Kept Woman/Chapter 11

Theresa's apartment, unlike its owner, was bright and cheerful. Even in rooms where the sunshine never penetrated she had managed to create the effect of brilliant light. Cheap but carefully chosen cretonnes, a mute though gay-colored bird and a rug of dull blue made her living-room almost beautiful in its simple way.

Theresa was frankly ashamed of her home-making proclivities. A girl in this day and age had no right to know how to make a dollar stretch. She ought not know how to sew. Sewing perhaps was all right if a girl just made georgette teddies for herself and perhaps now and then trimmed a hat. But there was something offensively peasant-like about being able to reupholster furniture. Theresa loathed the quality in herself that urged her to haggle with the Italian tradesman over the price of lettuce and potatoes. She longed for an easy unconcern about such plebeian matters. Her high, slim heels and indelible lipstick seemed ridiculous, she thought, as often she strode from a store because the article she had come for was perhaps a nickel more than she had expected it would be. In her mind's eye she saw herself heavy-thighed, huge-breasted, wearing a shawl upon her head and carrying a basket. So plainly did she see herself thus caricatured that she smoked two packs ​of cigarettes a day, drank more than was good for her, and repeated even unamusing obscene stories in an effort to prove that she was extremely smart and modern. In the matter of money Theresa could never bring herself to a pitch of recklessness. She was not niggardly. Everything that came into her home in the way of foodstuffs was of the best grade procurable and she planned her meals with a liberal hand, but that was only good sense, and she regretted that it could not be called extravagant.

So much did she hate the instincts which directed her to furnish her home so charmingly and so cheaply that she did not like visitors. She was vexed when she had to admit that she had made the curtains, the hooked rugs, the cushions, the bedspread, and the lamp shades. Compliments on her work left her cold and ungrateful. She would have preferred that they should say, "Theresa's apartment is perfectly bare and uncomfortable." But something within her kept urging another cushion here, a bit of embroidery there; so Theresa saw herself dull, domesticated, plodding, when she longed to be light-minded and devoid of any housewifely traits.

It was with annoyance that Theresa saw Lillian's roadster roll up to her door one morning late in September. She was washing her white window sills when she caught sight of the car and wondered why people couldn't use their telephones and find out whether or not one was anxious to play hostess. She liked Lillian, was even fond of her, but her work had to be done, and she knew Lillian was especially adept at making jokes about people who actually cleaned their houses.

​Theresa opened the door for her unexpected guest.

"'Lo," said Lillian. She eyed Theresa amusedly. "You're not working, are you?" Theresa still carried a wet cloth in her hand.

"Yes, I'll be done soon. Come in and sit down."

"I thought maybe you could go to lunch with me."

"No, Lillian, I couldn't. But come on in. I've got stuff and we could have a little lunch here. How's everything?"

"Swell."

Lillian came in and seated herself. Theresa returned to the business of window sills.

"Gee, you're ambitious," Lillian remarked. "I wash my dishes and make my bed and that's that. How do you get so ambitious?"

"I don't like dirt," Theresa explained.

"I get the janitor's wife up once a week to clean for me," Lillian went on.

"I've had people in a couple of times but they don't suit me." Theresa frowned and rubbed vigorously at a stubborn stain on the woodwork.

"You were raised wrong," Lillian laughed. "Life's too short to waste your time worrying over a little dirt."

She lit a cigarette and rocked back and forth contentedly. Theresa finished the window sills and with another cloth rubbed the windows and the mirror.

"You make me feel tired just watching you," Lillian said. "I'm up too early this morning anyhow."

"What got you up?"

"Oh, Hubert had to go see Helen today." A cloud appeared on Lillian's face and settled there.

​"So you're alone?" Theresa encouraged. It was evident that Lillian wanted to talk about it. She need not have brought the subject up otherwise.

"Yes, I'm alone." Lillian sighed and an unbroken silence followed, during which Theresa dusted the picture frames. She did not care to speak first, for if she spoke of Hubert, Lillian might think her pressing, and a different topic might seem as though she were indifferent to her visitor's mood. After a time Lillian proceeded. "I get the heebie-jeebies when he leaves me alone and I run all over town looking for somebody to play with me. I never tried you before because you're different, you know. The rest of us are all kind of crazy but you're settled and sensible and I felt like being with you today. I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all."

"You will come to lunch with me, won't you?"

"Oh, I would but I have a lot of things in the house that we could eat if you didn't mind left-overs."

"I love left-overs, honest to God I do. I never have any, though."

"How's that?"

"I don't know. What do you mean by left-overs, Theresa? Sliced meats?"

"Not necessarily. I fix creamed chicken or shepherd's pie or hash or rice à la creole, depending on what I've got."

"I don't know what shepherd's pie or rice à la creole is made from, but I never have enough chicken left to cream."

"Oh, you put green peppers with it and things like ​that if you're a little short of meat. It's tasty. Rice à la creole is chopped ham, rice, and tomatoes baked together, and shepherd's pie is chopped lamb and mashed potatoes baked and—" Theresa dropped her dust-rag suddenly and threw herself on the couch. "What's the use of cleaning or talking about cooking?" she asked. "I'm not interested in that sort of thing and neither are you."

Lillian laughed. "We were pretending that we were housewives," she said. "You weren't pretending, though. You're a wow at cooking and cleaning and sewing and all that sort of thing. I wish I was."

Theresa reached over to the smoking-table and got herself a cigarette. "Say, did you hear that story of Anna's about the Scotchman carrying the anvil?"

"Yes, isn't that a wow?"

"I thought it was funny."

"I told it to Louise, but she didn't know what an anvil was. Can you beat that? It's sort of a hammer, isn't it, Theresa?"

"Well, sort of. Of course most times it's the thing that the hammer hits. You know blacksmiths use them to shape horseshoes on."

"Yes, that's what I thought. Louise is kind of thick."

Theresa glanced at the clock and went to the kitchen. "Want to come watch?" she asked. "I'm going to fix lunch. It's going on twelve."

"Gee, I just had breakfast."

"Well, that's your tough luck. Twelve is lunch-hour. You should have gotten up earlier if you were going to snoop around for lunch dates."

​It was an hour later, when the two girls had returned to Theresa's living-room, that Lillian turned once more to the subject of Hubert.

"He and I are honestly having a gorgeous time," she said. Her tone was cheerful but the cloud still lingered on her face. "I don't think I really made a mistake in giving up my job, Theresa."

"No?"

"No, do you now?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Oh, I have no right to butt in on other people's business, Lillian. I'd sooner not start talking to you about this."

"But I've asked you."

Theresa looked at her sharply for a moment and decided that Lillian didn't ask everybody about her personal affairs. "I think it's wrong," she said, "to be idle. I don't mean that in a Sunday-schoolish way, Lillian. I just mean that you enjoy things more if you're working and there's a line drawn between your work and your pleasures. You get kind of foggy if you have no set hours for doing things, and that's not right for your mind or your liver. Then there's another reason, too."

"What's that?"

"Suppose Hubert should leave you? What would you do?"

"He wouldn't leave me."

"If he did, what would you do?" Theresa pursued relentlessly.

​"Go to work."

"Sure. And there's the rub. It's hell to go back to a routine once you're out of it. Early rising and subway pushes and taking orders are lousy once you're out of the habit of them. And as far as getting another man goes—well, you know, Lillian, ones with money don't grow on trees."

"I don't want another one after Hubert."

"Why? Are you crazy about him?"

Lillian laughed. "Gee," she said, "that's a funny question people always ask. I didn't expect it from you. It's a kind of laziness that makes you ask it. If I said yes or if I said no then you wouldn't have to find out for yourself. I don't like to say whether I am or not. I'm superstitious about it. You watch close and you'll see plenty that'll give you the answer."

"You're like a kid, Lillian, honest you are. I don't care whether you picked Hubert for his bank roll or not. I'm thinking of you, not of him. Your side of the matter, not his."

"Don't you like him?"

Theresa smiled slowly. "I don't know," she said hesitantly. "There's nothing about him that's especially nice or nasty as far as I can see. He's been good to you and that's all right, but the Fishers and other people have no call on his check-book and I think that there he's been an awful sap."

"That's been my fault, Theresa."

"Go on. You couldn't have got him to sling money around if he didn't just love doing it. He's got a certain amount of brains though, Lillian, or maybe it's instinct. ​I think you'd have a hard time fooling him, but he could fool you, Lillian, if he wanted to."

"Well, we don't fool each other."

"That's good."

"He's naturally generous, Theresa. Honest, you'll find that out if you ever need him."

"We get along all right. Thank you," said Theresa.

"Oh, I didn't mean that you ever would need him, but, you know, in case. You were dead right when you said he loves slinging money around. He's as big-hearted as anybody living."

"I don't know about Hubert, Lillian, but there are some people who give because they get a kick out of being kind. You know, they like—"

"That's Hubert," Lillian insisted, brightly. "He gets the biggest kick in the world out of doing favors for people."

Theresa forsook that angle of the situation. She didn't have the time, the words, or the hardness of heart neces sary to enlightening Lillian. "Well, you're happy any way?"

"Oh, I suppose so. What the hell. I got more than I ever had in my life before."

"You don't sound cheerful. What's the matter?"

"Louise is sorry for me." Lillian spoke without having intended to. She felt ridiculous after having worded the thing which had rankled in her heart for a month.

"Why is she sorry for you?"

"Because I'm not married to Hubert."

​"Is she sorry for every woman in the world except Hubert's wife?" Theresa asked.

"Oh, you know what I mean. She pities me for not being respectable and sure of Hubert and all that."

"Oh. That makes you dissatisfied, huh? Have you spoken to him about it?"

"Sure. He asked Helen for a divorce because I felt so rotten after Louise said that."

"What did she say?"

"Who? Louise?"

"No. Helen Scott."

"Oh, she made a terrible scene. Was going to kill herself. She wouldn't divorce him. I felt sorry when I heard about it. She's old, you know, and white-haired and fearfully jealous. Gee, you know Helen seems a lot older than Hubert and set in her way and uninteresting. She worries a lot about him. Probably tells him to put his rubbers on when it's raining and that sort of thing. You know what she did? Last night when he called her up she told him to be sure and have the brakes fixed on his Packard before he went up there today. She's always thinking of something happening to him. Gee, I wouldn't take a man away from a woman like that even if I could."

"But you're unhappy."

"Oh, well, it's just that I'm nobody. See what I mean? I'm not a wife or a widow or a divorced woman or a bum or anything. I'm not a sweetheart. That means a young girl who's holding out for the wedding bells, don't it? I'm nothing. There's no name for what I am."

​Theresa looked at Lillian and smiled. "Yes, there is," she said, quietly.

"What is it?"

"Kept woman."

"Oh, I never—"

"You never heard that expression?"

"Yes, but I never thought that I—I just never—"

Theresa reached out and caught Lillian's hand. She squeezed it gently. "I'm sorry, Lillian," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I thought you and I were hard-boiled enough to say whatever came into our minds when we were together."

"You didn't hurt me. I just had never thought of that when I was trying to find a name for myself. No, you didn't hurt me."

Theresa was gazing spell-bound into the face of her friend. The worry cloud had disappeared and there was rather a pleased but self-conscious smile on Lillian's lips.

"Funny I never thought of that," Lillian said. "Of course I'm a kept woman." The little self-conscious grin broadened as she spoke the words.

Theresa stared at her unbelievingly. She was as pleased as a growing girl who has been mistaken for an adult. "Well, I'm glad you're not hurt, Lillian," she said at length.

"Oh, no, I'm not hurt. Don't be silly. I'm just surprised that I never thought of that myself. Of course I'm a kept woman." The delighted little grin again.

Later while Theresa was getting dinner for Hymie ​and pondering on the curious satisfaction Lillian had found in applying a vulgar term to herself, Lillian sat in her apartment thinking about that same term.

It did not sound vulgar to her. She said it aloud several times and derived a new pleasure at each repetition. The two words were fraught with a wild beauty for her.

They spoke of a spirit brave and rebellious. Anybody could marry. The most brainless, timid wretch imaginable could marry, but it took a rare courage, a woman big enough to scoff at conventions, to be what she was. There was, too, an unorthodox glory in the words, a suggestion of pagan merriment and open sin. The word "wife" sounded flat and lifeless as compared with those two golden words and what they suggested to her. She was glad to be an outlaw. Who couldn't be happy when their lives were all neatly arranged for them by church and court? She was different, a great and fearless spirit.

Lillian Cory translated her thoughts into words and said to the yellow vase on the gate-leg table, "Kept woman. Sounds peppy and like a person who had guts and wasn't all cut and dried. I'm glad nobody ever married me. I really am."

The bell rang and Lillian ran to the door. It was Anna Leitz with her new boy friend, Mr. Clifford Sullivan.

Anna said, "Mr. Sullivan, meet Miss Cory."

Mr. Sullivan said, "Pleased to meetcha."

Miss Cory said, "You're welcome if you're not too ​proper and would like to come in. I suppose Anna's told you about me being a kept woman."

Mr. Sullivan stared like one demented. It was very stimulating to a girl who didn't usually get more than a passing glance from a stranger.