Sheba, page 16
She got fifteen dollars a night at the café but some of this went for gowns. She was lucky if she could put ten or twelve dollars into her savings account every Monday.
“You should have asked Tom for a raise,” Oscar said. “It isn’t nice to quit a job.”
“He wouldn’t be able to pay more. He has that big house on Bowling Drive, an expensive wife and a new Caddy.”
“When his father died five years ago he didn’t have a dime,” Oscar said. “I don’t know how Tom did it.”
“Nor does anybody else.”
Part of her duties at the studio had been keeping the books and she knew that Tom’s income didn’t match his expenditures. He had married some girl from the city who was always buying new clothes and Tom himself must have owned a dozen different suits. And now there was that new Caddy. Of course, he worked many nights and some of his payments might have been in cash, but Cherry still couldn’t figure it out.
“Joe mowed the lawn,” Rita said.
Joe had a power mower and he mowed the lawn every week. Oscar said his back hurt him so much that he couldn’t do it himself.
“He would make a good husband,” Oscar said. “He’s a fine boy.”
There it was again. They were always trying to push her into marriage to Joe. Hardly a night went by that one of them didn’t mention the subject.
“You have to love a man before you marry him,” Cherry pointed out.
“You’ve gone out with him often enough,’” Rita observed.
“Maybe I have but you don’t have to be in love with a boy to go out with him. I’ve gone out with lots of fellows.”
“And some I didn’t approve of,” Oscar commented.
It took all of Cherry’s will power to keep from laughing. What would they say if they knew that almost every night she went out with Joe she let him make love to her? She guessed they wouldn’t think he was such a fine fellow.
“I’ve got to get dressed,” she said, rising to her feet.
“That café again?” Rita wanted to know.
“Well, it’s Friday night.”
“I wish you would give that up. There might have been a reason before, but now that you’ve got a better job there isn’t any reason.”
“The more I make the more I can save.”
Oscar shifted the pipe from one side of his mouth to the other.
“You can’t wait until you can leave Northtown, can you?” he asked.
“There isn’t any opportunity here.”
“And there won’t be anywhere else. You’ll find that out. How many thousands of girls want to be actresses and how many of them fail?”
“The least I can do is try.”
“You’d be better off getting married and raising a family.”
“That can come afterward.”
“Can it? You don’t know whether it can or not. Joe is patient but he won’t wait forever. You can’t blame him for that. If you go away he’ll find another girl.”
“Then what we have isn’t love.”
“Love is a delicate thing,” Rita said. She looked fondly at her husband. “Oscar and I found it and we have shared it with you. Now we’re both getting older and we want to keep you near. I would worry myself sick if you were miles and miles away.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“At your age?”
“I’m twenty.”
“Twenty is so young,” Rita said. “It’s the age when you can be young and foolish.”
“Especially foolish,” Oscar agreed.
Cherry entered the house. She didn’t want to continue the discussion. The subject was one that came up time and time again. She couldn’t blame them. They had done a lot for her and they were only saying what was in their hearts. They were good people but she simply couldn’t see things their way. Perhaps someday she would but until then she had to live her life as she thought best.
Her room was on the second floor, directly over the front porch, and it was nicely furnished. In fact, the whole house was nicely furnished. Oscar had had a good job on the railroad before his retirement and Rita had spent the money wisely. They had also saved a few thousand dollars, money which they now drew as they needed it. Often Cherry had wished that some of this money was hers and once she had asked for a loan. They had refused her, saying that she was chasing a dream that would never come true.
She undressed and, as she crossed the room, noticed her reflection in the mirror. She stood still for a moment, looking at herself.
She was five inches over five feet, thirty-eight at the bust, twenty-one at the waist and thirty-six around the hips. Looking at her well-packed hundred and fifteen pounds, Cherry knew she had nothing to be ashamed of.
She tossed her head and studied her face in the mirror. There was a slight pout to her red lips — she never had to use lipstick — and her eyes were as blue as a summer sky. Joe said that her eyes changed, expressing her inner feelings.
“They tell me when you want me, Cherry.”
She walked to the bed and sat down. She felt that she was wrong in her association with Joe but she couldn’t help herself. If he had been some other man, the relation probably would have been the same. There were times when she felt an irresistible urge to love and be loved.
She lay down on the bed, thinking of Joe, and of some of the others who had known her. There had been that man, married, who had brought her home from the café one night. Joe usually brought her home but that night he hadn’t been able to wait for her. The man had seemed nice — she had had a couple of drinks with him at the bar — and he had said he just wanted to talk. On the way home she had found out that he wanted to do more than that. He had tried to get her to go to a hotel with him and she had said no. Then he had offered her money and she had refused that.
“Don’t tell me you’re not available,” he had said.
“I’m not.”
“The hell you aren’t. Every girl is.”
He had parked on a lonely side street and tried to paw her. She had finally fled from the car and caught a cab on the corner. After that she hadn’t accepted rides from strange men. A girl could get herself in trouble that way, real trouble.
But there had been others who had been successful, mostly boys she had known in school. She made an attempt to remember their names and she couldn’t. Harry? Yes, one had been Harry somebody-or-other. He had picked her up at the bus stop during a heavy rain and had driven to the park. She had been soaked, her dress sticking to her and revealing every contour of her body.
“You’re stuff,” he had said.
She had had a fight with Joe the night before, a silly fight over nothing, and she had felt lonely, desperately lonely. Before she had realized what was happening Harry had been kissing her and the kisses had led to something else. Now as she lay on the bed she remembered the pain that had filled her, the hot breath from his mouth.
She rolled over on the bed and closed her eyes. These things were in the past and there was no point to worrying about them. She wasn’t the first girl to have made a mistake and she wouldn’t be the last. Girls did it every day, every night. Most of the girls she had known in high school had lost their virtue before graduation. It didn’t have to mean anything. You were just more careful, maybe more particular, the next time.
She was still thinking about Joe and what he would want from her that night when she drifted off to sleep.
Read more of Sin Doll
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Orrie Hitt, Sheba
