Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker, Colleen Bresse, Regina Barreca Read Free Book Online Page B

he came in, how she would tell him all the little events of her day—how the woman in the grocer’s shop had had an argument with the cashier, and how Delia had tried out a new salad for lunch with but moderate success, and how Alice Marshall had come to tea and it was quite true that Norma Matthews was going to have another baby. She had woven them into a lively little narrative, carefully choosing amusing phrases of description; had felt that she was going to tell it well and with spirit, and that he might laugh at the account of the occurrence in the grocer’s. But now, as she considered it, it seemed to her a long, dull story. She had not the energy to begin it. And he was already smoothing out his paper.
    “Oh, nothing,” she said, with a gay little laugh. “Did you have a nice day?”
    “Why—” he began. He had had some idea of telling her how he had finally put through that Detroit thing, and how tickled J. G. had seemed to be about it. But his interest waned, even as he started to speak. Besides, she was engrossed in breaking off a loose thread from the wool fringe on one of the pillows beside her.
    “Oh, pretty fair,” he said.
    “Tired?” she asked.
    “Not so much,” he answered. “Why—want to do anything tonight?”
    “Why, not unless you do,” she said, brightly. “Whatever you say.”
    “Whatever you say,” he corrected her.
    The subject closed. There was a third exchange of smiles, and then he hid most of himself behind his paper.
    Mrs. Weldon, too, turned to the newspaper. But it was an off night for news—a long speech of somebody’s, a plan for a garbage dump, a proposed dirigible, a four-day-old murder mystery. No one she knew had died or become engaged or married, or had attended any social functions. The fashions depicted on the woman’s page were for Miss Fourteen-to-Sixteen. The advertisements ran mostly to bread, and sauces, and men’s clothes and sales of kitchen utensils. She put the paper down.
    She wondered how Ernest could get so much enjoyment out of a newspaper. He could occupy himself with one for almost an hour, and then pick up another and go all through the same news with unabated interest. She wished that she could. She wished, even more than that, that she could think of something to say. She glanced around the room for inspiration.
    “See my pretty daffy-down-dillies?” she said, finding it. To anyone else, she would have referred to them as daffodils.
    Mr. Weldon looked in the direction of the flowers.
    “M-m-mm,” he said in admission, and returned to the news.
    She looked at him, and shook her head despondently. He did not see, behind the paper; nor did she see that he was not reading. He was waiting, his hands gripping the printed sheet till their knuckles were blue-white, for her next remark.
    It came.
    “I love flowers,” she said, in one of her little rushes of confidence.
    Her husband did not answer. He sighed, his grip relaxed, and he went on reading.
    Mrs. Weldon searched the room for another suggestion.
    “Ernie,” she said, “I’m so comfortable. Wouldn’t you like to get up and get my handkerchief off the piano for me?”
    He rose instantly. “Why, certainly,” he said.
    The way to ask people to fetch handkerchiefs, he thought as he went back to his chair, was to ask them to do it, and not try to make them think that you were giving them a treat. Either come right out and ask them, would they or wouldn’t they, or else get up and get your handkerchief yourself.
    “Thank you ever so much,” his wife said with enthusiasm.
    Delia appeared in the doorway. “Dinner,” she murmured bashfully, as if it were not quite a nice word for a young woman to use, and vanished.
    “Dinner, Ern,” cried Mrs. Weldon gaily, getting up.
    “Just minute,” issued indistinctly from behind the newspaper.
    Mrs. Weldon waited. Then her lips compressed, and she went over and playfully took the paper from her husband’s hands. She smiled carefully at him,