The Kellys who lived on the second floor at Mrs. Osborne’s. And Richard. “When I was fired from that job last month,” Therese said, “I was ashamed and I moved--” She stopped.
“Moved where?”
“I didn’t tell anyone where, except Richard. I just disappeared. I suppose it was my idea of starting a new life, but mostly I was ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was.”
Carol smiled. “Disappeared! I like that. And how lucky you are to be able to do it. You’re free. Do you realize that?”
Therese said nothing.
“No,” Carol answered herself.
Beside Carol on the dressing table, a square gray clock ticked faintly, and as Therese had done a thousand times in the store, she read the time and attached a meaning to it. It was four fifteen and a little more, and suddenly she was anxious lest she had lain there too long, lest Carol might be expecting someone to come to the house.
Then the telephone rang, sudden and long like the shriek of a hysterical woman in the hall, and they saw each other start.
Carol stood up, and slapped something twice in her palm, as she had slapped the gloves in her palm in the store. The telephone screamed again, and Therese was sure Carol was going to throw whatever it was she held in her hand, throw it across the room against the wall. But Carol only turned and laid the thing down quietly, and left the room.
Therese could hear Carol’s voice in the hall. She did not want to hear what she was saying. She got up and put her skirt and her shoes on. Now she saw what Carol had held in her hand. It was a shoehorn of tan-colored wood. Anyone else would have thrown it, Therese thought. Then she knew one word for what she felt about Carol: pride. She heard Carol’s voice repeating the same tones, and now opening the door to leave, she heard the words, “I have a guest,” for the third time calmly presented as a barrier. “I think it’s an excellent reason. What better?... What’s the matter with tomorrow? If you--”
Then there was no sound until Carol’s first step on the stair, and Therese knew whoever had been talking to her had hung up on her. Who dared, Therese wondered.
“Shouldn’t I leave?” Therese asked.
Carol looked at her in the same way she had when they first entered the house. “Not unless you want to. No. We’ll take a drive later, if you want to.”
She knew Carol did not want to take another drive. Therese started to straighten the bed.
“Leave the bed.” Carol was watching her from the hall. “Just close the door.”
“Who is it that’s coming?”
Carol turned and went into the green room. “My husband,” she said. “Hargess.”
Then the doorbell chimed downstairs, and the latch clicked at the same time.
“No end prompt today,” Carol murmured. “Come down, Therese.” Therese felt sick with dread suddenly, not of the man but of Carol’s annoyance at his coming.
He was coming up the stairs. When he saw Therese, he slowed, and a faint surprise crossed his face, and then he looked at Carol.
“Harge, this is Miss Belivet,” Carol said. “Mr. Aird.”
“How do you do?” Therese said.
Harge only glanced at Therese, but his nervous blue eyes inspected her from head to toe. He was a heavily built man with a rather pink face. One eyebrow was set higher than the other, rising in an alert peak in the center, as if it might have been distorted by a scar. “How do you do?”
Then, to Carol, “I’m sorry to disturb you. I only wanted to get one or two things.” He went past her and opened the door to a room Therese had not seen.
“Things for Rindy,” he added.
“Pictures on the wall?” Carol asked.
The man was silent.
Carol and Therese went downstairs. In the living room Carol sat down, but Therese did not.
“Play some more, if you like,” Carol said.
Therese shook her head.
“Play some,” Carol said firmly.
Therese was frightened by the sudden white anger in her eyes. “I can’t,” Therese said, stubborn as a mule.
And Carol subsided. Carol even smiled.
They heard Harge’s quick steps cross the hall and stop, then descend the stairs slowly. Therese saw his dark clad figure and then his pinkish blond head appear.
“I can’t find that watercolor set. I thought it was in my room,” he said complainingly.
“I know where it is.” Carol got up and started toward the stairs.
“I suppose you want me to take her something for Christmas,” Harge said.
“Thanks, I’ll give the things to her.” Carol went up the stairs.
They are just divorced, Therese thought, or about to be divorced. Harge looked at Therese, almost offered her his cigarette case, and didn’t.
He had an intense expression that curiously mingled anxiety and boredom. The flesh around his mouth was firm and heavy, rounding into the line of his mouth so that he seemed lipless. He lighted a cigarette for himself. “Are you from New York?” he asked.
Therese felt the disdain and incivility in the question, like the sting of a slap in the face. “Yes, from New York,” she answered.
He was on the brink of another question to her, when Carol came down the stairs. Therese had steeled herself to be alone with him for minutes. Now she shuddered as she relaxed, and she knew that he saw it.
“Thanks,” Harge said as he took the box from Carol. He walked to his overcoat that Therese had noticed on the loveseat, sprawled open with its black arms spread as if it were fighting and would take possession of the house. “Good-bye,” Harge said to her. He put the overcoat on as he walked to the door. “Friend of Abby’s?” he murmured to Carol.
“A friend of mine,” Carol answered.
“Are you going to take the presents to Rindy? When?”
“What if I gave her nothing, Harge?”