Complete Stories Page 9

  “Will you do me a favor?” he said. “Will you do me one little favor? Will you? Will you listen just——”

  “Yeah, favors,” she said. “Nobody’s got to do me any favors. I make my own living, and I don’t have to ask any favors off of anybody. I never gave anybody any trouble in my life. And if they don’t like it, they know what they can do. Tiffany’s window, see? The whole lot of them. Oh, did I break that glass? Oh, isn’t that terrible. All right—if it’s broken it’s broken. Isn’t it? Hell with it. Hell with them all.”

  “If you’d listen,” he said. “There isn’t anything for you to get sore about. Just listen——”

  “Who’s sore?” she said. “I’m not sore. I’m all right. You don’t have to worry about me. You or Jeannette or anybody else. Sore. Say, if a person’s not going to get sore about a thing like that, what kind of a thing is a person expected to get sore about? After all I’ve done for her. Trouble with me is, I’m too kind-hearted. That’s what everybody always told me. ‘Trouble with you is, you’re too kind-hearted,’ they said. And now look what she goes around and says about me. And you let her say a thing like that to you, and you’re ashamed to say you’re a friend of mine. All right, you don’t have to. You can go back to Jeannette and stay there. The whole lot of you.”

  “Now listen, sweetheart,” he said. “Haven’t I always been your friend? Haven’t I? Well now, wouldn’t you listen to your friend just for a——”

  “Friends,” she said. “Friends. Fine lot of friends I got. Go around cutting your throat. That’s what you get for being kind-hearted. Just a big kind-hearted slob. That’s me. Oh, hell with the water. I’ll drink it straight. I make my own living, and go around not giving anybody any trouble, and then the whole lot of them turn on me. After the way I was brought up, and the home we used to have, and all, and they go around making cracks about me. Work all day long, and don’t ask anything off of anybody. And here I am with a weak heart, besides. I’d just as soon I was dead. What’ve I got to live for, anyway? Kindly answer me that one question. What’ve I got to live for?”

  Tears striped her cheeks.

  The man with the ice-blue hair reached across the Scotch-soaked tablecloth and took her hand.

  “Ah, listen,” he said. “Listen.”

  From the unknown, a waiter appeared. He chirped and fluttered about them. Presently, you felt, he would cover them with leaves. . . .

  The New Yorker, February 13, 1926

  The Last Tea

  The young man in the chocolate-brown suit sat down at the table, where the girl with the artificial camellia had been sitting for forty minutes.

  “Guess I must be late,” he said. “Sorry you been waiting.”

  “Oh, goodness!” she said. “I just got here myself, just about a second ago. I simply went ahead and ordered because I was dying for a cup of tea. I was late, myself. I haven’t been here more than a minute.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Hey, hey, easy on the sugar—one lump is fair enough. And take away those cakes. Terrible! Do I feel terrible!”

  “Ah,” she said, “you do? Ah. Whadda matter?”

  “Oh, I’m ruined,” he said. “I’m in terrible shape.”

  “Ah, the poor boy,” she said. “Was it feelin’ mizzable? Ah, and it came way up here to meet me! You shouldn’t have done that—I’d have understood. Ah, just think of it coming all the way up here when it’s so sick!”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “I might as well be here as any place else. Any place is like any other place, the way I feel today. Oh, I’m all shot.”

  “Why, that’s just awful,” she said. “Why, you poor sick thing. Goodness, I hope it isn’t influenza. They say there’s a lot of it around.”

  “Influenza!” he said. “I wish that was all I had. Oh, I’m poisoned. I’m through. I’m off the stuff for life. Know what time I got to bed? Twenty minutes past five, A.M., this morning. What a night! What an evening!”

  “I thought,” she said, “that you were going to stay at the office and work late. You said you’d be working every night this week.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But it gave me the jumps, thinking about going down there and sitting at that desk. I went up to May’s—she was throwing a party. Say, there was somebody there said they knew you.”

  “Honestly?” she said. “Man or woman?”

  “Dame,” he said. “Name’s Carol McCall. Say, why haven’t I been told about her before? That’s what I call a girl. What a looker she is!”

  “Oh, really?” she said. “That’s funny—I never heard of anyone that thought that. I’ve heard people say she was sort of nice-looking, if she wouldn’t make up so much. But I never heard of anyone that thought she was pretty.”

  “Pretty is right,” he said. “What a couple of eyes she’s got on her!”

  “Really?” she said. “I never noticed them particularly. But I haven’t seen her for a long time—sometimes people change, or something.”

  “She says she used to go to school with you,” he said.

  “Well, we went to the same school,” she said. “I simply happened to go to public school because it happened to be right near us, and Mother hated to have me crossing streets. But she was three or four classes ahead of me. She’s ages older than I am.”

  “She’s three or four classes ahead of them all,” he said. “Dance! Can she step! ‘Burn your clothes, baby,’ I kept telling her. I must have been fried pretty.”

  “I was out dancing myself, last night,” she said. “Wally Dillon and I. He’s just been pestering me to go out with him. He’s the most wonderful dancer. Goodness! I didn’t get home till I don’t know what time. I must look just simply a wreck. Don’t I?”

  “You look all right,” he said.

  “Wally’s crazy,” she said. “The things he says! For some crazy reason or other, he’s got it into his head that I’ve got beautiful eyes, and, well, he just kept talking about them till I didn’t know where to look, I was so embarrassed. I got so red, I thought everybody in the place would be looking at me. I got just as red as a brick. Beautiful eyes! Isn’t he crazy?”

  “He’s all right,” he said. “Say, this little McCall girl, she’s had all kinds of offers to go into moving pictures. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and go?’ I told her. But she says she doesn’t feel like it.”

  “There was a man up at the lake, two summers ago,” she said. “He was a director or something with one of the big moving-picture people—oh, he had all kinds of influence!—and he used to keep insisting and insisting that I ought to be in the movies. Said I ought to be doing sort of Garbo parts. I used to just laugh at him. Imagine!”

  “She’s had about a million offers,” he said. “I told her to go ahead and go. She keeps getting these offers all the time.”

  “Oh, really?” she said. “Oh, listen, I knew I had something to ask you. Did you call me up last night, by any chance?”

  “Me?” he said. “No, I didn’t call you.”

  “While I was out, Mother said this man’s voice kept calling up,” she said. “I thought maybe it might be you, by some chance. I wonder who it could have been. Oh—I guess I know who it was. Yes, that’s who it was!”

  “No, I didn’t call you,” he said. “I couldn’t have seen a telephone, last night. What a head I had on me, this morning! I called Carol up, around ten, and she said she was feeling great. Can that girl hold her liquor!”

  “It’s a funny thing about me,” she said. “It just makes me feel sort of sick to see a girl drink. It’s just something in me, I guess. I don’t mind a man so much, but it makes me feel perfectly terrible to see a girl get intoxicated. It’s just the way I am, I suppose.”

  “Does she carry it!” he said. “And then feels great the next day. There’s a girl! Hey, what are you doing there? I don’t want any more tea, thanks. I’m not one of these tea boys. And these tea rooms give me the jumps. Look at all those old dames, will you? Enough to give you the ju
mps.”

  “Of course, if you’d rather be some place, drinking, with I don’t know what kinds of people,” she said, “I’m sure I don’t see how I can help that. Goodness, there are enough people that are glad enough to take me to tea. I don’t know how many people keep calling me up and pestering me to take me to tea. Plenty of people!”

  “All right, all right, I’m here, aren’t I?” he said. “Keep your hair on.”

  “I could name them all day,” she said.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s there to crab about?”

  “Goodness, it isn’t any of my business what you do,” she said. “But I hate to see you wasting your time with people that aren’t nearly good enough for you. That’s all.”

  “No need worrying over me,” he said. “I’ll be all right. Listen. You don’t have to worry.”

  “It’s just I don’t like to see you wasting your time,” she said, “staying up all night and then feeling terribly the next day. Ah, I was forgetting he was so sick. Ah, I was mean, wasn’t I, scolding him when he was so mizzable. Poor boy. How’s he feel now?”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” he said. “I feel fine. You want anything else? How about getting a check? I got to make a telephone call before six.”

  “Oh, really?” she said. “Calling up Carol?”

  “She said she might be in around now,” he said.

  “Seeing her tonight?” she said.

  “She’s going to let me know when I call up,” he said. “She’s probably got about a million dates. Why?”

  “I was just wondering,” she said. “Goodness, I’ve got to fly! I’m having dinner with Wally, and he’s so crazy, he’s probably there now. He’s called me up about a hundred times today.”

  “Wait till I pay the check,” he said, “and I’ll put you on a bus.”

  “Oh, don’t bother,” she said. “It’s right at the corner. I’ve got to fly. I suppose you want to stay and call up your friend from here?”

  “It’s an idea,” he said. “Sure you’ll be all right?”

  The New Yorker, September 11, 1926

  Oh! He’s Charming!

  “Mr. Pawling,” said the hostess, “this is a great admirer of your books. Miss Waldron, Mr. Pawling. Miss Waldron, oh, she’s a great admirer of yours.”

  She laughed heartily and highly, and melted away through the crowd, toward the depleted tea-table. Her lips were scrolled in sunshine, but in her eyes was the look of the caged thing, the look of the tortured soul who is wondering what in hell has become of that fresh supply of toast.

  “Want to sit down?” said the author. “Here’s a couple of chairs. Might as well grab them.”

  “Ooh, let’s!” said the great admirer. “Let’s do!”

  So they did.

  “God, I’m tired,” said the author. “Dead, I am. Terrible party, this is. Terrible people. Everybody here’s terrible. Lot of lice.”

  “Oh, you must get so sick of parties!” said the great admirer. “You must be simply bored to death. I suppose people are after you every second with invitations.”

  “I never answer them,” he said. “I won’t even go to the telephone any more. But they get you, anyhow. Look at me now. Stuck.”

  “Oh, it must be simply terrible,” she said. “I was thinking, when I was watching you, before. Everybody crowding around you every minute.”

  “What’s a person going to do?” he said.

  “No, but really,” she said, “you can’t blame them, you know. Naturally everybody wants to meet you. My heavens, I’ve been just simply dying to, ever since I read Some Ladies in Agony. I just love every word of that book. I’ve read it over and over. But my heavens, I suppose so many people tell you how they love your books, it would simply bore you to death to hear me rave about them.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “That’s quite all right.”

  “Oh, I do,” she said. “I love them. I’ve often thought ‘I’d just love to sit down and write Freeman Pawling a little letter.’ But I couldn’t get up the nerve to. I was simply scared to death of you. Do you mind if I say something awfully personal? I had no idea you’d be so young!”

  “That so?” he said.

  “Why, I thought you’d have gray hair, at least,” she said. “I thought anybody would have to be old, to know as much as you do.”

  “That so?” he said.

  “My heavens,” she said, “the things you know! Why, I thought nobody but me knew them. Do you mind if I ask you an awfully personal question? How on earth did you ever find out so much about women?”

  “Oh, my God,” he said, “I’ve known a million of them. All over the world.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I bet you have. I bet you’ve left broken hearts wherever you’ve gone. Haven’t you?”

  “Well,” he said.

  “It must be just simply awful for any woman you know,” she said. “The way you see right through and through them. I’d better be terribly careful what I say. First thing I know, you’ll be putting me in a book. Look, I’m going to ask you something awfully personal. Do you mind? Look, was Cicely Celtic in Various Knights and a Lady drawn from real life?”

  “She was,” he said, “and she wasn’t. Partly she was, and partly she wasn’t.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “She was rather an amusing little thing,” he said, “the real Cicely. Girl named Nancy James—very good family. A lady. Possessive as the devil, though. She’s dead, now. Shot herself.”

  “Ooh,” she said. “Just like in the book!”

  “Yes,” he said. “I thought I might as well use it. After all the trouble she was. God, what a jealous little ape.”

  “Are you writing anything now?” she said.

  “Oh, it’s coming slowly,” he said. “Coming slowly. It doesn’t do to hurry it.”

  “I was in at the library yesterday,” she said. “Isn’t it funny, I was just asking them if you had anything new out, and they said no. They said no, you didn’t. I always ask them what’s good, and they sort of save out books for me. I got a lot. There’s one of them by Sherwood Anderson. The Dark something, or something.”

  “Don’t read it,” he said. “It’s a louse. Poor Anderson’s all through.”

  “Oh, I’m awfully glad you told me,” she said. “Now I won’t have to waste my time over it. Then I got this Dreiser thing, only it’s in two books, and it looks terribly long.”

  “Dreiser trying to write,” he said. “That’s one of the funniest things in the world. He can’t write.”

  “Well, I’m glad to know that,” she said. “I won’t have to bother with it. Let’s see—oh, I got this new Ring Lardner book. Short stories or something.”

  “Who?” he said.

  “You know,” she said. “He used to write funny things. You know, all those funny things. Everything spelled wrong, and everything.”

  “What’s his name?” he said.

  “Lardner,” she said. “Ring Lardner. It’s a funny name, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a new one on me,” he said.

  “Well, I really just got it mostly for Daddy,” she said. “He’s crazy about baseball and things. I thought he’d probably be crazy about it. I just can’t seem to find any books I like, any more. My heavens, I wish you’d hurry up and finish your new one. I wish I had the nerve to ask you something awfully personal. I wonder if you’d mind. What’s your new book like?”

  “It’s different,” he said. “Entirely different. I have evolved a different form. The trouble with novelists is their form. It’s their form, if you see what I mean. In this book, I have taken an entirely different form: It’s evolved from the Satyricon of Petronius.”

  “Ooh,” she said. “Ooh. Exciting!”

  “A good deal of the scene,” he said, “is laid in Egypt. I think they’re about ready for it.”

  “How gorgeous!” she said. “I simply love anything about Egypt. I’m just crazy to go there. Have you ever been?”r />
  “No,” he said. “I’m sick of traveling. It’s the same thing everywhere. People giving parties. Terrible.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said. “It must be awful. Look, I don’t want you to think I’m being awfully personal, but I was just thinking I’d simply love to have you come up to the house for tea some time. I wonder if you would.”

  “God, I’m through for the year,” he said. “This is the last time they get me out.”

  “But just quietly,” she said. “Just a few people that are crazy about your things, too. Or just nobody, if you like.”

  “For God’s sake, when would I have any time?” he said.

  “Well, just in case you ever do,” she said, “it’s in the telephone book. D. G. Waldron. Do you think you can remember that or shall I write it down?”

  “Don’t write it,” he said. “I never carry women’s addresses around with me. It’s hot as hell in here. I’m going to duck. Well, good-bye.”

  “Oh, are you going?” she said. “Well, good-bye, then. I can’t tell you how exciting it’s been, meeting you and all. I hope to goodness I haven’t bored you to death, raving about your books. But if you knew how I read them and read them! I simply can’t wait to tell everybody I’ve really met Freeman Pawling!”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “And any time you’re not just terribly busy,” she said, “it’s in the telephone book. You know!”

  “Well, good-bye,” he said.

  He was out the door in eight seconds flat, with no time out for farewells to his hostess.

  The great admirer crossed the room to the tea-table, and clutched the hostess by her weary and flaccid hand.

  “Oh, my dear,” she said, “it was just simply too thrilling for anything. Oh, he’s charming!”

  “Isn’t he?” said the hostess. “I knew you’d think so, too.”