She changed into a pair of corduroy slacks and looked at herself in the bubbles of the mirror that framed the old dressing table. She didn’t have those trim lines. Her hips were too rounded, her waist too small. She searched out one of Mike’s old shirts and jammed the tails into her trousers. Then she rolled up the too-long sleeves and once more examined her reflection. She just wasn’t impressive.
The mound of mashed potatoes and gravy added strength to her unwound nerves. Halfway through the meal the phone rang. Pa was taking a nap in the bedroom. She and her mother looked at each other.
“If it’s Phil, tell him I’m eating and he can pick me up at seven.”
Paula knew she would have to see him. No matter how much she didn’t want to, it was better to get this over with soon. Or he would be calling and wondering and having fits.
“Don’t you want to talk to him?” Ma tried to cover her perplexity.
“Not just now.” Paula attended to the chicken.
She listened to her mother deliver the message while she poured vinegar into the almost empty bottle of ketchup.
“He’ll be over,” her mother said, setting a dish of fruit salad on the table.
Well, she didn’t have to think about Phil until he got here. Some excuse would come to her by then. She didn’t care to lie to him. But he would never understand the truth. What was the truth? She hardly knew herself. All she knew was that this afternoon was her own private possession.
Phil arrived almost promptly at seven, his features muddled with concern. She motioned him to a chair and he sat on it sideways because his long legs wouldn’t fit comfortably under the table. She could tell he wanted to talk to her earnestly but he made polite conversation for the sake of her mother.
At last he said, “Want to catch a movie?”
Her eyesight was strained from the afternoon’s sketching, but she agreed just to get them out of the house.
They didn’t go to the movies, of course. He took her to Jack’s place.
“Look,” he said, when they had closed the door, “I didn’t do anything — I mean, it was all right?”
She considered the appeal in his eyes, then the yellow rumpled bedsheets. The musty smell of stale furniture and cat hairs over everything curdled her stomach.
“Sure,” she said. “It was all right.”
The sound of Whitey scratching in the kitty litter filled the silence. A pot of left-over spaghetti filled with water sat in the wash basin. “No, it wasn’t all right,” she blurted. “It’s miserable here and I hate it. Why do we always have to come to this place? Why couldn’t you have waited until we had somewhere decent?”
He looked at her with confusion. She saw the irritation growing within him and the line of his mouth tightened. “You’re a strange girl today. I can’t believe it was all my fault.”
Immediately she felt sorry for him. After all, he was battling against something he didn’t even know about. She couldn’t help him. She could hardly help herself, let alone Phil.
“If I’m so strange, then just leave me be.” The hardness in Paula’s voice covered her own groping to understand.
“Oh, honey, why don’t you come off it? That was bound to happen sooner or later. What difference could it make that we didn’t have a license for it last night?”
There was no point in arguing. How can you explain to a man, still dear to you, he has suddenly been replaced?
“The fact is, Phil, I’m not sure that I’m ready to get married just yet.”
“And why not? You seemed plenty eager these past couple of months.”
That was the truth and it slapped her. She went to open a window, thinking some fresh air might chase the musty smell. She opened the window and thought: If I jumped out all this mess would be over. She stood looking down the narrow alleyway at the empty clotheslines tangled from the wind.
“I know I owe you an explanation, but the truth is I haven’t any.”
“Sure, you haven’t. You don’t know what in hell you’re talking about. When they say women are addle-brained, I have an idea this is exactly what they mean.”
He was being nasty. But it was nastiness out of desperation, she knew. He had to fight back against this unknown enemy. If he fought clumsily, it was nonetheless brave.
“Phil, I love you. I just need time to work something over in my mind. Will you try to be patient and not force me?”
“Patient? God save us all! Here I am planning for our marriage next month and you say to be patient. Is that what you call love?”
“All right, then,” she challenged. A stabbing frustration and restlessness shot through. “Call it off. Go away and leave me alone. I don’t want to see you, Phil. I want to be alone. Do you hear me? Alone!”
He grabbed her away from the window and pulled her beside him against the wall. “You’re nuts,” his voice rasped. “Stark, raving nuts.”
She struggled, pounding his chest with clenched fists. “Leave me be!” she shouted. “Leave me be!”
He held her fast. “You’re going to calm down and straighten out.” Grabbing her wrists, he held them fast behind her back. “Honey, you’re hysterical.”
Twisting and turning, she tried to free herself from his grasp. Biting at his arm, she caught the material of his shirt between her teeth and ripped it.
His bulk was too much for her. Panting, she let her body collapse. For a moment he stood supporting the weight of her in his arms. Then slowly, she slipped to the floor and collapsed at his feet. He kneeled beside her, not knowing what to do. She crawled over, put her head in his lap and sobbed wretchedly.
Clumsily, he stroked her hair. “It’s all right, honey. If you want to be alone, it’s okay.” His voice was heavy with sadness. “Just don’t get lost,” he said. “We need each other too much.”
When he brought her home, he didn’t try to kiss her. He sort of patted her shoulder and ran off down the steps. She listened to the disappearing jingle of his house keys.
Paula was grateful for Monday. Getting up and yelling at Mike to hurry up out of the bathroom kept her from thinking for the moment about the strange state of affairs in her life.
The rush hour crowds carried her down the steps to the subway where she stood on line to buy a week’s supply of tokens.
Her office friends greeted her and chatted about their dates as if this had been a weekend like any other. Paula felt as though she had been away for a hundred years until her desk, her typewriter, the small switchboard with its tails and plugs hypnotized her back into the meaningless routine.
At five o’clock she looked for Phil’s car but it wasn’t there. She waited ten minutes. He didn’t show up. She realized with huge relief that he really was going to let her alone for awhile. Poor guy. She didn’t like herself very much for yesterday’s scene, but as she tried to think of Phil, the picture of him faded, replaced by the image of that shirtless body, the tantalizing curves of warm flesh, coldly posed for sketching.
When she got home, the place was jammed with Mike’s friends making a pretense of doing homework. Pa hadn’t arrived yet. She helped set the table and prepared a place for him, even though she didn’t know whether or not he would be in any condition to eat.
Ma said, “Did you have a good day?”
“Like every other,” Paula answered. Then she said, “Ma, did