Unlike Others Page 3

  So she followed the Kleenex with a question, and some time later Karen walked out of the bar beside her, still pale and shaky but without tears. Not knowing the score, of course—and Jo had no intention of starting anything.

  The kid was too depressed to go back to her furnished room, so she could spend the night and Jo would curl up on the davenport. That was all.

  I might have known how it would turn out, Jo thought, turning over and pulling up her knees. Karen never really said she was gay. She never told me till after that crazy mixed-up night that she'd been worrying about it since she was in high school. Or maybe I knew. Maybe there's a sixth sense that tells people. Otherwise how would Richard know about men who look just like any other men to me?

  If she'd known, she might have let Karen alone. Might have sent her back to bed when she got up at three in the morning, crying again, and threw herself into Jo's comforting arms and refused to let go. She might not have made it, hungry for love as she was, but she'd have tried. The strong are supposed not to hurt the weak. The strong have an obligation to the weak.

  At three in the morning, however, the obligation seemed to consist of taking the girl back to bed and comforting her. And one thing led to another.

  The hell of it is, Jo mused, the weak always win. They have a terrible strength, weak people do, and they get the best of the deal every time. If I ever find another girl, a real girl I can love and not just somebody who wants to play around, it'll be one who can carry her share of the load. I'm tired.

  How about this Considine kid? She does look like Karen, a little. Is that just an accident? I look like my sister, but we're totally different.

  She's not gay. She probably doesn't know it, just divorced and all, but she’ll be looking around for another husband. They always do.

  Here we are, right back where we started from. She reached out and throttled the alarm just in time to keep it from sounding off. That's a good start for the day, she told herself cheerfully, getting out of bed and standing tall and white on the chenille throw rug. At least I don't have to listen to that awful racket.

  Today she would make her own coffee. She'd have a good breakfast before she started another day of earning a living, building up Stan's ego, and learning to live alone. Plus getting acquainted with Betsy Considine, that soft, faced blonde.

  She made her way to the kitchen, still naked.

  Betsy might very well be what Stan was looking for. When a man was that hungry, any decent-looking female had a chance. He could see her every day without trying to figure out a way to get free from his mother, that human octopus.

  Somebody might as well be happy. There's so little happiness lying around, it's a shame to waste any.

  She found a clean dish towel and wiped the dust from the percolator. The kitchen linoleum needed scrubbing; she should have spent the weekend cleaning instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself. So Karen wasn't around to keep things in order. So all right, she'd have to get used to the idea.

  Somebody had to look after poor old Stan, the nebbish. If this little blonde turned out to be what he was looking for, she'd try to be happy about it.

  The old lady across the back court was looking out, peeking around the edges of her cafe curtains. Let her look, Jo thought with a grin. She pulled her own curtains shut to hide her nakedness, and whistled softly as she measured coffee into the percolator basket. She was young yet. Anything could happen.

  CHAPTER 4

  Stan was doing all right for himself. He had managed to get to the office before nine, for the first time in three years. When Jo walked in he was leaning over the new assistant's desk, showing her a copy of the magazine and looking down the front of her blouse. He straightened up, looking flustered, at the sound of Jo's heels in the hall. She said "Good morning," in a cooler voice than usual, and walked past to her own cubicle. It didn't seem so welcoming this morning.

  She'd grown accustomed to a certain amount of faking where Stan was concerned. A smart woman working with a not-so-smart man always had to pretend. The authors of popular sociology books insisted that the United States was a matriarchy, with women holding eighty per cent of the buying power and making all of the domestic decisions. Maybe so. But in the business world, where protocol had been shaped about the time Bob Cratchit sat stoop-shouldered over his ledgers, the myth of male superiority still held.

  She and Stan divided their duties about equally. Several times she'd caught him up on blunders that might have been disastrous. But he got seven thousand a year, while her salary was about four before deductions, and he was the boss. That was because he wore pants and she came to the office in a skirt.

  The moms of America might regard their men as big lovable boys, but in the office world men got their own back, so far as money and prestige were concerned. The vice president of a bank might be a woman, but the president was always a man. Hospitals included women doctors on their rosters but didn't seem disposed to make them chiefs of staff. The pattern was set in high school, where the girls voted for some popular boy as class president and then allowed a girl to be elected secretary. By the time you got old enough to earn a living you were supposed to be adjusted to it.

  Stan was better than some men she'd worked for. He was damn competent, and he recognized her ability—so long as she didn't insist on it. They worked well together. It was only that she got tired of building him up all the time.

  She had to admit that the man had special problems. Who didn't? She'd never seen old Mrs. Haxton, but they'd talked on the telephone and for almost three years Stan had reported every one of his mother's tantrums to her. He called them heart attacks, but they were tantrums; no heart attack was ever that well timed, no old lady ever survived so many of them and recovered to eat a hearty breakfast the next morning. The old witch had him in a double scissors lock that would loosen only when she died; and then he'd feel guilty about being so relieved. They always were. It was a mess, but a common enough one. There were women like her back home, in Cottonwood Falls.

  Stan was forty-one and hungry, scared to death of attractive females even while his mouth watered for them. God help the girl he gets, Jo thought devoutly. And God help him, whether he gets one or not. Only let him leave Betsy Considine alone.

  What can he give a girl that I can't? Babies, that's all. And judging from the number of illegal operations that get performed every day, that's not such a big attraction.

  Oh, stop it.

  She ran a lipstick over her mouth, chucked her purse into a corner and got to work, trying to ignore the hum of voices from Betsy's little office.

  Getting out Produx Topix was easy enough, if you could keep from upchucking over the name. Because it was company-subsidized, they didn't worry about advertising. Now and then Stan got a few small ads from stores and taverns in the neighborhood of the factory. He got a commission on these. Jo was always relieved when this happened, because it built him up in his own mind and she didn't have to spend so much time and ingenuity reassuring him. She was also a little resentful because of the money, which she could have used.

  Her job was simply to get out a new issue of Topix every month, getting in as many readers' names as possible and presenting everyone in a flattering light. All brides were beautiful, all old-timers were touched and happy to receive their forty-year pins, all vacations were loads of fun. A dozen or so representatives, one from each department, collected these little items and turned them over to Stan when he visited the plant. So far as they were concerned it was his magazine. It was Stan who assigned the linage for her departments, selected type faces and artwork, and made the final decision as to what should be included. If it was an exciting basketball season or the plant bowling teams were going strong in the semifinals, he might drop her lead article without even consulting her. The shop girls were right: he was the boss.

  She opened the top drawer of the file, took out half a dozen manila folders and spread them out on her desk. They were labelled in red: Weddings,
Engagements, Babies, Vacations, Deaths and Honors. Better start with weddings; September was a great month for them, almost as good as June. It was also good for Honors, which meant sons being inducted into the armed forces and children going away to college. I don't suppose there's another country in the world, Jo thought, where factory workers send their kids to college on their own money. It always made her feel good.

  “What's on the agenda?"

  "Miss Shirley Kowalski a beautiful autumn bride," Jo said, turning so that she could face Stan. This was going to be one of his restless days; and since she hated talking to people she couldn't see (a fact which accounted for the admirable brevity of her telephone conversations) she wasn't going to get much done. "Glamour girl of the toy finishing department will wear white panne satin with a court train and sweetheart neckline, the bodice strewn with seed pearls and miniature sequins. The bouffant skirt is softly gathered over the hips. Her veil will be of re-embroidered silk net and she will carry a white satin prayerbook, the gift of the groom, with her initials in rhinestones. Her going-away dress is fawn crepe with bronze accessories, and there are six bridesmaids, a flower girl and a matron of honor in pastel velveteen. The groom works in the shipping department, so we're related on both sides of the family."

  "All with names in nine syllables, and God help you if you miss on the spelling."

  Jo grinned. "That's why I save the little notes your girl friends over at the plant turn in, so I can prove it isn't our fault."

  "It'll take the girls years to pay for all this jazz."

  "It’ll take the girl's lifetime savings," Jo corrected him. "It was a great day for working-class parents when they invented the typewriter. These days, the kids provide their own white satin and sequins."

  "What worries me, don't they ever think about anything but clothes? How about the groom, doesn't he rate a little attention?"

  "Sure. She's got a white nylon nightgown and peignoir to match, with Chantilly lace. That's for his benefit."

  "You're making that up."

  "Wanna bet?"

  Stan came around behind her and leaned over to look. "You're faking. It doesn't say a word about her nightgown."

  "Certainly not. This is a family magazine. I read the ads," Jo said smugly. "The nightgown and peignoir sets cost from $24.95 to $49.95, depending on how much you want to spend. After the wedding night you put them away until you go to the hospital for the first baby."

  "In about six and a half months," Stan said cynically. "Have you got a nylon nightgown and a whoozis to match?"

  "No," Jo admitted, "but then I've never been on a honeymoon. It's illegal to wear them for anything but a honeymoon. After the baby's born you wear an old seersucker duster from the bargain basement.”

  "You've never been married, have you?"

  "No, I've been lucky." She looked down at her copy. How much had he guessed? Was he trying to find out? So far, her talks with Stan had always centered around his own problems and ideas. She existed as a listener and sympathizer. She waited, wary.

  "Betsy has. We've been talking.”

  "She's a nice-looking girl. Nice girl, too."

  “She's feminine. She's capable too," he added hastily. “I think she's going to work out all right."

  "Just so she can spell," Jo said. "The last one couldn't spell. Or the one before that. You're the champion speller around here."

  He looked pleased. "Oh, I don't know. I'm literate, that's all. Why do you suppose a girl like that would bust up with her husband?"

  "Maybe he was a drunk, or something. Maybe he chased blondes—no, it would have to be brunettes, wouldn't it? Maybe he spent the grocery money on slot machines. Happens all the time."

  She could see him softening up at the thought of helpless little Betsy in the clutches of a drunken husband. He said casually, "Well, it's none of my business. Good luck with the Kowalski wedding. Mark the date on the calendar. I'll buy you a drink when Junior shows up, some time next March."

  “More power to 'em," Jo said. She took a long breath as he ambled away. It must have been a shot in the dark, after all.

  She wondered if he had ever realized that she had a personal life. She was the kind of girl who's naturally suspect: tailored, crisp and efficient, not to mention being unmarried at twenty-eight. It could add up, if you had that kind of mind. That was why she asked Richard to pick her up at the office every once in a while. He was so obviously virile (the boys he dated probably thought so, too) that even Gayle came out of her pre-nuptial fog to admire him. "Gee, he's cute," she said, looking at Jo with new respect and visibly wondering if they were having an affair. Which was exactly what Jo intended her to wonder.

  It was dishonest. But an attractive man was a smokescreen between you and the evil-minded people, a form of social security in an age that placed too high a value on early marriage. If he also understood things the way Richard did, liked you and was always ready to listen to your troubles, you really had it made.

  She had called him the night Karen walked out with a suitcase in her hand and tears running down her set face. She'd sat for a few minutes, numb, listening to the slamming of David's car door and the sound of his motor pulling away from the curb and the vacant silence that followed. She had come out of it to telephone Richard, without even remembering that it was Saturday night, and he might not be at home; or, if at home, he might be pleasurably occupied. And he had come at top speed, on the double; had listened to her sad story, let her cry on his chest, and finally tucked her into bed with a sleeping pill, to sit holding her hand in his big hairy paw. Falling asleep at last, she had thought for the umpteenth time, "I do love Richard. Not in love with, but love. That's better, not so many worries."

  It was good as far as it went. The trouble was, it didn't go far enough. She had a public escort and private friend, but there were things that friendship didn't cover. She needed someone to dedicate herself to, someone to become involved with. She needed to be first with someone.

  Beyond that, she needed someone with whom she could make happy, crazy and satisfying love. She stirred uneasily, feeling the pressure and tingle and the urgency of her need. Better get back to the Kowalski nuptials, she thought, in a minute I’ll be going wacky from wanting someone. It's been a long dry spell. And no matter what you try to do for yourself, it's not the same.

  She concentrated on a description of the dress worn by the bride's mother, the beige satin (size 44) of the groom's mother and the ruffled orchid organdy of the flower girl, little Donna Spinelli, cousin of the bride. How did a Spinelli get in there? she wondered.

  It was tripe, but she liked writing it. It was noon by the time she got all the September weddings and engagements under control, regretting as she always did that the magazine was made up two months in advance so the glamour would wear off all those shiny new marriages before they appeared in print. The Westminster chimes of a downtown church broke into her last page of typed copy. And Stan was in the doorway, looking embarrassed, with Betsy clutching her purse and gloves behind him. "We're going to lunch. Want to come along?"

  "Not today, thanks. I've got a date."

  He looked relieved. "How are the Kowalskis?"

  "On their honeymoon. You’ll have to give me an extra page for weddings this month, everybody's getting married."

  "Sure. Well make it for lunch some other time," he said, taking Betsy's arm as they turned away. That'll be the day, Jo thought.

  Usually she liked having the office to herself. Gayle went out to shop for her trousseau, and Jo kept an eye on the switchboard. It was quiet, the street sounds were muted, the hum of voices in the next suite of offices made a pleasant background for her thoughts. She leaned against the windowsill and looked at the tops of the cars and cabs lined up below, waiting for the light to change. Office girls scuttled across the street intersections; older women in from the suburbs for a day of shopping moved more slowly, laden with their packages.

  She would go out after the others got back, have a
good lunch and look at the fall clothes on display in the specialty shops. It was a long time since she'd bought anything, thanks to Karen, who was out of work when she moved in and didn't try very hard to find anything. She had gone back to work just two weeks before leaving. Jo thought about Karen fleetingly, wondered how her husband felt about paying an analyst and whether Karen was better in bed than she used to be.

  Don't think about that. She tried, she did try, and it's not her fault she hardly ever made it.

  She'd paid for Karen's nylons and other little incidentals; and then there was that damn bed, and the pale blue sheets to set off Karen's fair prettiness. All in cash. She was the only person she knew who didn't have a charge account. Her first layoff had taught her that.

  The trouble with working through the noon hour was that she never got anything done. It was too good a time for thinking.

  She was sitting with her folders spread out on the desk when Stan came in alone. "Betsy has some shopping to do."

  "So have I."

  She walked up and down the aisles of the biggest department store, looking at furs, suede shoes, woolen dresses. The thought of winter clothes made her feel itchy and scratchy. She walked briskly up-street to a small hotel dining room where the roast beef was good and the coffee strong.

  There was only one thing wrong. The chair facing her was empty, and the back half of the double bed in her apartment was empty. She felt a little empty herself.

  CHAPTER 5