For Esmé, With Love and Squalor Read online

  “Wait just a second.” Eloise raised her head and her voice. “Is that you, Ramona?”

  “Yes,” a small child’s voice answered.

  “Close the front door after you, please,” Eloise called.

  “Is that Ramona? Oh, I’m dying to see her. Do you realize I haven’t seen her since she had her—”

  “Ramona,” Eloise shouted, with her eyes shut, “go out in the kitchen and let Grace take your galoshes off.”

  “All right,” said Ramona. “C’mon, Jimmy.”

  “Oh, I’m dying to see her,” Mary Jane said. “Oh, God! Look what I did. I’m terribly sorry, El.”

  “Leave it. Leave it,” said Eloise. “I hate this damn rug anyway. I’ll get you another.”

  “No, look, I have more than half left!” Mary Jane held up her glass.

  “Sure?” said Eloise. “Gimme a cigarette.”

  Mary Jane extended her pack of cigarettes, saying “Oh, I’m dying to see her. Who does she look like now?”

  Eloise struck a light. “Akim Tamiroff.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “Lew. She looks like Lew. When his mother comes over, the three of them look like triplets.” Without sitting up, Eloise reached for a stack of ashtrays on the far side of the cigarette table. She successfully lifted off the top one and set it down on her stomach. “What I need is a cocker spaniel or something,” she said. “Somebody that looks like me.”

  “How’re her eyes now?” Mary Jane asked. “I mean they’re not any worse or anything, are they?”

  “God! Not that I know of.”

  “Can she see at all without her glasses? I mean if she gets up in the night to go to the john or something.

  “She won’t tell anybody. She’s lousy with secrets.”

  Mary Jane turned around in her chair. “Well, hello, Ramona!” she said. “Oh, what a pretty dress!” She set down her drink. “I’ll bet you don’t even remember me, Ramona.”

  “Certainly she does. Who’s the lady, Ramona?”

  “Mary Jane,” said Ramona, and scratched herself.

  “Marvellous!” said Mary Jane. “Ramona, will you give me a little kiss?”

  “Stop that,” Eloise said to Ramona.

  Ramona stopped scratching herself.

  “Will you give me a little kiss, Ramona?” Mary Jane asked again.

  “I don’t like to kiss people.”

  Eloise snorted, and asked, “Where’s Jimmy?”

  “He’s here.”

  “Who’s Jimmy?” Mary Jane asked Eloise.

  “Oh, God! Her beau. Goes where she goes. Does what she does. All very hoopla.”

  “Really?” said Mary Jane enthusiastically. She leaned forward. “Do you have a beau, Ramona?”

  Ramona’s eyes, behind thick, counter-myopia lenses, did not reflect even the smallest part of Mary Jane’s enthusiasm.

  “Mary Jane asked you a question, Ramona,” Eloise said.

  Ramona inserted a finger into her small, broad nose.

  “Stop that,” Eloise said. “Mary Jane asked you if you have a beau.”

  “Yes,” said Ramona, busy with her nose.

  “Ramona,” Eloise said. “Cut that out. But immediately.”

  Ramona put her hand down.

  “Well, I think that’s just wonderful,” Mary Jane said. “What’s his name? Will you tell me his name, Ramona? Or is it a big secret?”

  “Jimmy,” Ramona said.

  “Jimmy? Oh, I love the name Jimmy! Jimmy what, Ramona?”

  “Jimmy Jimmereeno,” said Ramona.

  “Stand still,” said Eloise.

  “Well! That’s quite a name. Where is Jimmy? Will you tell me, Ramona?”

  “Here,” said Ramona.

  Mary Jane looked around, then looked back at Ramona, smiling as provocatively as possible. “Here where, honey?”

  “Here,” said Ramona. “I’m holding his hand.”

  “I don’t get it,” Mary Jane said to Eloise, who was finishing her drink.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Eloise.

  Mary Jane looked back at Ramona. “Oh, I see. Jimmy’s just a make-believe little boy. Marvellous.” Mary Jane leaned forward cordially. “How do you do, Jimmy?” she said.

  “He won’t talk to you,” said Eloise. “Ramona, tell Mary Jane about Jimmy.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “Stand up, please. . . . Tell Mary Jane how Jimmy looks.”

  “He has green eyes and black hair.”

  “What else?”

  “No mommy and no daddy.”

  “What else?”

  “No freckles.”

  “What else?”

  “A sword.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ramona, and began to scratch herself again.

  “He sounds beautiful!” Mary Jane said, and leaned even farther forward in her chair. “Ramona. Tell me. Did Jimmy take off his galoshes, too, when you came in?”

  “He has boots,” Ramona said.

  “Marvellous,” Mary Jane said to Eloise.

  “You just think so. I get it all day long. Jimmy eats with her. Takes a bath with her. Sleeps with her. She sleeps way over to one side of the bed, so’s not to roll over and hurt him.”

  Looking absorbed and delighted with this information, Mary Jane took in her lower lip, then released it to ask, “Where’d he get that name, though?”

  “Jimmy Jimmereeno? God knows.”

  “Probably from some little boy in the neighborhood.”

  Eloise, yawning, shook her head. “There are no little boys in the neighborhood. No children at all. They call me Fertile Fanny behind my—”

  “Mommy,” Ramona said, “can I go out and play?”

  Eloise looked at her. “You just came in,” she said.

  “Jimmy wants to go out again.”

  “Why, may I ask?”

  “He left his sword outside.”

  “Oh, him and his goddam sword,” Eloise said. “Well. Go ahead. Put your galoshes back on.”

  “Can I have this?” Ramona said, taking a burned match out of the ashtray.

  “May I have this. Yes. Stay out of the street, please.”

  “Goodbye, Ramona!” Mary Jane said musically.

  “Bye,” said Ramona. “C’mon, Jimmy.”

  Eloise lunged suddenly to her feet. “Gimme your glass,” she said.

  “No, really, El. I’m supposed to be in Larchmont. I mean Mr. Weyinburg’s so sweet, I hate to—”

  “Call up and say you were killed. Let go of that damn glass.”

  “No, honestly, El. I mean it’s getting so terribly icy. I have hardly any anti-freeze in the car. I mean if I don’t—”

  “Let it freeze. Go phone. Say you’re dead,” said Eloise. “Gimme that.”

  “Well . . . Where’s the phone?”

  “It went,” said Eloise, carrying the empty glasses and walking toward the dining room, “—this-a-way.” She stopped short on the floor board between the living room and the dining room and executed a grind and a bump. Mary Jane giggled.

  “I mean you didn’t really know Walt,” said Eloise at a quarter of five, lying on her back on the floor, a drink balanced upright on her small-breasted chest. “He was the only boy I ever knew that could make me laugh. I mean really laugh.” She looked over at Mary Jane. “You remember that night—our last year—when that crazy Louise Hermanson busted in the room wearing that black brassiere she bought in Chicago?”

  Mary Jane giggled. She was lying on her stomach on the couch, her chin on the armrest, facing Eloise. Her drink was on the floor, within reach.

  “Well, he could make me laugh that way,” Eloise said. “He could do it when he talked to me. He could do it over the phone. He could even do it in a letter. And the best thing about it was that he didn’t even try t
o be funny—he just was funny.” She turned her head slightly toward Mary Jane. “Hey, how ’bout throwing me a cigarette?”

  “I can’t reach ’em,” Mary Jane said.

  “Nuts to you.” Eloise looked up at the ceiling again. “Once,” she said, “I fell down. I used to wait for him at the bus stop, right outside the PX, and he showed up late once, just as the bus was pulling out. We started to run for it, and I fell and twisted my ankle. He said, ‘Poor Uncle Wiggily.’ He meant my ankle. Poor old Uncle Wiggily, he called it. . . . God, he was nice.”

  “Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?” Mary Jane said.

  “What?”

  “Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?”

  “Oh, God! Who knows? Yes. I guess so. He laughs at cartoons and stuff.” Eloise raised her head, lifted her drink from her chest, and drank from it.

  “Well,” Mary Jane said. “That isn’t everything. I mean that isn’t everything.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Oh . . . you know. Laughing and stuff.”

  “Who says it isn’t?” Eloise said. “Listen, if you’re not gonna be a nun or something, you might as well laugh.”

  Mary Jane giggled. “You’re terrible,” she said.

  “Ah, God, he was nice,” Eloise said. “He was either funny or sweet. Not that damn little-boy sweet, either. It was a special kind of sweet. You know what he did once?”

  “Uh-uh,” Mary Jane said.

  “We were on the train going from Trenton to New York—it was just right after he was drafted. It was cold in the car and I had my coat sort of over us. I remember I had Joyce Morrow’s cardigan on underneath—you remember that darling blue cardigan she had?”

  Mary Jane nodded, but Eloise didn’t look over to get the nod.

  “Well, he sort of had his hand on my stomach. You know. Anyway, all of a sudden he said my stomach was so beautiful he wished some officer would come up and order him to stick his other hand through the window. He said he wanted to do what was fair. Then he took his hand away and told the conductor to throw his shoulders back. He told him if there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was a man who didn’t look proud of his uniform. The conductor just told him to go back to sleep.” Eloise reflected a moment, then said, “It wasn’t always what he said, but how he said it. You know.”

  “Have you ever told Lew about him—I mean, at all?”

  “Oh,” Eloise said, “I started to, once. But the first thing he asked me was what his rank was.”

  “What was his rank?”

  “Ha!” said Eloise.

  “No, I just meant—”

  Eloise laughed suddenly, from her diaphragm. “You know what he said once? He said he felt he was advancing in the Army, but in a different direction from everybody else. He said that when he’d get his first promotion, instead of getting stripes he’d have his sleeves taken away from him. He said when he’d get to be a general, he’d be stark naked. All he’d be wearing would be a little infantry button in his navel.” Eloise looked over at Mary Jane, who wasn’t laughing. “Don’t you think that’s funny?”

  “Yes. Only, why don’t you tell Lew about him sometime, though?”

  “Why? Because he’s too damn unintelligent, that’s why,” Eloise said. “Besides. Listen to me, career girl. If you ever get married again, don’t tell your husband anything. Do you hear me?”

  “Why?” said Mary Jane.

  “Because I say so, that’s why,” said Eloise. “They wanna think you spent your whole life vomiting every time a boy came near you. I’m not kidding, either. Oh, you can tell them stuff. But never honestly. I mean never honestly. If you tell ’em you once knew a handsome boy, you gotta say in the same breath he was too handsome. And if you tell ’em you knew a witty boy, you gotta tell ’em he was kind of a smart aleck, though, or a wise guy. If you don’t, they hit you over the head with the poor boy every time they get a chance.” Eloise paused to drink from her glass and to think. “Oh,” she said, “they’ll listen very maturely and all that. They’ll even look intelligent as hell. But don’t let it fool you. Believe me. You’ll go through hell if you ever give ’em any credit for intelligence. Take my word.”

  Mary Jane, looking depressed, raised her chin from the armrest of the couch. For a change, she supported her chin on her forearm. She thought over Eloise’s advice. “You can’t call Lew not intelligent,” she said aloud.

  “Who can’t?”

  “I mean isn’t he intelligent?” Mary Jane said innocently.

  “Oh,” said Eloise, “what’s the use of talking? Let’s drop it. I’ll just depress you. Shut me up.”

  “Well, wudga marry him for, then?” Mary Jane said.

  “Oh, God! I don’t know. He told me he loved Jane Austen. He told me her books meant a great deal to him. That’s exactly what he said. I found out after we were married that he hadn’t even read one of her books. You know who his favorite author is?”

  Mary Jane shook her head.

  “L. Manning Vines. Ever hear of him?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Neither did I. Neither did anybody else. He wrote a book about four men that starved to death in Alaska. Lew doesn’t remember the name of it, but it’s the most beautifully written book he’s ever read. Christ! He isn’t even honest enough to come right out and say he liked it because it was about four guys that starved to death in an igloo or something. He has to say it was beautifully written.”

  “You’re too critical,” Mary Jane said. “I mean you’re too critical. Maybe it was a good—”

  “Take my word for it, it couldn’t’ve been,” Eloise said. She thought for a moment, then added, “At least, you have a job. I mean at least you—”

  “But listen, though,” said Mary Jane. “Do you think you’ll ever tell him Walt was killed, even? I mean he wouldn’t be jealous, would he, if he knew Walt was—you know. Killed and everything.”

  “Oh, lover! You poor, innocent little career girl,” said Eloise. “He’d be worse. He’d be a ghoul. Listen. All he knows is that I went around with somebody named Walt—some wisecracking G.I. The last thing I’d do would be to tell him he was killed. But the last thing. And if I did—which I wouldn’t—but if I did, I’d tell him he was killed in action.”

  Mary Jane pushed her chin farther forward over the edge of her forearm.

  “El. . .” she said.

  “Why won’t you tell me how he was killed? I swear I won’t tell anybody. Honestly. Please.”

  “No.”

  “Please. Honestly. I won’t tell anybody.”

  Eloise finished her drink and replaced the empty glass upright on her chest. “You’d tell Akim Tamiroff,” she said.

  “No, I wouldn’t! I mean I wouldn’t tell any—”

  “Oh,” said Eloise, “his regiment was resting someplace. It was between battles or something, this friend of his said that wrote me. Walt and some other boy were putting this little Japanese stove in a package. Some colonel wanted to send it home. Or they were taking it out of the package to rewrap it—I don’t know exactly. Anyway, it was all full of gasoline and junk and it exploded in their faces. The other boy just lost an eye.” Eloise began to cry. She put her hand around the empty glass on her chest to steady it.

  Mary Jane slid off the couch and, on her knees, took three steps over to Eloise and began to stroke her forehead. “Don’t cry, El. Don’t cry.”

  “Who’s crying?” Eloise said.

  “I know, but don’t. I mean it isn’t worth it or anything.

  The front door opened.

  “That’s Ramona back,” Eloise said nasally. “Do me a favor. Go out in the kitchen and tell whosis to give her her dinner early. Willya?”

  “All right, if you promise not to cry, though.”

  “I promise. Go on. I don’t feel like going out to that damn kitchen right this minute.”

  Mary Jane stood
up, losing and recovering her balance, and left the room.

  She was back in less than two minutes, with Ramona running ahead of her. Ramona ran as flatfooted as possible, trying to get the maximum noise out of her open galoshes.

  “She wouldn’t let me take her galoshes off,” Mary Jane said.

  Eloise, still lying on her back on the floor, was using her handkerchief. She spoke into it, addressing Ramona. “Go out and tell Grace to take your galoshes off. You know you’re not supposed to come into the—”

  “She’s in the lavatory,” Ramona said.

  Eloise put away her handkerchief and hoisted herself to a sitting position. “Gimme your foot,” she said. “Sit down, first, please. . . . Not there—here. God!”

  On her knees, looking under the table for her cigarettes, Mary Jane said, “Hey. Guess what happened to Jimmy.”

  “No idea. Other foot. Other foot.”

  “He got runned over,” said Mary Jane. “Isn’t that tragic?”

  “I saw Skipper with a bone,” Ramona told Eloise.

  “What happened to Jimmy?” Eloise said to her.

  “He got runned over and killed. I saw Skipper with a bone, and he wouldn’t—”

  “Gimme your forehead a second,” Eloise said. She reached out and felt Ramona’s forehead. “You feel a little feverish. Go tell Grace you’re to have your dinner upstairs. Then you’re to go straight to bed. I’ll be up later. Go on, now, please. Take these with you.”

  Ramona slowly giant-stepped her way out of the room.

  “Throw me one,” Eloise said to Mary Jane. “Let’s have another drink.”

  Mary Jane carried a cigarette over to Eloise. “Isn’t that something? About Jimmy? What an imagination!”

  “Mm. You go get the drinks, huh? And bring the bottle . . . I don’t wanna go out there. The whole damn place smells like orange juice.”

  At five minutes past seven, the phone rang. Eloise got up from the window seat and felt in the dark for her shoes. She couldn’t find them. In her stocking feet, she walked steadily, almost languidly, toward the phone. The ringing didn’t disturb Mary Jane, who was asleep on the couch, face down.