From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [210]
Why, hell. She could marry him now, today, and still go on working for a year, she planned to do that anyway, what did he care? Respectability had done him a lot of goddam good in his time, hadnt it? Respectability and fifteen cents will get you a beer. Respectability and its matronly advocates who were trying to hide their own youth when they too had been alive, because being alive was always a little obscene, you always made people uncomfortable to be with you when you were alive. Well, up yours, ladies, thats all.
“Why, Prew!”
Mrs Kipfer gracefully admitted him.
“I certainly didnt expect to see you again so soon. This is a surprise.”
“Hows business?” he grinned as the thick sawdusty circus-day atmosphere broke over him in waves. Mrs Kipfer was looking slightly harassed. Not that it had wilted her corsage, just that the International Sterling lady had been candid cameraed during a receiving line, or been caught presiding over a difficult dinner for some drunken guest her husband had brought home.
“Isnt it awful though?” she said.
With both waiting rooms full, men moving laughing up and down the hall, the two jukeboxes having a perpetual battle of music, sweating girls slamming doors, spike heels jarring the floor, it looked like a defense plant assembly line in full swing. There was a strong smell of mingled perfumes in the tobacco cloud and a male voice was half drunkenly competing with the jukebox in the second waiting room and from far down the hall a harried voice yelled, “Towels!”
“One might easily,” Mrs Kipfer said wearily, “mistake us for the Republican convention in Philadelphia, mightnt they?”
“Or even the American Legion National Convention in Detroit,” Prew said.
“Oh, no, not that!”
“Towels!”
Mrs Kipfer winced. “Petunia. Josette needs towels. In number seven.”
“Hokay.” The great black roll of flowing fat moved off indifferently. Indifferent even to the wisp of cap and tiny apron she had been afflicted with.
“And see if anyone else needs any.” Mrs Kipfer brushed at her cheek distractedly. “And hurry! Petunia. Her name really is Petunia. Isnt it awful? Just like the movies. But I dont know what I’d do without her though. Minerva is such a goldbrick. She’s sick today. She’s always sick on Payday. I cant do a thing with her at all.” She sucked a breath. “That Minerva! I only have just the two, you know. The Service has at least four maids. But of course they’re the biggest place in town.”
“Wheres Lorene?” Prew said.
Mrs Kipfer put her hand lightly on his arm and beamed at him sideways knowingly. “Why, Prew! Is that why you came down specially on Payday? What did you do, did you go and borrow money? Just to come down here today and see Lorene?”
“Why would I do that?” Prew said, stiffly. He could feel both his upper lip and his neck get stiff simultaneously. “As a matter of fact,” he said stiffly, “I won a little money today and decided to come to town before I lost it back is all.”
“Well, I think thats very wise of you.” Mrs Kipfer was smiling at him sideways with her head cocked on one side. “How much did you win, dear?”
Prew felt a hollow fear cut down sharply through his irritation, splitting it into halves that fell away leaving a complete blankness in his mind, and he reached for his wallet quickly as a man will who is used to having to calculate his funds. It was still there. He breathed again.
“Oh,” he said. “About a hundred.”
“Well. Thats quite good, isnt it?”
“Only fair,” he said. He was remembering he had already spent one dollar of the twenty for two drinks to help him drop the trapdoor in his mind (there are times when it is imperative to drop the trapdoor in the mind, but the hinges have a tendency to stick so often) and that left him nineteen. Take a buck out for cab fare both ways (be could not risk hitching back, not this time) and that left eighteen. Fifteen for all night and three for a quickie now,