Double Jeopardy (2 page)

I remember that my fingers felt all thumbs as I worked, for her clear voice distracted me. She casually remarked that she had just come to town a few days before and asked me if I knew of any nice furnished rooms. She went on to explain that at present she was stopping at the Colonial House which was far too expensive for her new job at the Knit Shoppe. After I had blurted out the suggestion that Mrs. Michaelson's boarding house on North Tioga was perhaps the place she was seeking, she thanked me warmly, handed me twenty cents for the package and left the store. In my confusion I said nothing. The fact that I usually charged a quarter for the capsules was forgotten. I only knew that the girl was the most fascinating customer it had ever been my privilege to wait on.

I finished the remainder of the day in somewhat of a trance. I vaguely recall having filled a prescription for fat Mrs. Burtleson and removed a particle of dust from Joe Crespi's eye but the rest remains a blank. My record book, which they have permitted me to keep in my cell and which I hope will jog my memory of those days I am trying to describe, states that I sold eight bottles of cough syrup on that particular day, two hot-water bottles, six toothbrushes, fourteen rolls of bandages, and that I filled twelve prescriptions. If I did, I can't remember. But I know that when I sat near the lake that night, and smoked with old Doc Turn-bull, I found myself strangely inattentive and, for the first time, glad when he went home.

I was thinking how wonderful it might be for any man to call such a woman “wife.” The usual vision of pipe, slippers and soft music on the gramophone, a large dog, the evening paper and Anita darning socks lingered to drug my mind; pleasant pictures even though slightly absurd. I slumped down in my chair and smoked cigarette after cigarette until it was very late. One by one the lights across Cayuga winked out. The faint breeze that had been present all evening gradually whipped itself into a wind. In the elms the night crickets fell silent and only the quiet slap of the ripples on the shore came to my ears.

It was not until after I had sneezed several times that I realized I was catching cold. But more important still, it dawned on me that I was falling in love. I rose from the chair, cramped and stiff, went into the house and took two asperin tablets before crawling sleepily into bed.

During the weeks that followed Anita became the most popular girl in town. She often came into my store just before closing time in the hot evenings for some ice-cream or a bottle of cool soda. Usually she was with young Doctor Carpenter whom I had known at medical school.

Carpenter was a pleasant enough chap and I rather liked him—;despite Doc Turnbull's disgruntled remarks. He was the son of the town's wealthiest realtor whose poor health forced him to spend much of his time away from home at various resorts and spas. Therefore, Leo generally lived alone, surrounded by servants in the big brick house on the Heights. The boy was tall and handsome with a neat blond moustache. It was his habit to finger it whenever he was perplexed. I recall hearing the story that one day he was called into consultation at the request of one of Doc Turnbull's patients. Leo took so long to arrive at the simple diagnosis that the old medico became annoyed. “For the love of God!”, shouted Turnbull suddenly. “Will you quit yanking that damned thing and tell the lady her bellyache's an acute appendicitis!” In revenge, Leo spread it about town that old Doc's bedside manners were as comforting as those of a callous veterinary. A feud ensued, lasting for several months. Then it died as suddenly as it had started and the two merely regarded each other with cold disdain.

Of course it was only natural that Leo's good looks and custom tailoring should make him popular with the town girls and even with the young men. He was the proud owner of a Winton Six touring car, a beautiful $2800 machine in which he made his professional rounds. In the evenings during spring and summer it was his custom to pack his car with young people and roar away in the direction of the Tompkins Country Club. I say,
in the direction of
because I was never invited along on any of those rides. I am afraid that I was never popular with any but the older people who were my customers and with whom I would sympathetically discuss their various ailments. It may be that I was too serious about myself and my little store; but I did want to succeed and often I would dream of the time when the store would be larger.

You may be sure that I went through considerable agony watching the girl with whom I was in love constantly being escorted by the handsome physician. The more times I saw her in his company the more I loved her and the less attention I paid to business. My regular patrons soon noticed my distraction. Doc Turnbull, with his customary rare insight into human nature, almost hit upon my trouble. “You should soon be thinking of getting married, son,” he grunted as he chewed away at his cigar. “We all need the womenfolk, you know. It ain't natural for you to sweat all day in your dope-shop and then go home and cook your own grub. Look around and pick yourself a slave!”

I tried to cover up my embarrassment by offering the jocular comment: “And be henpecked like you? Not on your life!”

Turnbull winced. “Oh, a man can be happy", he insisted, “even though he
has
got a wife. That is, provided he knows the formula for marital bliss.” He paused, waiting for me to express the desire to hear this formula but I am afraid my mind was wandering again. “Up to forty, double bed; forty to fifty, single beds; fifty to sixty, separate rooms; above sixty, separate homes.”

I laughed at this and asked him how old
he
was. “Me? Oh, that's for those who can afford it. You can't get rich shoving pills down people's throats... unless you've got a tricky moustache.”

Hurriedly, I changed the subject. I did not want him to start discussing Carpenter. It might lead to mention of Anita. It had somehow leaked out that they were already engaged and rumor had it that they contemplated an undelayed marriage.

In a small town a drugstore is invariably the center of gossip—;barber-shops running a close second—;and I am sure that I was the most informed person in town. I was always the first to know things and very often people would ask me questions about what so-and-so intended to do. Not wishing to be involved in the spreading of malicious gossip, it was my policy to look innocent and even surprised that they expected me to know.

To the remarks I overheard concerning Anita and Dr. Carpenter I took little heed. It would never do for anyone to suspect my own interest in the girl. Folks might laugh or guy me about her. Besides it might get back to Anita. So I contained myself as best I could and tried to dismiss the remarks casually. In this, I pride myself on being successful. Up until the day I married Anita before the Justice of the Peace no one uncovered my true feelings.

One Saturday afternoon Leo and Anita were in the store and fell to quarreling. I can't remember how the argument started exactly but it became more vigorous as the minutes passed until I felt embarrassed witnessing it. I retired to the drug room, hoping that a customer would come in so that they either would have to cease their quarrel or continue it some place else. From what I overheard I gathered that Anita wanted to attend some party or other and Leo did not. This seemed to me to be a trivial cause for a scrap but, at length, Anita stamped out of the store, slamming the screen door viciously behind her. Leo remained where he was.

As I came from the back, carrying some packages of supplies to explain my disappearance from the scene of the dispute, Leo made the remark: “Well, if that's the way she feels, to hell with her!” Then he turned to me. “Aren't women the limit, Pete? Treat them nice, and the first thing you know they think they own you!”

From that time on, I am afraid I entertained the notion that Leo was not in love with her; and that if she was capable of ranting at him the way she had, the affair would not last long. I did not know then that passion plays strange tricks on people. I did not know that the ones who hate hard, love hard.

The following day I learned that Anita had gone to the party unescorted and, although the weather was too cold to be suitable, had taken a swim. To my disappointment, I also learned that they had made up later on and had driven off in his car for the remainder of the evening.

Indeed, the graph of my hope was erratic; first up and then down as weeks rolled by. Whenever she would come into the store to purchase some item she would smile pleasantly and direct at me only those impersonalities which had to do with the temperature or the weather. Only once did she say, “And how are
you
today?” Fearful that in a moment of weakness I might let slip something which would give me away, I retreated behind my best storekeeper's manner.

The opinion might be formed by this time that I am something of a stoic and, except for one instance which I set down at this point, I think I did rather well in concealing my love. But I could scarcely keep myself from vaulting the counter and striking Doctor Carpenter the day he walked into my store and requested that I sell him a certain article which, I had no doubt, he intended to employ in wooing the woman for whom I yearned. Naturally, I did no such thing. Instead, I controlled my temper and curtly informed him that I was completely sold out of what he wanted. I think he looked at me in a puzzled way. My tone, I suppose, was quite the reverse of the usual deferential manner I adopted when speaking to customers.

In that the doctor weighed fully twenty-five pounds more than I did, and was well respected as an amateur boxer, you may draw the conclusion if you like that I controlled myself because I was afraid of reprisals. Carpenter was not the type of man to permit himself to be struck without retaliating. But the truth of the matter is that at the moment I was too enraged to think of what bodily harm any such action on my part would involve. I held myself in check only because I knew it would give me away.

Through the plate-glass window, I watched the doctor cross the street and enter Ray Cavender's place, proceed to the back of the store and emerge a few minutes later putting something into his vest pocket. I felt sick to my stomach and a little dizzy. I locked up the drug room and, when my errand-boy returned from a delivery, I ordered him to take charge of the place for the rest of the day.

The following events which immediately preceded my marriage seem now to have happened with incredible swiftness but I imagine the days must have appeared intolerably long at the time. My prescription record informs me that on June 28, 1917, I began to make myself sleeping powders out of mild opiates. Since I am usually a sound sleeper, this suggests that I tossed and turned on my mattress as my mind tortured me by conjuring up visions of Anita in the arms of my rival.

It was Mrs. Michaelson, Anita's landlady, who first brought me the news that Anita and Carpenter had set the Fourth of July as their wedding day. My heart sank when I heard this. In despair I tried to persuade myself that it was merely a rumor without the slightest foundation of fact. To more or less substantiate my theory, Henry Liscombe, the County Clerk, who frequently patronized my store, had made no mention of issuing a license to the couple and Henry was the town's most garrulous individual. That night, however, I learned to my dismay that Anita had quit her job at the Knit Shoppe, telling her employer that she was going to be married.

As I was locking up on the evening of July 2nd I again encountered Mrs. Michaelson. Being something of a pet of her's from the days when I helped her carry bundles from the fruit stand (where I used to work during summers) to her buggy, she was accustomed to confide in me many interesting tidbits concerning her lodgers. So it was not without precedent that she related to me, almost verbatim, the terrible scrap that had taken place between Anita and the doctor in her back parlor.

“When he showed her the telegram, Peter, I thought the roof would come off! She was that mad! I was in the dining-room, mind you, setting the places for supper. I couldn't help overhearing the whole thing!”

That the Michaelson dining-room was immediately adjacent to the back parlor, I was well aware; and she could very easily have retired to the kitchen had she so desired. But, of course, I did not suggest this to her. I was only too grateful for any news which had to do with Anita's plans.

“Never in all my born days did I see a body so unreasonable,” went on the old lady. “Here's that poor boy Leo with a telegram saying that he'd better hike himself out to Phoenix right away if he wants to see his father alive; and here's that Hunt baggage insisting that they
both
go... after the wedding, of course! Well, Leo minced no words, I can tell you! He said: 'That would be nice, wouldn't it? Having a honeymoon while my dad's dying. I'm sorry, Anita. We'll have to postpone getting married until I come back.' At that she flies completely off the handle! But c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y! 'If you run off now without taking me, after I quit my job and told everyone I was getting married on the Fourth, you can stay away forever for all I care!' Well, Peter, to make a long story short, as I've got to get back to the house and see to it that that hired girl's cleaned up the kitchen before sneaking home, Leo turns on his heel and leaves her standing there. They were supposed to go out somewhere, too. I don't know if he'll go through with his trip or not but there's a train out to New York tonight at nine and if he isn't aboard it, I'll be mighty surprised!”

Mrs. Michaelson hurried off down State Street, little dreaming that she had caused a great jubilance to well up within me. My mental scoreboard chalked up another point for my team.

That same evening after I had cooked and eaten my solitary meal, I decided to take a little stroll. It had been very warm all day but, with the going down of the sun, a welcome cool descended, bringing me renewed energy. This was rather a phenomenon because I usually felt totally spent after ten hours on my feet, and walking, whether in the evening cool or not, was an activity it was my habit to avoid. Nevertheless, on that night I found myself irresistibly drawn to the railroad station.