Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (6 page)

95 Martin Lane
   Friday

Marian dear
,

I’m really
awfully
sorry, but I’m afraid we’re coming back. To the apartment, I mean. They definitely won’t let us stay here with Butchie, and they don’t much like the dog, either. We figure there’s no use fighting just to keep an old apartment we’re not crazy about, so back we come. I’m really
terribly
sorry about your moving and all, but you
do
understand, don’t you?

Love
,

Helen

Shax, Asmodeus, Baal, and Co. Realtors

Dear Miss Griswold
,

I am not a hard-hearted man, and even though the real estate business is one of dog-eat-dog you must try to understand that it is only because the real estate business
is
like that, that we frequently seem to be unpleasant and hard-hearted. I could not sleep nights if I put a young girl out onto the street to starve. I am not really a hard-hearted man, so you may keep the apartment. Will you please forward by return mail your check for last month’s rent on apartment 3C at 101 Eastern Square plus your check for next month’s rent and a signed statement to the effect that you will not sub-sub-sublet. I assume that you have no intention of opening a sidewalk vegetable stand, keeping dogs or children, hanging pictures on the walls, making unnecessary noise, leaving garbage in the hall, blocking the stairway or the elevator, putting scratches on the floors, renting rooms for money, or opening any business for profit on the premises. As I say, I am not a hardhearted man, and I could not sleep nights if I had to forcibly evict you
.

Most extremely cordially
,

B. H. Shax

101 Eastern Square
   Tuesday

Dear Mr. Burlingame
,

This is a terrible thing to do, but I guess I will have to have my old apartment back, and just as everything was all right here, too. The people I got this one from want it back because they can’t stay in their new place with a baby. So don’t bring over my furniture. I’ll probably be wanting to come back next week sometime
.

Sincerely
,

Marian Griswold

36 Elm St.
   Wednesday

Dear Bill
,

Never mind about the stuff. The dame wants the place back
.

Al

10 Oliver
   Thursday

Dear Timmy
,

I won’t be needing my furniture for a while yet. Al got kicked out of his apartment by the dame who’s coming back.

Bill

1249 Jones St.
   Friday

Dear Mom
,

It’s O.K. about the furniture. Hope you haven’t already sent it, because I won’t be needing it now. Will write soon.

Love
,

Timmy

36 Elm St.
   Friday

Dear Felicia
,

I am sure you will forgive my taking this method of asking you this question, when you realize how much it means to me, and how whenever I am with you I find it impossible to gather my courage to speak. I know that you have for a long time been aware of my feelings for you, and if by some lucky chance you feel the same way about me, it would certainly be wonderful
.

Could you possibly consider becoming my wife? We would have to live with your family for a while until we found an apartment, but as you know, I have a good job with good prospects and it would be the ambition of my life to support you in a comfortable fashion, and of course for a while we would save money on rent
.

Please let me know at once. You will make me the happiest of men
.

Your own
,

Allan

95 Martin Lane
   Monday

Marian dear
,

The most
wonderful
thing has happened, and just
wait
till you hear. You know we are being thrown out of this apartment and honestly I was just
desperate,
but then last Sunday we went out to Connecticut to visit Eve Crawley and her new husband
—
you remember Eve, don’t you? With that amazing hair?
—
and
what
do you
think?
We just by pure blind luck found the most
adorable
little cottage for sale, and well, to make a long story short, we grabbed all our money on the spot and made a down payment on it, and we removing in next week. What do you think of
that?
It’s got four rooms and of course there’s some work to be done around the place
—
putting in a bathroom and whatnot, and fixing one corner of the roof, but Bill can do that nights when he comes home, because of course he’ll have to commute, and there’s nearly an acre of ground, and the
loveliest
old trees, and I’m going to drive him to the station every morning and meet him every night, and then during the day I can do the painting and papering around the house. And it cost only sixteen thousand, with the most
miserable
down payment, and we can take the rest of our lives to pay off the mortgage, if we want to
—
the bank was
terribly
nice about it. Aren’t you
jealous
of us, living in the
country?
And of course you’ll come and visit us just every chance you get, and we can all have
loads
of fun getting together and fixing the place up. Must go now
—
we’re signing the last papers this afternoon
.

Love
,

Helen

101 Eastern Square
   Tuesday

Dear Mr. Burlingame
,

If you still want my apartment you can have it. Heaven has just passed a miracle in my favor.

Sincerely
,

Marian Griswold

36 Elm St.
   Wednesday

Dear Bill
…

10 Oliver
   Thursday

Dear Timmy
….

1249 Jones
   Friday

Dear Mom
….

16 Arden’s Court
   Saturday

Dear Allan
,

I can’t tell you how pleased and flattered and happy I was at your letter, and I guess you knew all the time what I would say when you finally got around to asking me. Of course I will marry you, and I thinly it’s wonderful
.

Mother and Dad are also very happy at the idea and Dad says that now that their last child is getting married it’s time for them to move back to California, where they always wanted to be, anyway. So they are going to let us have this apartment and most of the furniture as a wedding present, and even though twelve rooms might be a little large for us at first, we can always manage to use the space for giving parties and such. Mother says come for dinner tomorrow night and we can talk it over
.

Love, from your

Felicia

T
HE
V
ERY
H
OT
S
UN IN
B
ERMUDA

I
T WAS THE FIRST
false summer of the college year, the time when the lawns first come out green and the sky is first really blue; the apple trees had chosen to occupy themselves with faint pink blossoms; the campus buildings were beginning to look old and dusty and red between the fresh trees and the really blue sky. In another week it might be snowing again, with the sudden treacherous weather that goes with spring dances and precommencement engagement parties, and ends, finally, in a blaze of heat and lethargy, with final exams and the last tortured words of the term paper.

It was Saturday; Katie Collins had spent all morning in the sun, starting the tan on her long legs and smooth back; by fall she would be startlingly brown, and could wear white evening dresses to set it off. Walking across campus, she watched her legs, still a little tan from last year, perhaps faintly reddened by this morning’s sun. Ought to have a black bathing suit this year, she was thinking, strapless, two-piece, make the men whistle when I go along the beach. Thinking of the men whistling made her smile while she walked. Hot sun, hot sand; in another month she would be swimming, playing tennis, dancing, sailing; thinking about it made the sun seem hotter already; or green, she reflected, I could get a wicked green bathing suit, green is always good on me.

She was wearing yellow shorts, in honor of the sun, and she felt appropriate to the grass and the trees; walking across campus, it suddenly occurred to her that the next spring, unlike this spring and last spring and the one before that, she would spend somewhere else; married, probably, she thought, I ought to get married right after I graduate; girls like me aren’t safe single. She smiled again at the quiet campus. Everyone was studying, or sunbathing, or lying around drinking Cokes; no one was walking outdoors except Katie.

Maybe not go home at all, she decided, just go off somewhere like Bermuda for a honeymoon. It made her laugh to think of herself lying in the very hot sun in Bermuda while some of her friends were still in college.

Tall and long-legged and alone, she walked quickly across the campus to where the grass ended and the ground sloped down to a brook; turning, she followed the brook a little way until she came in sight of a small one-story building set back from the trees along the brook. Then she began to walk more slowly, stopping to look down at the brook, putting her hands in her pockets to saunter along until something far off caught her attention; when she was very close to the building she said, “Hi!” She waited for a minute, and then went over and tapped imperatively on the window next to the door. “Hi,” she said again.

She waited for another minute, and then the key turned and the door opened. “Keep you waiting?” Katie said cheerfully. She walked up to the door and stood against the doorway, smiling. “You been waiting long?” she demanded.

“Please
come in,” the man said.

“No one’s around,” Katie said, but she went inside and closed the door behind her. The windows made the studio very light, and on this sunny day there was a rich pale glow in the room that touched the colors on the pictures around the wall, and brightened completely the canvas on the easel, a still life of an apple, a book, and a copper candlestick. Katie walked over to a bench along one wall and sat down, stretching her legs out in front of her. “I’m worn out,” she said. “I ran most of the way.”

“You didn’t look it, coming along the path.”

Katie laughed, regarding her long legs approvingly. “I was teasing you,” she said.

“You didn’t even look at the picture,” he said.

Katie stood up leisurely and came over to look at the still life on the easel. “Gets prettier every day,” she said, “and so do you.” She turned around and looked at him critically. “But you look so sad.” She went over and pulled childishly at the sleeve of his old corduroy jacket, and he looked at her quickly and then back at the picture.

“Why wouldn’t I be sad?” he said. He gestured at the picture. “I’ve been working at it all day.”

“It looks swell,” Katie said. “Honestly, I think it looks fine.”

He rubbed his hand wearily across his long, thin forehead. When he smiled at her, finally, his face seemed more helpless, with a sort of sullen intention at helplessness. He took her hand, and said, “I needed you to come.”

“Well, I’m here,” Katie said. “And the picture’s okay.” She pulled away from him and started to walk around the room, her hands in her pockets. “You’ve changed things around again,” she said. When there was no answer she said sharply, “Peter, wake up! I said you’ve been changing things around again.”

He said, “I thought ‘Mood’ would look better in the center. Stand out more.” He was still standing helplessly in front of the easel, watching her when she walked across to stand in front of the picture he called “Mood.” It was a painting of a girl sitting by a window; she was a very pretty girl with long dark hair down her back; she was wearing a white dress and she was staring at the moon. “It looks swell here,” Katie said. “Just fine.” She began to laugh, not turning around. “Were you late for dinner yesterday?” she asked.

“Not very.”

“Was she sore?”

“Katie,” he said desperately, “for God’s sake, stop walking around and come talk to me.” His voice trailed off weakly. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“Poor old Peter,” Katie said. She came over and took his arm, leading him to the bench. “Poor old Peter,” she said again. “She gives you a hell of a time.”

He put his head in his hands, saying shakily, “Sometimes I think I can’t stand it much longer. What am I going to do?”

“Don’t get all upset,” Katie said. Impatient again, she got up and reached into the pocket of her shorts for a cigarette. Lighting it, she walked over to the easel and said to the picture, “Don’t pay any attention to her.”

“I think if she doesn’t leave me alone—” he said.

Katie moved closer to the picture, frowning. “Why is this part blue?” she asked. “You told us in class…”

He lifted his head. “I wanted to see how it would look there. It’s a sort of departure to give a greater effect.” He sighed. “I suppose it looks awful.”

“It’ll do,” Katie said. She moved restlessly away from the picture and along the nearest wall, seeing without interest the familiar pictures one after another, still lifes of vases and books and violins and china cats, portraits of his children, an occasional abstract in vicious reds and yellows, a landscape with a rusty barn, a picture of a beautiful girl with dark hair knee-deep in a moonlit pool, another of a beautiful girl with dark hair gathering roses by moonlight. “I passed her on campus this morning and she wouldn’t speak to me,” Katie said.

He was frowning, staring at an imaginary picture. “It needs
something
there,” he said. “Blue seemed like the thing.”

“I wanted to walk right up to her and slap her face,” Katie said. “What a worn-out old hag.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said.

“Excuse me,” Katie said formally. “I forgot she was your wife. What a well-preserved old hag.” She laughed, and he smiled reluctantly. “Cheer up,” she went on, “don’t let her make you miserable.” Her tour of the room brought her back to the easel, and she said, “It’s a
swell
picture, honestly.”

“I made it as good as I could for you,” he said. “I only wish I weren’t a third-rate artist.” He waited for a minute. “If I could make it better, I would,” he said.

Katie dropped her cigarette on the floor and put her shoe on it. “I don’t want to make her mad, though,” she said. “She could get me thrown out of college if she got mad enough.”

“She’s waiting for you to graduate.” He stood up wearily and went over to the easel, looking at the picture while he felt out for the brushes and palette beside it. “She says that after a few weeks I’ll never see you again.”

“She better not make any kind of a fuss,” Katie said.

He began to paint cautiously. “I’ve let her go on thinking that I won’t see you again.”

“I certainly wish you could come out to the beach,” Katie said.

“I don’t know.” He pursed up his lips doubtfully. “She may go away somewhere with the children.”

Katie said quickly, “But of course there’s my family and all my friends. Maybe I could meet you in New York or someplace.”

“New York would be easy,” he said, turning around to her. “I told you I could manage New York.”

“I’ll see how things come out,” Katie said. Going to the window near the door, she said, “This weather is driving me crazy. Let’s go outside for a while, go wading in the brook.”

“Too many people around on a day like this,” he said. “I don’t want her to get any more suspicious than she already is.”

“Oh, Lord,” Katie said. “Were you ever in Bermuda?” She tapped her fingers irritably on the window glass. “I’d like to go to Bermuda.”

“Come away from the window,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Katie stamped her feet walking to the bench; she sat down, pulling up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. “How nearly finished are you?”

“Another couple of days.”

“Plenty of time,” Katie said. “I don’t have to have it till May fifteenth.”

“I’ll spend some time working it over,” he said. “I’m not satisfied at all.”

“I am,” Katie said. “As long as I graduate. They don’t expect me to be a genius.” She yawned, and stood up. “I’m going.”

He turned away from the easel, surprised. “I thought you’d stay awhile.”

“I stayed awhile,” Katie said. “I’m no help to you while you’re painting, anyway.” She stopped with one hand on the door and kissed one finger to him. “You work nice and hard,” she said, “and I’ll see you in class Monday.”

He said desperately, “Katie, listen,” and she hesitated, the door just open. “Can’t you tell me something to say to her?” He stood without moving, looking at her eagerly, his shoulders weak. “Think of
some
thing” he said.

“Let me see.” Katie stood in the doorway, chewing her lip. “Tell her,” she said finally, “you tell her that I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.” She smiled and waved her hand. “Bye,” she said, and slipped out the door, closing it gently behind her. Before she was more than a few steps away, she heard the key turn in the lock.

As though anyone cared, she thought, going along beside the brook; next spring I could be in Paris. As she started across the campus she thought suddenly, why not a poppy-red bathing suit? and laughed out loud. Boy, she said to herself, they could see me coming a mile away.