Bad Girl (Delmar)/Chapter 7
At the corner Edna found Dot. She was standing in front of a shoe store that had been a saloon a few years before. The empty streets were drying gradually, sulkily, and a moldy-looking moon moved sluggishly between gray stripes of sky.
Dot said nothing. She watched Edna's approach curiously over the rumpled handkerchief that fluttered between her eyes and mouth with unnecessary, important little jerks.
"What are you waiting for?" asked Edna.
"Car."
"Where do you think you're going?"
No answer.
"Come on home with me, Kid."
Dot neither moved nor answered, and Edna laughed a low, reassuring laugh.
"Don't be foolish now, Dottie. You'll be better off at my house for the night than sitting around Penn Station."
"Aw, Jim'll be over to your place yelling some more."
"No," said Edna. "Jim won't be over." She put a hand on Dot's arm and pushed her into action.
"Look here, Edna. I ain't ashamed of nothing, see? Get that straight. I'd 'a' told Jim how it was if my father hadn't been there. Don't do me any favors thinking I'm the goat of Jim's peeve. He's right. I—I did fall for Eddie Collins."
"Oh, don't I know it, Kid? Come on, forget it."
"How do you know it?"
"I knew it the night you came over and got me to square things with Jim."
"It hadn't happened then, Edna."
"No, but I knew it was going to. It happened tonight."
"Yes, it happened tonight. And," said Dot, finding Edna's eyes in the glare of an are light, "I'm glad."
"Who you arguing with, Dottie? Who you trying to convince? I don't care a row of pins that you signed over all you have to Eddie Collins. All I'm asking is, will you sleep at my house tonight?"
Dot picked up her valise, and together they walked down Willis Avenue. Silently they marched past the dairies and lingerie shops, past butchers and milliners, grocers and hardware. At the crosstown tracks they paused for a moment to let a weary trolley take itself westward. It passed them, uttering a strange, weird noise peculiar to trolleys on damp nights.
Across the street the lights of Beck's bakery blinked affably.
"Let's get coffee and peach pie," said Edna.
Dot wordlessly followed her into the shop.
"Good evening, Mrs. Driggs," said the baker. "How's the little fellow?"
"Oh, he's fine," said Edna, "fresh as ever."
"Well, just like the rain tonight, you gotta take the bad with the good." Curious indeed is the hankering of the uptown tradesman to strew the path of his customer with gems of philosophical wisdom.
Dot was already seated in the back at one of the tables. She had unbuttoned her coat and was gnawing thoughtfully at a thumb nail.
"Say?" she asked when Edna had joined her. "Why did you seem to be on Jim's side up in the house?"
"Gee, you Haleys are dumb. I wanted you to get your clothes."
Dot smiled apologetically. "I thought sure you'd left me flat, Edna. I might have known that you wouldn't. Gosh, what'll Jim say to you when he finds out that you and me are still friends?" Dot was too young and too interested in the string of events that had suddenly unwound themselves in her placid existence to notice Edna's expression or to give her a chance to reply. "I never thought I'd get married so soon," she said.
"Well," said Edna, "'marry in haste and repent at leisure,' or 'he who hesitates is lost.' Take your pick, Dot."
Dot smiled over at Edna. She felt cheerful and thrilled. Tomorrow she would be married to Eddie. Tonight she would sleep at Edna's house. Edna was her friend. Yes, tonight was all mapped out and tomorrow was her wedding day. The day after? Well, that would be passed in a sort of dreamy and very delightful stupor. She would be Eddie's wife. Nothing annoying was ever going to happen again. Nothing annoying—
"The first week I was married," said Edna suddenly, "I damn near starved to death."
"But I'll bet you didn't mind," said Dot.
"What do you mean, didn't mind? I could 'a' killed Marty. He lost his job right before the wedding, and I didn't want to postpone it. By the way, did you and Eddie get around to talking about anything besides how sweet you were?"
"He never says I'm sweet, Edna. He's a funny fellow. Funny that I should be so crazy about him. It ain't as though he was handsome either. But gee, Edna, he's so nice."
"Down to earth, Kid. Has he got any money saved?"
Dot blushed uncomfortably. This wasn't at all nice of Edna.
"Gosh, I don't know. He didn't tell me nothing about that, and how can you ask a fellow such a thing?"
"I'll ask him," said Edna.
"Oh, Edna, don't you dare. He'd be wild. He'd think that you were awfully nosey."
"No doubt," said Edna. "He's not crazy about me now; so I guess I'd better wait till you start to get slim before asking you over to dinner."
"It won't be that bad," said Dot, seriously. "I'll keep my job, and Eddie gets a nice salary. I'll bet it'll be grand."
"Well, if it ain't," said Edna, "it won't be because you looked on the dark side."
The coffee and pie arrived. Coffee in heavy mugs. Pie, a generous chunk with the crust lying loosely above the thickened mess of peaches. Edna picked up her fork with a brisk, businesslike gesture. Dot was less interested. After all, this was the eve of her wedding.
The pie disappeared. The coffee lingered.
"Edna," said Dot, "was the night you got married the first time Marty ever touched you? You know what I mean."
"Yes, and we'd kept company for three years."
"You were good, weren't you? Better than me."
"But I'm sorry now. Look how short a time I had him."
"Tough, Edna! Gee, it must be awful. I couldn't stand it if anything happened to Eddie."
Edna looked over at Dot's very young, very solemn face.
"You'd stand it, Kid. You'd be surprised what these old beans of ours will stand. But you probably won't lose him unless a blonde comes along."
The cue was given. It was time for the conversation to jump back to pointless pleasantries, but Dot still had another momentous comment which had to be made.
"I'd kill him if there ever was another woman," she said. "I might even kill them both."
Edna was happily absorbed in watching her empty plate. "Some more pie, Dot?" she suggested.
"No, I got enough pie. Sure, I'd kill the both of them."
Edna got up from the table. "Come on, Dot," she said. "You won't get any sleep tomorrow night; so you'd better come along now."
Dot's quick blush rushed into action, and Edna laughed. She paid Mr. Beck his forty cents, remarking as she did so, "Miss Haley is getting married tomorrow."
"Fine. Good wishes," said the baker amiably. "Did you get a good man?"
"The best in the world," said Dot.
Mr. Beck's fat stomach shook delightedly, and his blond mustache quivered in sympathy.
"That's what they think, eh, Mrs. Driggs? A year from now she'll be saying— Ah, well."
A sudden sigh caused the happy stomach to rise and then fall dejectedly into still dignity. "Young love is beautiful, but like the flowers and sunshine, it passes quick."
"You old crêpe-hanger," said Dot.
"Ach, your love will be different. It will last for ever." The twinkle in his eye was of the variety which fears it will be overlooked.
In silence, Dot and Edna continued their walk. Dot still felt thrilled. She looked up at the skies. It seemed the thing to do with all this exultation. The sky was not a promising sight, but nothing could have quenched her buoyant spirits so long as she knew that shortly she would be Eddie's wife.
Edna's house. She had a hall, too. A long hall through which one had to tiptoe because the baby was asleep in the back room. Edna called him the baby, but of course he wasn't, although one did have to tiptoe. At the end of the hall there was an abrupt turn; once around the turn, everything was all right. Visitors could make all the noise they wanted to. They could play the Victrola or scream conversation at some one who might be right in front oi the baby's door. Once around the turn, everything was all right.
The room found there was cut glass, or at least that was a first impression of it. There was an astonishingly large cut-glass lamp on the table, that had no proportionable relation to the rest of the room. The sideboard fairly sagged beneath the weight of nappies, ice tubs, and fruit bowls. The china closet flashed a glimmering, glassy smile, and on the window sill a vase with the fashionable "daisy cut" posed haughtily like a white and dazzling mannequin.
There were portières made of green plush ropes and a couch with a red, green, and yellow cover. The red predominated, and the couch opened—two items which had brought the couch and its cover to be part of the household effects of Mrs. Edna Driggs.
The wall paper was blue. The landlord had permitted Edna her own choice with the renewal of her lease two years before.
"The wall paper goes with my rug," she often pointed out to friends on their first visit.
Sue Cudahy had said, "It didn't go with your rug to the cleaners," and Edna had sort of lost pride in her wall paper since then.
Dot threw her hat and coat on the couch and sat down beside them.
"Hey, get up," said Edna. "What do you think we're going to do? Sit around all night and talk about what you would do if you caught Eddie with another girl? Get up. I'm going to make the bed."
"Aw, let's talk a little while, Edna, I ain't sleepy."
"That's tough, because I am. You can sleep next to the window where you can talk it over with the breezes."
Edna's words came from the closet, where she was tidily leaving her coat upon a hanger. Dot watched her as she rushed about, pushing the chairs this way and that to make room for the ever-ceremonious opening of the couch. When the chairs had been grouped about in a perfectly suitable manner, Edna gathered her sheets and pillows together so that all would be in readiness.
"Look out," she said to Dot. Then, presto, the couch was a bed large enough for two. Edna could ill conceal the pleasure she felt at having played so important a part in this startling exhibition of modern magic.
"I wouldn't be without one of these sliding couches," she said, trying to make her voice sound casual.
"I could stand you being without one tonight," said Dot. "I bet I don't close my eyes."
"Well, if you insist on talking once I've said good night, I'll close them for you," Edna warned her. "Now hop out of your clothes and sleep your last time away from Eddie."
Dot undressed leisurely. Edna watched her from the bed and kept up a rapid flow of disgusted comments.
"Say, are you dying? Come on. You don't have to sew that ribbon now. Turn out the light, will you? I'm sleepy. Listen, Dot, tomorrow you'll be dying for another hour's sleep, and once my kid is up, your morning's rest is just naturally finished. Come on, will you?"
"I'll turn out the light, Edna, but I don't think I'll get in for a while."
"What are you going to do? Sit by the window and commune with yourself? Come on."
And in the end Dot climbed into bed and was asleep an hour before Edna.
The new day began with Floyd Driggs yanking impishly at Dot's hair. He was a solemn-eyed child, strangely unsmiling and incongruously mischievous. There was something vaguely Japanese in the small, wise face.
"Wake up, Dottie, wake up. You gotta be married. Who you gonna marry?"
Dot sat up briskly. No sudden realization of this day's significance dawned upon her. She had been conscious even in her sleep that this day was to be different from all others.
"Is Eddie here?" she asked.
The little boy shook his head gravely. "No one's here but me and Mamma and you."
Dot smiled. Of course Eddie wasn't here. He didn't know that she had spent the night at Edna's.
"Where's your mother?"
"Mamma's gone to the drug store to telephone. She says she's gonna tell your boss that you're very sick. Are you very sick, Dottie? Mamma says no use in you losing your job just because you lost your head. Did you lose your head, Dottie? Don't look like you did."
"Hush, darling," said Dot. "You talk too much."
"So do you and Mamma," said Floyd, in the tone of one who remarks on an interesting coincidence. "Why do we all talk too much?"
Dot lay down again. No use asking Floyd to go away while she dressed. She would have to wait for Edna to return and call off her child. Meanwhile it was pleasant just to lie there and think of Eddie.
The door at the end of the hall banged, and Floyd ran to meet his mother as though she had just returned from a tour of the Far East.
Dot jumped from the bed and slipped into a kimono which she found on a chair beside her. The storks flying across the crinkly material with gay disregard of what is expected in a stork's flight were supposed to conjure up visions of sparkling-eyed geishas and the flowery kingdom, but Hans Andersen was still too fresh in Dot's memory. It was Hans Andersen of whom Dot thought while Edna repeated her conversation with Dot's boss.
"I said to him, "Miss Haley has a terrible toothache and she hasn't slept a wink all night and she's just drowsed off now and I hate to wake her.' 'Well, don't wake her,' he says. 'Let her sleep and tell her not to come in until she feels perfectly all right again.' That was nice of him, wasn't it?"
"Oh, he's a nice old duck," said Dot. "Shall I tell him tomorrow when I go in that I got married?"
"I would," said Edna. "He'll probably think it's a good joke about your friend pretending you had a toothache."
Dot sat down and began to pull on her stockings. If you rush downtown every morning at eight o'clock, you haven't the daily bath habit. You put on your stockings and then your pumps. You keep your nightgown on while you slide your chemise up under it. Then you take off the gown and go to the bathroom. You wash your face, neck, and ears and brush your teeth. Then you wash your hands and arms. Sometimes if there is a comb near the basin you experiment with different parts in your hair before the medicine-chest mirror. But whatever you do at that mirror doesn't count. Back in the bedroom, the actual hair-dressing is done. But before that you powder, your forehead first, working downward to your neck; then rouge on your cheeks, and next your lipstick is applied. Then you do your hair, and last you get into your dress, slipping it over your feet so as not to disarrange the hair. Now you're dressed.
"Edna, I think I'll go out and phone Eddie."
"Have your breakfast first."
"No, I'll be right back. It'll only take a minute. I think I'll phone the rooming-house. I don't think he went to work today and he's probably waiting for a call."
Dot went then, singing as she walked down the hall:
Oh, Stella, I love you so—"
"Could I speak to Mr. Collins, please?"
"Who?"
"Mr. Collins."
"Mr. Carlton?"
"No, Mr. Collins. Eddie Collins."
"Oh, no. He isn't here any more. He moved."
Silence.
Then Dot heard her own voice asking, "Are you sure? He lived there last night."
"Yes, I know. He moved early this morning."
"Oh," said Dot.
The landlady was back in her kitchen feeding her family of cats before Dot remembered to hang up the receiver.
Steady. No panic now. One more place to get him. He must be there. He must be. Dot waited, listening intently. Every click on the wire made her brows draw together nervously. She stared into the blackness of the mouthpiece, waiting—waiting.
"Hello," said a curt businesslike voice.
"Hello," said Dot. "Is this the Uptown Radio Shop?"
"Yes."
"Is Eddie Collins there?"
"Who?" The voice had grown surly and less businesslike. This female obviously was not going to buy a radio set nor even have her battery charged.
"Eddie Collins."
"No."
"Do you know where I could get him?"
"Nope."
"Does he—does he still work there?"
"Who wants to know?"
"I do. I'm the girl he's engaged to."
"Oh, no. He won't work here no more. I fired him this morning for robbing the cash register."
Here was humor. Dot recognized but did not welcome it.
"Did he leave?" she inquired.
"No, I'm telling you I fired him."
Dot hung up the receiver after having said thank you. One would never discover from this feeble wit whether Eddie had quit his job or was still there. This was the sort of man who is convulsed at the mention of twins and who slips castor oil into his friends' coffee cups.
Dot went back to Edna's. She had left the door unlatched, and quietly she walked down the hall to the living-room. In the kitchen, Edna was chastising her son.
"And if you ever do it again I'll give you another slap. The idea! A whole pound of butter! Do you think butter grows on trees? I told you to put a piece of butter in the frying-pan."
"Well, that was a piece, Ma."
"And no back talk either. The idea!"
In fact it seemed that the idea was the thing which irritated Edna more than anything else, the principle of the thing, as it were.
In pursuit of a tablecloth, she came into the living-room. Dot was sitting at the window staring out at the clothes lines heavy with frolicsome white shapes.
"Can you beat that?" demanded Edna. "A whole pound of butter the kid throws into the frying-pan."
Dot had gathered as much. She turned and offered a horrified shake of her head in comment.
"The whole pound. I wasn't watching him, and before I knew it, it's all melted. Did you get Eddie?"
"No."
"No? Where is he?"
"I don't know and I guess he don't want me to know either."
"What's this?" The tragic fate of a whole pound of butter suddenly seemed very unimportant.
"He's moved from his house without leaving a message for me, and they wouldn't tell me nothing at the radio shop."
"Hm." Edna sat down. Her face wore an expression of deep reflection. She was recalling her glimpses of Eddie, what he had said, how he had acted. In the end she patted Dot's hand comfortingly.
"He'll be here. There's a mistake somewhere."
"Yeh," said Dot bitterly. "Last night."
"Oh, you're one of those trusting girls, eh? When you can see everything you believe it, but if the light goes out for a second you begin to doubt."
"No, but oh, Edna, don't it look funny? He's moved away, and if he wanted to find me, how could he? He don't know I've left home."
"Don't be a mug, Dot. What's more natural than that he should come here?"
Dot got up from her chair and walked to the couch. "It's more natural," she said, "that he wouldn't want to marry me at all. He's like all the rest of the men."
Edna laughed. "Listen to Experienced Agnes," she said to the daisy-cut vase.
"Well, gee, Edna, you don't have to have gone with a million men to know that they don't want to marry you after you've fallen for them."
"Movies, Kid, movies. This is real life, and Eddie's a real fellow. If he didn't want to marry you, he'd never have told you he would."
Dot's lids drooped over her eyes. "You're just trying to cheer me up," she said sulkily. "You don't like Eddie and it ain't natural you'd be praising him so if you were saying what you really think."
Edna's lips curled with exasperation. "Right," said she. "I'm just being Pollyanna. Eddie's a filthy skunk. He never intended to marry you, and by now I'll bet he's half-way to Australia. What should he marry you for? He done his dirty work and is probably laughing a whole string of ha-ha's. You might as well become a streetwalker now. That's all that's left for you. As for myself, I'm going to the kitchen to save that piece of salt pork from Floyd. All men are up to destruction."
So saying, Edna disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Dot considered the room uninterestedly. What was it all for? Something that Sue Cudahy often said came back to her: You're born, you kick around here for a while, and then you die. Sue Cudahy indeed! That she should complain! It wouldn't have been Sue to let one rainy night ruin the rest of her life. And if, by any chance, Sue had been frail, it would have been like her to spend the night in her lover's bed in order to get him down to City Hall early.
Edna called from the kitchen, "Come on, Dot, have some eggs and coffee."
"No, I don't think I want any, thanks. I'm going out for a while."
Edna appeared on the threshold. Her eyes were no party to the expression of disgust with which her lips were twisted.
"What do you mean, out? Where will you go?"
"Oh, for a walk."
"Don't be a fool. Have some coffee."
Suddenly Dot was crying. Great, splashing tears fell unhampered to the gay little pink ruffle that trimmed her dress.
"Oh, Edna, I'm so miserable."
"I know it, Kid, but Eddie will come. I know he will."
"He won't. He won't. Why should he?"
"Because he's wild about you."
"He couldn't be wild about anybody, Edna, he isn't that kind."
Dot's head fell to her arm, and she surrendered with a perverse delight to being as miserable as the situation called for. Floyd came from the kitchen to watch. He was interested but rather hoped that Eddie wouldn't come. If Dot got married she'd never be able to stay over night at his house any more. Floyd knew.
Dot's sobs continued. Edna smoothed the silky brown bob and murmured encouraging words, to no avail.
"Snap out of it, Kid," said Edna. "I'll have the neighbors in asking what's the matter if you don't shut up."
For answer Dot's weeping increased.
"You never do things by halves, do you?" Edna asked.
Dot raised a tragic face from her sleeve.
"No, I wish I did, and I wish I hadn't given in to him."
Edna envied Dot. She herself was past the age where there was compensation in dramatizing a bitter disappointment.
"Get this straight, Kid," she said, catching Dot's tearfilled eyes. "Whether you go through life with Eddie or without him, remember that you didn't give in to Eddie. You gave in to yourself."
"Yes, but he ought to come. I want him so."
"He'll come."
"Never—never—never."
The doorbell rang. Dot jumped and made a frantic daub at her eyes. "Probably a peddler," she said, but not very successfully. Floyd ran to the door, Edna followed more leisurely, and Dot stood in the doorway, looking down the long hall.
It was Eddie. Edna had been right. She wasn't, however, the sort of person to turn to Dot and announce triumphantly, "I told you so." What she said was to Eddie, and it was very low. Dot at the end of the hall thought it sounded like "You're a fine bozo."
"Eddie's here, Eddie's here," shrieked Floyd.
Eddie followed Edna into the apartment. He clutched Dot's hand as he passed her, and they walked into the living-room.
"I was up to your house," said Eddie. "The old man was there. When I told him I was gonna marry you today he looked kind of like he didn't believe it. He said you'd moved; so I come on here. Anything wrong? You been crying."
Eddie planted a foot on one of Edna's chairs and rested contentedly.
"Well, it looked funny," Dot explained. "Your landlady said you'd left there, and the radio man wouldn't tell me anything. Gee, I didn't know what to think."
Eddie laughed easily. "Gosh, women are fools." He looked at Edna as though expecting her to agree. "You didn't think I was going to take you to live in a room the size of a closet, did you? With a single bed and one chair." If the mention of the single bed was out of order, nobody noticed it, and Eddie continued. "My landlady didn't have a double room; so I moved across the street. She was mad, that's why she didn't tell you. I'd 'a' got here earlier only the boss had a couple of jobs he wanted me to look at and I thought it would be just as well if I didn't lose my job today."
Edna and Dot exchanged glances.
"Now, Dorothea, do you suppose you could stand the sight of some coffee?" asked Edna, witheringly.
Dot smiled from Edna to Eddie and back again. They met her smile indifferently. It wasn't a very encouraging bridal party. Edna looked as though she had had just about enough nonsense, and Eddie, having taken his foot off Edna's chair, wandered about uneasily.
"Come on, Dot," he said. "Never mind coffee. We'll get it somewhere outside."
"Her master's voice," remarked Edna.
"Edna has coffee waiting for me," said Dot, unhappily.
"Oh, don't bother about that," Edna hastily answered. "Run along, I'll be glad to see you on your way."
"Aren't you coming with us?" Dot paused in the act of planting her cloche firmly on her head and stared at Edna.
"With you? I should say not. What, me go all the way to City Hall with what I got to do today?"
"Please, Edna, to see me married."
"No. Just bring back the certificate and I'll believe it."
Dot's eyes wandered to Eddie. He was sitting on the window sill, tapping the floor with his foot. She telegraphed him a message of distress to which he responded feebly.
"Sure, come on with us, Edna."
Edna shook her head. "No, you'll manage fine without me."
Eddie bore her refusal heroically. He shrugged his shoulders, and his eyes remarked that you couldn't force a person into accompanying you to your wedding. Dot picked up her suitcase, and Eddie took it from her.
At the door she flung her arms around Edna's neck and kissed her. "By, Edna, darling, thanks a lot for everything and I'll be up to see you tomorrow night."
"Good-by, dear. Good-by, Eddie."
"'By," said Eddie.
Floyd's impromptu nine thousand, four hundred and eighty-two followed them out to the street.
Married, married.
Dottie's gonna be married.
Tra la la la—la la."
"So," said Eddie when they reached the corner, "you and Edna thought I ditched you, eh?"
"Edna didn't," said Dot, shortly. "She said you'd come."
"Hm." Eddie spoke into the cup of his hand where he was lighting a cigarette. "She probably thought I wouldn't have the courage to fade out."
Dot laughed. "Gee, Edna can't win in your figuring, can she? What's wrong with Edna?"
"Aw, she makes me sick," said Eddie. "She thinks she's so God damned important."
"Well, she was pretty important last night. What would I have done without her? My brother kicked me out. I wouldn't have known what to do without Edna."
"You wouldn't have known what to do without Edna, eh?"
"No. What could I have done?"
Eddie smiled without being amused at anything at all. "Jesus, Kid, you and I will get along great," he said somewhat irrelevantly.