The Cat's Pajamas

The train roared into the station below, with a clangor and a belling and a great burning sound.

“Won’t be long now,” said Susan, smiling, showing a gold tooth.

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“I feel too good, talk all you want; I feel fine!”

The train was stopped now, and people were getting out. She could see them, small, small, at the base of the hill, in the concrete station, moving and milling. She thought of him and what he looked like now and what he had been like then. She remembered the time when he had returned from school, when he was seven, and had missed saying good-bye to her. She lived at home in the outer part of town. Every night she took a trolley at four o’clock. And he had missed walking with her to the trolley. Crying, he had run down the street after her. And found her just in time and embraced her, sobbing against her legs while she reached down and petted and cooed over him.

“That’s something you never done,” said Susan, angrily.

“What didn’t I do?” asked Linda, surprised.

“Never mind.” Susan lapsed once more into her remembering. And then that time, when he was thirteen and had returned from two years in California and had found her in the kitchen of his grandmother’s house and whirled her around, laughing and embracing her. She smiled with the thought. It was a good thought. And now, fifteen years after that, him a big Hollywood writer on his way to the opening of his play in New York. And in the mail six months ago his first published book, and yesterday the letter saying he would stop to see her. She hadn’t slept very well last night.

“No white man’s worth all this,” said Linda. “I’m goin’ home.”

“You sit down,” commanded Susan.

“I don’t want to be here when he don’t show up,” said Linda. “I’ll phone you later.” She walked to the door and opened it.

“Come back here and sit down,” said Susan. “He’ll be here any minute.

”

Linda stood with the door half open. She shut it and waited a minute, leaning silently against it, shaking her head.

“There’s a yellow cab comin’ up the hill now,” called Susan, bent to the cold windowpane. “I bet he’s in it!”

“You’ll be poor by mornin’.”

They waited.

“Oh,” said Susan, blinking.

“What?”

“That fool cab turned down the other way.”

“I bet he’s just sittin’ down there in the lounge car, drinkin’ a drink. I bet he’s in with a bunch of other men an’ can’t get away, afraid to tell them what he wants to do in a small town, take a cab an’ come up to see some colored woman friend of his.”

“He ain’t doin’ that. He’s in a taxi now. I know.”

Ten minutes and then fifteen passed.

“He should be here by now,” said Susan.

“He ain’t.”

“Maybe that ain’t the train; maybe the clock’s wrong.”

“Want me to phone ‘time’ for you?”

“Get away from that phone!” cried Susan.

“All right, all right, I just thought.”

“You just thought, you thought, get away!” She raised her hand and her face was twisted.