Mrs. Bridge Read Free Page B

East Broadway! Every night they have a fight, and this is what they say ” Here Alice Jones took over the song: “Goddamn you, goddamn you, goddamn you, goddamn you “
    Mrs. Bridge rushed to the nearest window and looked down. One end of the clothesline was tied to the rose trellis. At the other end was Carolyn, churning the rope with both arms, and in the center was Alice leaping up and down.
    Next week, when Alice came racing up the driveway and tried to open the screen door to the kitchen, she found it locked. Mrs. Bridge was in the kitchen and said, “Who is it, please?”
    “It’s me,” replied Alice, rattling the door.
    “Just a minute, Alice. Ill see if Carolyn is at home,” She went into the living room and found her daughter looking at one of the movie magazines that Ruth had begun buying.
    “Alice is here again. Ill tell her you’re busy.”
    But at the first word Carolyn had jumped up and started for the back door.
    About ten o’clock both of them came into the kitchen for a bottle of soda pop and wanted to know what there would be for lunch.
    “Corky is having creamed tuna on toast and spinach,” said Mrs. Bridge pleasantly.
    Alice observed that she herself didn’t care for spinach because it was made of old tea bags.
    “I believe you’re supposed to have lunch with your Daddy, aren’t you?”
    Alice heard a note in her voice which Carolyn did not; she glanced up at Mrs. Bridge with another of those queer, bright looks and after a moment of thought she said, “Yes’nu”

12
Agreeable Conversation
    The Van Metres were no more Egyptian than Douglas was, but in a sense they were quite foreign to Mrs. Bridge. She thought them very odd. The Van Metres, Wilhelni and Susan, were about fifteen years older than the Bridges; they were rather pompous particularly Wilhelm and they were given to reading literary magazines no one had ever heard of and attending such things as ballet or opera whenever a company stopped in Kansas City. Mrs. Bridge could not quite re-call how she and her husband became acquainted with the Van Metres, or how they got into the habit of exchanging dinners once in a while. Nevertheless this situation had developed and Mrs. Bridge was sure it was as awkward for the Van Metres as it was for them each couple felt obligated to return the other’s hospitality.
    On those occasions when the Van Metres were hosts they drove over to the east side of the city to a country club that had gone out of fashion ten years before. Wilhelm Van Metre never drove faster than about fifteen miles an hour, and he sat erect and tense with both hands firmly on the wheel as though expecting a fearful crash at any instant. He came to a dead stop at almost every intersection, ceased talking, and examined the street in both directions. Then, unless his wife had something to say, he would proceed, the result of all this being that they seldom reached the club before nine o’clock. Once there he would drive the old automobile cautiously around the circular gravel drive and switch off the engine at the front entrance.
    “Ladies/* he would say, suggestively, in his rumbling and pontifical monotone, whereupon Mrs. Bridge and Mrs. Van Metre got out and walked up the steps to the club. He did not start the engine again until he had seen them pass safely into the clubhouse; then, driving in low gear, he went on around the gravel circle to the parking lot.
    “I see there are no other autos this evening, Walter/’ he said. “I wonder where everyone can be.”
    Mr. Bridge, already bored and thinking of an important case at the office, made no attempt to answer.
    The women were waiting for them in the deserted lobby.
    “It seems/’ Van Metre chuckled, “we have the place to ourselves this evening.”
    “I do get so sick of crowds sometimes/* Mrs. Bridge answered brightly.
    The four of them began to walk along the corridor toward the rear of the building, where the dining room was. There was a series of rugs along