# Kept Woman/Chapter 9

Sometimes Lillian and Hubert took trips in the Packard. Quite suddenly the notion would strike them that this was the day to see Washington or Philadelphia or Albany and off they would go. It would always be a Sunday. It never occurred to them that being people of leisure, they were free to go on a Tuesday or Wednesday when traffic was light and motoring consequently more pleasant. Either of them would have told you that Sunday was the day for a nice long ride.
They would have no inkling on Saturday that they were going; so they always left a roast of beef or a chicken in the ice-box which was generally spoiled by Monday evening when Lillian was ready to cook it. Neither she nor Hubert was much on answering the dumbwaiter bell at 8 a.m. and taking the ice which they very badly needed by Monday morning. Always as she crowded the tainted meat into her perpetually full garbage pail Lillian reflected that it had been a sin to waste it and hereafter she would present the janitress with what she couldn't use while it was still in fit condition.
The drives were a delight to her. She loved taking the wheel of the Packard when Hubert grew tired. He had taught her to drive and she had acquired a skill and mastery of cars which he had never known. Sometimes he would look at the speedometer and see forty ​and he would shout at her to slow down. Then she would sulkily draw up to the side of the road and make him take the driver's seat. They would do twenty then till Hubert once more grew tired.
Sometimes on the road at night a car would seem to be pursuing them and they would grow uneasy. Always they would think of Helen and try to identify the dim figures in the car behind. Lillian would become thoughtful over Hubert's deep concern. If Helen found them together she could do no more than divorce Hubert. Why did that prospect frighten him so? It was then that she would become uneasy. The Packard would slow down and invariably the other car would shoot ahead of them and soon show them nothing but the tiny red flicker of its tail-light disappearing in the distance. Hubert would laugh then, loudly. But it would be nearly an hour before Lillian would speak again.
Sometimes they would take Billy and Louise with them on their little journeys. Billy would sing in the back of the car and Louise would join in the chorus. Then he would fight with her, telling her that she was flat. Lillian would say they both were. An inn, always an expensive one, would provide them with dinner. Billy would become conscience-stricken over past intentions and help Louise into her coat while Hubert paid the check. Lillian would stand close to him as he broke the inevitable fifty-dollar bill. She wanted even the waiter to know which one of the two was her man.
Sometimes they'd pass what Lillian had always thought was an apple orchard. Billy would also think it was such and remark perhaps that there was an apple ​orchard. Hubert would inform them that they were peach trees and the two men would argue. Lillian would settle the argument when they were two miles past the trees by assuring them that she had seen tiny, green peaches. She had never known Hubert to be wrong, so why not squash the argument? Since knowing him Lillian had had many questions indubitably settled. She knew now that appendicitis did come from swallowing grape seeds, that a governor's pardon or refusal to pardon is subject to the prison warden's desire, that the American Revolution was won by the Colonists because Washington and King George were both Masons and made a little friendly agreement between themselves, and that the girl one sees on magazine covers is always the artist's wife.
Sometimes they took Anna with them. She was not good company but they pitied her. She told them often how bravely she had carried herself through a tragic love affair, seeming to forget that Hubert had paid the wages of sin with a hundred-dollar check and that Lillian had wet-nursed Anna's folly.
Once they had invited Theresa and Hymie, but Theresa had brought along a basket of fruit and sandwiches and a thermos bottle full of coffee. She said it was ridiculous to pay the prices of the inns along the road, that she and Hymie couldn't afford it and didn't expect to stick Hubert with the bill; so this was her party. Hubert felt cheated when forced to return to the city with an unbroken fifty-dollar bill and Lillian had hated sitting in the car eating sandwiches. She had laughed a lot while doing it to assure passing motorists ​that this was just a lark and not the sort of thing which she did normally.
Once they had Mary Jackson and her baby come along, but the baby wet the upholstery and Hubert had assured Mary that that was all right, but Lillian had detected a look in his eyes which had caused her to cross Mary and her baby off her invitation list.
Sometimes they stayed overnight in the town where they found themselves. They could do that when they were alone or when they had Billy and Louise with them. Louise had never gone back to work and Billy was less inclined than ever toward the paint business. He had had an audition in a radio station and had been permitted to broadcast three or four times at 9.15 a.m. Since those thrilling minutes of singing to his unseen audience Billy had become a listless salesman and cared very little what time or what day he put in an appearance on the Long Island territory. Hubert and Lillian had bought a radio set especially to hear him and gave further proof of their interest by dragging themselves out of bed to listen. They had been loud in their praise and Hubert had gone so far as to say that Billy was wasting his time selling paint. Billy had remarked that a fellow had to live and Hubert had assured him that any time he wanted to devote all his time to his talent he could depend on his pal Scotty to see him through. So seldom and still more seldom did Billy apply himself to Jamaica and vicinity and often and more often did he approach his pal Scotty for twenty till the sixteenth of the month. The sixteenth always came and ​Hubert always said that Billy could forget it and Billy always did.
Sometimes when he and Lillian were driving alone Hubert would fix his eyes on the ribbon of a road that wound before them and he would be quiet for many minutes while he thought. Seventy-five dollars a month for the apartment, fifty dollars for the two cars in a garage; then there was the telephone, gas, and electricity. His notes to meet on the Nash, fifty dollars pocket money for Lillian; then there were clothes, recreation, and Billy. Ice, food, and gasoline must be added; also an occasional gift here and there. Mary Jackson had had a baby and it had cost one hundred dollars to present the upholstery-wetting brat with a crib, a high chair, a wardrobe, and a couple of blankets. Anna Leitz hadn't had a baby and it had cost a hundred dollars just the same. Of course a fellow likes doing things for poor unfortunates who are broke, but Hubert had never guessed that so many people could be broke till he met Lillian. Cripes, what would they have done without him?
He would grow frightened as he stared his responsibilities in the face. Fifteen thousand dollars wasn't the bank roll he had thought it was. He'd have to call a halt somewhere. He would have to tell Lillian that it was necessary to cut down. He had never told her just how much he had. Maybe he should have. He would look at her then and she would look back at him. Something in her large eyes and painted mouth would reassure him. They were having a good time. Why spoil ​it with needless worry? After all he could always get a swell job if he wanted it. Look at the experience he had, and it was easy to make money when you were somebody. Fifteen thousand dollars couldn't come to a fellow as easily as it had come to him if a fellow didn't have a natural knack for making money. Why, if he wanted it he could probably actually get a big job with Steve Flynn. The thought would make him laugh and he would step on the gas and make the Packard do as much as twenty-five. He'd pull through. Nobody need worry about Hubert Scott's future—least of all himself.
The first hot day of the year had been a Sunday and they had gone alone into the country. Billy and Louise were being married that day. Hubert and Lillian had been invited to the wedding, but Lillian had said that she would rather go for a ride. They had sent a chest of silver-plated tableware to the happy couple. Lillian was certain that Louise wouldn't know what half the forks were for and she sincerely hoped that Louise wouldn't ask her.
Hubert and Lillian had stood in a lush field and Lillian had felt lonely and on the point of crying. A nest in a tree looking secure and divinely simple had struck a chill to her heart. The strong tree with the little nest tucked safely away in its branches stood outlined against the deep blue sky. A guileless and homely friend who says, "I'm very happy and I hope you are, too." Looking at the nest Lillian had suddenly thought of Louise and had clutched at Hubert's arm and said that they must go. She looked back at the nest as she and Hubert ​stepped over the tall, sweet grass. She told Hubert that the tree had scared her. It had stood there as dignified as God. They had started back to town then and Lillian had talked of Louise all the way and laughed at her for getting married in a church and fussing about it as though nobody had ever gotten married before. Hubert was surprised. He had always thought that Lillian was too fond of Louise to jeer at her. Women were funny, even Lillian.
Sometimes they did not drive but sat at home playing checkers. Hubert had taught Lillian to play and she said that she liked it. Often she even suggested the game herself and then Hubert was pleased with her.
Sometimes Lillian read books from the circulating library while Hubert sat thumbing the pages of Popular Mechanics. She bought a dictionary and looked up unfamiliar words which she encountered along the way. It was a good book whose author knew many uncommon words.
Sometimes Hubert went home for dinner and stayed with his family till the next day. Lillian would feel lost and unhappy. She would take Louise with her to Keith's Fordham or shopping along Dyckman Street. There was always a little door in her brain that swung open at his departure and showed her a small furnished room and a bakery where one could get dinner for forty-five cents. She would drink too much on the nights when he was away and be violently ill all the next day. She came upon magazine stories frequently wherein the "other woman" lost out in the competition with the man's lawful wife. She went to a fortune teller once who told ​her that she was safe and secure so long as she accepted the situation and did not herself seek to change it. After that she was more comfortable.
Sometimes they gave parties to their friends and their friends' friends. They would be noisy parties to which the neighbors objected. Lillian would fetch and carry Bromo-Seltzer till she herself passed out and was put to bed by Hubert or Billy. They were not meaningless gay gatherings as so many parties are. People did not merely meet, drink, eat, dance, and say good night. Married couples threshed out their difficulties here and single couples decided to marry or perhaps separate forever. Loves and enmities developed and no one thought of meeting either with subterfuge. Lillian was adept at staving off a fight and warning a flirtatious wife of her husband's disapproval. She knew just the moment when everybody needed a cup of black coffee, but nobody ever knew when she needed it; so frequently she was among the missing.
There were holes in the living-room rug and in the upholstery of the sofa. People were careless with cigarettes, but Hubert and Lillian didn't mind. That all came under the heading of amusement.
Sometimes Lillian sat by her window, and gazing out at the garden court, wondered what it was all for—the parties, the liquor, the two cars, her and Hubert and the whole damn world.
But mostly she could be seen smoking contentedly and sitting somewhere very close to Hubert so that a person could tell at a glance that he was hers.