17: “I left work early . . .”

Little Follies, “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” Chapter 5 continues

Jun 03, 2021

[Eliza Foote continues]

     “I left work early that afternoon. My mind was racing, and all my typing was a mess. I went home and began sorting out my things. I didn’t have any plan; I was just cleaning my slate. I didn’t realize that I was talking so loudly to myself until Mrs. Mitchell, who lived next door, came over to see what was the matter. I told her. I began heaping old things of mine on her, and it was only when I came to the little white sunsuit that I had bought after a long period of hesitation, a sunsuit that I had imagined wearing to someone’s summer house for the weekend, but had never worn at all, that I knew I wasn’t just doing my spring cleaning. I was leaving. I got out my suitcases, and I threw in the sunsuit and the other things that I wanted to keep. I spent a fitful night, and when I got up in the morning I got out of there as quickly as I could.”
     Mr. Beaker let a moment pass to be certain that it was his turn to speak. “I found Louise’s Coffee Shop easily,” he said. “It was a popular spot in Hargrove at that time. God knows why. I parked on the street, across from the place, waiting for Eliza not to appear. I grew more and more delighted at her failure to appear, until I realized that no one at all had come to the corner to wait for the bus, that in fact no bus had stopped at the corner, and only then did I realize that this was a Saturday morning. I was disappointed, but not terribly disturbed; I was sure that I was right, that there was no Eliza Foote.
     “I decided to make a few discreet inquiries at Louise’s. I was just about to step out of the car when a woman carrying two suitcases and a blue cloth coat walked around the corner and sat on the bench, setting a suitcase on either side of her. You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
     “I sat there on the bench,” said Eliza, “enjoying the sun and the anticipation of something new. I glanced across the road and saw a fellow sitting in a Studebaker, staring at me with his mouth hanging open. ‘Take a good look,’ I said to myself, and I stretched out in the sun. Providentially, a warm breeze blew my skirt up a little. I glanced at him sidelong, and I could see that he was staring at me like mad, so I casually looked in his direction and acted as if I had noticed him for the first time. I said good morning and smiled.”
     “I got out of the car in a trance,” said Mr. Beaker. “I had no doubt who she was, but I had no idea what to do.”
     “He walked up to me slowly, his eyes fixed on mine, and he didn’t say anything. He just stood there. Without thinking about it really, I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to give this guy my right name.’ So I smiled at him and said, ‘My name is Mary Strong,’ which was the first name that came to mind, since it had been on my mind for so long.”
     Mr. Beaker leaned forward and spoke rapidly. “I understood it all in an instant. You must imagine as I relate my thoughts that only a second is passing, that if you had been at the corner you would have seen no hesitation between Eliza’s introducing herself and my introducing myself. I thought, My God, could that be? Could this merely be a coincidence? Oh, no. Never. You’re not Mary Strong, my dear. I am Mary Strong, and you can’t be anyone but Eliza Foote. But how do you know Mary Strong? Has Jack been showing Mary’s letters to you, sharing a laugh over her confusion? Or is there no one to share that laugh with you? No one but me? I held out my hand. ‘I’m Jack Simpson,’ I said.”
Eliza put out her cigarette slowly, tapping at the ashes until nothing was left burning. “The whole thing came to me in a flash,” she said. “All these ideas raced through my mind in the time it takes to blink your eyes. I thought, Wow, could that be? Is this just a coincidence? Oh, no. Uh-uh. You’re not Jack Simpson. I made Jack Simpson up, so if anybody’s Jack Simpson, I am. So who are you? Who knows about Jack Simpson? Just me and Mary Strong. I smiled and batted my lashes. ‘I think we’ve got those backwards,’ I said.”
     “We shook hands,” said Mr. Beaker.
     “We walked over to the car,” said Eliza.
     “We drove off.”
     “We went to the beach.”
     “We walked on the sand.”
     “We talked.”
     “We laughed.”
     “It was nearly dark when we pulled into Dudley’s driveway. Dudley didn’t even put the car into the garage. He hustled me into the house. We made love, and it was, well, not bad. Let’s say that I’ve suggested a few improvements since then, matters of style mostly.”
     Mr. Beaker coughed and tamped his pipe.
     “Quite a few,” he admitted, and he grinned. “I have suggested a few improvements in style myself, style of dress, of speech, of mannerism.”
     Eliza patted Mr. Beaker on the back of his hand. “He fell asleep,” she said. “I unpacked and then poked around. I found the letters, of course, and spent a long time reading through them. I could see that he had real talent, but that there was room for improvement there, too.”
     “When I woke up,” said Mr. Beaker, “she was pulling on my ear and saying, ‘Dudley, wake up.’ She hadn’t a stitch on, and the sight of her as soon as I opened my eyes, well it took my breath away. She was holding fistfuls of letters, and she insisted that we go through them immediately, so that I could see the changes she had in mind.”
     “I said to him, ‘Admit it, Dudley, you’ve been botching up the sex parts.’”
     “And as she went on, I had to admit that she was right. She had several improvements to suggest, and they were all quite interesting. I suggested that she work with me, as my assistant.”
     “‘Nothing doing,’ I said. ‘Partner or nothing. I could always write to these guys and tell them they’ve been duped.’”
     “I thought of the way that I had come to anticipate with such relish the competition with Jack Simpson, the jousting, the thrust and parry, and I said to myself, ‘Why, here you have the creator of Jack Simpson, you fool,’ and I agreed.”
     “And he has never regretted it since,” said Eliza.
     “I’ve never been a religious man,” said Mr. Beaker, slowly and carefully, “but I’ve always had the conviction that a benevolent hand nudged each of us toward that corner that morning.”