What's for Dinner? by James Schuyler (diy ebook reader txt) 📗

heard much from you, Mrs Judson,” Dr Kearney said.

“I never did talk much,” Mrs Judson said.

“That’s true,” Sam Judson said. “Ethel was never much of a talker. She shows her feelings in other ways.”

“In other ways?” Norris said. “I’d be interested to hear an example.”

“In lots—in all kinds of little ways. Like making something special for dinner I like we haven’t had lately. Or baking a cake for a neighbor. Ethel’s a great baker. And she never raised her voice to the children, but they never sassed her or took advantage.”

“You have children?” Lottie said.

“Three,” Sam said. “Grown up, married and moved away.”

“They keep in touch,” Mrs Judson said. “Very thoughtful, all of them. My living room is a bower on Mother’s Day. Easter, too.”

“Your life seems empty to you,” Lottie said, “without them. It’s a shame none of them live in the town. Norris and I wanted to have children, very much at one time, but it didn’t happen. I’ve thought that if I had had children, then my days wouldn’t have been so empty—just me and the house and Norris away at the office. I started nipping at the bottle, to perk myself up in the afternoon. Business men have martinis at lunch, I used to tell myself, where’s the harm? But now I see if we had children, they’d be grown up now and gone and I’d be the same old person I am, Mary Charlotte Taylor, lady drunk.”

“You sure feel sorry for yourself,” Bertha said. “All you have to do is kick the habit and you’ve got it made.”

“Yes,” Lottie said in what was for her a chastened voice, “that is all I have to do. Somehow it isn’t easy, though I have a happy, fortunate life.”

“You’ll be making a new life,” Mrs Brice said. “You’ll see. You’re a warm person, you’ll find interests.”

“I’m tempted to say,” Lottie said, “like what?”

“Perhaps some kind of social work,” Mrs Brice said.

“I don’t think I’d care for going around poking my nose in other people’s business. I’m not the type.”

“Things will fall into place,” Mrs Brice said, “when you’re back at your own home with your own things.”

“My things, good grief. There are enough of them. The truth is all I think about is how much I want a drink.”

“That’s part of this phase,” Norris said. “It will pass.”

“I wonder,” Lottie said.

“That,” Dr Kearney said, “largely depends on you, doesn’t it? You know as a rule we don’t treat alcoholic patients here—you’re by way of an experiment.”

“Don’t count on me not to let down the team,” Lottie said. “Right now I’m not making any promises. Mr Mulwin, all evening you’ve been sitting there glowering and sneering at me. Why you do it doesn’t interest me, but I would like to say that, in my opinion, you are an almost perfect bastard.”

“Why Lottie,” Norris said.

“Please don’t provoke my husband,” Mrs Mulwin said. “His problems are every bit as real as yours.”

“Realer,” Mr Mulwin said. “But that’s my business.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs Judson said. “You see, Sam? I told you what it’s like. Even the nice ones come out with these awful things.”

“I don’t call a little snappy exchange,” Sam Judson said, “anything so awful. You ought to hear me and Walt—my head salesman—when we get p.o.’d with each other. The fur may not fly but the language gets pretty hot.”

“You never talk—you know—dirty around me, Sam,” his wife said.

“Certainly not. Business is one thing and home is another. Business is a man’s world.”

“Male chauvinist pig—typical,” Bertha remarked casually.

“My business is a man’s world,” Sam said. “At least I’ve never met or even heard of a lady car dealer.”

“We could be just as good at it as any man,” Bertha said. “Probably better. Women are very good salesmen—that’s because they’re always on the make. If women can sell pantyhose, why not cars?”

“That’s what I might do,” Lottie said, “when I’m all cured and free—open a used car lot. But I suppose you’re expected to stand the customers a drink, so that let’s that out. Maybe I’ll open a jellies and garden produce stand in front of the lot by the hedge—that would wake the neighborhood up.”

“I hate to dash cold water on your scheme,” Norris said, “but you’ll find we’re zoned against commercial enterprises.”

“So much for that. I’ll have to look further afield. I could become a picket and carry a placard.”

“Do you really think,” Dr Kearney said, “that flippancy is going to help you get well? It seems to me you’re wasting our time as well as your own.”

“I get the message,” Lottie said. “First you tell Bertha to shut up, now you tell me. All right, see what you can get out of the Mulwin or Mrs Judson.”

“Why Mrs Taylor,” Mrs Judson said, “how unkind.”

“That wasn’t like you,” Mrs Brice said.

“I’ve had my say for the evening,” Lottie said. “I’ll apologize some other time, should I get to feeling like it. No, I do feel like it. I’m sorry if I sounded rude, Mrs Judson. It’s my nerves.”

“What about me?” Mr Mulwin said.

“My lips are sealed,” Lottie said.

“That’s a welcome change,” Mr Mulwin said. “I for one am heartily sick of your yak-yakety-yak. At least you’ve climbed down from your lady bountiful pedestal, the one whose helpfulness is going to cure everybody with a nice game of bridge.”

“Do you play bridge?” Norris said.

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”

“He prefers pinochle,” Mrs Mulwin said.

“At last we know something about the redoubtable Mr Mulwin,” Norris said.

“Sam and I and a few friends enjoy a nice game of pinochle now and then,” Mrs Judson said. “It makes an evening pass pleasantly.”

“That was one of the things Ethel kind of lost interest in before she came here,” Sam said. “All her little interests didn’t interest her anymore. When we’d get an invitation she’d excuse herself. It got so she didn’t do anything else but brood.”

“Withdrawn,” Bertha said. “I was never that. Natively, I’m an outgoing person. So is Mr Mulwin, if he’d let