We were a little edgy with each other, but, generally, I'd say that that feeling lasted on through our honeymoon and for several months afterward. It wasn't until I put Bower out of business that we had another real blowup.
'But you just couldn't have done it, Joe!' she said. 'The Bowers are one of the oldest families in town, and they've always been good friends of ours. You can't deliberately ruin people like that.'
'I'm not ruining them,' I said. 'If Bower wants to start another show it's all right with me.'
'You know he can't start another one!'
'Well, that's his fault, then,' I said. 'I've got to protect our investment. It's up to him to look after his. What could be fairer than that?'
She sat and stared at me for a longtime, and I began to get nervous. There wasn't any reason why I should have, but I couldn't help myself.
'Well, what's wrong?' I said.
'What do you think, Joe?'
'I don't think anything,' I said. 'All I know is that I work my can off trying to put us on a good spot and you can't do anything but find fault with me. Whose side are you on, anyhow? Mine or Bower's?'
'Do I have to take sides against people who've never done me any harm?'
'Look,' I said. 'This is business, Elizabeth. You just can't-'
'Never mind, Joe. I think I understand.'
The smile she gave me wouldn't have fooled me later on, but it did at the time. And when she said of course she was on my side, where else would a wife be? I was completely taken in.
I went ahead and told her about the other things I had planned. How I could get the work done on a new house for nothing. How I could get the marquee and other stuff for next to nothing. How I could use them to get credit to pay the bills that couldn't be ducked. How we could run the house union at less expense than it cost to scab.
I must have shot off my mouth for an hour. And then, since everything seemed to be going so well, and we hadn't been married very long-
We went up to the bedroom, and that-it-was the craziest goddam thing that ever happened to me. Action? Sure; as much as you'd get on a roller coaster. Affection? The only twenty-dollar girl I ever had gave me a lot less. Heat? Like a furnace. It was lovely and wonderful, and so goddam phony I felt myself gagging right into her mouth.
I jumped up and began jerking on my clothes.
'All right,' I yelled, 'have it your way! I'll let everything slide, and you can have your goddam rat trap back as it stands and I'll clear out!'
'But I don't want you to clear out, Joe.' She got up and stood in front of me. 'I happen to love you.'
'Damned if you don't,' I said. 'Just leave me alone. I won't bother you again.'
'And I want you to bother me, too. Perhaps I'm a little disappointed in-in things, but-'
'You're disappointed?' I said. 'What the hell do you think I am?'
She didn't answer that one, and I went ahead flinging on my clothes, trying not to look at her.
I finished dressing and started for the door, and she got in front of me.
'Well?' I said.
'Is this better, Joe?' she said. Then,
And before I could come to my senses, before I could get over someone who was supposed to be a lady acting like a four-bit floozy, she'd shoved me out the door and locked it.
Well, I built the show. I did the other things I've told you about. And every once in a while, during those first few years, I thought we were going to be able to straighten things out and get along like married people should.
I thought so the strongest when she got pregnant, but then she miscarried and it was worse than ever. It was like I mentioned a while back. I never knew what she was going to do. I was never sure whether her actions and words meant one thing or whether they meant another.
About all I could ever be sure of was that she hated my guts, and that she hated them most right when she claimed to be loving me the loudest.
The funny part about it all was that with all her high-toned sneering, she wasn't too good to profit by the corners I cut. She insisted on keeping the show in her name, and she made almost as big a job of running it as I did. Not that anything she ever did was a damned bit of help, but she kept her hand in and held in there right on up to the end.
No, I don't think she was ever afraid of my skipping out if I wasn't tied down. And I don't think the main idea was to humiliate me, although that may have been part of it. I think-no, I don't, either. If I really thought that, then nothing would make sense.
I don't think I mentioned that she fired Carol that afternoon she caught her in my room. Well, she did, and I let her. It didn't look like I had much grounds for argument, and I figured I'd see Carol later and slip her some money and fix it up.
Carol packed up her things, or started to. Before she could finish Elizabeth called her down to the living- room.
'I'm partly to blame for this,' she said to us. 'Perhaps, by bringing Carol into this house, I'm entirely to blame. At any rate, I'm ready to assume some of the responsibility for it. Carol, exactly what are your feelings toward Mr. Wilmot?'
'None of your business,' said Carol.
'And yours toward Carol, Joe?'
'There's no use in me saying anything,' I said. 'You've already got your mind made up.'
'I see. Well, in preference to having this affair carried on around the countryside, I think Carol had best stay here. Go and unpack your things, Carol.'
Carol looked at me, and I nodded. After she'd left the room Elizabeth stood up.
'I'm going to give you a little time to decide exactly what you want to do, Joe. And when you do reach a decision I expect you to stick by it. Do you understand?'
'Maybe I've already decided,' I said.
'And?'
'Let's say I'm about as sick of you as you are of me.'
'All right,' she said. 'Now, the little matter remains of what to do about it.'
From where I sit now I'd say she thought she had me; that she knew there wasn't anything I could do and that I'd have to backwater on the deal. Looking back I'd say that she wasn't really thinking about the insurance when she agreed to settle for twenty-five grand. It was just her way of saying that she wouldn't trade at all.
I don't mean that she wanted me herself, because everything that she'd ever done or said pointed to the fact that she didn't. But she wasn't going to let Carol have me, either. Not Carol. She didn't hate Carol, exactly; she didn't think enough of her even to do that. It was Carol who did the hating and she did a good job of it. But-
But that's beside the point.
The insurance did get mentioned, and there was just one way we could cash in on it. And when I laid the plan out, little by little, Elizabeth went for it. It surprised me, but she did. She even took full charge of the plans pushing them along faster than I would have myself.
Carol thought it was all a gag, that Elizabeth was just trying to land her and me in trouble. But I didn't and don't think so. Elizabeth didn't need to pretend anything. She was in the saddle. And there was no way she could have made trouble for us without involving herself.
Why did she try to burn herself up there toward the last? The answer to that is, she didn't. It just looked that way. She knew every trick to that rewind motor. She knew just how much she could play around with that short- circuited cord without being in danger. I didn't move as fast as she thought I would and consequently she almost had herself a funeral party. But, anyway, it was a good trick and it almost worked.
If it hadn't been for Carol, for what had happened between us-And, yes, I guess Carol had been doing a little thinking, too, which was why things turned out as they did.
Carol could so some pretty straight thinking even if she didn't always come up with the straight answers.
