🎧 265: Their meeting . . .

Chapter 5
In Which Herb and Lorna Meet but Are Separated by War

THEIR MEETING almost didn’t occur, because Herb met Tessie Norris first. He met her at a gas station. He was stopped at a pump, leafing through his appointment book while he was having his tank filled and his oil and water and tires checked. An antiquated touring car pulled up on the opposite side of the pumps, its arrival heralded by a flourish of rattles, pings, and wheezes that made Herb look up from his book. In the passenger’s seat, he saw Tessie. She looked like a pastel portrait. That she was picking distractedly at the hem of her dress Herb couldn’t see; that her eyes darted about like those of a frightened bird he didn’t notice; that she was biting her lower lip he overlooked. He was smitten by her pale, perfect face.
     Herb had had little experience with girls or women. In school he’d had his share of crushes but little opportunity to do much about them. Now, sitting in his own car, with some money in his pocket, wearing a new suit, he not only noticed but felt in a position to act.
     He got out of his car and walked around the pumps. He seemed to be on his way inside the station, perhaps to inspect the inner tubes displayed in the tiny office, but then a sudden determination seemed to come over him. He looked at the car and at its driver, and he seemed to waver in his course. The driver had by now noticed Herb, and Herb grinned sheepishly, shrugged his shoulders, and stepped briskly to the driver’s side of the car.
     “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ve noticed that your machine is — well, heck, it needs some repair, doesn’t it? I hope you won’t mind my giving you some advice that may save you considerable frustration and unnecessary expense.”
     “Huh?” said the driver.
     “Hello,” said Herb, leaning to his left so that he could see past the large driver to the young woman beside him. He touched the brim of his hat.
     “You selling something?” asked the driver.
     Herb chuckled. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he said, “but that isn’t my reason for stopping to talk with you. I wanted to tell you that my machine, when I bought it, was, well — ”
     “As bad as this?” asked the driver.
     “Yes,” said Herb, grinning. “I’m glad you said it. Would you like to know something? I made all the repairs myself.” He leaned toward the man and spoke in a low voice. “Who’s willing to pay what a professional mechanic asks today? I know I’m not. Even if I were, you and I both know that workmanship today is not what it once was.” Involuntarily, Herb reached for his pocket watch. He stopped himself.
     “You’re a mechanic?” asked the driver.
     “No, no,” said Herb. “I learned everything I know about the automobile from a book! A remarkable book by a fellow named Robert Sloss. I keep it in my machine all the time now. I’d be quite willing to lend you a copy, and I’m sure that by following Mr. Sloss’s advice you could achieve remarkable results. Why, one chapter alone — I’m thinking of the chapter called ‘How to Find the Motor Trouble’ — would make the book worth its price.”
     The man at the wheel of the car was Arthur Norris. Herb lent him a copy of The Automobile: Its Selection, Care, and Use and got his name and address, insisting that it was no trouble at all for him to stop by in a week or two to pick the book up. Herb drove away, humming, planning that, in a week, he would drop by, during the day, in the hope that Arthur Norris would not be at home, but that the young woman, whom he supposed to be Arthur Norris’s daughter, would be.
     She was not Norris’s daughter. She was his wife. She was distracted, nervous, and unhappy. Marriage had been a terrible disappointment to her, a disappointment that had metastasized, and now affected every aspect of her life. She wandered through her days picking at her clothes, biting her lips, mumbling to herself, discovering new disappointments. All days seemed gray, all music seemed monotonous, all birds resembled pigeons, all food tasted like lima beans. Had Herb ever gone to the Norrises’ house, as he had planned, Tessie would have grabbed him, clung to him, would have poured out everything to him in the incoherent volubility of the disappointed, the drunken, the mad. Herb wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off her. Arthur might have returned while Herb was still there, and he might well have been pleased to have found Herb there, since Arthur couldn’t have been getting much more fun out of married life than Tessie was. Herb wouldn’t have been able to prevent himself from selling books to Arthur even if he tried. Arthur would have signed up for Professor Clapp’s entire five-foot shelf. He might even have bought one of Herb’s five-foot shelves.
     In the months that followed, Herb might have become a frequent visitor at the Norrises’. Arthur would have liked Herb, and he would have liked the effect Herb had on Tessie. Arthur would have been quite willing to have them spend time alone together because Herb’s lively, hopeful manner would have brought the light back to her eyes, and in a clumsy, uncertain way, Arthur would have tried to push them into becoming lovers, thinking that perhaps Tessie might then bring to lovemaking with him at least an echo, some tremor or ripple, of whatever pleasure she took from Herb. Had Herb become Tessie’s lover, his sense of honor, of loyalty, of shame would certainly have pushed him closer and closer to the Norrises, and the trio would have wrapped itself more and more tightly, snugly, closer and closer in its own misery and desperation as time passed. Herb would never have extricated himself, he would never have gone to Chacallit, he would never even have met Lorna.
     Luckily, Herb was drafted.

In Topical Guide 265, Mark Dorset considers Settings: Gas Stations; World War I; and Luck from this episode.

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