Kept Woman/Chapter 7

Lillian took Louise apartment-hunting with her. To take a girl friend along when transacting any sort of business is a well-known and highly efficient means of killing two birds with one stone. The renting agent mentions the price of the apartment and you say, "Well, of course, that doesn't matter so long as I like the place." That impresses the girl friend. The girl friend remarks that it is pretty far from the subway and you say, "That doesn't matter as we don't have to go downtown in the mornings, and besides we'll have the cars." That impresses the renting agent.

Also when a girl friend is with you, you are not afraid of the renting agent. You have nerve enough to ask if there is plenty of heat and hot water and if the halls and stairs are well kept. You wouldn't dare ask that if you were alone. The girl friend gives you confidence in your own importance, for ever since you showed your utter indifference to the rent she has been regarding you with respect.

Lillian selected an apartment. It was in Inwood because it hadn't occurred to Lillian that one would look anywhere else. It was a nice apartment. Three rooms. Seventy-five dollars. Louise thought it was an outrageous price and said so. Lillian said she didn't think it was much.

​"But, look," Louise protested, "you and the Friedrichs had four rooms for sixty."

"Yes, but that was a terrible place."

"It wasn't bad."

"No, it was worse."

Lillian stood looking over her new home. Of course it's hard to judge an empty place, but any one could see that this would make up great. The living-room was square. It had two windows, two wall brackets, two outlets, and a ceiling light. Not a hanging chandelier. This place was swell. The fixture was brass and it occurred to Lillian you could put orange bulbs in it. The windows looked out on a garden court. Trees and fountains and everything. Gee, pretty.

She walked to the bedroom. It was large. Twelve feet if it was an inch. You could put the bed there, right by the windows. These windows looked out on the court, too. Even Theresa would say this was a lovely room when Lillian got through with it. The bathroom was right next door. Dandy shower. And everything so nice and sparkling white. Gee, a built-in medicine chest. Pretty snappy-looking. Of course, kitchens were just kitchens. But this one seemed a little out of the ordinary. You could see the street from its window and the gas stove was white. Lillian wasn't sure that a white gas stove was practical. Well, time would tell.

There was plenty of closet space. Two small closets and one huge one. A nice, large foyer and the whole place stippled in cream color. A peach of a place.

"And your name?" asked the renting agent.

​"Cory. Mrs. Hubert Cory."

"All right, Mrs. Cory. I'll give you a receipt for the deposit right away. Now, what day will you be coming in?"

"As soon as I can get my furniture. You see, I'm buying everything new for the apartment. I'll go shopping tomorrow and let you know what day they can get the stuff in and that day I'll be in."

"All right, Mrs. Cory. Thank you."

Lillian and Louise left the building. They walked slowly through the court, as Lillian wanted to admire the trees and shrubs.

"They seem to be nicely kept," she remarked to Louise. "I hate them when they get all wild-looking, don't you?"

"Yes, they look terrible then. This place is sure classy-looking, Lillian. I'll bet you'll have nice neighbors here. See, the rent is so high it'll keep out the riffraff."

"Gee, I wish it wasn't Sunday. I feel like going down to buy my furniture."

"Where'll you get it?"

"I don't know yet."

"You going to get it on time?"

"No. That's a nuisance. You always have to remember to stay home to pay the collector and all that. I couldn't be annoyed. Can you go with me to get the stuff?"

"Gee, I don't know. I ought to go to work."

"Oh, the hell with work."

"All right. I'll go with you."

​Lillian hailed a taxi. She and Louise had to join Billy and Hubert back at One Hundred and Forty-Fourth Street. Hubert had preferred staying with Billy to looking for an apartment. He and Lillian hadn't really intended to see Billy and Louise till the following Sunday, but when Lillian told Hubert that she was taking him up on his offer that had changed everything.

Billy still felt the effects of the night before, but, outside of the fact that she didn't feel like eating, Louise was completely recovered. She and Lillian had to tell the men all about the apartment. Mrs. Fisher was present; so they pretended that Hubert's interest was of the most impersonal sort. Mrs. Fisher permitted them to play their little game.

The evening was not eventful. The four had dinner in an Italian restaurant in Fordham and afterwards went to Keith's. Hubert drove Billy and Louise home. They had a few drinks upstairs, then separated for the night, Louise promising faithfully to be ready when Lillian came for her next day.

"Aren't you going to work tomorrow, no fooling?" Billy asked Louise.

"No. Let them dock me for a day. I gotta help Lillian furnish her apartment, don't I?"

Billy turned to Lillian. "And what about you? Ain't you ever going back again?"

"Nope."

"Don't they owe you for a couple of days?"

"Oh, I should carry my hips down there for a few days' pay. I can't be annoyed."

"Jees, you dames are independent. What are we ​going to do with them, Scotty, if we can't make them work for us?"

Hubert laughed. "I guess we'll have to support them, Billy."

"The joke's on you. I'm broke."

Lillian got Hubert to stop at a newsstand and buy all the Sunday papers that remained at this late hour. She sat up in bed till three o'clock reading the furniture ads. The Friedrich sisters could hear her rattling the papers and they wondered.

"Maybe she's looking for a furnished room," Rose whispered.

"I don't know," Sylvia returned. "I have a feeling that she's pulling a fast one."

Louise was ready when Lillian came for her next day. They started out at once. Lillian knew now just where she wanted to go for her furniture. The girls sat back in the taxi smoking and talking.

"Gee, it feels funny not to be at work," Louise said.

"It feels great."

"Yeh, but I'll be back tomorrow."

"Oh, go on. I can't get my shopping all done in one day. You'll have to help me. I'll make good what you lose at the office."

"I wouldn't let you do that."

"Don't be silly."

"Gee, you are wonderful, Lillian. I never knew anybody as decent as you are about things."

"Well, I need you with me."

"What for? I'm no use. You have better taste than I have."

​"Now never mind." Lillian didn't want to tell Louise that she needed her mainly to testify to the fact that the furniture was purchased on a strictly cash basis.

On Third Avenue a few blocks below One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street the furniture was selected. Bedroom suite. It was mahogany. The man said so. One hundred and forty-nine dollars. It had little flowers painted on it. One little flower for each piece of furniture. Lillian could have had a suite for one hundred and twenty-two dollars and fifty cents. But as she said to Louise, "Why be cheap?"

Lillian didn't want a rug for the bedroom because the floors in the new apartment were beautiful and besides Louise's room looked lovely without one. But Theresa would look at the room and say nothing if it didn't have a rug, and Anna would think it was because Lillian couldn't afford one.

She bought a rug. Sixty bucks. Good rugs cost like the devil but you've got something for your money when you get a good one. She bought a lamp with a pink georgette shade, a chair with a pink satin covering, a large Maxfield Parrish print, and the bedroom was finished except of course for curtains and knick-knacks. Oh, yes, a pink bed-light, please. The large one with the glass fringe. Yes, that one.

The living-room now. Lillian almost hated to start on the living-room. It takes so much to furnish one. A person doesn't realize until they go to do it.

Well, one of those three-piece suites. Couch and two chairs. That one with the tapestry was cute. But brown. Oh, in red also? That is cute. Oh, for heaven's sakes. ​It opens and makes a bed. Well, that's a good idea. Many a time Billy and Louise would be staying. And those chairs were comfortable. A hundred and ninety-eight dollars for the three pieces. A couple of straight-back chairs, too. Windsor chairs, Lillian supposed they were called. Yes, they'd do. Two of them. Ash-receiver stands. Oh, that one. The wooden one painted like a little colored fellow in uniform was cute. Was the ash tray in his hands detachable? Oh, of course. How stupid. Well, that and another one. That plain one would be all right. A gate-leg table. Seat eight? Eight what? Oh, go on. Six would have a hard time getting around it. Now, that was something like it. All right. Sure, a rug. Eighty-five dollars! Good God. But it was pretty. Those flowers-pots in it were almost the same shade as the upholstery on the furniture. Two lamps, please. A bridge and the other kind. Piano? Gosh, no, there's nobody who plays. Oh, piano lamp? Of course. How dumb. Oh, look at that cute thing to put ornaments in. What? Oh, it's a bookcase? Well, for heaven's sake. Isn't it large? Positively huge. No, I get them from the circulating library. A table and two chairs for the kitchen, please. White? Certainly. Oh, really. Well, let me see them in green. Well, isn't that cute? With green linoleum and all, that will be adorable. My God, what next? Colored tables and chairs for the kitchen. I'll be darned. Oh, a few pictures for the living-room. That one of the girl on the balcony is sweet. That one and the one with the bunch of trees on it. Oh, dishes, too. Do you have them here? Well, they'll have them uptown. What? Oh, don't the spring and mattress come ​with the bed? Well, just send a soft one and two soft pillows. Pink ticking, please. Well, it would be silly to pay it all today. Maybe the firm wouldn't deliver promptly once they had the money. Half now. How would that be? The other half to be paid on delivery.

Lillian opened her bag and drew out five clean, rustling hundred-dollar bills. Louise stared and the furniture salesman tried not to.

"What does half amount to?" Lillian asked him.

He retreated to a corner, and leaning against an up-standing rolled rug, began his calculations. It took him some time, but when he returned he was able to speak with authority.

"Half will be three hundred and twenty-one dollars and seventy-five cents, Madame."

"That's half, is it?" asked Lillian. She eyed with disdain her five crisp bills. "A man is crazy," she said, "to think you can furnish an apartment on five hundred dollars." She handed four bills to the salesman, who scurried away with them lest she change her mind.

"And you haven't got curtains or dishes or knives and forks yet," Louise remarked. "And kitchen things. You know, egg-beaters and things like that."

"Oh, it'll cost him easily a thousand dollars to furnish the kind of home I want," Lillian said.

Her change arrived and the girls were bowed obsequiously from the store. The salesman thanked Lillian profusely. She was the first cash customer the store had had since 1909.

"Oh, I'm exhausted," Lillian said. She wasn't at all. She felt exhilarated and excited. Fancy being able to ​spend that much money in a few hours. She felt tall and haughty. She wished that she had remembered to wear gloves.

"I feel lost without my gloves," she said to Louise. "I'll have to get a pair. Let's go in here."

A young lady with a very white face and a very brown neck asked if Lillian wished something in chamoisette. A dollar ninety-eight. Best quality. Sells for three dollars, would you believe it, downtown.

"Have you something better?"

"Better? There's nothing better than a Stein and Goldfogel Chamoisette."

"I wanted kid."

"Oh, kid. Black? White?"

Lillian reflected. "White."

"Here. Four and a half, regular price. Take them for four dollars."

"That's too much," said Louise.

That was all Lillian needed to hear. "Why, that's reasonable, Louise. I'll take two pairs. And a pair for my friend here. What size do you wear, Lou?"

"Now, don't be silly. Why should you buy me gloves? Six and a quarter I wear. But, please, don't be like that, Lillian. I'll be mad at you."

The girls fitted on their new gloves in the taxicab.

"What will Hubert say when he hears how much money you've spent? And these gloves for me. I'll bet he'll be mad."

"He'd better not be."

Louise's glance was one of deepest admiration. If she ​had a man with money she'd be scared stiff to make him sore. But, gee, Lillian was independent.

"I've got to see about the telephone and gas and electricity," said Lillian, "but I guess Hubert will do that. He ought to do something. Here I've had all the trouble of shopping. Oh, gee, I nearly forgot. I got to buy a wedding ring."

"Now?"

"No, I'll wait till tomorrow. I guess I can get it in Inwood. I want one of those white gold ones with orange blossoms."

"I got mine in Woolworth's," said Louise. "It's nice to have, you know, if we go like down to Asbury over the week-end."

"Yeh, I'd get one in Woolworth's too if I was like you. Billy will give you a real one some day but that's out in my case; so I'm going to get the white gold one now."

"Do you care?"

"Care about what?"

"That Hubert can't marry you? Are you crazy about him?"

Pressing close. People were never satisfied unless they were asking questions. They had to press close to you and try to look inside of you. If they stood at a distance and watched they'd find out more. Words were nothing.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think you're crazy about him."

"Then that's all settled. You won't have to ask again."

​"Not giving you a short answer," added Louise. Lillian laughed. She and Louise were getting to be better friends, she thought. There was a time when Louise would have gotten sore at her for answering so snappy.

They met Billy and Hubert at the Italian restaurant. Later they all took a ride in the Packard because there was nothing else to do. Hubert brought some gin along to make the ride pleasant. It was decided that Louise would stay home another day and help Lillian get curtains and kitchen essentials.

"Do you have to work tomorrow, Billy?" Hubert asked.

"Sure."

"Gee, that's too bad. I ought to have somebody to keep me company while Lillian's out shopping. Oh, take a day off and we'll go to a matinée or something."

"Gosh, I couldn't, Scotty."

"Why not? Let me know what the day would cost you and I'll make it good."

"Well, I'll let you know. You give me a ring about nine tomorrow. How's that?"

When Hubert and Lillian were alone that night in the foyer of her house she said, "Hubert, it's going to cost a lot for the apartment. Do you mind?"

"You know I don't."

"Well, gee, there's so much I didn't figure. It'll be around a thousand dollars with linoleum and all."

"What do I care?"

"Don't you honestly?"

"No. I want you to have everything you want."

​"You're good, Hubert. Listen, I bought Louise a pair of gloves for four dollars today. Do you care? She's staying home from work, you know, to help me."

"Sure. Get her what you like. She's a good kid. Say, you'll need more money tomorrow. Here's another two hundred dollars I drew for you."

Lillian dropped it into her bag.

"I got you something else, too. I didn't want to give it to you till we were alone."

He handed her a little box. A jeweler's box. She opened it and saw a wedding ring sitting in its white velvet groove. A white gold ring with orange blossoms upon it.

"Gee, our tastes are alike," she said. "It's just what I wanted."

She slipped it upon her finger. It fitted and a sense of security came over her as she turned it about on her finger.

"I feel married," she said. It was very quiet in the little hall. She wished that Billy was there to make a wisecrack or that a troop of flappers would come down the stairs. You feel kind of silly when it's all very quiet and somebody has done something nice and for the first time in your life you have the sensation of being cared for and anchored.

She turned the ring again on her finger.

"It's got initials inside," Hubert said. "It says H. to L. and it says the date."

"Does it? Gee, that's great. Well, got to go up now."

"Give me a little kiss?"

"What for?"

​"I like kisses."

"Oh, apple sauce. See you tomorrow."

She ran up the stairs then. If she stayed he might tell her that he loved her—and then where would she be?