Wives and Lovers Read Free Page A

printed silk dress that blew around her like a tent. She peered down at the car with the look of chronic suspicion that landladies acquire after years of people. Then, very abruptly, she turned and went back into the house as if she had lost all interest in the car because she’d been ex­pecting someone else.
    Inside the house again, Mrs. Freeman leaned against the banister and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. I thought it was him, I thought for sure. He said, any day now, any day. One of these days . . .
    Ruby picked up her suitcase. “I’m kind of scared. Would you come in with me?”
    â€œI don’t know her. She’s a friend of my cousin’s, not mine. Besides, you’re lucky now, remember?”
    â€œYes, I’m lucky. This is my lucky day. People will like me and I will like them.”
    So that’s her idea of luck, Hazel thought. It had nothing to do with money or jobs. Luck was being liked and lik­ing; and the day which for Ruby had started out very bad, worse than she would ever tell anyone, must have started with hate. Someone had hated Ruby and she had hated in return, and Hazel had changed the day by being kind to her. Hazel wondered who would go to the trouble of hating a girl like Ruby.
    Ruby went into the house, and the door closed on her like the page of a book.
    Hazel lit a cigarette but the smoke was so hot and acrid that it parched her mouth and stung her eyes. She threw the cigarette out of the window, thinking of George, because it was one of the things she did which annoyed him, throwing lighted cigarettes out of the car. Whenever he read in the newspaper about a forest fire, he practically accused Hazel of being responsible for it even though she’d been several hundred miles away at the time it started and hadn’t been smoking anyway. Many of the things for which George held Hazel responsible were justified, but starting forest fires was not one of them.
    George was a most unreasonable man. Still, Hazel got out of the car and crushed out the cigarette under the rub­ber heel of her white nurse’s oxfords, wishing that George would pass right that moment and see her. She frequently got a certain sly satisfaction out of correcting the minor faults he’d found in her. The major ones she retained; they were as much a part of her as her skin, but, like her skin, they had sagged a little with the years and no longer fitted so tight.
    In five minutes Ruby came out again, without the suit­case and the fox fur. She was smiling and the smile sof­tened the angularity of her jaw and made her look quite pretty.
    She got into the car, almost out of breath, as if she’d been running. “She is nice, really nice, I mean.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œShe liked me right away, too. I told you I felt lucky, didn’t I?” She began to hum softly to herself, “I’m Look­ing Over a Four Leaf Clover.”
    Hazel made a quick, illegal U-turn and headed south toward the harbor. Heat rose from the highway in waves, so that the white road markers looked uneven and the outlines of the passing cars were blurred. In the distance a strip of sea was visible, an ice-blue promise of relief from the heat.
    â€œIf I brought you luck,” Hazel said, “maybe you’ll take my advice.”
    â€œWhat advice?”
    â€œDon’t stick around this town.”
    â€œI have to.”
    â€œIt’s no place for a kid like you with no occupational training. It’d be different if you were going maybe to nurse’s school or beauty college, something like that.”
    â€œI hate sickness and I hate other people’s dirty hair.” The girl paused. “Why are you so anxious for me to leave town?”
    â€œI’m not anxious. There’s nothing personal in it. I just think it’d be a good idea.”
    â€œWell, it isn’t.” Ruby turned and looked stubbornly out of the window.