Blow Hot, Blow Cold

4

In spite of having gone to sleep so much later than David, Nancy awoke much earlier. She was wide awake in an instant, feeling remarkably good considering all the beer she had drunk from the keg. The room was dim, the curtains drawn. She stretched and lay for a few minutes quietly, wondering what could be done on a Sunday that would be both amusing and inexpensive; then she got up and padded over to a window and opened the curtains. The front lawn was beginning to show patches of brown here and there because of the dry spell, and in a patch of brown near the walk lay the Sunday paper, the Kansas City Star.

Slipping a robe over her shortie, Nancy went downstairs and outside and picked up the paper. Stanley had been right about the temperature; it was cooler than yesterday. Maybe with luck there would be a rain later; the grass needed a rain. It would also need cutting soon if it rained, and David would certainly grumble about that. David didn’t really mind cutting the grass; it was just that he had no confidence whatever in anything mechanical. He was convinced that all mechanical devices took on a kind of malevolent life the instant he attempted to operate them. If one of them started for him, he was amazed and incredulous; if he managed to complete a task without a breakdown, he felt that he had scored a major victory over the forces of evil.

Carrying the Star, Nancy went back inside. In the kitchen she measured water and coffee into the percolator, which she set to heating. While she waited, she sat at the kitchen table and read the paper. First, with a sense of civic and national duty, she scanned the headlines to see what was happening in town and Washington and Moscow and so on; but then she turned to the section covering amusements, shows, clubs, concerts and such, to see what was going on that she and David couldn’t afford. The coffee began to perc. Nancy poured a cup for herself and sipped it while she went on to the TV section and the book reviews — these constituting, so far as she was concerned, about all of the paper that was worth going on to, if you excepted the funnies and the weekly magazine, which sometimes she looked at and sometimes didn’t.

Half an hour passing thus, she refilled her cup, poured one for David, and went upstairs to the bedroom with a cup and saucer in each hand and the folded paper clamped under her right arm. David was awake, but groggy. He accepted his coffee with a grunt. Nancy could see that his eyes weren’t quite in focus yet, so she didn’t say anything, not even good morning, until she had opened the curtains to the encouraging light of the new day.

“Darling,” she said then, “I must say that you were quite a disappointment to me last night, especially after we got home. Since all you were capable of was sleeping and snoring, I was forced to go out and look elsewhere.”

“Good for you,” David grunted. “If there’s anything I admire in a woman, it’s initiative.” And he took a grateful slurp of coffee.

“Aren’t you even interested enough to ask if I found someone?” Nancy asked peevishly.

“All right,” said David. “Did you find someone?”

“As a matter of fact, I spent some time with Larry Connor in front of his house, then I had a tryst with Stanley Walters in the alley.”

“You’re absolutely insatiable, my love. How nice to have cooperative neighbors.”

“Cooperative! Larry and Stanley were hopelessly inadequate. Larry had just finished having a fight with Lila and was on his way to his office to spend the night. The minute I told Stanley this, later in the alley, he began to speculate about Lila and showed no interest at all in me. Darling, you can be frank. Do I need a change of deodorant?”

“The way Brigitte Bardot needs a new bra,” said David absently. “Forget it, cuddles. The boys just had an off-night. There will be plenty of others when they’ll make you feel like a woman again.”

“Do you think so? You’re so good for a girl’s ego.” Nancy said suddenly, “Tell me, darling, what do you think of Lila? I mean, really.”

David, who was propped against the headboard in possession of the book section, gave Nancy a wary look from the corner of his eye. She was seated on the edge of the bed in all innocence, but he was now sufficiently alert to recognize a loaded question. His reply called for thought. It would not do, of course, to depreciate Lila’s assets too thoroughly, for this would constitute a childish denial of the facts and would therefore be subject to suspicion. On the other hand, a factual evaluation could only lead to trouble, no matter how clinically expressed. The best resort, David decided, was to badinage.

“You asked me that last night, and I told you,” he said. “She’s beautiful and talented and sexy. I don’t blame old Stanley for speculating.”

“I don’t deny that she’s beautiful and sexy, which anyone can see. But how do you know she’s talented?”

“You mustn’t forget, dear heart, that I spent considerable time with her among the spirea bushes last night.”

“The only time I saw her in the spirea bushes, she was with Jack.”

“That was after she was with me. After all, she does have breeding. She had to be courteous to her host.”

“Please be serious, David. Just for a moment? Do you think there’s anything seriously wrong with Lila?”

Oh, no, thought David. You don’t trick me with that ploy. He said, “I can’t think of a thing, and I made a careful investigation.”

“I mean psychologically, or something.”

“How should I know? My investigation was physiological.”

Nancy regarded her husband for some time. Then she said, pleased, “Oh, well, I can see you’re determined not to be serious. Perhaps it’s just as well. Are you interested in breakfast?”

“I’m interested in the paper. I suggest we have a big breakfast later. Then we won’t have to bother about lunch.”

Big breakfast later. This meant scrambled eggs and bacon and hashed brown and toast and jelly and coffee. It also meant that David was not going to be home at lunch time and was too chicken to tell her so straight out.

“What do you have in mind to do today?” Nancy asked casually.

“Do? I have in mind to read this newspaper, if you’ll only let me.”

“I don’t mean now. I mean later.”

“Later? Oh! Well, Jack Richmond did ask me to play golf with him today. Of course, I didn’t give him a definite yes. Would you mind, baby?”

“Not at all,” said Nancy coolly. “There is nothing a wife likes better than being deserted by her husband on Sunday, especially after he’s hardly been home all week.”

David slammed down his paper, glaring. “Well, damn it, you’re hardly being deserted if I take a couple of hours to play a few holes of golf!”

“I know what, dear. Why don’t Vera and I go along with you and Jack and swim in the pool?”

“Because Vera doesn’t want to go, that’s why! And if you’re going to make a federal case of it, I don’t, either!”

“Oh, no, darling. I wouldn’t hear of your staying home. I wouldn’t dream of standing between you and your golf. I’ll just take a nap or a nice walk or something else exciting.”

David said a four-letter word.

She began her walk by going into the bathroom. She came out, bathed and dressed, about ten minutes later and made a point of ignoring David, who had his still quivering nose deep in the book section and made a point of ignoring being ignored. He was already acquiring his martyred look, and Nancy knew that he would soon come looking for her and say that he had decided he didn’t want to play golf after all, whereupon she would be sweet and say that of course he must play, he had so few exclusively male pleasures. They would argue lovingly about this for a while, and eventually he would depart for the golf course happily, full of a big breakfast, and she wouldn’t really mind, although of course women had to make an issue of this sort of thing as a matter of principle. The truth was, she was feeling mildly guilty. David didn’t really get to play golf very often, not being able to afford the country club, which Jack Richmond could, and so when Jack invited David to play...

It was getting hot again, although not so hot as yesterday. Nancy went into the backyard and strolled about looking at this and that; then she went back inside and had another cup of coffee. Whereupon David came downstairs and kissed her and said he’d decided not to play golf after all, Nancy not failing to notice that he had dressed in clothes appropriate to golf just in case matters turned out as they were both quite sure matters would. And as, in fact, they did. She fixed the big breakfast, David eating heartily; and then off he went across the Connors’ backyard with his silly toys, leaving her to clean up the kitchen and consider what to do with her afternoon.

It kept getting hotter, a perfectly still heat, with not a breath of breeze. Seated in her kitchen under the window fan, Nancy began to feel sorry for herself all over again, especially when she thought of David after his golf having several cold beers in the country club bar. Nancy hoped she was a reasonable wife, but there was absolutely no reason why she should have to suffer from the heat. David couldn’t afford central air-conditioning, true; but surely he could manage another window unit or two, so that the downstairs could be cooled, at least part of it? She had even spoken to him about this. But David had said he didn’t see any sense in investing in more window units when maybe they could have it done right later, through the furnace ducts. This was sensible, she supposed — particularly if you could go off to play golf and drink cold beer in a cool bar.

Looking out toward the little terrace behind the Connors house, she began to think about Lila again, and suddenly it struck her that she had not seen a sign of Lila all morning. Even if Lila had slept late in her nice cool house, surely she was awake by now. It was after one o’clock. Probably, also, Lila needed cheering up, what with Larry having slept at the office and all, and would welcome someone congenial and female to talk with. In spite of what Larry said, Lila was good company at the times when she wasn’t giving people that sort of uneasy feeling, and anyway the chances were that Larry had exaggerated their fight last night, made far more of it than it really warranted. All in all, Nancy couldn’t see why it wouldn’t be all right to go over and visit, especially if she took something along. A pitcher of gin-and-tonic would be pleasant to share on an afternoon like this, and it would effectively mask Nancy’s ulterior motive, which was simply to spend the rest of the steaming afternoon in Lila’s lusciously air-conditioned house.

Carrying the pitcher, Nancy crossed her yard and stepped over the low hedge into the Connor yard.

She rang. She rang again. Again. No one answered.

Exercising the prerogative of a neighbor with a pitcher of gin-and-tonic to share, Nancy opened the front door and stepped inside.

“Lila?”

There was no reply.

Suddenly Nancy was aware of the oddest sort of feeling. Something was wrong. But what?

Of course! The house was hot — the air-conditioning was off. Lila must have gone out somewhere, and Larry hadn’t come home.

Still with the odd feeling, Nancy stepped outside, shut the door and went home again with her pitcher. Back in her kitchen, under the hot breath of the fan, she poured herself a glass of gin-and-tonic and began to drink it. Where in the world could Lila have gone? She hadn’t merely stepped out for a few minutes, or she wouldn’t have turned off the air-conditioning. Besides, the house was so hot that the air-conditioning must have been off for several hours, at least. Could it be that Lila had left for good? Last night, after Larry left the house? Or early this morning? But in that case, wouldn’t she have locked the door? Although it was true that if Lila were angry or very upset she might simply have walked out without thinking or caring about locking up.

Nancy suddenly recalled how Stanley Walters, last night in the alley, had stood looking up at Lila’s lighted window. Could Stanley have seen something that might explain Lila’s absence? It wasn’t likely; but if he had, he would unquestionably have told Mae, and Mae, of course, would be only too glad to repeat it on a worldwide broadcast — especially if it was about Lila, and most especially if it was something juicy. Nancy considered running across the alley to find out if Mae Walters knew anything, but not very seriously. It was too hot and too much trouble, Mae having nothing to offer in the way of central air-conditioning. It would be easier to telephone, Nancy decided. So she refilled her glass and carried it into the little front hall to the telephone. There was a small floor fan in the hall, and as she dialed, Nancy let the air blow on her bare legs and sort of skitter up onto her neck and face.

Across the alley, the Walterses’ phone rang once. It was promptly answered.

“Hello?” Mae said.

“Mae,” Nancy said. “Are you keeping cool?”

“Who is it?”

“Nancy.”

“I thought I recognized your voice. I’m hotter than hell, if you want the truth.”

“So am I. Maybe it’ll rain and cool off.”

“Well, there are some clouds over in the west.”

“There are? I hadn’t noticed.”

“I certainly hope it rains and cools off.”

“So do I. Oh, what I really called about, Mae, was to ask if you know where Lila is.”

“Lila? No, I don’t know, Nancy, and what’s more, I couldn’t care less. Isn’t she home?”

“No. I was just over there.”

“Well, I haven’t seen her since last night.”

“Mae, their air-conditioner is off. The house is so hot it must have been off a long time.”

“So what? Look, Nancy, I don’t know anything about Lila Connor, and I have no desire to know. Is Larry gone, too?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t blame him if he’s walked out on her. Not that he would. He’ll prob’ly come crawling back to her on his stomach. Why don’t you ask him when he gets home?”

“Maybe I will. Well, I’ve got to hang up, Mae.”

“Goodbye, dear. Don’t worry about the likes of Lila Connor. That kind always know how to take very good care of themselves.”

Cradling the telephone, Nancy raised her glass. It was now almost empty, for she had been taking generous swallows during the conversation. She wandered back to the kitchen and sat down at the table again under the hot breath of the window fan.

Now what? Damn it all, it was only two o’clock.

Having noticed the time on her oven clock, Nancy was reminded that she had better put the roast in for dinner. David would probably get home between four and five, howling for his food after all that exercise and cold beer. Well, why not? thought Nancy. An early dinner would leave the evening free... just in case something interesting turned up. Meanwhile, here was the pitcher of gin-and-tonic, and no one to drink it with. David didn’t approve of her drinking alone; he said it was a bad habit that could easily lead to alcoholism. But would it hurt if she had, well, just one more before putting the pitcher into the fridge?

Nancy poured it and drank while preparing the roast for the oven. After she got the roast in the oven she poured herself just one little drinkie more.

But it was damn funny about Lila, she thought.

Where could Lila be?