Wives and Lovers

4

From a distance Hazel’s house looked like a small white box set right against the foot of the mountains in a grove of live-oak trees. But as Hazel drove up Castillo Street the box enlarged into a house, the live-oak trees stepped back a hundred yards into their proper place, and the mountains were six or seven miles away, the color of violets seen through frosted glass.

Hazel had lived in the town all her life. When she was a child she liked to believe that these mountains were the highest in the world, roadless, inaccessible, to be climbed only by daring men with ropes and pickaxes and spiked boots. It was quite a disappointment to her when her brother Harold, at the age of ten, accompanied his Boy Scout troop on a weekend trip to the Lookout Tower and returned unharmed. Harold reported great dangers, some real, like poison oak and rattlesnakes, some imagined, like tigers and man-eating plants; but he had worn ordinary gym shoes and no one in the party had carried a pickaxe.

Hazel stepped out of the car and the roadless, inaccessible mountains were blue dwarfs of hills. She opened the gate of the picket fence and crossed the back yard, stepping carefully around the gopher holes and the clusters of nettles that stung like wasps, ducking to avoid the spider webs spun from the tangle of geraniums to the clothesline, and waiting while a lizard shimmied across her path into the safety of the anise weeds which had grown large as shrubs beside the wall of the garage. Crossing the back yard was as hazardous as Harold’s trip up the mountain. When Hazel was feeling a little depressed, and consequently vulnerable to superstition and guilt, she believed that her back yard, with all its sprawling reproduction and confusion of nature, was getting back at her for certain lapses in her own life.

She had tried once to explain it to George: “It’s like the minute my back is turned, things happen — you know? — they all get together and whoop it up.”

Hazel never caught them whooping it up, but the evidence was there: an extra million ants hustling up and down the orange tree, more nests of snails at the roots of the geraniums, new little mounds of earth made by new little gophers, and fresh spider webs strung across the windows and under the eaves. She hosed the ants off the orange tree, she swept away the spider webs and crushed the snails with a spade. She put poisoned grain into the gopher holes. The gophers smelled her scent and avoided the grain, and eventually it sprouted up all over the yard into bright green tufts of wild rice. She set metal traps baited with raw apple and raisins. In order to evade the traps, the gophers dug more and deeper tunnels.

After that she tried an entirely new system, suggested by Josephine’s cousin who owned a ranch and presumably knew gophers like the back of his hand. In every open hole, Hazel stuck the top half of a broken beer bottle. Josephine’s ranching cousin claimed that gophers were unable to turn around in their holes and that they would commit involuntary suicide on the jagged ends of glass. The beer bottles sticking out all over the yard puzzled everyone, including the gophers. They nibbled a little of the glass, found it too hard to chew, and returned to their normal diet. One of the gophers died of old age and overeating.

Just as the weeds and animals had got out of control in Hazel’s back yard, so had the people in her life, her cousin, Ruth, her younger brother, Harold, who drove a truck for a furniture store, Harold’s wife, Josephine, and, in a few more months, Josephine’s child. There was no longer any minute of the day or any square foot of the house that Hazel could call her own.

Even before she opened the kitchen door, she could hear them talking, Ruth’s high, taut, suffering voice, and Harold’s quiet worried one.

“—but strawberries and artichokes, that’s going too far, Harold.”

“The doctor said—”

“The strawberry season is over. You don’t seem to realize how much food costs these days.”

“Hazel said I was to satisfy Josephine’s cravings.”

“We all go through life with unsatisfied cravings, Harold. And not just for artichokes and strawberries, either.”

“Even so.”

“Cabbage is excellent nutrition for expectant mothers. It contains calcium.”

“Josephine hates the smell.”

“We could use a little Air-Wick.”

Hazel came into the kitchen but they didn’t interrupt their conversation; it was the kind of household where no fuss was made over arrivals and departures, since there were so many of them. Only the little mongrel, Wendy, paid much attention to these matters. She sprang from her place at Ruth’s feet and made a great fuss over Hazel. From somewhere in her obscure ancestry, Wendy had acquired a fine sense of self-preservation, and she seemed to know that Hazel was the head of the house and must be given special notice.

They were seated across from each other at the round, oilcloth-covered table, Harold drinking a cup of coffee, Ruth cutting up a large head of cabbage into a wooden bowl.

Hazel leaned down to pat the dog’s firm little rump. “Any more coffee?”

“On the stove,” Ruth said. “I was just telling Harold—”

“I heard you from outside.”

“Well, don’t you agree?”

“If she wants artichokes, let her have artichokes.”

“Very well,” Ruth said stiffly. “Very well. I shall eat the cabbage myself.”

“The calcium will do you good.”

“There is no growing child inside of me whose little bones need strengthening.”

“Inside of me either, but I’ll help you eat the cabbage.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table beside Harold. They smiled at each other, very faintly, so that Ruth wouldn’t notice.

She noticed anyway. “I don’t see what’s so humorous about the high cost of food. I realize that I don’t contribute any actual money to the household, but it’s my job to keep expenses as low as possible, even at the risk of incurring unpopularity.”

“You’re not unpopular,” Hazel said. “Now forget it.”

Ever since Ruth began having trouble with her nerves, she had to be treated, on occasion, like a child, to be given firm yes and no answers, and sometimes strict orders or very abrupt changes of subject.

It was Hazel who usually provided the change of subject.

“I thought you were going to babysit for the Fosters this afternoon.”

“I was, yes.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Foster came home unexpectedly and paid me for a full hour, seventy-five cents, though I was only there half that time. I’ve saved fourteen dollars now... Do you think that’s enough?”

“Enough for what?”

“The suit,” Harold said and kicked Hazel under the table as a reminder. “The suit she’s going to buy to wear in front of the School Board. Herringbone tweed.”

“No, not tweed.” Ruth paused, looking reflectively up at the plaster ceiling. “I’ve changed my mind about the tweed. Silk shantung, I think, very simply cut. Don’t you think silk shantung would be better, Hazel? It will still be very warm in September... And perhaps if I’m lucky enough to get a real bargain on the suit, I’ll be able to afford a hat as well. I’d like to cover up my hair.”

“There’s nothing the matter with your hair.”

“I don’t want them to see what a change there has been in it. They might think something drastic has happened to me the past year, the way I’ve suddenly become gray like this... A turban would cover it up nicely. Are they wearing turbans any more, Hazel?”

“Some people are.”

“Then I shall aim for a turban.”

“Ruth—”

“Then, when I have my outfit all ready, I’ll phone the superintendent and ask for an interview. They say the teacher shortage in town is very acute. Of course they say that every year. I mustn’t build my hopes too high.”

“No, you mustn’t.”

“By September, I should have at least twenty dollars.”

She picked up the wooden bowl of cabbage and carried it over to the sink.

Hazel looked at her brother. “Where’s Josephine?”

“Sleeping. I told her to lie down, she looked bad.”

“You didn’t tell her she looked bad?”

“No.”

“I hope to God not.”

Harold’s responsibilities as a future father weighed heavily on him. He had always been a sweet-natured, dreamy man who could spot a silver lining a mile away, but as soon as Josephine missed her first period, Harold became a worrier. He worried nearly all the time because Josephine looked very frail and had a chronically delicate constitution. Harold had never been ill a day in his life and delicate constitutions fascinated and alarmed him.

“She’s so little, Hazel.”

“You talk like she was a midget or something.”

“It’s not only her size. It’s — well, she’s no spring chicken.”

“For God’s sake, don’t tell her that. I got enough trouble on my hands.”

“Sure, I know that, Haze.”

“For instance, that yard. You’d think a bunch of foreigners lived here the way that yard looks. We might as well go live in a jungle.”

Ruth turned sharply. “Are you implying, Hazel, that I should attend to the outside of the house as well as the inside?”

“Speaking of the jungle,” Harold said. “You know what a guy down at the plant told me the other day? He said, in the jungle the natives — well, say for instance the natives are going from one village to another, walking, and the native women are pregnant. They just stop walking, have their babies, and catch up with the rest of the tribe again. Can you beat that?”

“I keep this house clean,” Ruth said. “There isn’t a cleaner house in town. I can’t be expected to get out and dig in the yard.”

“We ought to plant something,” Hazel said. “We ought to have a few flowers around the place, like next door.”

“The people next door have a gardener once a week. It’s easy enough to have flowers if you can afford somebody to look after them. It’s a question of money, the same as practically everything else in this world.”

Frowning, Hazel picked up her empty cup and began rinsing it under the tap. “I wish I’d meet a millionaire.”

Hazel often thought quite seriously about her millionaire. His face and age varied in her mind but always he had in his background a frigid wife. Hazel saw herself opening up vistas for this man and having a few vistas opened up in return.

In a town that was reputedly teeming with millionaires, Hazel had never met one. The closest approximation was her former employer, Arthur W. Cooke, who had a real estate business, a wife, and a black Cadillac big as a hearse. Now and then Mr. Cooke would drop in to inquire after Hazel’s health. He never stayed more than half an hour and he never indicated any interest in Hazel other than the state of her health. Though Hazel called these occasions “dates,” they were more like visits from the family physician.

“Suppose I did meet a wealthy man,” Hazel said, “someone with class like Mr. Cooke, for instance, I’d be ashamed to bring him here with all those weeds around the place and the gopher holes... It’s a funny thing to me that with all those nice flowers and plants next door that the gophers don’t move over there.”

“Maybe they don’t appreciate nature.” Harold laughed, but no one laughed with him, so he added apologetically, “Listen, Haze, I get Saturday afternoon and Sunday off, and honest to God, I’ll get out there and dig those weeds and drown the gophers with a hose.”

“You can’t drown gophers.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve tried.”

“They can’t swim, can they? If they can’t swim, they got to drown, don’t they?”

“All right, Harold, you win. Next Sunday you go out and catch all the gophers and we’ll take them down to the ocean and throw them in.”

“Harold isn’t concerned with a minor trifle like the water bill,” Ruth said contemptuously. “Water costs money. This is desert country, and don’t you forget it. Everybody forgets that this is desert country because water has been brought in to irrigate it. But it’s still desert country.”

“So what,” Harold muttered, very softly. He was afraid of Ruth because she sometimes said very intelligent and forceful things. Like that about desert country. Harold admired that. He saw himself down at the plant addressing the manager, or even the president. Gentlemen, said Harold, don’t you forget that this is desert country.

Ruth took a sack of potatoes from the vegetable bin and began to peel them very quickly as if supper had to be prepared immediately. The kitchen clock on the wall said ten minutes after three, and supper was at least two hours away. But Ruth had a clock inside herself which never corresponded to the others in the house. Ruth’s clock ran fast and Ruth had to run fast to keep up with it. All day she ran, and part of the night; in her sleep her legs and arms twitched and she breathed so hard she woke herself up. There seemed to be no resting place for her, no safety zone where she could pause from the pursuit and catch her breath, no moments of peace except the rare ones when she was alone with the two things she loved best, the Fosters’ baby boy and the little mongrel she’d bought at the city pound for two dollars.

The dog lolled against her legs as she stood peeling the potatoes, and the warmth of its body touched cold, loveless places and slowed the clock a little.

Harold said, “I just remembered, a fellow down at the plant told me about some stuff the other day. You spray this junk on, see, and what happens is, it kills all the weeds but not the flowers.”

“I don’t believe it,” Ruth said. “I don’t believe that about the jungle and the native women, either.”

Harold looked injured. “Well, for crying out loud, I’m not making it up.”

“You’re gullible, Harold. You’ve always been gullible.”

Harold didn’t know what gullible meant, and Ruth knew he didn’t know. She stared at him in triumph until Harold dropped his eyes.

“I wonder how much he charges,” Hazel said.

Ruth put down the paring knife. “Who?”

“The Mexican gardener that works next door.”

“Have you gone out of your mind? Hiring somebody to do a little job like digging?... You must be crazy, Hazel. Why, Harold’s going to do it. He promised, next Sunday. Aren’t you, Harold?”

“Sure, I am. Sure.”

“There,” Ruth said. “He’s promised on his word of honor he’ll do it on Sunday. Won’t you, Harold?”

“Absolutely.”

Hazel walked back to the table and sat down with great deliberation.

“Listen, you two. Who’s running this joint? Who pays most of the bills? Who owns the house?”

“Well, I didn’t say anything, Haze,” Harold said anxiously. “I hardly opened my mouth.”

“You better not. It’s my house, and if I want it to look respectable, by Jesus it’s going to look respectable!”

“Sure, sure it is.”

“And if I want flowers around it, by Jesus I’m going to have flowers around it, see?”

“You bet you are, Haze.”

“Distinction, that’s what I want, a distinguished-looking house with some class to it.”

“People in our circumstances hiring a gardener,” Ruth said bitterly.

“I didn’t say for sure I was going to. I said I wonder how much he charges.”

“A dollar an hour, at least a dollar an hour. And a Mexican, at that. Why, I–I just wouldn’t feel safe in the house if he was out there.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t trust them, any of them... Of course I realize I have no voice in the matter. I’m living on your charity for the present.”

“Baloney,” Hazel said kindly. Her irritation had passed. She was always happiest when she was following her impulses and her current impulse was to hire the Mexican gardener and live in a distinguished-looking house waiting for a distinguished-looking millionaire.

Hazel rarely suffered from second thoughts. Once a decision was made, it seemed good, and Hazel stuck by it the way she stuck by her friends.

A nice yard would (a) increase the value of the house, (b) look pretty, (c) show up the neighbors, and (d) provide a suitable background for gentlemen friends.

Humming to herself Hazel went out into the back yard, gathered up all the broken halves of beer bottles sticking out of the gopher holes, and threw them in the trash can. Then she went over to the house next door and rang the front doorbell.

Half an hour later she returned with a pleasant glow induced by two glasses of cooking sherry, and a piece of paper bearing the address and phone number of Santana Escobar. She stood looking out of the kitchen window at the back yard. Tomorrow, Hazel thought, everything would be different; the muss and clutter would be gone, and the whole place would be blooming with gardenias and camellias, no more of those lousy geraniums.

Santana. The very name sounded prophetic, a symbol of a brand-new life. She had no clear plans for this new life beyond the fact that it would be different from the old one, and that at some point in it her millionaire would turn up, or at least someone with a little money like Mr. Cooke.

It’s the beginning, Hazel thought solemnly. It’s the beginning of a new life.

She wanted to communicate this thought to someone, not to Ruth who would blame it on the sherry, or to Harold and Josephine who had their own new life cut out for them, but to someone like George. George was very keen on new beginnings. He would understand perfectly.

She phoned the Beachcomber.

“George?”

“George isn’t here. Who’s that?”

“It’s me, Willie. Hazel.”

“Oh, hello, Hazel. This business about George, well, he left about an hour ago. Didn’t say where he was going, just walked off. There was some rumpus in the kitchen. He fired one of the girls. He lost his temper. You know George, he gets fussed up. Then, wham.”

“You said it, wham. Which girl did he fire, Willie?”

“One of the new ones. I forget her name.”

“Ruby?”

“Could well have been Ruby. Anyway, we’re short one girl and we’re short George. If you run into him anywhere, tell him we’ve got a crowd here, will you?”

“I’ll do that, Willie. So long.”

Hazel put down the phone.

In spite of George’s defection, it was still the beginning of a new life, and since Harold had gone back to work and Josephine was still asleep there was no one to tell but Ruth. She told Ruth.

“You shouldn’t drink in the afternoon,” Ruth said.