Rich Man, Poor Man

The girl in the trench coat went into Corcoran’s Bar and Grill. Gretchen knew it well. She was known in a dozen bars of the neighborhood. A good deal of her life was spent in bars now.

She hurried toward Eleventh Street, the beer bottles heavy in the big brown-paper sack and Willie’s suit carefully folded over her arm. She hoped Willie was home. You never could know when he’d be there. She had just come from an understudy rehearsal uptown and she had to go back for the eight o’clock call. Nichols and the director had her read for the understudy’s job and had told her that she had talent. The play was a moderate success. It would almost certainly last till June. She walked across the stage in a bathing suit three times a night. The audience laughed each time, but the laughter was nervous. The author had been furious the first time he had heard the laughter, at a preview, and had wanted to cut her out of the play, but Nichols and the director had persuaded him that the laughter was good for the play. She received some peculiar letters backstage and telegrams asking her if she wanted to go out to supper and twice there were roses. She never answered anybody. Willie was always there in her dressing room after the show to watch her wash off the body make-up and get into her street clothes. When he wanted to tease her, he said, “Oh, God, why did I ever get married? I am quoting.”

His divorce was dragging along, he said.

She went into the hallway of the walkup and looked to see if there was any mail in the box. Abbott–Jordache. She had printed the little card herself.

She opened the downstairs door with her key and ran up the three flights of stairs. She was always in a hurry, once she got into the house. She opened the door of the apartment, a little breathless from the stairs. The door opened directly on the living room. “Willie …” she was calling. There were only two small rooms, so there was no real reason to call out. She found excuses to say his name.

Rudolph was sitting on the tattered couch, a glass of beer in his hand.

“Oh,” Gretchen said.

Rudolph stood up. “Hello, Gretchen,” he said. He put down his glass and kissed her cheek, over the bag full of beer bottles and Willie’s suit.

“Rudy,” she said, getting rid of the bag and dropping the suit over the back of a chair, “what’re you doing here?”

“I rang the bell,” Rudolph said, “and your friend let me in.”

“Your friend is getting dressed,” Willie called from the next room. He often sat around in his bathrobe all day. The apartment was so small that you heard everything that was said in either of the rooms. A little kitchenette was concealed by a screen from the living room. “I’ll be right out,” Willie said from the bedroom. “I blow you a kiss.”

“I’m so glad to see you.” Gretchen took off her coat and hugged Rudolph hard. She stepped back to look at him. When she had been seeing him every day she hadn’t realized how handsome he was, dark, straight, a button-down blue shirt and the blazer she had given him for his birthday. Those sad, clear, greenish eyes.

“Is it possible you’ve grown? In just a couple of months?”

“Almost six months,” he said. Was there an accusation there?

“Come on,” she said. “Sit down.” She pulled him down on the couch next to her. There was a little leather overnight bag near the door. It didn’t belong to Willie or her, but she had a feeling that she had seen it someplace before.

“Tell me about everything,” she said. “What’s happening at home? Oh, God, it’s good to see you, Rudy.” Still, her voice didn’t sound completely natural to her. If she had known he was coming she’d have warned him about Willie. After all, he was only seventeen, Rudolph, and just to come barging in i

“Nothing much is happening at home,” Rudolph said. If he was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. She could take lessons in control from Rudy. He sipped at his beer. “I am bearing the brunt of everybody’s love, now that I’m the only one left.”

Gretchen laughed. It was silly to worry. She hadn’t realized how grown-up he was.

“How’s Mom?” Gretchen asked.

“Still reading Gone With the Wind,” Rudolph said. “She’s been sick. She says the doctor says it’s phlebitis.”

Messages of cheer and comfort from the family hearth, Gretchen thought. “Who takes care of the store?” she asked.

“A Mrs. Cudahy,” Rudolph said. “A widow. She costs thirty dollars a week.”

“Pa must love that,” Gretchen said.

“He isn’t too happy.”

“How is he?”

“To tell the truth,” Rudolph said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s actually sicker than Ma. He hasn’t been out in the yard to hit the bag in months and I don’t think he’s been out on the river since you left.”

“What is it?” Gretchen was surprised to find out that she was really concerned.

“I don’t know,” Rudolph said. “He just moves that way. You know Pa. He never says anything.”

“Do they talk about me?” Gretchen asked carefully..

“Not a word.”

“And Thomas?”

“Gone and forgotten,” Rudolph said. “I never did find out what happened. He never writes, of course.”

“Our family,” Gretchen said. They sat in silence, honoring the clan Jordache for a moment. “Well …” Gretchen shook herself. “How do you like our place?” She gestured to indicate the apartment, which she and Willie had rented furnished. The furniture looked as though it had come out of somebody’s attic, but Gretchen had bought some plants and tacked some prints and travel posters on the walls. An Indian in a sombrero in front of a pueblo. Visit New Mexico.

“It’s very nice,” Rudolph said gravely.

“It’s awfully tacky,” Gretchen said. “But it has one supreme advantage. It’s not Port Philip.”

“I understand what you mean,” Rudolph said. She wished he didn’t look so serious. She wondered what had brought him down to see her.

“How’s that pretty girl,” she asked. Her voice was falsely bright. “Julie?”

“Julie,” Rudolph said. “We have our ups and downs.”

Willie came into the room combing his hair. He wasn’t wearing a jacket. She had seen him only some five hours earlier, but if they had been alone she would have enfolded him as if they were meeting again after an absence of years. Willie kissed Gretchen quickly, leaning over the couch. Rudolph stood up politely. “Sit down, sit down, Rudy,” Willie said. “I’m not your superior officer.”

Briefly, Gretchen regretted Willie was so short.

“Ah,” Willie said, seeing the beer and the pressed suit, “I told her the day I saw her for the first time that she would make some man a good wife and mother. Is it cold?”

“Uhuh.”

Willie busied himself opening a bottle. “Rudy?”

“This will do me for awhile,” Rudolph said, sitting down again.

Willie poured the beer in a glass that had been used and still had a rim of foam around it. He drank a lot of beer, Willie. “We can speak frankly,” Willie said, gri

This was true. He had asked her to marry him again and again. Quite often she was sure that he meant it.

“Did you tell him you were married?” she asked. She was anxious to have Rudy leave with no questions unanswered.

“I did,” Willie said. “I hide nothing from brothers of women I love. My marriage was a whim of youth, a passing cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand. Rudy is an intelligent young man. He understands. He will go far. He will dance at our wedding. He will support us in our old age.”

For once, Willie’s jokes made her uneasy. Although she had told him about Rudolph and Thomas and her parents, this was the first time he had had to cope with the actual presence of her family and she was worried that it was setting his nerves on edge.