No Nice Girl (3 page)

The living room looked pleasant and cozy with the gateleg table drawn up before the long windows that looked over a small, ambitious but not too successful garden. The table was spread with a crisp embroidered linen cloth, and there was a black bowl filled with bright-hued zinnias in the center. Phyllis' peasant china added a gay and colorful note, and the smells from the kitchenette were very appetizing.

Terry came in with a cocktail shaker and two glasses on a tray.

“Anice says she doesn't imbibe,” he said, explaining the two glasses, and grinned at Phyllis.

“It's not that I disapprove,” Anice said anxiously. “It's just that…well, I never thought it was quite ladylike—though of course I don't mean to criticize
you
, Cousin Phyllis. I suppose it's—well, part of being a career girl in New York.”

“I'm not a career girl, Anice,” protested Phyllis shortly. “I am a business girl. I work for my living, not merely for a career.”

“Oh, of course. And I suppose you
have
to drink in order to keep your job,” said Anice candidly.

Phyllis almost choked over her cocktail and stared at Anice with active dislike in her eyes.

“Odd as it may seem to you, Anice, I've never yet had to get drunk in order to hold my job,” she said icily.

Quick tears filled Anice's eyes and her young chin quivered, but she managed a tremulous smile and said contritely, “I've hurt your feelings, haven't I? And I'm just terribly sorry—I wouldn't have done that for
anything
. I only meant that I didn't disapprove of
your
drinking.”

“That's damn kind of you,” said Phyllis through her teeth, before she could check the angry words.

Anice blinked, caught up her apron in two shaking hands and murmured something as she ran back to the kitchenette.

“You didn't have to be so rough on the kid, Phyl. She seems like a good kid, anxious to do what's right,” protested Terry.

Phyllis raised her eyebrows a little and said gently, “Et tu, Brute?”

Terry, sharply annoyed, responded, “Oh, for Pete's sake, Phyl, have a heart! The kid's trying so hard to make things pleasant.”

Phyllis laughed, a short, mirthless laugh, and said quietly, “Yes, isn't she?”

Anice, suspiciously flushed and her eyes damp, the golden lashes stuck together in little points, came in bringing food, and as they settled about the table, she watched them anxiously, as though her very life depended on their liking what she had cooked.

“I do hope it's—well, eatable,” she said.

“It's delicious—food for the gods. Boy, how you can cook!” said Terry simply, but with heartfelt sincerity.

“Oh, I'm so glad! I was terrified you wouldn't like it, and I did
so
want to have a nice, hot meal waiting for Cousin Phyllis. I know how hard she works, and she looks so tired,” cooed Anice sweetly.

Phyllis studied her for a moment and then she asked mildly, “When did you say you got in, Anice?”

“This afternoon a little after three,” said Anice innocently.

“And you came straight here and unpacked and made yourself at home?” commented Phyllis, with almost no expression in her voice.

Terry looked from one to the other, puzzled by a sudden tension that, man-like, he could not quite grasp.

“Why, yes, of course,” said Anice, puzzled, child-like. “I do hope you don't mind my unpacking and putting things away, Cousin Phyllis? I tried to make everything neat and tidy.”

“Oh, you did—very neat and tidy,” said Phyllis quietly. “The only thing that puzzled me was how you managed to get so much shopping accomplished in just a couple of hours, and to bring the things home and put them away.”

Anice looked at the table and then at Phyllis and said, “But there's a nice little grocery shop just around the corner.”

“I don't mean the food, Anice,” said Phyllis quietly. “I mean all the pretty new clothes you put away in the closet and in the dresser drawers. How in the world did you manage to accomplish so much in such a little while?”

“Oh!” For a moment Anice appeared a trifle disconcerted, and then she laughed merrily. “Oh,
that
. The Personal Shopping Agency did that for me—isn't it wonderful? I sent them my size in everything and they shopped and sent me the things so all I had to do was pack them and, when I got here, unpack them!”

Now why,
Phyllis asked herself as Terry said something that was supposed to ease the tension,
should she lie about a thing like that? She's been in town a couple of days, at the very least; she'd have to be to get that much shopping done. And it doesn't matter a darn to
me—so why the heck should she lie about it? There's a purpose back of everything she does—as I should know! But what is behind this lie?

A little later, they were finishing the apple pie—Anice mourned that it was a bakery pie, because she hadn't had time to bake one, but she
could
bake a much better pie than that and some time she would prove it to Terry!—Phyllis asked casually, “Did you rent your house, Anice?”

“No,” said Anice like a delighted child. “Guess what—I sold it! And I got a thousand dollars for it!”

“A thousand dollars? Why, Anice, that was highway robbery!” protested Phyllis.

Anice flushed and looked guilty.

“I suppose it was, but they wanted it just terribly. It was a veteran and his wife and they had two sweet children, and nobody wanted to rent them a house—isn't it terrible the way landlords won't rent to anybody with children? And they thought it would be a wonderful place for the kiddies.” She broke off and looked at Terry and at Phyllis, and then asked huskily, “Do you think I should give them back some of the money? Gran was asking nine hundred for it the summer before she died.”

“Then it's certainly worth a hundred dollars more now than it was then, with the housing shortage!” said Terry firmly. “Dry your pretty eyes, honeychile, and forget it. I bet the vet was tickled silly to get it for a thousand bucks.”

Anice said eagerly, “Oh, he
was
. It was furnished, you know, and I gave him twenty-four-hour possession, and the wife almost cried, she was so glad to get settled and know she wouldn't have to be evicted again.”

She beamed happily at Terry, childishly relieved that he had not condemned her for the price she had asked.
But Phyllis remembered the generous piles of flowery lingerie, the cobwebby stockings, and the half dozen or more frocks and hats and slippers that had all but crowded Phyllis out of her own room. That outlay must have taken up her thousand dollars—for clothes like that were not cheap, as Phyllis had every reason to know. If Anice had sunk her whole thousand dollars on a new wardrobe, then Phyllis could quite understand her moving in here where she would not have to pay rent.

T
HE EVENING WAS NOT
an unqualified success so far as Phyllis was concerned, though Terry and Anice seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. Anice was quite scrupulous about sharing Terry; she danced with him, and then insisted—
As though I were a maiden aunt who must be placated
, Phyllis told herself, fuming inwardly—that he dance with Phyllis, leaving Anice alone at the table, to look about her with bright, excited eyes, and to imbibe copious draughts of lemonade or ginger ale.

“She's a cute kid,” said Terry when he and Phyllis were dancing for the third or fourth time.

Phyllis looked up at him with a faint smile.

“I knew you'd think that,” she told him coolly.

Terry flushed. “Meaning, I suppose, that you think I'm falling for her.”

“And if you are, Terry, surely that's your privilege,” said Phyllis, and there was a faint edge to her voice. “After all, you're heart-whole and fancy-free.”

“And you don't give a damn, so what am I waiting for?” Terry finished for her.

“Well, Terry, you'd make some woman a darned good husband.”

“And you'd pass me on to her, though I remember quite well your saying of her, ‘I've seldom met anyone I liked less,'” Terry reminded her grimly.

Phyllis danced for a moment in silence and then she said flatly, “What I can't understand, Terry, is why she would have lied about the time she arrived.”

“I also remember you say she was famous for ‘telling the truth and shaming the devil,'” Terry recalled.

“I think I'm going to have to revise that,” Phyllis admitted her error. “She couldn't possibly have arrived this afternoon, for she has done a good two days of hard shopping. There's evidence of it all over the place.”

“She told us she had the stuff bought by a personal shopper and sent down south to her.”

“Which was as barefaced a lie as I've ever encountered,” Phyllis pointed out grimly. “No woman in her senses shops for hats by mail, nor for slippers, nor for the kind of frocks and stuff she's got. It doesn't make a scrap of difference to me if she's been in town a week or a month or even a year—it's just that I can't understand why she should bother to lie about it.”

Terry nodded. “That does seem a bit odd. How long does she plan to stay?”

“She said in her wire until she could find an apartment,” answered Phyllis slowly. “But from the way she's settled down—of course apartments are practically nonexistent nowadays.”

Terry was alarmed. “You don't think she plans to stay with you permanently, do you?”

“I'm beginning to be a little frightened, Terry,” Phyllis admitted.

Terry was frankly downcast.

“Well, if it gets more than you can take, remember I've got a little place and you're welcome to share it permanently, with or without the formality of a trip to City Hall—though I'd much rather prefer the formality.”

Phyllis laughed and slipped her hand through his arm as the music ended and they started back to their table.

“I'm not quite sure how much of Anice I can take, Terry, so don't be startled if I take you up on that,” she told him.

“I'll be startled into a seventh heaven if you do. I hope Anice stays forever and develops horns and cloven hoofs, if that's what it takes to send you flying into my arms,” said Terry frankly.

“You're much too nice to be accepted as a counterirritant,” Phyllis told him, and smiled intimately up at him, as he drew out her chair for her at the table.

Anice looked swiftly from one to the other and her mouth thinned ever so little. But almost immediately she began to chatter in her pretty, childish way that Terry found diverting but that would, he was shrewd enough to realize, become unbearably boring in time.

Shortly after twelve, Phyllis stated firmly that as a business gal she must have some sleep and that Anice and Terry might continue the fun if they liked. Anice looked eagerly at Terry, but he shook his head.

“I'm a working man myself, kid. I have to have a few hours' sleep so I can look all bright-eyed and alert on the job,” he told her, and patted her hand as though she had been a child. “But we'll do this again soon.”

With that Anice was forced to be content. A little later Terry said goodnight to them both in the apartment lobby, and his eyes told Phyllis how reluctant he was to leave her like that. In fact, the look in his eyes was so eloquent that Anice was thoughtfully silent on the way upstairs, and when the two girls were in Phyllis' bedroom getting ready for bed, she asked frankly, “Cousin Phyllis, do you mind if I ask you a very impertinent question?”

“Not if you don't mind my not answering it, if it's too impertinent,” Phyllis answered lightly, though her eyes were wary.

“Well, I was wondering if you are in love with Terry?” said Anice quietly.

“Certainly not!” Phyllis flashed, and was instantly ashamed of her vehemence.

“I wondered if maybe he was your lover,” said Anice so gently that it was a full second before Phyllis realized what she had said. And before she could flash an indignant answer, Phyllis knew by the burning of her face that the color had risen to her cheeks.

“I quite agree with you that that is a very impertinent question, Anice, and one I refuse to answer,” said Phyllis swiftly.

Anice's smile was a little like that of a cream-fed cat.

“You have answered it, Cousin Phyllis,” she said coolly, and added quickly, “Oh, I'm not blaming you. I think he's terribly cute and he must be a lot of fun—as a lover.”

“I'm surprised a ‘nice' girl like you, Anice, could have such a thought,” said Phyllis, and made no effort to keep her resentment and her annoyance from her tone.

Anice's eyes were wide and limpid.

“Oh, I didn't mean I'd ever accept a lover
myself
, Cousin Phyllis—the very thought sickens me!” she said swiftly, almost but not quite innocently. “It's just that…well, after all, I know there are women who…who—well,
need
a man now and then.”

Phyllis' eyes blazed.

“And you think I am one of them?” she asked through her teeth.

Anice's eyes were wide with innocence.

“I wouldn't know, Cousin Phyllis,” she answered gently. “How could I? After all, I don't know you very
well. We're cousins and all that, but we haven't seen very much of each other.”

“No, that's right, but it begins to look as though we may very soon, don't you think?” said Phyllis, and indicated the bedroom, with its neatly divided closet and dressing-table space.

“Oh, but it's only until I can find an apartment,” said Anice, flushing, her head held high. “After all, where else could I go, until I find a place of my own?”

Phyllis was tired, and too angry to risk arguing, lest she lose her temper completely.

“Shall we skip it, for the time being?” she asked curtly. “I'm a bit tired.”

“Of course, Cousin Phyllis,” said Anice, all sweet solicitude. “I'm a beast to upset you like this. How shall we manage about sleeping?”

Phyllis glanced at the big, low double bed with its quilted satin headboard, and its covers neatly turned back.

“There seems to be plenty of room—” she began.

“Oh, but I couldn't sleep with anybody—I never have. It's silly of me, I know. I thought maybe we might draw straws, or toss a coin, to see who sleeps in here and who sleeps on the couch in the living room. Or we could take turns—I could sleep there one night and you could sleep there the next, couldn't we?” Anice's tone was that of one very gentle and considerate, who is speaking irrefutable logic.

Staggered, and not quite sure how it happened, Phyllis found herself a little later making a most uncomfortable bed for herself on the chesterfield in the living room and wondering, a little dazed, what the future might hold for her if this blond, blue-eyed gentle-voiced child was going to be her apartment-mate for any length of time.

“Beginning tomorrow morning,” she told herself
firmly, beating her pillow in a futile effort to make it seem less as though it had been stuffed with paving blocks, “I shall telephone everybody I can think of. Perhaps Mr. Rutledge might own a building somewhere with a vacant apartment. There's
got
to be one somewhere! And soon!”

She was awakened by the heartening smell of coffee perking merrily, and when she sat up, puzzled to find herself in the living room instead of in bed in her own room, it was to see Anice setting the table beside the window.

Anice was crisp and fresh in a checked gingham dress and a coquettish little apron, every shining golden hair in place, her complexion fresh and glowing without the slightest artifice.

“Good morning,” she caroled gaily when she saw that Phyllis was awake. “Breakfast will be ready as soon as you are—isn't it a gorgeous morning?”

Phyllis passed a hand across a forehead that ached a little and was conscious of an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

“Is it?” she asked dryly.

Anice looked prettily concerned.

“I'm afraid it's because you had too much to drink last night, Cousin Phyllis. You've got a bit of a hangover,” she said sweetly.

Phyllis smothered the retort that rose to her lips and stumbled into the bath. A brisk shower made her feel better. The bedroom was in shining order; illogically enough, that added to her feeling of irritation. When she came back into the living room, dressed for the office, Anice was putting crispy golden toast and a jar of jam on the table.

“I brought you some of Granny's strawberry jam,”
she said brightly. “I remembered how much you liked it. And Grannie had such a wonderful lot of canned things, and I knew they'd be hard to buy here.”

She turned toward the kitchenette and paused to ask, “How do you like your eggs, Cousin Phyllis?”

Phyllis barely restrained a shudder at the thought as she swallowed freshly squeezed, properly iced orange juice. Anice smiled and shook her head. A little later she came back with her own plate on which there were two tiny sausages browned to a turn and scrambled eggs which she attacked with gusto.

Phyllis managed coffee and orange juice and toast and was glad when she could gather up her gloves and bag, and depart for the office.

“What time will you want dinner, Cousin Phyllis?” asked Anice, following her to the door with a housewifely air that ruffled Phyllis a little, even though she knew her attitude was completely unreasonable.

“I won't be home for dinner,” she said brusquely. “I'm taking my Spanish lesson—I probably won't be home until late. Sorry I didn't know you were coming, so I could make plans.”

Anice was sweetly understanding.

“Oh, but you mustn't worry about
me
, Cousin Phyllis,” she protested eagerly. “I don't want to be the slightest bother to you. I'll pick up something to eat before I come home.”

Phyllis said something she hoped sounded pleasant and escaped. She could not know that as the door closed behind her, Anice stood quite still, an odd expression on her lovely little heart-shaped face.

“Now why, when she's got this great big place,” said Anice thoughtfully to herself, “should I bother running around trying to find a place that would cost me two or
three hundred dollars a month? With housing conditions so acute, Cousin Phyllis shouldn't mind sharing her place. And I'm sure she won't—not when she has time to think it over. Of course, I know it bothers her a little, not being able to have Terry here to spend the night when she wants him. But after all, if my being here keeps her from committing a sin—well, then surely it's my duty to stay! And maybe I can shame her into stopping drinking. And she smokes too much, too—a nasty, filthy habit.”

She moved about the apartment, setting everything in order, and when she had finished she nodded to herself.

“Yes, it's nothing less than my
duty
to stay here and help Cousin Phyllis to mend her morals,” she said at last, and grinned impishly, and added, “Besides, it ought to be fun!”

Her carefully trained conscience whispered that she had lied about the price she had secured for Grannie's shabby little down-at-heels cottage. But it was never hard for Anice to soothe that seldom aroused conscience.

“After all,” she reminded it, “I didn't say I
only
got a thousand dollars—I just said I got a thousand dollars, and didn't mention that it was a thousand dollars
and
more! So it wasn't a lie, at all.”

After which she felt much better and got herself lovingly and carefully into one of her smart new frocks, tilted a silly little hat over one eye, and gathered up her bag and gloves, assuring herself that her shiny new checkbook was in place. She was a little disappointed that none of Phyllis' clothes fit her; she liked one of Phyllis' hats, but decided that her own was new and more becoming. And, too, it was soothing to know that her own clothes were of better quality than Phyllis'.