir, I have not the dubious pleasure of your acquaintance.” I’m rotten at that sort of thing. I can’t answer him in perfect French. Lord knows I can’t get up and walk haughtily away. I wonder how he’d take it if I told him all. He looks a little too Brooks Brothers to be really understanding. The better they look, the more they think you are trying to get new with them, if you talk of Real Things, Things That Matter. Maybe he’d think I was just eccentric. Maybe he’s got a humane streak, somewhere underneath. Maybe he’s got a sister or a mother or something. Maybe he’ll turn out to be one of Nature’s noblemen.
How do you do? Listen, what would you do if you were I, and . . . ?
The New Yorker, September 8, 1928
New York to Detroit
“All ready with Detroit,” said the telephone operator.
“Hello,” said the girl in New York.
“Hello?” said the young man in Detroit.
“Oh, Jack!” she said. “Oh, darling, it’s so wonderful to hear you. You don’t know how much I—”
“Hello?” he said.
“Ah, can’t you hear me?” she said. “Why, I can hear you just as if you were right beside me. Is this any better, dear? Can you hear me now?”
“Who did you want to speak to?” he said.
“You, Jack!” she said. “You, you. This is Jean, darling. Oh, please try to hear me. This is Jean.”
“Who?” he said.
“Jean,” she said. “Ah, don’t you know my voice? It’s Jean, dear. Jean.”
“Oh, hello there,” he said. “Well. Well, for heaven’s sake. How are you?”
“I’m all right,” she said. “Oh, I’m not, either, darling. I—oh, it’s just terrible. I can’t stand it any more. Aren’t you coming back? Please, when are you coming back? You don’t know how awful it is, without you. It’s been such a long time, dear—you said it would be just four or five days, and it’s nearly three weeks. It’s like years and years. Oh, it’s been so awful, sweetheart—it’s just——”
“Hey, I’m terribly sorry,” he said, “but I can’t hear one damn thing you’re saying. Can’t you talk louder, or something?”
“I’ll try, I’ll try,” she said. “Is this better? Now can you hear?”
“Yeah, now I can, a little,” he said. “Don’t talk so fast, will you? What did you say, before?”
“I said it’s just awful without you,” she said. “It’s such a long time, dear. And I haven’t had a word from you. I—oh, I’ve just been nearly crazy, Jack. Never even a post-card, dearest, or a——”
“Honestly, I haven’t had a second,” he said. “I’ve been working like a fool. God, I’ve been rushed.”
“Ah, have you?” she said. “I’m sorry, dear. I’ve been silly. But it was just—oh, it was just hell, never hearing a word. I thought maybe you’d telephone to say good-night, sometimes,—you know, the way you used to, when you were away.”
“Why, I was going to, a lot of times,” he said, “but I thought you’d probably be out, or something.”
“I haven’t been out,” she said. “I’ve been staying here, all by myself. It’s—it’s sort of better, that way. I don’t want to see people. Everybody says, ‘When’s Jack coming back?’ and ‘What do you hear from Jack?’ and I’m afraid I’ll cry in front of them. Darling, it hurts so terribly when they ask me about you, and I have to say I don’t——”
“This is the damndest, lousiest connection I ever saw in my life,” he said. “What hurts? What’s the matter?”
“I said, it hurts so terribly when people ask me about you,” she said, “and I have to say—Oh, never mind. Never mind. How are you, dear? Tell me how you are.”
“Oh, pretty good,” he said. “Tired as the devil. You all right?”
“Jack, I—that’s what I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I’m terribly worried. I’m nearly out of my mind. Oh, what will I do, dear, what are we going to do? Oh, Jack, Jack, darling!”
“Hey, how can I hear you when you mumble like that?” he said. “Can’t you talk louder? Talk right into the what-you-call-it.”
“I can’t scream it over the telephone!” she said. “Haven’t you any sense? Don’t you know what I’m telling you? Don’t you know? Don’t you know?”
“I give up,” he said. “First you mumble, and then you yell. Look, this doesn’t make sense. I can’t hear anything, with this rotten connection. Why don’t you write me a letter, in the morning? Do that, why don’t you? And I’ll write you one. See?”
“Jack, listen, listen!” she said. “You listen to me! I’ve got to talk to you. I tell you I’m nearly crazy. Please, dearest, hear what I’m saying. Jack, I——”
“Just a minute,” he said. “Someone’s knocking at the door. Come in. Well, for cryin’ out loud! Come on in, bums. Hang your coats up on the floor, and sit down. The Scotch is in the closet, and there’s ice in that pitcher. Make yourselves at home—act like you were in a regular bar. Be with you right away. Hey, listen, there’s a lot of crazy Indians just come in here, and I can’t hear myself think. You go ahead and write me a letter tomorrow. Will you?”
“Write you a letter!” she said. “Oh, God, don’t you think I’d have written you before, if I’d known where
to reach you? I didn’t even know that, till they told me at your office today. I got so——”
“Oh, yeah, did they?” he said. “I thought I—Ah, pipe down, will you? Give a guy a chance. This is an expensive talk going on here. Say, look, this must be costing you a million dollars. You oughtn’t to do this.”
“What do you think I care about that?” she said. “I’ll die if I don’t talk to you. I tell you I’ll die, Jack. Sweetheart, what is it? Don’t you want to talk to me? Tell me what makes you this way. Is it—don’t you really like me any more? Is that it? Don’t you, Jack?”
“Hell, I can’t hear,” he said. “Don’t what?”
“Please,” she said. “Please, please. Please, Jack, listen. When are you coming back, darling? I need you so. I need you so terribly. When are you coming back?”
“Why, that’s the thing,” he said. “That’s what I was going to write you about tomorrow. Come on, now, how about shutting up just for a minute? A joke’s a joke. Hello. Hear me all right? Why, you see, the way things came out today, it looks a little bit like I’d have to go on to Chicago for a while. Looks like a pretty big thing, and it won’t mean a very long time, I don’t believe. Looks as if I’d be going out there next week, I guess.”
“Jack, no!” she said. “Oh, don’t do that! You can’t do that. You can’t leave me alone like this. I’ve got to see you, dearest. I’ve got to. You’ve got to come back, or I’ve got to come there to you. I can’t go through this. Jack, I can’t, I——”
“Look, we better say good-night now,” he said. “No use trying to make out what you say, when you talk all over yourself like that. And there’s so much racket here—Hey, can the harmony, will you? God, it’s terrible. Want me to be thrown out of here? You go get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll write you all about it tomorrow.”
“Listen!” she said. “Jack, don’t go ’way! Help me, darling. Say something to help me through tonight. Say you love me, for God’s sake say you still love me. Say it. Say it.”
Complete Stories Page 15