“I’ll wait till he does.”
“Oh, then it’ll be too late! He’ll be in such demand!”
“I’ll stand my chances.”
“You don’t like him at all?”
“… I could stand to look at him.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“But Liz, he put his hand-”
“-where you’ve put it many a time yourself, let’s not kid ourselves. There are worse things than a handsome man with his hand down there.”
I lay there in bed that night, thinking him over. If he really did have prospects, that might put things in a different light, though of course ‘prospects’ was only a way of saying he might someday have some fraction of what Mr. White already had for sure today. At the same time, he did have, in spades, what Mr. White did not, what we might term a physical appeal, not just being good looking and young but having a presence to him, a scent almost, that took something loose inside a woman and coiled it up tight. And I thought, perhaps it does make sense, what Liz said on the way home, that if they apologize, then life can go on, and no use being sore. I began feeling less bitter towards him. But then all of a sudden I thought: When did he apologize? I thought over the whole conversation, and remembered his apologizing for not knowing me until he looked at my legs, but for what he did he never apologized at all, and fact of the matter, never even brought the subject up. And then I wondered: Why? Why, if he did something like that, that calls for an apology if anything ever did, didn’t he come out and say it? It seemed there had to be a reason. Matching it in with the fact that he made me a pitch, tried to date me up for the night after I got through work, it had to mean something, it couldn’t be accident, something he didn’t have manners to do, or forgot about, or would have said if something else hadn’t come up. I mean, it was deliberate, had to be. I slept all right, didn’t lie awake over it, and yet it was there, whenever he crossed my mind.
11
He was in several times, always alone, always ordering seltzer, and always taking the same table, the one Mr. White had sat at a few hours before. And always he pitched some more, that we should go somewhere, after the Garden closed, and as he said, “get better acquainted.” I waited and waited and waited, that he should bring up the subject, of what he had done to me, and say he was sorry for it, but he never did, not once. And, naturally, it wasn’t something that I would bring up myself. But on going out with him, I kept putting him off. I would say, “Give me a raincheck, please. There’s things in my life that hurt, and I’m not quite over them yet. Little later on, I may like to go out with you. Just right now, I’m not going out with anybody.” Something like that-just what, I’m not really quite sure. Because something happened at that time that stood my life on its head, and kind of mixed things up in my mind, as to just what happened, and how.
It was an afternoon like any other, so far as I knew at the time. I’d just got done filling the bowls on all the tables when here came Mr. White, so prompt you could set your watch by when he’d come in. And I brought him his usual order, then stood keeping company with him, expecting the conversation to be his usual, what louses his children were, and my usual, the thing I had on my hands, with Ethel- which I didn’t like myself for, but kept banging at just the same. But today he just sat there sipping his drink, looking out toward the foyer, and not saying much, about his children or anything. And then, all of a sudden: “Joan, could you be dressed and ready, eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, if my driver calls for you? To take you on an errand that will be to your advantage?”
“… What kind of an errand?”
“You’ll see. I have a reason for not telling you in advance-a very compelling reason, one I’d rather not discuss, but that I think you’d accept if you knew what it was.”
“Well you’re certainly mysterious about it.”
“If you knew why, I’m sure you’d not be offended.”
“Be ready to go at eleven?”
“That’s it. Jasper will call for you.”
“I’m flying blind, but-”
“You’ll not regret it, I promise you.”
“Then if you say so, O.K.”
“Fine. Fine. Fine. And, Joan, if you’ll have a deposit slip with you? Your personal deposit slip, from your bank. One of those things in the back of your checkbook?”
“… What is this, Mr. White?”
“You’ll find out in due time.”
It sounded as though he was giving me money, and yet I was annoyed in spite of myself. Why all this mystery about it? He said he had a good reason, that I wouldn’t mind if I knew it, and yet I wanted to know it before getting into that car. Still, though I pressed him about it quite hard, I’d have been a fool to tell him no, mystery or no mystery. So, I said I’d be dressed and ready, when Jasper showed up in the car-and spent the night wondering what he was up to, and why he acted that way. Turned out that from his point of view, he did have a reason, a real one, not unfriendly to me, but I didn’t find out till next day what it was.
I put on a suit I’d bought, a dark green one that went with my hair, and was out on the porch waiting when Jasper showed up, right on the stroke of eleven. He drove me up to the Estates, and presently turned into one that took my breath, it was so beautiful, like a fairy castle, almost. It was in the colonial style, the Maryland colonial style, with a pair of “hyphens” between the center section and the wings-one-story passages, connecting things up so the line is broken, and better proportion gained than is possible with wings jammed up tight to the center. The whole house was of brick, painted light yellow, with dark olive-green shutters and white trim. Four low chimneys rose from the center section, and two each from the wings, making eight in all, and matching the white trim was the drive, which was dead white, but luminous somehow, with a sparkle to it. Later, when we left and I commented on it, Jasper said the reason was that it was made of oyster shells.
There were no pillars or gewgaws in front, just a plain entrance with portico and a brick platform one step up, in front of which we pulled to a stop. But before I could get out, Mr. White was there, bareheaded, tapping the window of the car. When I put it down, he greeted me, then dropped an envelope into my lap, marked “Mrs. Medford,” and stepped away. I felt distinctly rebuffed at not being asked inside, but he said: “Jasper’ll take you to the bank, whichever one you want-and you can make out your deposit slip. You brought one, I hope?”
I said I did, and he waved Jasper on. I waved to him as we rolled off, I’m afraid a bit coolly, as I had never had such a thing happen in all my life. However, it was time I found out what was going on, and I got the flap of the envelope open by running my finger inside it, and took out what was inside. On top, attached by a clip, was a check drawn to Joan Medford, for $50,000.
To say I was stunned would be the understatement of the century. I actually pinched myself, to make sure it wasn’t a dream. When I made my head stop spinning around, Jasper had slowed down, and was asking me where to: “Mr. Earl, he said you wanted a bank. Like in College Park? Hyattsville? Say where, Mrs. Medford. I ain’t headed nowhere right now.”
I looked at the check again. What it said was unchanged. Under it were four duplicate copies, each marked COPY TO ACCOMPANY TAX RETURN. In the lower left-hand space of the check was typed the word GIFT.
“College Park, please. Suburban Trust.”
“Drive-in window?”
“No, I’ll be going inside.”
“O.K., Mrs. Medford. Now I got it.”
I chose College Park as I wasn’t known at that branch. I wanted to avoid the whistles and surprise and excitement it might have caused in Hyattsville, at my regular branch I mean, to bring in such a check for deposit. When we arrived, I made out the slip I had brought, put it in the window under the glass barrier, and watched while the teller stamped it and gave me my receipt, as though it was just one other deposit-which to him no doubt it was. Then I went out and asked Jasper to take me home.
I sat in the living room, looking out at the street and trying to get used to what had happened to me. I was still numb, though. When the doorbell rang, I was sure it was Jasper again, come to say there had been a mistake,
