# Kept Woman/Chapter 16

There is more to being broke than at first meets the eye of the uninitiated. It is not just a matter of doing without bracket lights, a built-in shower, and a white gas-stove. It is not even merely a matter of hurrying by shop windows, washing one's own hair, and mending runs instead of throwing stockings away. If it were only this none but the very weak and inefficient would mind poverty. It is more, much more.
You live where the rents are very cheap. Your neighbors are poor, and with trouble and hardship they have lost any fastidiousness which once they may have had. You buy an exterminating powder for kitchen pests and you use it freely and frequently. All to no avail. If the woman upstairs, downstairs or beside you is satisfied to have swarms of roaches then you must be satisfied, too.
Too, the dumbwaiter becomes a horror to you. You loathe opening it. The garbage is set upon it without regard for the morning call. In paper bags, in boxes, in milk bottles, the garbage is thrown upon the dumbwaiter, and the janitor is stubborn. He will not remove it till garbage call next morning.
There are children about you shouting in the halls, crying, screaming. You fear at first that one of the number has been hurt. Later you hope that one has. The city heat, the garbage, the roaches, the crying children, have ​your nerves at the breaking-point. You can bear it no longer and perhaps you flee from it all and some one with a secure and satisfactory income who believes that poverty and romance are synonymous calls you a quitter.
The man at the garage wanted his money. Hubert hadn't it to give him. He told him so.
"Well, you don't move your cars out of here till you get it."
Hubert was terrorized. Helen would be wanting the Packard. He couldn't tell her he was broke. He heard in his imagination the cold, cutting tones of his wife's voice. He couldn't tell her the Packard was in for repairs. That would be worse. Funny how he hadn't been able to connect up with a good job. It must be a bad season or perhaps even a bad year. Well, there'd be no fooling around now. If he got those cars loose he'd certainly sell the Nash. Too bad he couldn't sell the Packard.
He hunted up Carl Feldman. Feldman had always been a good scout.
Carl greeted him affably. He liked Hubert despite the fact that he thought him Nature's prime sap.
"How's tricks, Hubert?"
"Rotten. I was in on that Imperial steel slump." He had been reading the papers that morning.
"Is that so? Gee, that's too bad."
"Yeh. Oh, it doesn't matter an awful lot only I'm a little tied up. I bought something else on a tip from one of the big boys. It'll come through big around the twentieth of the month. I've got absolute information on it. In the meantime I'm a little short. Could you let ​me have a hundred or so, Carl, till the end of the month?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Hubert, I'm a little pressed myself. How much could you get by with?"
"A hundred would fit me fine."
"A hundred? Gee, I don't know."
"You know I'm good for it, Carl, don't you?"
Carl regarded him speculatively. The fact was that he didn't know that Hubert was good for it, didn't even think he was. Still, he'd been a business man for years and had quit clean. Well, what the hell? A hundred dollars wasn't a million.
Hubert hurried back to Inwood with the hundred dollars Carl had drawn from the bank for him. He handed it to the garage man with a smile.
"If I had known that you'd have conniption fits over such a small amount I'd have paid you long ago," he said. "Take what I owe you out of this and next month's rent on the Packard. I'm taking the Nash away today to give to my nephew."
Lillian was impressed when five minutes later he honked the roadster's horn beneath her window. She had never expected to see either car again. She hurried downstairs to him, pulling her coat on as she ran.
"How did you talk him into giving up the car?"
"I paid him."
"Paid him? Where did you get the money?"
"Why, I was up talking to Carl Feldman about a job and he suddenly remembered that he owed me a hundred bucks. Can you imagine that for luck? It had gone right plumb out of my mind."
​"Gee, that was luck. What about the job?"
"That sounds good. I have to go see the fellow tomorrow. I'm going to sell this car, Lil, I just decided. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, but I think you're foolish. Why don't you sell the Packard? You'll get more money for it, and the roadster will be cheaper for us to run."
"Now we've been over that a dozen times. I'm not going to sell the Packard."
"All right."
"Well, I'm going to see about selling this car now. Want to go with me?"
"No. I have to go to the stores. You'll be home for dinner, won't you?"
"Sure."
"See you later."
Lillian walked over to Dyckman Street. She passed the butcher shop where she used to deal and turned her head away. She was always afraid that the butcher would come running out and ask her why she didn't deal with him any more. He'd been a very obliging butcher and he had good meat, only it was expensive. Down below Post Avenue was her new butcher. His store was one of a chain and he was only employed there. He brought you meat out of the ice-box already chopped. He never let you pick out your own beef and watch him chop it right before your eyes.
She bought three lamb chops today. Hubert could always eat two. She had potatoes. A can of peas, a loaf of bread, and a half-dozen eggs. What was all the conniving for? She had forgotten that Hubert was selling ​the Nash. She could have gotten a chicken. She decided to get a rich, creamy cake in the bakery.
She crossed Dyckman Street and directly in front of Loft's she encountered Anna Sullivan and Louise Fisher walking together. It was the first time she had seen them since she had been in the new apartment.
"Why, Lillian!"
"Well, for Heaven's sake!"
They stared at her as though she had risen from the dead. She stared back at them.
"Where have you been?" they asked in unison.
"Settling my apartment and one thing and another," she returned. "Did you quit work, Anna?"
"No, I've been sick. This is really my first day out. Louise has been keeping me company. Gee, we wondered and wondered where you'd gone."
"You knew."
"No, honest, Lillian. I knew it was that row where the nigger janitor stabbed his wife, but I didn't know which house. We've wondered about you a lot."
Lillian was conscious of Louise's hard, inquiring eyes regarding her under the rakish slant of a pale green cloche. She saw Anna's glance roving over her bundles, the soiled dress under her unbuttoned coat. She was suddenly conscious that her heels needed straightening and that she was out without a hat. Good God, was this she—Lili Cory? She was frightened to walk on and leave Anna and Louise alone. They would say things to each other about her. They would perhaps look back at her and pity her.
​"Come on up to my place," she said. "Let's have some coffee and cake."
The girls were willing to accompany her. They threw over the chance to see John Gilbert make love to Greta Garbo. It was worth it. They wanted to see Lillian's new home.
They waited politely at the bakery counter while she purchased an apple cream cake. Then they walked home with her.
Lillian took their wraps and bade them be seated while she made coffee. They looked the apartment over. Louise was the bolder of the two.
"What possessed you to come here?" she asked.
"Now, what would possess anybody to come here? The rent's cheap."
"Oh," breathed Louise. "Where's Hubert?"
"He'll be in soon. He's in a bit of a hole. He made some bum investments and we're trying to make them up by economizing for a while. All in the life of a kept woman, girls, all in the life of a kept woman."
"Still got the cars?" asked Anna.
"We're selling the Nash. Not the Packard, of course. We're not that bad off."
"I see," said Anna. "Well, you're certainly a brick to be willing to live here."
"Oh, I don't mind. We're hardly ever in. We've been chasing around a lot. I've been meaning to drop over and see you both at different times, but you know how it is. You get busy and all."
The girls nodded understandingly. Louise asked if she could have another cup of coffee. Lillian poured ​out fresh coffee and asked about Cliff and Billy. It seemed they were both doing splendidly.
"I thought you were trying to dodge us," Louise said. "You never sent your address or come for us any more." She settled herself comfortably and looked encouragingly at Lillian. "You can tell all your troubles to me," her expression said.
"I thought I wrote my address out for you," Lillian lied. "Funny that I didn't."
"Well, you didn't. Theresa was asking about you the other day, too."
"Tell her where I am, will you?"
"Why don't you write to her? Or you could call her up."
Lillian considered it for a moment. "You tell her," she said then. "I never get around to writing or phoning people."
"You used to," Louise accused.
"Yeh. Well, I've been busy."
"Doing what?" Anna protested. "Gee, it couldn't have took long to settle this apartment."
"Well," Lillian wrinkled her brows as though to recall some of her recent social activities. "Did you ever hear Hubert speak of the McKay Brothers?"
"Yeh, I think so."
"They're the men who bought his business. Well, we've been running around quite a bit with them and their wives." Lillian paused for a moment to wonder if either of the McKay Brothers had a wife. "Then we've been seeing quite a bit of Carl Feldman."
"No time for old friends, eh?" Louise asked.
​Lillian smiled at Louise and said, "You know different, only Heaven knows this is no place to entertain people."
The girls looked around again and their eyes remarked that it really was an amazingly ugly place.
"Well, now that we've been here," said Anna, "can we bring the boys over?"
Lillian had one of her rare flashes of insight. "Yes," she said, "you'd better bring them over. They'd never believe you if they didn't see it for themselves."
"Oh, it isn't as terrible as all that." Louise's eyes searched for something about which she could say a pleasant word. "You get the sun in this room," she said at last.
"That's a big help to me," Lillian said. "I'll be just crazy about it on a hot summer's day."
"My God, how long do you expect to stay here?" Anna asked.
"Not long, but it will be summer before we know it."
The girls were looking at their watches, drawing out their compacts, their lipsticks, pulling their hats more firmly down upon their heads. Lillian thought it would be cute if they rehearsed these gestures and did them more perfectly in unison. It was pretty well done even as it was, but Louise had twisted her leg to see if the seam in her stocking was straight; Anna hadn't done that. It sort of spoiled things. They were going now. Lillian thought of her Nash roadster. Maybe even now somebody else owned it and Hubert was on his way to her with money. Tonight would be a good time to have ​a little party. Anna and Louise were bound to bring their husbands sometime and certainly while Hubert had money was the most auspicious. They could buy a bottle of gin and not look so dreadfully poverty-stricken.
"What are you doing tonight?" she asked.
Anna and Louise looked at each other.
"I guess nothing," Louise said.
"Well, why don't you all come over tonight?"
"All right."
Louise arose purposefully. "Well, I have to beat it then," she said, "if we're coming back tonight. I have a lot of things that have to be done."
After they had gone Lillian threw herself on the couch and began to wait for Hubert. She was always waiting for him nowadays. The minutes spent in waiting were happy minutes. She always felt that he was hurrying to her with good news. When he finally came he never had much to tell. There was always some one who had offered him a job. Nothing astonishing there. People were bound to offer a fellow like Hubert jobs by the barrelful. Only they never offered him more than five thousand a year. She felt sometimes that he ought to take one of these jobs, but on the other hand he was probably right. Why should he get himself into the five-thousand-dollar class when he was worth so much more? She knew that it was only a matter of patience and courage and they would be on Easy Street again. But oh, she hated this place so much. If things would only come right.
​Hubert got five hundred dollars for the car.
"There you are," he said, spreading the money before her. "Money isn't hard to get."
"Not if a person has a car to sell every day," she answered.
"You watch now, kid, this is lucky money. This'll break the ice. Everything will change from today on."
She told him about meeting Louise and Anna. "They're coming back this evening. Cliff and Billy are coming, too. Do me a favor, Hubert, let me spend twenty-five dollars, will you?"
"Spend fifty if you like. Spend a hundred. What do you want to do?"
"Oh, Hubert, I'm a mess. I haven't anything to wear or anything. I haven't bought things for ages. You know I had a lot of things and they all went at once. I don't want Louise or Anna to think we're broke."
"Well, this apartment won't keep our secret very well, Lillian."
"I kinda covered that by talking of economizing after you made bad investments. See? But I hate to look awful myself."
"Sure. Go ahead."
After dinner Lillian rushed out to Dyckman Street. She got a dress for fifteen dollars. It was blue georgette with a pleated skirt. Very pretty. She bought shoes for six dollars. Black satin pumps they were. She didn't care much for the heels. They weren't high and slim enough, but she was in too much of a hurry to hunt about. Stockings could be managed on a dollar nineteen. They were pretty stockings. A shade known as autumn ​dawn. Her hair did need attention, but she could let that go. If anything came up about it she could always say that she was letting it grow.
Lillian bought a bottle of gin for two dollars, a dozen lemons, and a bottle of fruit juice. She went to the delicatessen store then and ordered a dozen sandwiches—ham and cheese combinations—to be sent over at eleven o'clock.
Less than thirty dollars had been spent and she had redeemed herself for running about Dyckman Street hatless with run-down heels.
It was thrilling, too, to be having company again. She could see no reason why she had abruptly broken with the Sullivans and the Fishers. That had been a fool trick. It hadn't been fun to sit night after night in the little apartment playing innumerable games of checkers and quarreling with Hubert to vary the monotony. This was the time when she needed Billy's wisecracks and the others' endless talk. It had been stupid to be ashamed of being broke. It was only temporary anyway. It would be good to have the Sullivans and the Fishers around her again.
They came at nine o'clock. The girls had changed their dresses since the afternoon. Lillian was glad that she was looking well. The men eyed the apartment and sat down. They did not seem to know that this was the same couch upon which they had sat so many times before. They had also slept on it, spilled drinks on it, and burned holes in it, but now they sat stiffly on it and close to the edge.
Lillian was excessively gay. She took their hats and ​coats and flung them upon the bed in the other room. She talked as she mixed the drinks and laughed a great deal.
"I hear you sold the Nash," Billy said. "I wish I had known you wanted to. I'd have bought it." His tone was one of extreme boredom. It was really no great matter. One buys so many cars.
"Billy is rolling in wealth nowadays," Anna said. "I'm surprised he talks to us."
"Making out well, Billy?" Hubert asked.
Billy became apologetic. "Don't pay any attention to her," he said. "She thinks a guy who broadcasts is lousy with money. You know how it is, Scotty, I pull through."
Lillian served the drink and conversation perished while the experimental sip was taken.
"That's gorgeous, Lillian," Anna said.
Everybody agreed and discovered that there wasn't anything else to say about anything in the world.
Hubert was sullenly quiet. Lillian asked Billy how he sang in the studio. Louder or softer than usual?
"About the same," said Billy.
"Oh."
Silence. Conversation was very scarce, but they got along the best they could till the sandwiches came. Lillian put them on a plate and handed them around.
Anna said they were gorgeous.
At twelve o'clock the Sullivans and the Fishers departed.
"Now don't be a stranger, Lillian," the girls said. "Come around any time at all."
​"I will."
"We had a lovely time. Good night."
"Good night."
The door closed and Lillian went back to her living-room and looked it over.
Every cigarette had been properly extinguished in an ash tray. Every glass was right side up and unbroken. There had been no fights and no noise of any kind.
Hubert looked at the platter whereon six sandwiches still rested. Everybody had refused a second.
"They weren't as hungry tonight as they always used to be," he said. "Or maybe they're getting polite in their old age."
"Yes, they were very polite," said Lillian. She seemed to forget them then. She was silent for a whole minute, standing motionless in the center of the little room that was too pitiful to misuse. "God damn them," she blazed suddenly. "Coming around here being polite. Where do they get that stuff?"