396: The next evening ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 20 continues
THE NEXT EVENING was one of those when the sunset would be visible between the other houses, and Herb and Lorna were sitting on their patio, waiting for Frank and Andrea Cogliano to come over to watch the sun set and drink some old-fashioneds. The Coglianos were late, and the sky began to redden without them. Herb was reading the paper, but Lorna was admiring the gold-leaf effect on the rippling surface of the Gulf. It reminded her of the flaming wavelets on the surface of Lake Serenity the night the ballroom burned, and, of course, it put her in a reflective mood. “Herb,” she said after a while, “I wish we could tell somebody. What do you suppose people here would say if we told them about — our work?”
Herb didn’t say anything.
“I mean — our work, Herb. The jewelry. Coarse goods. The charms. The moving parts. The sculptures. Everything.”
Herb spoke from behind the paper. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said.
“Even more than that,” said Lorna, dreaming. “Suppose we taught them. Suppose we gave a class.”
Herb let his paper fall. He was wearing the look of a boy who has just been asked, “Do you suppose I can trust you to go into town and sell the cow on your own?”
“I think everybody would love it,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, I’ve wanted to tell people ever since we got here. Every time I meet someone new, it’s always the same thing. Everybody introduces himself by telling you what he used to do. ‘I’m a postal clerk,’ he’ll say, ‘retired, of course.’ Or, ‘I’m a tugboat captain — retired, of course.’ And I say, ‘I’m a Studebaker salesman — retired, of course.’ Well, what the hell, I’ve got nothing against being a Studebaker salesman, but I was just itching to say, ‘I’m a coarse-goods designer and salesman — retired, of course.’ ”
Lorna had been grinning. She stopped. “I didn’t mean to have them make things to sell,” she said.
“Oh,” said Herb. “Why not?”
“Well, that would — ” she caught herself.
“Cheapen it?”
“I — ”
“I’m surprised at you, Lorna.”
“So am I. I’m sorry, Herb.”
“Is that what you’ve thought — all along?”
“I’m — not sure.”
“Damn.”
“Oh, Herb. It’s just that it seems to me — I suppose it always seemed to me — that the bad part of what I was doing — the ugly part — ”
“Was the part I was involved in.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Not the mechanical part.”
“But the selling part.”
“You said yourself that you only got involved in it because you needed the money, your family needed the money.”
“Yes. Yes. But — I liked it. I loved it. That was the best stuff I ever had to sell — better than the ’fifty-five Starliner. Much better.”
“But wouldn’t it be even better, wouldn’t it have been even better if you hadn’t had to sell them?”
“That’s not what you mean. I know what you mean. You mean, ‘Wouldn’t they have been better if they hadn’t been made to sell?’ ”
“I suppose I do.”
“I don’t think so. Would the Starliner have been better if it hadn’t been made to sell? There’s no telling what kind of strange ideas Loewy would have come up with if he hadn’t had to make a car that somebody would buy. You know, all you have to do to see what I mean is to look at the gadgets I started making back there when I was spending all that time in the cellar, worrying. And the gadgets that the fellows in my class like to make. They’re things to kill time. They’re — ”
“Herb.”
“Well, you know what I mean, Lorna. They’re — silly.”
“Many of the things you’ve made were very clever.”
“Oh, they were all clever, but some of them were silly.”
Lorna laughed and put her arms around Herb. “I think I understand what you mean,” she said.
“So you wouldn’t mind if we sold what they make — the best of what they make?”
“No, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Everybody could use the extra money. Besides, if they’ve got something to sell, I can get them to show up for my salesmanship classes.”
[to be continued on Tuesday, December 6, 2022]
In Topical Guide 396, Mark Dorset considers Aging; Education: Continuing: Learning a Foreign Language; Hobbies: Knitting, Jewelry-Making from this episode.
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