Jack and Susan in 1913 by Michael McDowell Read Free Book Online Page A

of Central Park, and the Cosmic Film Company was on a much larger commercial exchange downtown, so it was some moments before the operator could make the proper switchings. As Susan waited, she noticed that the door of Mr. Beaumont’s apartment was cracked open, and that his bearded face was peering out at her.
    â€œWhen does your cast come off?” he asked in a low voice.
    â€œMr. Beaumont,” she said, “I promise —no more dancing.”
    â€œThank you,” said Jack Beaumont curtly, and shut the door with a bang.
    On the other end the telephone rang, and a high-pitched voice—that of a boy, Susan thought—intoned drearily, “Cosmic Film Company.”
    â€œCould you please call Miss Ida Conquest to the phone?” asked Susan.
    â€œCouldn’t,” replied the boy. “She’s getting shot.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œShot. They’re shooting her now.”
    â€œThen might I speak to Mr. Hosmer Collamore?” It really was impossible to speak into this machine with any semblance of ease. One’s voice always sounded strained and formal, and Susan like many others had never quite been convinced that it wasn’t all some form of prestidigitation foisted off on a gullible public in order to collect monthly fees. This dreary child was really in the next room, speaking to her through a hole in the wall. There might come a time when people became really accustomed to this sort of thing, but Susan doubted she’d live long enough to see it.
    â€œColley’s the one shooting her,” said the boy in a voice that was now disgusted as well as dreary.
    â€œThen would you please ask Miss Conquest to phone me when she’s free? My name is Susan Bright and my number is River Zero-Six-Three-Zero.”
    After giving a sigh a martyr might make as the pyre is lighted, the boy announced he would have to go find a pencil. When he came back he demanded that everything be repeated, then spelled, then repeated again.
    Susan was told, grudgingly, that the shooting would be over in approximately ten minutes—or maybe thirty—and that Miss Conquest would be given the message. Rather than struggling back up to her room, Susan decided that she would simply sit on the steps there and wait for the telephone to ring.
    Basking in the warmth—temporary though it was—of the thirty dollars she had impulsively placed in her pocket, Susan looked out a grimy window to the dingy garden. Despite the sunlight, the leafless tree in one corner looked stark and dejected.
    â€œDid your dog drive you out of your apartment?” a man’s voice asked from behind her.
    Susan turned quickly. There stood Mr. Beaumont, holding a crate filled with trash which he was evidently about to take downstairs to the street.
    â€œNo, no, Mr. Beaumont, I was only waiting for the telephone to ring.”
    He nodded silently and then proceeded down the stairs with his heavy tread. Susan thought what a shame it was that he wore a beard, that he was so gruff and unfriendly, and that he couldn’t afford better clothes. It would have been pleasant to have a handsome, cordial, well-dressed gentleman living just below her. Actually, Hosmer Collamore fit that description, but Hosmer wasn’t what Susan wanted.
    She wondered what Mr. Beaumont did for a living that enabled him to be at home in the middle of the day; every other male above the age of six left the building by eight o’clock every weekday morning. He wore soft-collared shirts, which meant he had no job outside the house; and by his carriage and his speech she knew that he was not a laborer. Peering around, she noticed he had left the door of his apartment ajar, and curiosity got the better of her.
    Certain that she’d be able to hear him when he started back up the stairs, Susan moved quietly to the door and pushed it open.
    She had expected to find the rooms of a single gentleman who wore