the telephone bell was shrilling insistent summons in his apartment when gary pushed open the hall door thirty feet away. even though he took long steps, he hoped the nagging jingle would cease before he could reach the ’phone. but the bell kept ringing, being an automatic telephone, dependent upon no perfunctory central for the persistency of its call. gary was tired, and from his neck to his waist his skin was painted a coppery bronze which, having been applied at six-thirty that morning, was now itching horribly as the grease paint dried. he did not feel like talking to any one; but he unlocked his door, jerked down the receiver and barked a surly greeting into the mouthpiece of the ’phone. almost immediately the wrinkles on his forehead slid down into smoothness.
“oh, how-do, gary! i was just wondering if you had changed your apartments or something,” called the girl whom he hoped some day to marry. “did you just get in?”
“no-o—certainly not! i’ve been having a fit on the floor! say, i heard you ringing the ’phone a block away. every tenant in the joint is lined up on the sidewalk, watching for the black maria or the ambulance; they don’t know which. but i recognized your ring. what’s on your mind, girlie?”
“not a thing in the world but a new shell comb. if i’d known you were so terrifically cross this evening, i wouldn’t have a lovely dinner all waiting and a great big surprise for you afterwards. now i won’t tell you what it is. and, furthermore, i shall not give you even a hint of what you’re going to eat when you get here. but i should think a man who could recognize a certain telephone ring a block away might smell fried chicken and strawberry shortcake clear across the city—with oodles of butter under the strawberries, and double cream——”
“oh-h, boy!” gary brightened and smacked his lips into the mouthpiece, just as any normal young man would do. then, recalling his physical discomfort, he hedged a little.
“will it keep? i’m in a starving condition as usual—but listen, pat; i’m a savage under my shirt. just got in from location away up in topanga cañon, and i never stopped to get off anything but the rainbow on my cheeks and my feathered war bonnet. had a heck of a day—i’ll tell the world! you know, honey; painted warriors hurtling down the cliff shooting poisoned arrows at the hapless emigrants—that kind of hokum. big chief eagle eye has been hurtling and whooping war whoops since ten o’clock this morning. dinner’ll have to wait while i take a bath and clean up a little. i look like a bum and that’s a fact. say, listen, honey——”
“aw, take that mush off the line. ha-ang up!” some impatient neighboring tenant with a bad temper was evidently cutting in.
“aw, go lead yourself out by the ear!” gary retorted sharply. “say, pat!” his voice softened to the wooing note of the young male human. “best i can do, honey, it’ll be forty minutes. that’s giving me ten minutes to look like a white man again. you know it’ll take me thirty minutes to ride out there——”
“you could walk, you bum, whilst you’re tellin’ her about it. get off the line! there ought to be a law against billy-cooin’ over the ’phone——”
“seddown! you’re rockin’ the boat!” gary flung back spiritedly. “better make it forty-five, girlie. it may take me five minutes to lick this cheap heavy on the third floor that’s tryin’ to put on a comedy act.”
“say, one more crack like that an’ i’ll be down to your place an’ save yuh some valuable time. it’ll take me about two seconds to knock yuh cold!” the harsh male voice interrupted eagerly.
“are you there, pat?”
“right here, gary. how did that get into a respectable house, dear? you ought to call the janitor.” the girl he hoped to marry had spirit and could assuredly hold her own in a wicked city. “take your time, gary boy. but remember, i’ve the biggest surprise in your life waiting for you out here. something wonderful!”
it is astonishing how a woman can pronounce a few simple words so that they sound like a hallelujah chorus of angels. gary thrilled to her voice, in spite of an intensely practical nature. patricia went on, after an impressive pause.
“never mind that noise in the ’phone, gary. it’s just some mechanical deficiency caused by using cheap material. never mind the grease paint, either. you—you won’t always have to smear around in it—partner!”
while he hurried to make himself presentable, gary’s thoughts dwelt upon that word “partner” and the lingering sweetness of patricia’s tone. patricia connolly was not a feather-brained creature who would repeat parrotlike whatever phrase she happened to have heard and fancied. she did not run to second-hand superlatives. when she told gary that she had a wonderful surprise for him, she would not, for instance, mean that she had done her hair in a new fashion or had bought a new record for the phonograph. and she had never before called him partner in any tone whatever. gary would have remembered it if she had.
“what the heck is she going to spring on me now?” he kept wondering during the hour that intervened between the ’phone call and his entrance into the scrap of bungalow in a bepalmed court where patricia had her milk and her mail delivered to the tiny front porch.
the extra fifteen minutes had not been spent in whipping the harsh-voiced tenant on the third floor; indeed, gary had forgotten all about him the moment he hung up the receiver. one simply cannot annihilate all the men one abuses in the course of a day’s strained living in los angeles or any other over-full city. gary had been delayed first by the tenacity of the grease paint on his person, and after that by the heavy traffic on the street cars. two cars had gone whanging past him packed solidly with peevish human beings and with men and boys clinging to every protuberance on the outside. when the third car stopped to let a clinging passenger drop off—shaking down his cuffs and flexing his cramped fingers—gary had darted in like a hornet, seized toe-hold and finger-hold and hung on.
and so, fifteen minutes late, he arrived at patricia’s door and was let into paradise and delectable odors and the presence of patricia, who looked as though christmas had come unexpectedly and she was waiting until the candles were lighted on the tree so she could present gary with a million dollars. her honest sweetness and her adorable little way of mothering gary—though she was fours years younger—tingled with an air of holding back with difficulty the news of some amazing good fortune.
patricia shared the bungalow with a trained nurse who was usually absent on a “case”, so that patricia was practically independent and alone. most girls of twenty couldn’t have done it and kept their mental balance; but patricia was herself under any and all conditions, and it did not seem strange for her to be living alone the greater part of the time. freedom, to her, spelled neither license nor loneliness; she lived as though her mother were always in the next room. patricia felt sometimes that her mother was closer, very close beside her. it made her happier to feel so, but never had it made her feel ashamed.
she had evolved the dinner in this manner: while her boss was keeping her waiting until he had refreshed his memory of a certain special price on alfalfa molasses and oil cakes, etc., etc., in carload and half-carload lots, patricia had jotted down in good shorthand, “chicken, about two pounds with yellow legs and a limber wishbone or nothing doing; cost a dollar, i expect—is gary worth it? i’ll say he is. god love ums. strawberries, two boxes—hood rivers, if possible—try the city market. celery—if there’s any that looks decent; if not, then artichokes or asparagus—gary likes asparagus best—says he eats artichokes because it’s fun—dear sir:—in response to your favor of the 17th inst.,—” and so on.
some girls would have quoted asparagus in carload lots, transcribing from such notes, and would have put alfalfa molasses on the dinner menu; but not patricia.
on her way home from the office in the dusty, humming barn of a building that housed the grain milling company which supported her in return for faithful service rendered, patricia shopped at the big city market where the sales people all had tired eyes and mechanical smiles, and a general air of hopelessly endeavoring to please every one so that no harassed marketers would complain to the manager. patricia made her purchases as painless to the sales girl as possible, knowing too well what that strained smile meant. the great market buzzed like a bee-tree when you strike its trunk with a club.
she bought a manila paper shopping bag, but her packages overflowed the bag, so that she carried the two boxes of strawberries in her hand, and worried all the way home for fear the string would break; and held the warm tea biscuits under her arm, protecting them as anxiously as a hen protects her covered chicks. by prodding with her elbows and bracing her feet against the swaying crush, and giving now and then a haughty stare, patricia achieved the miracle of arriving at rose court with her full menu and only one yellow leg of the chicken protruding stiffly from its wrappings.
she dumped her armload on the table in the kitchenette and rushed out again to buy flowers from the vendor who was chanting his wares half a block away. she was tingling all over with nerve weariness, yet she could smile brightly at the greek so that he went on with a little glow of friendliness toward the world. at the rose-arched entrance to the court she tilted her wrist, looked at her watch and said, “good lord! that late?” and dashed up to her door like a maiden pursued.
yet here she was at seven, in a cool little pansy-tinted voile, dainty and serene as any young hostess in westmoreland place half a mile away. even the strawberry stain on her finger tips could easily be mistaken for the new fad in manicuring. can you wonder that gary forgot every disagreeable thing he ever knew—including frowsy, unhomelike bachelor quarters, crowded street cars, all the petty aches and ills of movie work—when he unfolded his napkin and looked across the table at patricia?
“coffee now, or with dessert? gary, don’t you dare look question marks at me! i can’t have your mind distracted with food while i’m telling you the most wonderful thing in the world. moreover, this dinner deserves a little appreciation.” patricia’s lips trembled, but only because she was tired and excited and happy. her happiness would have been quite apparent to a blind man.
i do not mean to hint that patricia deliberately fed gary to repletion with the things he liked best, before imparting her won-derful surprise. she had frequently cooked nice little dinners for him when there was nothing surprising to follow. but it is a fact that when she had stacked the dishes neatly away for a later washing, and returned the dining table to its ordinary library-table guise, gary looked as if nothing on earth could disturb him. mental, emotional and physical content permeated the atmosphere of his immediate neighborhood. patricia sat down and laid her arms upon the table, and studied gary, biting her lips to hide their quiver.
