Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Read online

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m making two copies,” I told him. “I’ve got to keep one myself. That makes it binding.”

  He continued to regard me suspiciously while I worked over the contract.

  “How long is this contract good for?” I asked at once.

  “Oh, eternity,” he said easily.

  I finally finished and took the sheets out of the typewriter. Due to the fact that my knowledge of legal documents is restricted to the notices the dean sends out about poor grades, the contract was just a little confused. It read:

  I (here a space was left blank for a name), hereinafter to be known as the party of the first part, do hereby sell and consign my soul, hereinafter to be known as the party of the second part, to the custody and careful watchfulness of (here another space was left blank), hereinafter to be known as the party of the third part, who does hereby swear and promise the sum of one dollar in return, also other unnamed considerations, admitting and conceding that it is a fair and just bargain, and no complaints afterward; this agreement to be binding, by mutual consent of the parties concerned, in any court of law, wherever conducted, (signed) (witnessed)

  The devil read it twice. “I don’t understand it,” he said.

  “It says the same thing as yours did,” I told him, “except that it’s more binding.” I pointed over his shoulder. “You see all those things about the parties of the first and second parts? And about the court of law? That all makes it legal.”

  “Well, sign it, then,” he said.

  I thought. “We need a witness,” I said. “I’ll go upstairs and get my roommate.”

  I left before he could say anything. My roommate was asleep.

  “Look, Bobbie,” I said. I shook her. She turned over and said, “Go away.”

  “Bobbie,” I said, “you’ve got to come and witness a contract.”

  “What the hell,” Bobbie said.

  “I’ve got the devil waiting downstairs.”

  “Let him wait,” Bobbie said. She had both eyes open but she wouldn’t move. I rolled her out of bed and stood her up. “Come on,” I said. “He’ll get impatient.”

  “Signing contracts with the devil,” Bobbie said in disgust. “At three in the morning. How’s a person ever going to get any sleep.”

  “Come on!” I said.

  Bobbie sat down on the edge of her bed. “If he’s been waiting all these thousands of years,” she said, “he can wait until I get some lipstick on.”

  By the time I got her downstairs, the devil had smoked four more of my cigarettes. He got up when we entered and bowed very low to Bobbie.

  “Charmed,” he said.

  Bobbie smiled at him invitingly. “Hello,” she said.

  “Come on, you two,” I told them, “I’ve got to get this over with and get back to work.”

  “What do I have to do?” Bobbie said, looking at the devil out of the corner of her eye.

  “Just sign,” the devil said, taking her arm to lead her over to the table.

  Bobbie let out a yell that ought to have waked the housemother and the whole dormitory. The devil backed away and began to apologize, but Bobbie stood there rubbing her arm and glaring.

  “Look,” she said belligerently, “I’m not fooling around with any guy sets fire to you when he touches you.” The devil looked at Bobbie’s arm and made the burn go away, but after that Bobbie kept the table between them. I took up the contract.

  “I’ll sign first,” I said. I wrote my name quickly in the second blank and handed the paper to the devil.

  “You have to sign, too,” I said.

  “Where?” He looked blankly at the paper. I showed him the first place and handed him my pen. He blushed, and looked from me to Bobbie. “I’m afraid…” he began, “do you mind if…” he shrugged and made an X in the space. “I never learned…” he said apologetically. Bobbie’s jaw dropped and she just stood there until I kicked her in the ankle.

  “Sign here,” I said, and she signed in the witness space.

  Then the devil and I signed again at the bottom, and signed the duplicate the same way, and I handed him one sheet and kept the other.

  “Now,” I said as casually as I could, “I guess I owe you a dollar.”

  “What for?” he said.

  “Bobbie,” I said rapidly, “run upstairs and borrow a buck from someone.”

  “What the hell,” Bobbie said. But she turned around and started up the stairs.

  “Well,” said the devil, rubbing his hands, “what can I do for you now?”

  I began to polish my nails on my hand. “Let’s see,” I said. “I’ll start out with an A in Chemistry 186, the power to be invisible when I come in after hours, a date with the captain of the football team for the senior ball—”

  “Throw in something for me,” said Bobbie, coming through the door.

  “Let’s see,” I said, “give her—”

  “A date with that blond guy,” said Bobbie, “you know.” She handed me a dollar.

  “I guess that’s about all,” I said to the devil.

  “Except, of course,” Bobbie put in, “except for a couple of hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You shall have all those things,” the devil promised eagerly.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “And you get this out of it.” I handed him the dollar.

  “What’s this for?” he asked.

  I looked at the contract. “That’s for your soul,” I said.

  The devil looked at his contract. “Your soul,” he said.

  “No.” I showed him the contract. “Where you signed, it says you give me your soul for the sum of one dollar, also other unnamed considerations. Those would be the cigarettes of mine you smoked.”

  “And getting me out of bed,” Bobbie added.

  The devil read the contract again. Then he began to stamp his feet, and flames came out of his mouth. Bobbie and I looked at each other.

  “Golly,” she said. “What a date this guy would be!”

  Just then the devil seemed to get a little pale, and he backed up against the wall, staring in back of us. Bobbie and I turned around, and there was the housemother. She stood in the doorway, in a bathrobe, with curlpapers on her hair, and she was an awe-inspiring sight.

  She looked at the devil. “Young man,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

  “Ma’am…” the devil began.

  “You’re a fire hazard,” she snapped.

  “Yes’m,” the devil said.

  “Leave at once,” she said ominously, “before I report you to the dean of women.”

  The devil cast one dreadful look at Bobbie and me, and then tried to vanish in a puff of smoke. All he succeeded in, however, was a weak sizzle, and then he was gone.

  “All right,” said the housemother. Then she turned to Bobbie and me.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Look,” Bobbie began.

  “You see, it was like this—” I said.

  “Hmph,” said the housemother. “Devils, indeed!” And she went back to bed.

  I DON’T KISS STRANGERS

  EVERY TIME HE CAME over to where she was sitting he would start to say something and then decide not to; there were too many people around for him to say anything sentimental, and her attitude discouraged whatever humorous comments the situation suggested. Once he sat down next to her and took hold of her hand, but she only smiled at him vaguely and went on staring straight in front of her.

  The room was so full of people and there was so much noise and he wanted to get her outside somewhere into the night, but there was nothing to say to her to get her there. He told someone about it, somewhere along in the evening. “You can’t just go up to a girl in the middle of a party and say ‘come on outside into the air, we gotta say goodbye somehow.’”

  But the guy he told about it said only, “For Christ sake take her in the bedroom, it’s empty now,” and wandered away.

  Finally, when the party was good and drun
k, and the singing was loud enough to cover most conversations, he went over and sat down next to her again.

  “Look,” he said, “I’d sort of like to talk to you.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m listening.”

  There wasn’t anything to say from there; he thought of reminding her that this was their last evening together, but discarded that as tactless; he also wanted to ask her why their last time together should be spent with the two of them out of joint, but knew he could never get an answer. He said: “I keep looking at you all the time.”

  “I don’t want to look at you now,” she said very quickly, “I’ve got enough to remember you now.”

  “You’ll come see me, won’t you?” He grabbed her hand and tugged at it, trying to make her look at him. “You’ll come be a camp follower, won’t you?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I’m going home. To mother.”

  “And you’ll spend all day sitting in a nice cool bridge luncheon while I slave away over a hot Garand rifle.”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  Now was the time, and he said it. “Come away. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I don’t want to get too far from the liquor,” she said.

  “Just outside for a few minutes.”

  “No.” Then she said, “Wait a minute. Come on.” She picked up her drink and a box of cigarettes and waved at him to follow her. She took him into the bathroom and locked the door.

  “Here,” she said. “Now we aren’t too far away and there aren’t any people.”

  “Suppose someone wants to come in,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

  “Let them wait. We won’t be long.”

  “Such a cheerful place,” he said, looking around. “Dedicated, like our publishing houses, to the least pleasant waste of humanity.”

  “Goody,” she said. “We’re going to have a drawing room parting. You must be Noel Coward and go on saying things like that.”

  “What’s the matter with you, for God’s sake—you just drunk?”

  “No,” she said.

  It seemed that now he could say anything that had seemed too tactless or too useless before, so he began: “Darling, it’s our last evening together, and I don’t want it spoiled …”

  “Why should our last evening be any different from any other? I spoiled enough of them before, didn’t I?”

  “But I don’t want to keep thinking of you like—”

  “Listen,” she said. “This isn’t one of our good times together—didn’t you know that? Can’t you see that there’s a difference between us being in love and having fun, and you being drafted and us being in love?”

  “It’s different?” he asked.

  “Sure, it’s different. Up to last night everything was the same, but the minute it started being your last day with me it got to be different. And it’s going to be different for a hell of a long time.”

  “A year.”

  “Stop the crap about a year,” she said. “Even if you do come back you’ll be an ex-soldier. You’ll have all sorts of dreadful things to remember and you’ll be different.”

  “Anyone would think you were the one got the draft number,” he said.

  “You think I didn’t? I can sit here and say yes, it’ll be a long time before I see you again, and not even intimate what a long time means. How I’ll sit around and read letters. Or find me another guy. I haven’t even got an idea what this new guy looks like. I don’t even know how his voice will sound. That’s what a long time means. And all the things I’ll have to do without you. I can’t even comprehend right now the number of times I’ll get into bed by myself. Or with somebody else—this guy I don’t know. Or how many times I’ll run out of cigarettes without having you to run out and get them.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but which one of us has to lie on his belly in the mud?”

  “Which one of us has to readdress your mail?” she said. “Who’s going to have to wind the clock now, or remember to take out the garbage every night?”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Then I’ll be different too. I’ll be someone who’s living without you, like you’re someone who goes to army camp tomorrow.”

  “But why can’t we be happy tonight, at least?” he demanded. “Why the hell do we have to bawl about it? We’re fighting because I’m going away—that’s silly.”

  “Nobody’s fighting,” she said, “and nobody’s bawling. You’d like nothing better than a chance to pat me on the back and say ‘there there, it’s only a year,’ but I won’t let you. I won’t even feel bad—just different.”

  “But why?”

  “Because this saying goodbye is the only thing I’ve got now,” she said. “Because I’ve got to go on doing the same old things forever afterward, that’s why, and nothing stays the same when you’re different.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You mean I’m different because I’m going away.”

  “Can’t you see?” she said. Then: “Look, I’ll try again. You’re not just the guy I love anymore. You’re the guy I love who’s been drafted. And all I get out of it is this few minutes saying goodbye to you. When you go away I won’t have anything at all except what you leave me. And I don’t want to spend these last few minutes with the guy I love who’s been drafted.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

  “No,” she said. “Well, I’ll write you a letter.”

  Someone began to pound on the door, then, and he said, “The party sounds like it’s breaking up.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She stood up. “Well…”

  He stopped at the door and turned around. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

  “No,” she said.

  She walked around him and unlocked the door, and he put out his arms to her, but she turned away.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t kiss strangers. You ought to know that by now.”

  SUMMER AFTERNOON

  ROSABELLE JEMIMA HENDERSON, WHO could open and close her eyes and had real hair that could be curled and braided, lay back comfortably against the pink pillow in her doll stroller. Beside her, Amelia Marian Dawson, who could take real walking steps when her hands were held, and could say Mama and Dada upon request, slept, her long lashes shadowing her delicately colored cheeks under the roof of her doll carriage. On the front steps of the Dawson house, their maternal duties suspended for a minute, Jeannie Dawson and Carrie Henderson bent solemnly over their second-favorite game, which between themselves they called Flower People. Jeannie had fair hair pulled back into a pony tail tied with a pink ribbon, and Carrie had square-cut dark hair and wore a red shirt. Carrie thought that Jeannie’s mother was the second-nicest mother in the world, and Carrie’s father could make Jeannie laugh until she squeaked, when he made funny faces.

  When they played Flower People they made tiny houses of leaves and grass, and the little bells from the bush next to Jeannie’s front porch were dainty pink and white ladies. From the low tree around the side of Jeannie’s house they gathered green pods which made cradles for the little flower children. Jeannie had a nutshell for a table in her house, and Carrie had a scrap of silver paper for a rug in her house. “My lady is coming to visit your lady,” Jeannie said, and minced a pink blossom over to Carrie’s house. “How do you do, Mrs. Brown?” the pink lady asked. “I have come to see you for lunch.”

  “How do you do, Mrs. Smith,” Carrie’s white lady said, flouncing to her own front door. “Will you come in and sit down in my living room with the silver carpet and I will make some lunch for us.”

  The pink lady and the white lady sat in leaf chairs and between them Carrie set a rose petal with two bird berries on it. “Will you have some ice cream?” the white lady asked. “And some cake and cookies? I made them myself.”

  “Thank you very very much,” the pink lady said. “They are certainly very very delicious.”

  “Listen,” Carrie said, white lady poised
. “Listen, my mother did make some cookies today.”

  “Then let’s go over to your house,” Jeannie said.

  “We’ll ask her will she give us cookies and milk,” Carrie said.

  Leaving the pink and white ladies at lunch, and Rosabelle and Amelia sound asleep by the steps, they moved down the front walk, stopping once to examine a small creature, which Carrie thought was most probably a daddy longlegs and Jeannie thought was almost certainly a baby caterpillar, and then paused again on the sidewalk to wonder if the moving van might possibly be going to stop on their block; when it continued on past them, they went lingeringly up the front walk to Carrie’s house. There was a path through the hedge that stood between the two houses; this was used by Jeannie’s mother and Carrie’s mother and by their fathers, going back and forth, but Carrie and Jeannie used the front walks, because they always had plenty of time.

  Carrie’s mother had indeed made cookies, but it was too close to dinnertime for more than one cookie each and so, nibbling carefully around the edges to make the cookies last longer, they came out of Carrie’s house and wandered down the sidewalk again.

  “I don’t want to play Flower People anymore,” Jeannie said.

  “I don’t want to either,” Carrie said. “We could play hopscotch.”

  “Hopscotch is really only about my fifteenth-favorite thing to do,” Jeannie said. “We could play jumprope.”

  “Jumproping is only about my hundredth-favorite thing to do. We could play dancing.”

  “We could color with crayons.”

  “We could climb the walnut tree.”

  “We could play dancing.”

  Carrie thought. “We could go see Tippie,” she said.

  “Yes.” Jeannie nodded so that her long hair flopped over her face. “We can go see Tippie.”

  Just of a size, they moved with slow grace along the sidewalk, nibbling at their cookies. “We haven’t been to see Tippie for a very very long time,” Jeannie said.

  “Maybe Tippie’s been wishing we could come to see her.”

  “Maybe Tippie’s been sad because we never came.”