Enchanted Isle Read Free

about Mother, who I shouldn’t have mentioned at all but had to; I just couldn’t help it. And yet I mightn’t have if it hadn’t been for him, listening so sympathetic. Seems funny, the way he treated me later, that I didn’t catch on at the time the kind of a guy he was. But I didn’t and went on and on, at last even telling about my father and how I would call him up soon as I got into the bus station in Baltimore. But then for the first time, ’stead of being so sympathetic, he shook his head no. “What’s the matter, Rick? I say something out of line?”
    “Mandy, it’s none of my business—tell me shut my big mouth and I shut it. But that don’t sound good to me; it don’t sound good at all.”
    “How do you mean it don’t sound good?”
    “Well? Suppose he’s not home. What then?”
    “I can wait, can’t I? And call again?”
    “Suppose he’s out of town?”
    “...I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “Suppose he married after the bust-up? The one he had with your mother? Suppose his wife answers?”
    “...I can ask to speak to him, can’t I?”
    “Suppose she asks who’s calling?”
    “Well? Can’t I say?”
    “And she says, ‘Oh my, I didn’t realize! Oh my, will you hold, Miss Vernick? Oh my, he speaks of you often! Oh my, he’ll be so excited!’ In the pig’s right eye she will.”
    “You mean she wouldn’t like it?”
    “Well, would you?”
    “...OK, what am I going to do?”
    “Hold everything, let me think.”
    So he thought, and then: “One thing you should do, Mandy, is give it the old switcheroo, so ’stead of you leading to him, he’ll be leading to you. I mean, forget that pitch, that you call him and then he’ll ask you there—to his house, or wherever it is that he lives. Fix it that he comes to you—it’ll make all the difference, all the difference in the world. Meaning you must have a place to stay, a place you can ask him to, so he comes to see you.”
    “How do you mean, a place?”
    “Well, like an apartment.”
    “I see, I see.”
    “Then you invite him, like a lady does.”
    “OK. But I can’t get a place tonight.”
    “It’s what’s been bothering me, Mandy.”
    “I’ll have to go to a motel.”
    “That’s what’s been bothering me. You can’t.”
    “Why can’t I?”
    “They won’t take you in, that’s why. A young girl? Alone? Wants a single and bath? For what purpose, Mandy? For all they know, you could be using that room for business of a very peculiar kind.”
    “Oh.”
    “There’s plenty of that going on.”
    “Well, what am I going to do?”
    “I’ve been figuring on it, and I’m your friend, no? And what’s a friend for? We could go to the motel together.”
    “...You mean, as Mr. and Mrs.?”
    “Well, who’s going to know the difference?”
    “I’d have to think about that.”
    Then I told him, “OK.”
    “I already said, you’re swell.”
    “Rick, what name are we going to use?”
    “Well, there’s a Baby Ruth sign—why not John P. Ruth and wife?”
    “Better make it Richard P. Ruth—I might call you Rick by mistake, tip them off without meaning to.”
    “Richard P. Ruth is good. Mrs. Ruth, hiya?”
    “I’m fine, Mr. Ruth—how’s your own self?”
    We both laughed and squeezed hands, and then I said, “Rick, there’s a motel—a little one, maybe not so expensive as the others. And we’re already in Baltimore. I’ve been here before and can tell by the brick houses with white doorsteps.”
    “That motel was put there for us. OK.”
    He got my bag and coat down, and at the next stop, which was in the same block as the motel, we got off.

3
    A T THE MOTEL THE room was small and beat-up, but at lease it had twin beds, a bathroom with clean towels in it, and a bureau with big-enough drawers. But he hardly seemed to see it or notice what it was like, because all during the time I was putting my things away, and he was putting his things away—his razor, toothbrush, and comb, which seemed to be all