Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

In hot weather Hazel liked to sit in the dental chair. Its leather arms and back were cool and there was a fan in the ceiling above it. She loosened the belt of her uniform and leaned back, listening to the hum of the fan and thinking what a fine place it was to sit and realize that except for one bicuspid she didnt have a filling in her head.

From the adjoining room she could hear sharp metallic sounds and the gurgling of water in a basin. Presently the gurgling stopped and Gordon Foster called, Hazel?

Coming.

She climbed out of the chair and, tightening her belt, followed Gordons voice into the lab. It was a shoebox of a room, with the ceiling pressed down on it like a lid, and Gordon and herself, two mis-mated shoes, tossed together into the box by a careless clerk.

Did you want something?

No.

You called.

I thought you might have gone home.

Its too hot to move. This is the hottest August Ive ever experienced. She said this each August, and many times each August, but it always seemed true. Besides, I brought my lunch.

Gordon looked up from the bridge he was repairing, his eyebrows raised. He didnt talk much when he was working but he often asked silent questions with his brows: Why dont you eat it, then?

Thin people like you, Hazel said, dabbing at the sweat that trickled down behind her ears, dont mind the heat so much.

You could eat your lunch out on the grass where its cooler.

I prefer to stay inside.

Oh.

The ants. Its a bad year for ants.

Hazel sat on a stool sipping a Coke and looking without appetite at the sandwich she had brought for lunch. Some of the starch that had gone out of her uniform and out of Hazel herself seemed to have found its way into the sandwich. The bread had curled at the edges and the peanut butter filling had dried and stiffened like buckram.

She held the cold bottle of Coke against her forehead for a moment. Air conditioning would be nice.

I suppose it would.

Maybe next summer.

He glanced at her questioningly next summer? When is that? then turned away with a sigh. Hazel was not sure whether the sigh meant that she was to be quiet or that next summer seemed a long sad year away.

Dr. Foster

He shook his head. Elaine says we cant afford an air conditioner. Elaine was his wife, and the final authority on office as well as personal expenditures.

I know. I wasnt going to talk any more about that.

Good.

I just wanted to say, well, the last few weeks you havent been yourself.

He smiled. He had extraordinarily good teeth for a dentist. Who have I been?

I mean it. Hazel looked stubborn and unamused. Youve lost weight and your colors not good. Those are bad signs in a man your age.

He was thirty-eight, three years younger than Hazel, and sometimes Hazel felt like his mother and sometimes she felt like a mere sprite of a girl beside him. They were never contemporaries.

Bad signs, she repeated. You ought to go through one of the clinics and get checked up.

And you ought to get married again, to some nice fellow who enjoys being fussed over.

You think Im fussing?

Like an old hen.

I dont usually.

No.

So I must have a good reason for doing it now.

The reason is, youre a nice normal woman and you dont feel alive unless youre fussing over someone.

Ive never heard you talk like this before. It just goes to show, things arent right.

No, he said. No, things arent right.

She opened her mouth to speak again, but he had turned his back, and his white starched coat was like a blank whitewashed wall.

The buzzer sounded from the front door and Hazel went to answer it, moving heavily on her heat-swollen feet.

She said over her shoulder, I could make an appointment for you at the clinic.

No, thanks.

But if things arent right

I need a rest, thats all.

Im glad youre admitting it. You havent had any time off since I came here.

Yes, I have. I went up to San Francisco for the convention in June.

Just three days. Thats no holiday.

He didnt answer. But his shoulders were shaking, as if he was laughing silently to himself. He did that quite frequently lately, laughed to himself, and it annoyed Hazel not to know what the joke was. She never asked him, though, because she was a little afraid that he might tell her and that it wouldnt be quite so funny spoken out loud.

The buzzer sounded again and she went out through the hall to the waiting room. Since it was the doctors afternoon off, the Venetian blinds were closed tight and the front door was locked.

Hazel opened it, squinting against the sudden sun.

The doctor is not Oh, its you.

The girl said, very brightly and gaily, Yes, its me, as if she had enjoyed every moment standing on the roofless stucco porch in the blazing noon. Her face looked stiff; the sun seemed to have squeezed all the moisture out of it. In her right hand she carried a suitcase with Ruby MacCormick printed on the side in black crayon, and across her left forearm was a red fox fur.

Me again, she said blithely. Is the doctor?

Hes working in the lab.

I wont disturb him then. I only all I want is some place to sit down for a minute and think. I cant seem to think in this weather.

Its cooler inside.

I wont bother you. The girl stepped inside and put the suitcase on the floor and laid the red fox across it. Its just, I want to sit for a minute. Ive been walking. The suitcase is very heavy. I ought to have taken a taxi, except I wasnt sure where I was going.

Hazel closed the door. Youre leaving town?

No. No, Im moving. The establishment where Ive been staying, well, its awfully low class. Not what Im used to. If Mummy and Daddy ever found out, well, theyd kill me. Im used to nice things.

Ill get you some water.

No. No, I dont want to bother you, Miss Philip. I was just passing and I remembered how kind you were last week and I thought Id drop in and thank you and then be on my way.

What way, if you dont know where youre going?

There must be places for a girl of my background.

Hazel didnt know what her background was. Shed met her only once before, the previous Friday. She had come to the office early in the morning and Gordon had introduced her to Hazel as Ruby MacCormick, a friend of one of his nieces from up north. As it turned out, Gordon himself had arranged the meeting because Ruby was out of a job and he thought Hazel might be able to suggest some type of employment. Ruby was very young and untrained, and the only possibility Hazel could think of was the Beachcomber, a restaurant out on the wharf which was operated, and partly owned, by her ex-husband, George. Because of his temper, and the influx of summer tourists, George was constantly plagued by a shortage of waitresses and he was willing to try anyone who could walk and count up to ten. Ruby could do both.

Hazel poured some water from the cooler and the girl drank it thirstily. She was so thin that her Adams apple was prominent as a boys, and moved up and down when she swallowed.

Ruby smiled, her mouth still wet from the water. That was good. Its funny, I didnt even know I was thirsty. Daddy says I was always like that I never let physical things bother me, I never squalled for food the way some babies do.

Have you had any lunch?

Not yet. Im waiting till I go to work. Lunch and dinner are free.

You got the job, then?

Ruby widened her eyes. Didnt I tell you? I guess I forgot. Mr. Anderson hired me right off the bat.

Good.

Of course Im only a waitress, there was no opening as a hostess, but Mr. Anderson says I have a chance to work up... I did just what you told me. I went over to the bartender and I said someone had told me he needed a waitress and practically the next minute I was hired. I didnt even have to mention your name, it was that quick.