Bad Girl (Delmar)/Chapter 14
| Round steak | .40 |
| Wet wash | 1.25 |
| Soap | .08 |
| Daily News | .02 |
| Tomatoes | .14 |
| $1.89 |
Well, that wasn't bad for a day's expenses. Dot added the little column of figures again to make sure it wasn't a dollar ninety. Every penny counted now. Two hundred dollars for Dr. Stewart had seemed an Herculean undertaking, but now upon that task hardly well begun had fallen another.
Dot had pictured herself lying pale but happy on the bird's-eye maple bed with her baby joyously partaking of his first breakfast.
Dr. Stewart had looked doubtful when she had revealed this vision. "You see, Mrs. Collins," he said, "practically everybody goes to a sanitarium nowadays. Women have learned that it's best that way. You'd have to have a nurse, and while an ordinary maternity nurse is sufficient for your purpose, that would be fifty dollars for the two weeks you need her. You'd have to have a laundress in, and there's a great deal of drugs and sick-room things you'd need, and that would run into money. You're foolish not to go to a sanitarium."
Dot had thought of Edna dropping in to fix broth, of Eddie giving her a sponge bath. Nurses, laundresses, drugs! The bottom dropped out of her simple calculations.
"But where could I go? Wouldn't it cost a lot?"
Dr. Stewart shook his head. "Lots of places do charge a lot," he said. "But there's one place on One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street that's reasonable. The food is good, and the care is all that you need. You can get a small room there for a hundred and twenty-five dollars."
"For how long?"
"Two weeks. We'll get you home after that."
Dot's face betrayed her dismay. A hundred and twenty-five dollars for the sanitarium and two hundred for the doctor. Could they manage? She and Eddie with their food and gas and electricity and rent, and clothes for the baby.
"It's very nice," said Dr. Stewart. "A lot of my patients have been there. I'll have them send you some pamphlets if you like, and you can go down and take a look at the place."
Dot told Eddie when he came home that night. He took the news coolly.
"Well," he said, "I hope that you didn't think that you could lie in bed here all day with a new baby and nobod) to do anything for either of you."
"No. I thought that Edna could help."
"Gee, you're a dumb-bell," said Eddie. "Honest to God, I wonder why they don't lock you up."
"I don't see how we can manage, Eddie."
"Well, I didn't see how we were going to pull two hundred fish out for Doc. If you can do that you're smart enough to manage the rest."
"But, Eddie, three hundred and twenty-five dollars! Almost enough to buy a Ford car."
"Sooner have the Ford, heh?"
"No, I didn't mean that exactly, but it's so much money. Golly!"
They hadn't talked about the money since but Dot was keeping a budget, walking to Two Hundred and Seventh Street to get things cheaper, reading newspapers instead of magazines, and trying to cut her own hair.
It was February now. The days of sleet and cold, icy winds were separated by vagrant, sweet-smelling hours that came mysteriously and fled back to Never-Never Land. When they were gone you didn't believe that they had happened, but then again there was the strange breath of dewy violets and woodlands, and you felt somehow happier even if you had been fooled.
Dot was doing a lot of sewing. She had heard somewhere that it was bad luck to prepare very lavishly for a baby. She worried a little but could not resist the temptation of buying unbelievably narrow lace and phantomfragile muslin despite the extravagance.
Eddie watched her sew. What was she doing that for? She didn't want the kid. He was curious. "What are you doing that for?" he asked.
She looked up at him in amazement. "What am I doing it for? The kid can't go naked, can he? You can't bring him home from the hospital naked. And so long as he's got to have clothes, this is the cheapest way to do it. It don't cost me over a dollar apiece to make the dresses myself."
The next time he had a few minutes to himself, Eddie looked in an infants' furnishing store. He saw dresses for forty-nine cents which certainly must be good enough for some people's babies or they wouldn't be selling them. Guess Dot didn't know that kid's dresses could be bought so cheap. Eddie chuckled. He wouldn't tell her. Why the devil shouldn't Dot make his clothes? Wasn't he, Eddie, going to make the kid a high chair all by hand? A good joke on Dot, that. He wouldn't tell her.
Funny how many things he was keeping to himself. He couldn't tell her this and he couldn't tell her that, because she didn't want the poor kid, and it seemed heartless of him to be happy over it. Sometimes he would get an idea that she was warming up to the little fellow, but then she'd say something and he'd know she didn't want it.
The vision of Dot dying to give life to the baby had receded to the back of Eddie's mind. He never thought of it any more. He was thinking now how hard he would try to make her love the baby once it was here. But probably that wouldn't be much of a job. Kids are so damn cute. Only it would tie them down. Dot liked to dance and go to parties. Maybe she'd want to leave the kid alone and go running around with Sue and Pat. Then maybe, if he ever caught her doing it, he'd have to wallop her. You can't leave kids alone. They pull the blankets up over their faces sometimes and smother.
Eddie looked in the window of the infants' furnishing shop a little while longer. Then he went in. When he came out again he had a bundle.
Well, a fellow couldn't act excited over a kid's arriving when his wife was pulling a long face over the idea. Besides, what kind of crazy thoughts were these? When the hell was he the kind of fellow to ever get excited over anything?
His dinner was on the table when he reached home. Dot was flushed and tired. The wet wash had come that day, and she had been ironing. She always ironed sheets, though Edna told her that she was crazy. You ought to just see that they're well dried, fold them up nice, and put them away. When you take 'em out they look ironed. The same with the towels and pillow cases. Tablecloths you had to iron. Dot ironed everything. If she hadn't, she would have felt that she was being unfaithful to the little apartment.
Dot kissed him when he came in. He handed her the bundle.
"What's this?" she asked.
"I don't know what you call it," he said carelessly.
She opened it. A tiny crocheted sacque lay within carefully wrapped in tissue paper. A large blue bow of very stiff, aggressive ribbon was at the neck of it. Dot smiled. The ribbon was so ridiculous. The sacque was so pleadingly tiny.
"Did you buy this?" she asked.
"Me? Can you picture me buying stuff like that?"
"No," said Dot, honestly. "But where—"
"Mrs. Williams sent it."
"Mrs. Williams! Did you tell them I'm going to have a baby?"
Eddie sat down at the table and reached for a piece of bread. "No, I didn't," he said. "I go down there to fix radio sets every day, not to gab. Besides, I'm not any more excited about this whole business than you are. I don't run up to people in the street and tell them about it. Mrs. Williams looked you over that day last week, and she hasn't got bad eyes."
Dot walked to the mirror in the bedroom. She stood before it for almost five minutes examining the proportions of her figure from every angle. She was convinced that Eddie was lying.
"I don't show," she said to him as she pulled out her chair and sat down.
"I'll bet every woman thinks that," said Eddie.
Her convictions melted away. Perhaps he was right. Maybe this was one of those things that other people knew and you didn't. The thought depressed her. She had so wanted to watch her body changing gradually to accommodate its little occupant.
"Do I look bad, Eddie?" she asked.
"No, you look great."
"I mean my figure."
"No, that's all right, only it shows that you're going to have a baby."
"Well, I guess I'd better stop going to dance halls and places then. People are probably making fun of me."
Eddie hadn't bargained for this. He swallowed a very hot piece of potato hastily.
"Don't be crazy," he said. "You're all right. I guess Mrs. Williams has been watching for it, and that's why she saw it. If a person didn't know—"
But Dot didn't answer. She was thinking of something else now. Something that she'd have to ask Dr. Stewart about. She'd been dancing quite a lot. So far there had been no sign of life in her baby. Were the two facts connected? Icy fingers of terror clutched at her heart. Why hadn't she told the doctor sooner about the many excursions to the Poppyland Dance Hall? Had she thought to put something over on him? Funny how all of a sudden a fear can come at you out of the darkness and shake you till you're cold and limp. She hadn't thought of it before, and now she was panicky and ill with the awfulness of it.
Darkness came over the room. The are light in the street streamed wanly through the window. Voices of neighbors calling to each other. A baby crying. Somebody's dishes being hastily despatched with many protesting rattles and clinks. In the purple-gray twilight the little sacque with its absurd blue bow was a narrow white streak, a shooting star. Was anybody ever going to have that silly little bow under his chin? In that minute, Dot knew that she couldn't bear it if her baby . . . if anything went wrong.
Eddie got up and lit the light. He looked at her carelessly. She was crying, but he preferred to say nothing about it. She cried a lot recently. It was because she didn't like what was going to happen, he thought. Yeh, it was best not to notice her. Maybe he'd get mad sometime and tell her what he thought of her for not wanting a kid. But he knew that he couldn't. After all, it was her pain. No wonder she cried and didn't want the baby.
Dot looked up at him as he carried the butter to the ice box. Suppose she had danced her baby to death. Could she ever forgive Eddie for not taking the news as hard as she would? He wouldn't mind. He'd be able to say that everything happens for the best.
She dried her eyes and rushed to help clear the table.
"Sit down," he said.
"No, I'll help."
"Go on. Sit down."
She went and sat down. He was good to her. Lie loved her. If only he would love the baby. Oh, well, a person can't have everything, and maybe after it was here and he saw it, he would get to care about it. She wondered if he knew that there'd be no more dancing and parties then. Better not tell him for a while.
Dr. Stewart came two days later. His coat was not yet off when Dot asked her question timidly, quaveringly. "I have danced an awful lot recently. Do you think that it will hurt—hurt the baby? I haven't felt any life yet."
He looked at her seriously. He was one to laugh only at what he knew a patient knew in her heart to be foolish. When she had a deadly fear, he read it in her eyes, in her voice, and he respected her fear.
"I don't think so," he replied. "We'll have a look. Just what do you call an awful lot of dancing?"
The sheet was produced, the examination made.
"You're quite all right," he said. "But I wouldn't overdo anything if I were you. On the whole I think a daily walk would be much better exercise than dancing. And don't hang curtains. I've found a lot of women who hang curtains at the wrong time."
"But you think it's all right?"
"Yes, I should say so. You'll feel life soon now, I think."
"How soon?"
Dr. Stewart smiled. "Couldn't say exactly, but don't be surprised if your baby gives you a kick all of a sudden."
Dot looked rapt and ecstatic. Fancy her baby giving her a kick!
"Dancing in poorly-aired, crowded rooms isn't going to do you any real harm for another few weeks," he went on, "but it won't help any. Get your walk, and you'll feel much better."
It was that very night that Sue and Pat dropped in. Sue and Pat were now known as the Macys. They had been living with Sue's mother since the marriage but were busily searching for an apartment that would meet their needs. Nobody was quite certain what their needs were, but Dot suspected that it was an apartment close enough to Sue's maiden home for the Macys to eat there.
There was quite a smug, satisfied air about Sue lately. You felt that she would never again make jokes about women being unfaithful to their husbands. Marriage was something very sacred now. One felt that she would, without a moment's hesitation, cast the first stone. Dot wasn't quite certain that she liked her any more.
Sue wore a large straw hat with a rhinestone dagger stuck through it with careless grace. Her coat had a huge imitation fur collar. The coat fitted closely at the waist and flared generously at the bottom. There was more fur at the bottom and fur at the cuffs. Her slippers were black satin with large, bright tin buckles. The stockings above were very sheer. Dot fancied that she might photograph very well in her finery but when seen right smack up close in the hard, white light of a seventy-five-watt bulb—well, after all, the fur was imitation, the buckles were tin, and the stockings weren't four-dollar sheer, they were seventy-nine-cent sheer.
Pat was quiet and unobtrusive. There was about him, since his marriage, the air of a menial who has delivered an important message and is undecided whether or not to wait.
He engaged Eddie in conversation. He wanted to buy a radio set for his father-in-law. What would Eddie advise?
Dot took Sue's things, and they sat down together on the sofa.
"We were looking around this section for an apartment," Sue said. "We didn't see anything we liked, though. I got hungry and we stopped in at that what-doyou-call-it place where they roast chickens."
Sue settled the folds of her champagne-colored dress importantly. Dot had seen that dress on Maude and had heard what Maude had said about passing it on. Silly, the way Sue was trying to show off the embroidery on it. Dot felt a little sorry for her.
"You didn't like any of the apartments around here?"
"No, we'll be having a lot of parties most likely, and the rooms are so small."
"This is quite a big room," said Dot.
"Well, you two don't have much company," said Sue.
Dot thought this was a bit pointed. "I'm pregnant," she said, "and I wouldn't have a party now for Gloria Swanson. It's too much trouble."
"You're quite right," said Sue. "That one I gave Christmas Eve was certainly a bother, and you have no idea what it cost."
Dot had a fairly good idea what it had cost. Christmas morning Mrs. Cudahy had told Eddie how the liquor which had been consumed had been given to Mr. Cudahy bottle by bottle from people who had expected tickets and hadn't got them.
Funny the way a girl will put on airs after her marriage, particularly if she has been the pursuer and has finally felled her prey.
Both conversations perished. Eddie had told Pat all that the layman could understand about neutrodynes. Dot was sulking quietly at Sue's attitude.
Presently Sue said: "It's about as lively as a funeral here. What's the matter with you two?"
"Nothing," said Dot.
"What do you say we all go to Poppyland?" Sue jumped to her feet and looked at Eddie.
"No," said Dot.
Eddie was ready to follow her lead, but her emphatic refusal stirred his curiosity. "Why not?" he asked.
Dot hadn't considered that there would be questions. "Oh," she said, "I don't know."
"Come on." Sue was now impatient of delay.
"What's the matter, Kid?" Eddie's conscience wras troubling him. He felt that he knew what had caused her refusal. Had he dished the poor kid out of her fun?
"I don't want to go, Eddie. If you want to go, go ahead. Sue will dance with you."
"Is it because I said that the other night about how you look?"
Dot might have consoled him, but Sue spoke before she had the chance. "Oh, come on, Dot. Nobody would know you were pregnant. You look fine. Come on."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, let me alone, the two of you," cried Dot. "I'm pregnant, and I'm nervous, and I'm cranky, and it costs money to dance, and I'm saving for my baby, and shut up!"
"Well," said Sue, sweetly, "don't you mind, honey, this is Pat's treat. It won't cost you a nickel. Come on."
Dot got quickly from her chair and ran to the bedroom. She carried with her the memory of the expression on Pat Macy's face. He had been looking at Sue, and there had been embarrassment and shock in his gaze. She threw herself on the bed and cried. Nobody cared about her baby. Eddie had wanted to go. Had she told him that it was bad for the baby, he would probably still have wanted to go. Nobody cared. It don't pay to go against what your husband wants. He didn't want the baby.
Dot cried until she heard the door close behind Sue and Pat. Then she dried her eyes and returned to the living-room. Eddie had turned on the radio set.
"Gee, you were nasty to them," he said.
"I don't care. She makes me sick."
"Well," said Eddie, "I don't care either. Only soon you won't have any friends."
"I'll have my baby," said Dot.
Eddie turned abruptly from the radio set. "Will he take the place of your friends and the Poppyland?" he asked.
Hm, here he was worrying about the damn old dance hall. No use fighting with him. Give him the answer he wants, and have peace in the family.
"I only meant," she replied, "that he'll sop up so darn much of my time that I won't have many nights for people anyhow."
"Oh," said Eddie.
Nothing more was said about the Macys, nor of the time when Dot would be held captive in the little three-room home. The days passed uneventfully. Dot sewed—dresses, diapers, petticoats, bellybands. Eddie worked. The weeks slipped by.
One day she went down to see the sanitarium of which the doctor had spoken. She took twenty-five dollars with her for a deposit. Dr. Stewart had told her that this was the correct mode of procedure.
It was April now, and to Dot's young, slim figure there had come a change, a sudden impressive maturity, a simple, sweet promise that soon she too would be ready to give. A tree in blossom. A bush in bloom.
She wore a cape drawn tightly about her. If there's a fur collar lying around, all one has to do is get two yards of material and sew it at the neck, line it with some bright shade of silk, put the fur collar on, and there's a cape.
The sanitarium was on One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street, as Dr. Stewart had said. It was in a row of brick houses. Two of them had been used in the creating of the sanitarium. Ivy covered the front of the house, and a nurse in stiff white linen sat on the stoop, anxiously assuring herself that it was spring.
Behind, in front, and to one side was New York's Congo. The rows of houses with their signs "For Colored Tenants" drew Dot's attention. She was pregnant. She was going to buy a bed upon which she might lie for the duration of her pain.
"Gee," thought Dot. "Niggers. But I guess you don't care who your neighbors are once the pain starts."
Inside the sanitarium it was hard to remember the ivy which climbed so green and inviting outside. There was a strong odor of ether and disinfectant. Dot felt small and frightened, defenseless. But what could she do? She had to have a place to have her baby. She felt that she would die with her pain in the strange, unfriendly, chemical atmosphere.
The nurse who had sat so idly on the stoop became a brisk, swift-footed messenger. In the time that it took Dot to be waved into a small, rather dingy office and to find a chair, the nurse had summoned the proprietor.
He was not a doctor. He was merely a man who for some strange unknown reason had decided on a sanitarium for his career. Had he not decided on a sanitarium, he might have been a bond salesman or a confidence man. He was over six feet tall and of great bulk. He had a red, jolly face and a quick, convincing smile. He put Dot at her ease. He wore his personality as a woman wears an orchid. He told amusing stories of women who had been his guests. He made Dot feel that of course her confinement would be a bit more important than any he had ever housed before. She had an idea that he would be running in and out of her room to admire her baby, to raise her spirits, to ask if there were anything else he might do. He stated his prices in a careless, offhand manner, as though if she didn't have the money it wouldn't make a particle of difference.
Dot liked him at once. She felt now that she had a friend in the place, some one who'd sort of look after her. Of course, she couldn't possibly know that never again after receiving her receipt for twenty-five dollars (balance to be paid upon admission of patient) would she see the jolly, big-brotherly sanitarium barker.
A nurse showed her over the place. It was an old house. There was no elevator. Women were brought from the delivery room on stretchers by nurse-power. One flight up was the delivery room. Too bad Mrs. Collins couldn't take a look at it, but there was a patient on the table just now. Yes, they had another delivery room, but the men were cleaning it. Now here was a nice front room Mrs. Collins could have. Two hundred and twenty-five dollars. Well, it was a very large room. They had others. For instance, behind this door was a lovely, comfortable room for only a hundred and seventy-five. Unfortunately there was a patient in it at the present time, and Mrs. Collins wouldn't be able to see it. Over here was a room that got the sun all day long. Only a hundred and fifty.
"Have you got anything for a hundred and twenty-five?" asked Dot, timidly.
"Yes, we have a couple," said the nurse. "But they're very small, and you have to remember that you're going to be here in the middle of summer. For twenty-five dollars more you might as well be comfortable."
"May I see the ones that are a hundred and twenty-five?" asked Dot.
"Certainly."
They walked up another flight of steps. On the way they passed a pretty, brown-eyed nurse carrying a tray. She looked at Dot and smiled faintly. Dot smiled back at her.
"Has Mrs. King gone yet?" asked Dot's guide.
"No," said the brown-eyed nurse. "Her doctor's making her stay another day."
Dot's guide shook her head as though Mrs. King's doctor were a person of inexplicable actions.
"We can only see one of the rooms," she said. "We only have two at that price, and one of them is taken."
Dot saw the room. It was Number Nine. It was as wide as Dot's bathroom and but a trifle longer. A snow-white bed, a less snow-white bureau, and a little stiff-backed chair had been squeezed in somehow. A table stood by the bed, a small table. There was a telephone on the shelf above the bed.
"This is a hundred and twenty-five," the nurse announced in the tone of one who says: "That's what you get for being cheap."
"Oh," said Dot. "It's so tiny."
The nurse read in her voice the hopelessness of one who cannot spend another cent, and a feeling of pity prompted her to make a suggestion.
"You could go in the ward," she said, brightly.
"The ward," echoed Dot.
"Yes. Of course, it isn't the kind of ward that perhaps you're thinking of. There's only four beds in it—and it's only a hundred dollars."
As she spoke she led the way next door. A large room jumped at Dot out of the dim hallway. It was the largest room Dot had ever seen. Two beds stood at the east wall and two at the west. The southern end of the room was all windows. Air and light were here in abundance. Two of the beds were vacant at the moment. The other two held women that were nursing their infants and were not at all concerned with the sightseer. Dot realized that it was because these women had paid the sanitarium's lowest price that intrusion upon them was permissible.
A hundred dollars and the same care that you got for more money, the nurse assured her. Of course, you didn't have the privacy, but some people preferred the ward because you never got lonely. There was one other difference. The blankets in the private rooms were blue-striped and pink-striped, while the ward blankets were all gray. Dot felt that she could bear up under this.
She decided in favor of the ward. Then she was shown the nursery and the bathroom and was permitted to depart.
"We'll mail you a list of the things you'll need while you're here," promised the nurse.
Dot went home. She was not in a remarkably pleasant frame of mind, but she was pleased that she had cheated the tiny room and that she had gained twenty-five dollars by so doing. She consulted the card from her Postal Savings account which told how close she was to her goal. She had done well. She had managed to save thirty-five dollars a month. She had a hundred and fifty now that the twenty-five had been paid to the sanitarium.
The twenty-five saved on the room was not a bit of casual luck but actually a godsend, she realized in looking over her account. For, though he had said nothing about it, Dot had observed that the suit which Eddie wore for "good" was rapidly going from bad to worse. He would probably visit her every evening at the sanitarium, and she would feel so bad for him if he didn't look as decent as the other women's husbands. Yes, he could get a suit with that twenty-five.
Dot stretched herself out on the bed. She was tired. She had walked a great deal. Her idea of reaching the sanitarium had been wrong. She had had to walk all over the City College grounds to find the place. Hills, steps. Why wasn't a city perfectly flat? Why wasn't—
Suddenly Dot sat bolt upright on the bed and her expression suggested that she was listening to something. One of her hands moved tenderly and rested on her abdomen. She closed her eyes, and two tears, hot and glistening, appeared on her lashes. Grateful tears.
The baby had moved.