Three Stories (4 page)

“No they won’t,” Hincher denied belligerently.

“They will. I know they will,” said his wife thoughtfully. “Ruth Simpkins would. I can just hear her laughing at me.”

“
That
fool woman,” dismissed Hincher.

‘’Yes, darling, but she’d laugh. They all would. I know it.—Darling, say you’ll tell them I’ve gone to New York to be with my sister. So they won’t know I’m home. You can make believe you’re coming to visit me weekends. You can go drive to the Cape and go fishing. You can go fishing. Sophie can do the marketing. She—”

Mr. Hincher abruptly held up a hand, mock traffic cop style. “Now wait a minute. Whoa there. Whoa there Nellie.”

He was a little startled. Mrs. Hincher’s cool, lovely voice had begun to take on excitement. It was strangely unbecoming.

Abruptly, Mrs. Hincher removed her hand from her husband’s. She neither wrenched it away nor slipped it away. She merely removed it.

“You are laughing at me, too,” she said dully.

Hincher was frightened. “
No
, honey!” he swore to her. “No, I’m not. I’ll do anything you say, little girl.”

Quietly, Hincher reclaimed his wife’s hand. “No, no, no, little girl,” he swore to Mrs. Hincher’s sudden profile.

She turned to him slowly. Hincher waited for exoneration, almost frantically [hoping] for some look, some word of exoneration. Mrs. Hincher’s face conveyed nothing. She looked at her husband and yet beyond him.

“We’ll have it just the way you want it,” Hincher said. “Just the way you want it.”

Mrs. Hincher’s eyes gentled into focus.

“I knew you’d understand,” she said.

***

Almost every weekend Mr. Hincher went fishing off Cape Cod. It usually seemed that he had enjoyed his weekend immensely, for late Sunday nights when he stopped in his wife’s bedroom to let her peek under soggy newspapers at his catch, Hincher’s face under the watty little light of Mrs. Hincher’s bed-lamp was a happy one.

But it takes five weekdays to make a week-end.

Hincher was a very poor liar. But fortunately little enough skill was required of him. No one in Otisville doubted that Mrs. Hincher had gone to New York to be with her sick sister. So when Hincher, with awkward gravity, reported his sister-in-law’s condition as Better, or Not Much better, or They Can’t Tell Yet, the usual reply to him was It All Takes Time, or Send Paula Our Love. With practice Hincher’s lying improved. He learned in time that he felt surer of himself when he chuckled out his lies, rather than when he delivered them gravely.

“Guess I’ll have to get me a new wife,” Hincher innovated one day (with a chuckle).

“Why don’t you wait till the new models come out,” suggested Bud Montrose.

Hincher immediately pirated Bud Montrose’s wit. And the standard Hincher Chuckle Lie then sounded in full:

“Guess I’ll have to get me a new wife.” (Chuckle.) “Waiting for the new models to come out.” (Chuckle, Chuckle.)

… But he never learned to lie expertly enough to rest assured of no justified, but extremely loud, accusation in a small, crowded room.

***

Evenings, after Hincher had eaten alone in the dining room, he re-joined his wife, and usually they played several games of casino. Mr. Hincher would sit on the edge of Mrs. Hincher’s bed, and a pretty white bedtable was straddled gently over Mrs. Hincher’s legs. Generally they played until 9:30 or 9:45, at which time Mrs. Hincher often said: “Shall we read a little, darling?”

“Grand,” Hincher often said, and he would cross the room to fetch the book of Mrs. Hincher’s choice.

Of
David Copperfield
, Mrs. Hincher told Mr. Hincher:

“I love it, I’ve always loved it. How is it you’ve never read it, darling?”

“I don’t know,” Hincher said. “Never got the time.”

“I love it,” said Mrs. Hincher, “only I hate the Murdstones. I’ll skip all the parts about the Murdstones.”

“Who are they?” inquired Hincher.

“Davy’s stepfather and his sister. They’re horrible, wait and see. No, I’m going to skip the parts where the Murdstones come in.”

Mrs. Hincher laughed deliciously.

Hincher sat back in an easy chair drawn close to [Mrs. Hincher’s bed, and she read]
David Copperfield
, deleting all Murdstone passages. She read magnificently, gruffing her voice to sound like Dan Peggoty’s, debonairing it to suggest Steerforth’s, clammied it for Uriah Heep’s sake, jeep’d it for the sake of Dora. She was perfectly cast in each role.

At midnight, usually, Mrs. Hincher stopped reading. She closed the book, and smiled at Mr. Hincher.

“Tired?” he’d say quickly.

“A little, darling.”

“You go to sleep, then. That’s enough reading for tonight.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Swell book. Get under the covers, now. I’ll tuck you in.”

Hincher slept in the guest room all during these months.

***

Ruth and Carl Perkins were at Emily and Bud Edmundson’s. At first, while Bud talked, Perkins constantly rummaged a hand through a bowl of assorted nuts, singling out the pistachios. Then Carl Perkins suddenly stopped eating altogether.

“He came here last Saturday night.

“Emily and I had just come in from the movies. And I see Frank’s car parked in the driveway. I pulled up behind it, threw on my night lights, and went around to see what was what. Frank was sitting in his car.

“
 
‘Frank!’ I said. ‘What’re you doing here?’

“
 
‘I have to see you.’

“
 
‘Well, come on inside,’ I said.

“We went inside. He wouldn’t let me take his overcoat from him. He said he wanted to see me alone, and so Emily went upstairs. And Frank and I sat down in the living room. He still didn’t take off his coat.

“
 
‘I drove up to your place on Tuesday,’ I said to him. ‘How come your phone’s disconnected? Why wouldn’t the maid let me in? What’s going on, anyway?’

“What the hell. I’m his partner. I had a right to ask where he’d been when he hadn’t showed up for work all week. Know what I mean?

“Frank sat there as though he hadn’t really come to say anything to me. It was more as though he’d come to stare at the piano. He looked like hell. I think the reason he didn’t take off his coat was because he didn’t have any jacket on underneath. I could see, anyway, that he didn’t have any necktie on.

“
 
‘Is something wrong with Paula?’ I said. ‘Did you head some bad news about her sister or something?’

“
 
‘She doesn’t have any sister,’ Frank said.

“
 
‘Wuddaya mean?’ I said. ‘That’s who she’s visiting isn’t it? Her sister’s dying, isn’t she? I mean she’s pretty sick, isn’t she?’

“Frank shook his head. ‘No,’ he says, ‘Paula’s home all the time. She’s been home in bed to have a baby. She didn’t want to walk around and get run over when she was going to have a baby. So she stayed home in bed.’

“
 
‘How long has she been in bed?’ I asked him.

“
 
‘I don’t know,’ Frank said. ‘Ten months.’

“
 
‘She’s been gone over a year,’ I told him.

“
 
‘I tell you she didn’t go anyplace,’ Frank said. ‘She’s been out of bed two months. She’s been in her room. With the door locked.’

“
 
‘With the door locked!’ I said. ‘Did she have the baby?’

“
 
‘She says so,’ Frank said. ‘She says she did. I don’t know.’

“You should have heard his voice. I mean you could hardly hear him.

“
 
‘Wuddaya mean?’ I said. ‘She
says
she had a baby? Don’t you
know
?’

“
 
‘She says she did,’ Frank said. ‘But I don’t know. I came home one night a couple of months ago and the door was locked. I banged on the door and asked her if she was fine. She said she was having the baby.’

“Frank said he asked her if he should send for Dr. Bohler. Paula said no, that she didn’t need any doctor. Frank asked her if she was in any pain. Paula told him she felt marvelous. There was only one thing she wanted him to do. Frank asked her what it was. What do you think she said?

“She said, ‘Go out in the garden and rub two roses together.’ That was all she needed.

“
 
‘My God!’ I said to Frank. ‘You didn’t do it, did you? Didn’t you send for Dr. Bohler?’

“
 
‘She didn’t want me to send for Dr. Bohler,’ Frank said. ‘She said she didn’t need him.’

“Can you imagine?

“
 
‘
Well,’ I said. ‘You didn’t go out in the garden and rub two roses together, did you?’

“He said, ‘Yes.’

“
 
‘What in the hell for?’ I asked him. ‘She wanted me to,’ Frank said.

“So he did it! He went out in the garden and rubbed two roses together. Then he runs upstairs to the bedroom (the door’s still locked, mind you), and Paula tells him the baby’s born. But she wouldn’t let Frank come in to see it. It was better for her to be alone with it for awhile. Frank asked if it was a boy or a girl. Paula tells him it’s a girl. She tells him it’s a beautiful girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Frank asked her if she needed anything. Paula said she didn’t need a thing. Frank asked her to please open the door. She wouldn’t do it, though. I said to Frank, ‘By God, I’d have broken the damn thing in.’

“Frank just shook his head. He said I didn’t know Paula. She was very sensitive, he said.

“Well, two months went by and still Paula wouldn’t let him come in to see either her or the baby. She didn’t even let the maid in. She never even opened the door except at mealtime, and then it was only for the maid to shove a tray of food in to her.

“She just stayed in that room with the baby. And Frank, when he came home from the office in the evening, would talk to her through the door. She’d tell him what the baby did all day, how it stuck its foot in its mouth and all that. Frank would ask her if she needed anything. Sometimes she did. The baby needed a crib or the baby needed a bottle. You know. Stuff babies need. And Frank would bring the stuff home in his car and Paula’d open the door wide enough to let him shove it through without seeing her or the baby.

“Then one day Paula tells him the baby should have a playmate. Not exactly a playmate, but it should have some child near it occasionally. She said she seriously believed a child’s most formative period was during its infancy. She said to Frank, ‘I’ll bet you think I’m crazy.’ Frank told her no, but he was getting damn sick and tired of not being allowed to see his own child. Paula laughed and begged him to be patient awhile.

“Well, Frank had their maid bring her niece to the house. A little kid about three years old. And the kid was allowed to see the baby.

“Frank says to the kid when it comes out of the bedroom, ‘Did you see the baby?’

“
 
‘Yes,’ says the kid, very emphatically.

“
 
‘What’s it look like? A little girl, eh?’ Frank asked her.

“
 
‘It’s a little baby and it can’t talk.’

“The kid said it was a little baby and it couldn’t talk and it was in a crib sleeping. You know how kids talk.

“Well, a couple of weeks later Frank busted down the door.

“I tell ya you won’t believe it.

“Paula was in the crib. Frank said she had her legs pulled up so that her knees were kind of jamming her in the chin. She had her hair fixed like kids wear their hair, and she had it tied with this big red ribbon. Except for that ribbon, she didn’t have a stitch of clothes on. Not a stitch. Naked as a baby.

“What do you think she says to Frank?

“She says, pulling the blanket over her, ‘I think you’re mean. I think you’re the meanest man I’ve ever met.’

“She made him get out of the room. Then he came over to our place. He was at our place just sitting in the room.

“I told him he ought to go away. I told him he and Paula needed a good long vacation.

“I’ve got a postcard from them today.—Emily, what’d you do with the post card?”

***

The Hinchers went to Florida. Hincher became horribly violent in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. The assistant manager and a big colored elevator boy held him down, and he was removed to the Lakewood home.

Paula returned to Otisville and several months later resumed her work as a librarian. She’s still there today doing a brilliant job of it.

Dear Mr. Woodman:

Both sets of proofs enclosed. They look in good shape. I’ve made one or two marks on the new set, but nothing special. Many thanks.

The slight mixup in proofs was pretty funny. I thought I was going nuts, but that’s nothing new.

I tried both phone numbers you gave me, this past weekend, but I have an idea you were on your way from one place to the other while the call was going through. A nice little kid answered the Framingham number, but I don’t think he had a duplicate set of proofs, so I dumped the whole thing into my agent’s lap.

Hope you don’t mind. I don’t have a phone down here.

Regards, added thanks.

Sincerely,

J D Salinger