Whistling to himself, David Gordon parked the Richfield service truck and jumped to the pavement. Lugging a damaged fuel pump and a handful of wrenches, he entered the station building.
Sitting in the one chair was Mary Anne Reynolds. But something was wrong; she was too quiet.
"Are-" Gordon began. "What is it, honey?"
One single tear slid down the girl's cheek. She wiped it away and got to her feet. Gordon reached to take hold of her, but she drew back.
"Where were you?" she said in a low voice. "I've been here half an hour. The other man said you'd be right back."
"Some people in a Buick. Broke down on the old Big Bear Pass Road. What happened?"
"I went job hunting. What time is it?"
He located the wall clock; when anybody asked the time he could never seem to find it. "Ten."
"Then it's been an hour. I walked around for a while before I came here."
He was completely baffled. "What do you mean, you went job hunting? What about Readymade?"
"First," Mary Anne said, "can I borrow five dollars? I bought a pair of gloves over at Steiner's."
He got out the money; she accepted the bill and put it in her purse. He noticed that she had on nail polish, which was unusual. In fact, she was all dressed up; she had on an expensive-looking suit, and high heels, and nylon stockings.
"I should have known," she said. "The way he first looked at me. But I wasn't sure until he touched me. Then I was sure, and I got out of there as quickly as I could."
"Explain," he demanded. Her thoughts, like her activities, had become closed to him.
"He wanted to have relations with me," she said stonily. "That was what it was all for. The job, the record store, the ad. 'Young woman, must be attractive.' "
"Who?"
"He owns the store. Joseph Schilling."
Dave Gordon had seen her upset before, and sometimes he could calm her down. But he did not understand what was wrong; a man had made a pass at her-so what? He had made passes at girls himself. "Maybe he didn't have that in mind," he said. "I mean, maybe the shop is on the level, but when he saw you-" He gestured. "You're all dolled up; look at you. That suit, all that makeup."
"But an older man," she insisted. "It's not right!"
"Why not? He's a man, isn't he?"
"I thought I could trust him. You don't expect that from an older man." She got out her cigarettes, and he took her matches to light up for her. "Think of it--a respectable man like that, with money and education. Coming here to this town, picking this town for a thing like that."
"Take it easy," he said, wanting to help her but not really knowing how. "You're okay."
She paced around in a tight, aimless circle. "I feel sick. It's so-infuriating. I worked so damn hard fixing myself up. And the store ..." Her voice faded. "It was so pretty. And the way he looked at first. He was so impressive."
"It happens all the time. All you have to do is walk along the street, by the drugstore. Guys hang out, watch."
"You remember when we were in high school? That bus incident?"
No, he didn't remember. "I-" he began.
"You weren't there. I was sitting next to a man, a salesman. He started talking to me; it was awful. Whispering to me, and everybody else just sitting there jiggling with the bus. Housewives."
"Hey," Gordon said. "I get off in half an hour. Let's drive over to Poster's Freeze and have a hamburger and a shake. That'll make you feel better."
"Oh, for Christ's sake!" she said, infuriated. "Grow up, will you? You're not a boy-you're a grown man. Can't you think of anything else? Milk shakes-you're a high school boy; that's all you are."
Gordon muttered: "Don't get sore."
"Why do you hang around with those fairies?"
"What fairies?"
"Tate and that bunch."
"They're not fairies. They just dress good."
She blew smoke at him. "Working in a gas station-that's no job for an adult. Jake; you're another Jake. Jake and Dave, the two pals. Be a Jake, if you want. Be a Jake until the army gets you."
"Lay off talking about the army. They're blowing on my ass."
"It wouldn't do you any harm." Restlessly, Mary Anne said: "Drive me out to Readymade. I have to be back at work; I can't sit around here."
"Are you sure you ought to go back? Maybe you ought to go home and rest."
The girl's eyes shrank with wrath. "I have to go back; it's my job. Take some responsibility, once in a while; can't you understand responsibility?"
...
On the trip Mary Anne had little to say. She sat bolt upright, gripping her purse and staring out the truck window at the countryside. Under her arms moist circles had formed, giving off the scent of rosewater and musk. She had wiped away most of her makeup; her face was white and expressionless.
"You look funny," Dave Gordon said. "No kidding."
With a show of determination, he said, "How about telling me what's going on with you, these days? I never see you anymore; you always have some excuse. I guess what it is, is I'm getting the brush."
"I went by your house last night."
"And when I go by your house you're not there. Your family doesn't know where you are. Who does?"
"I do," Mary Anne said succinctly.
"Are you still hanging around that bar?" There was no rancor in his voice, only forlorn concern. "I even went down there, to that Wren Club. And sat around thinking maybe you'd show up. I did that a couple times."
Mary Anne softened minutely. "Did I show up?"
"No."
"I'm sorry." With a stir of longing, she said, "Maybe this will all clear away."
"You mean your job?"
"Yes. I suppose." She meant a great deal more than that.
"Maybe I'll become a nun," she said suddenly.
"I wish I could understand you. I wish I saw more of you; I'd settle for that. I sort of miss you."
Mary Anne wished she missed Gordon. But she didn't. "Can I say something?" he asked. "Say away."
"I guess you don't want to marry me after all."
"Why?" Mary Anne asked, her voice rising. "Why do you say a thing like that? My God, Gordon, where'd you get an idea like that? You must be crazy; you better go to a psychoanalyst. You're neurotic. You're in bad shape, baby."
Sulkily, Dave Gordon said: "Don't make fun of me."
She was ashamed. "I'm sorry, Gordon."
"And for Christ's sake, do you have to call me Gordon? My name's Dave. Everybody else calls me Gordon-you ought to be able to call me Dave."
"I'm sorry, David," she said contritely. "I wasn't really making fun of you. It's this whole awful business."
"If we got married," Gordon said, "would you keep on working?"
"I haven't thought about it."
"I'd prefer it if you stayed home."
"Why?"
"Well," Gordon said, twisting with embarrassment, "if' we had kids, you ought to be home taking care of them."
"Kids," Mary Anne said. She felt strange. Her kids: it was a new idea.
"Would you like kids?" Gordon asked hopefully. "I like you."
"I'm talking about real little kids."
"Yes," she decided, thinking about it. "Why not? It'd be nice." She contemplated at length. "I could stay home ... a little boy and a little girl. Not just one kid; two at the least, and maybe more." She smiled briefly. "So they wouldn't be lonely. One kid is too lonely ... he has no friends."
"You've always been lonely."
"Have I? I guess so."
"I remember when we were in high school," Dave Gordon said. "You were always by yourself ... you never hung around with the group. You were so pretty; I used to see you sitting out there at lunchtime, with your bottle of milk and your sandwich, eating all by yourself. You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to go up and kiss you. But I didn't know you then."
With affection, Mary Anne said: "You're a pretty nice person." Then, urgently, she drew away. "I hated high school. I couldn't wait to get out of there. What did we learn there? What did they teach us we could use?"
"Nothing, I guess," Dave Gordon said.
"A lot of phony junk. Phony! Every word of it."
Ahead of them, to the right, was California Readymade. They watched it approach.
"Here we are," Dave Gordon said, pulling the truck to a stop at the edge of the road. "When'll I see you?"
"Sometime." She had already lost interest in him; stiff and tense again, she was preparing herself.
"Tonight?"
Climbing down, Mary Anne said over her shoulder: "Not tonight. Don't come around for a while. I have to do a lot of thinking."
Hurt, Gordon prepared to leave. "Sometimes I think you're riding for a fall."
"What do you mean?" She halted defiantly.
"Some people think-you're stuck up."
With a shake of her head Mary Anne dismissed him and trotted up the path to the factory office. Behind her, the sound of the truck motor faded as Gordon drove glumly back to town.
She felt no particular emotion as she opened the office door. She was a little tired, and her stomach was still upset; but that was all. As Mrs. Bolden got to her feet, Mary Anne began removing her gloves and coat. She could feel the mounting oppressiveness, but she continued, matter-of-factly, without comment.
"Well," Mrs. Bolden said, "you decided to come after all." At his desk, Tom Bolden peered around, listening and scowling.
"What do you want done first?" Mary Anne asked.
"I got to looking at the calendar," Mrs. Bolden continued, blocking the girl's way as she started toward her typewriter. "This isn't your period at all is it? You just made that up to get time off. I marked the date down last time. My husband and I have been talking it over. We-"
"I quit," Mary Anne said suddenly. She tugged her gloves back on and started toward the door. "I have another job."
Mrs. Bolden's mouth fell open. "You sit down, young lady. Don't you walk out of here."
"Mail my check," Mary Anne said, tugging open the door. "What's she saying?" Tom Bolden muttered, rising to his feet. "Is she leaving again?"
"Good-bye," Mary Anne said; without stopping she hurried out onto the porch and down the stairs to the path. Behind her, the old man and his wife had come to the doorway in bewilderment.
"I quit!" Mary Anne shouted back at them. "Go back inside! I have another job! Go away!"
The two of them remained there, neither of them knowing what to do, neither of them stirring until, to her own surprise, Mary Anne crouched down, swept up a chunk of loose concrete, and threw it at them. The concrete landed in the soft dirt by the porch; fumbling at the edge of the path, she found a handful of concrete fragments and showered them at the old couple.
"Go back in!" she shouted, beginning to laugh in amazement and fear at herself. Workmen had come out on the loading platform and were staring, openmouthed. "I quit! I'm not coming back!"
Then, clutching her purse, she ran down the sidewalk, stumbling in the unfamiliar heels, on and on until she was gasping and winded, blinded by red specks that swam in front of her.
Nobody had followed. She slowed down and stopped to lean against the corrugated iron side of a fertilizer plant. What had she done? Quit her job. All at once, in an instant. Well, it was too late to worry about it now. Good riddance.
Stepping into the street, Mary Anne waved down a pickup truck loaded with sacks of kindling. The driver, a Pole, gaped in astonishment as she opened the door and clambered in beside him.
"Take me into town," she ordered. Resting her elbow on the windowsill, she covered her eyes with her hand. After some hesitation, the truck started; she was on her way.
"You sick, miss?" the Pole asked.
Mary Anne didn't answer. Jogging with the motion of the truck, she prepared to endure the trip back to Pacific Park.
In the slum business section she made the Pole let her off. It was approaching noon, and the hot midsummer sun beat down on 'the parked cars and pedestrians. She passed the cigar shop and came to the padded red door of the Lazy Wren. The bar was closed and locked; going to the window, she began tapping with a quarter.
After an interval a shape made its appearance in the interior gloom: a paunchy, elderly Negro. Taft Eaton put his hand to the glass, surveyed her hostilely, then unlocked the door.
"Where's Tweany?" she asked.
"He's not here."
"Where is he, then?"
"Home. Anywhere." As Mary Anne started to push past him, he slammed the door and said through it: "You can't come in; you're a minor."
She listened to the door latch slide into place, stood indecisively, and then entered the cigar shop. Squeezing by the men clustered at the counter, she found the pay telephone. With difficulty, balancing the heavy phone book, she located his number and then dropped a dime into the slot.
There was no response. But he might be there asleep. She would have to go over. Right now she needed him; she had to see him. There was nothing else she could turn to.
The house, the great three-story house of gray fluting and balconies and spires, jutted from its yard of weeds, broken bottles, rusting tin cans. There was no sign of life; the shades on the third floor were down and inert.
Fear overtook her and she hurried up the path, across the cracked cement, past a bundle of newspapers and dying potted plants at the foot of the stairs. She climbed two steps at a time, holding fast to the banister. Gasping, she turned the corner of the long flight, felt the rotten slats sag under her, tripped on a broken step and pitched forward, scrabbling at the railing. Her shin struck the jagged old wood; pain made her scream and fall onto her open palms. Her cheek brushed a heap of dust-impregnated cobwebs that had caught over the green knit sleeve of her suit. A family of spiders clicked excitedly away; dragging herself to her feet, Mary Anne crept up the last steps, cursing and weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Tweany!" she screamed, "let me in!"
There was no response. From a long way off came the jangle of a traffic signal. And from the milk plant at the edge of the slums a clatter drifted up and spread over the town.
In a blind haze she reached the door. Below her the distant ground wheeled; for an interval she lay against the door, her eyes shut, trying not to let go and fall.
"Tweany," she gasped, her face against the closed door. "Goddamn it, let me in."
Through her suffering came reassuring noise: a person was stirring. Mary Anne settled in a heap on the top step, bent over, knees pulled up, rocking from side to side, the contents of her purse dribbling from between her fingers onto the steps, coins and pencils rolling out into the sunlight and dropping to the grass far below.
"Tweany," she whispered as the door opened and the dark, faintly luminous shape of the Negro appeared. "Please help me. Something's happened to me."
Frowning with annoyance, he bent down and gathered her up. With his bare foot-he had on only his pants--he kicked the door shut behind them. Carrying her, he padded down the hall, his blue-black face fragrant with shaving soap, his chin and furry chest dripping beads of lather. Around the girl's body his hands were brusque; she closed her eyes and clung to him.
"Help me," she repeated. "I quit my job; I don't have a job anymore. I met an awful old man and he did something to me. Now I don't have any place to stay."