'I don't know,' said Ramona, and began to scratch herself again.
'He sounds beautiful!' Mary Jane said, and leaned even farther forward in her chair. 'Ramona. Tell me. Did Jimmy take off his galoshes, too, when you came in?'
'He has boots,' Ramona said.
'Marvellous,' Mary Jane said to Eloise.
'You just think so. I get it all day long. Jimmy eats with her. Takes a bath with her. Sleeps with her. She sleeps way over to one side of the bed, so's not to roll over and hurt him.'
Looking absorbed and delighted with this information, Mary Jane took in her lower lip, then released it to ask, 'Where'd he get that name, though?'
'Jimmy Jimmereeno? God knows.'
'Probably from some little boy in the neighborhood.'
Eloise, yawning, shook her head. 'There are no little boys in the neighborhood. No children at all. They call me Fertile Fanny behind my--'
'Mommy,' Ramona said, 'can I go out and play?'
Eloise looked at her. 'You just came in,' she said.
'Jimmy wants to go out again.'
'Why, may I ask?'
'He left his sword outside.'
'Oh, him and his goddam sword,' Eloise said. 'Well. Go ahead. Put your galoshes back on.'
'Can I have this?' Ramona said, taking a burned match out of the ashtray.
'May I have this. Yes. Stay out of the street, please.'
'Goodbye, Ramona!' Mary Jane said musically.
'Bye,' said Ramona. 'C'mon, Jimmy.'
Eloise lunged suddenly to her feet. 'Gimme your glass,' she said.
'No, really, El. I'm supposed to be in Larchmont. I mean Mr.
Weyinburg's so sweet, I hate to--'
'Call up and say you were killed. Let go of that damn glass.'
'No, honestly, El. I mean it's getting so terribly icy. I have hardly any anti-freeze in the car. I mean if I don't--'
'Let it freeze. Go phone. Say you're dead,' said Eloise. 'Gimme that.'
'Well . . . Where's the phone?'
'It went,' said Eloise, carrying the empty glasses and walking toward the dining room, '--this-a-way.' She stopped short on the floor board between the living room and the dining room and executed a grind and a bump. Mary Jane giggled.
'I mean you didn't really know Walt,' said Eloise at a quarter of five, lying on her back on the floor, a drink balanced upright on her small-breasted chest. 'He was the only boy I ever knew that could make me laugh. I mean really laugh.' She looked over at Mary Jane. 'You remember that night--our last year--when that crazy Louise Hermanson busted in the room wearing that black brassiere she bought in Chicago?'
Mary Jane giggled. She was lying on her stomach on the couch, her chin on the armrest, facing Eloise. Her drink was on the floor, within reach.
'Well, he could make me laugh that way,' Eloise said. 'He could do it when he talked to me. He could do it over the phone. He could even do it in a letter. And the best thing about it was that he didn't even try to be funny--he just was funny.' She turned her head slightly toward Mary Jane. 'Hey, how 'bout throwing me a cigarette?'
'I can't reach 'em,' Mary Jane said.
'Nuts to you.' Eloise looked up at the ceiling again. 'Once,' she said, 'I fell down. I used to wait for him at the bus stop, right outside the PX, and he showed up late once, just as the bus was pulling out. We started to run for it, and I fell and twisted my ankle. He said,
`Poor Uncle Wiggily.' He meant my ankle. Poor old Uncle Wiggily, he called it. . . . God, he was nice.'
'Doesn't Lew have a sense of humor?' Mary Jane said.
'What?'
'Doesn't Lew have a sense of humor?'
'Oh, God! Who knows? Yes. I guess so. He laughs at cartoons and stuff.' Eloise raised her head, lifted her drink from her chest, and drank from it.
'Well,' Mary Jane said. 'That isn't everything. I mean that isn't everything.'
'What isn't?'
'Oh . . . you know. Laughing and stuff.'
'Who says it isn't?' Eloise said. 'Listen, if you're not gonna be a nun or something, you might as well laugh.'
