Short and neat! That is the art of the short short.
“You really ought to get married, Paul,” George said. “It simply isn’t right for a man of forty to be living alone.”
If I hadn’t known him for such a busybody, I would have thought George was joking. He thinks he can speak as he pleases to me because he’s older, and was a close friend of my father’s before the auto accident that killed both my parents and crippled my brother.
“Bring a woman into this house? Ridiculous!”
“Paul, you have no idea what a woman’s touch could do for this place—and for you, too. You need a new incentive.”
“What I need,” I said, “is just to be left alone. Don’t forget I took care of my brother for twenty years. I’m entitled to relax a little.”
All four of us were in the accident, the whole family. I came through all right except for a concussion that made me fuzzy in the head for a year or two. Taking care of my crippled brother was a terrible chore, but I faced up to my duty. Mother always told us a gentleman never shirks his responsibilities.
“I couldn’t help thinking,” said George, “after your brother tumbled down the stairs in his wheelchair last year and broke his neck, that at least you would now have a chance to enjoy life a bit.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Fixing up the house the way I want it. Have you seen the new retaining wall I’m building out back? I’ll have twice as big a flower garden after that place is filled in.”
I might have added that I also would be able to buy the fill without an argument, now that my brother was gone. Our parents left quite a lot of money, but it had dwindled to the point where it wasn’t really enough to take care of two of us. I’m afraid that toward the end, my brother and I quarreled quite a bit about how the money was to be spent.
“Paul,” said George, “I’ve a friend I’ve been wanting you to meet. Quite an attractive woman. She’s pretty much alone in the world. Suppose I bring her over?”
I absolutely forbade it, but he went on trying to persuade me. “Don’t get the idea that she’s a fortune hunter,” he said. “She’s got money. Travels all the time. That would be good for you, Paul—getting out to see a little of the world.”
“I like it right where I am.”
But George is never content unless he is arranging someone else’s life, so he brought her in spite of anything I could say, and of course I had no choice but to be polite to her. No true gentleman is ever impolite to a lady. Mother always told us that.
The entire evening was a nightmare. Cynthia mistook my politeness for genuine cordiality. I caught her looking around the living room as if she were thinking of how to rearrange the furniture.
When George stopped in to see me the next day, he was jubilant. “Cynthia liked you.”
“Did she indeed? Well, I’m afraid it wasn’t mutual.”
“Oh, come on, Paul,” he said. “Admit that she’s an attractive woman. You’d make a handsome couple.”
“She’s a determined woman who would run every minute of my life.”
“Maybe that’s what you need,” he said. The fool!
“Just leave me alone, George. Please don’t bring her here again.”
A few days later, however, when I was in the backyard working on my new wall, I heard his voice and turned to see him approaching—with Cynthia striding vigorously along beside him. Of course I had to play the host and make them welcome despite my true feelings.
“What are you going to do about that cavity under the big boulder?” George asked.
“The wall will cover it.”
“You ought to fill it with something,” said George.
Cynthia leaned over to peer into the opening. Suddenly, I thought how perfectly that big-boned, muscular frame would fill the cavity, if I could just bring myself to push her into it! I saw myself bashing Cynthia over the head with a rock, rolling her into the opening and saying to George, “There! You wanted it filled, didn’t you?”
But quite apart from the foolishness of doing such a thing in front of a witness, I would have been utterly incapable of striking Cynthia, despite the repugnance I felt for her at that moment. No true gentleman ever raises his hand against a lady. If Mother said that to us once, she said it a hundred times.
You can imagine how delighted I was when George called to say that he was going away for a month on a business trip. “Call up Cynthia and take her out,” he said, “I think she’s becoming quite fond of you, Paul.”
I most certainly would not call Cynthia, and of course it was unthinkable that she would call on me without her old friend George. As Mother used to say so often, a lady simply does not call unescorted on a gentleman.
My wall was coming along famously when, one sunny Saturday afternoon, I was surprised to hear footsteps on the gravel behind me. I swung around and was absolutely dumfounded to see Cynthia standing there, quite alone.
“Hello, Paul,” she said brazenly. “You didn’t call, so I stopped by to tell you I have two tickets to the show that’s opening tonight at the Belmont. You’ll go, won’t you?”
It was less a question than a statement of the inevitable. I stood speechless, my trowel in one hand and a rock in the other, while Cynthia drew a pamphlet from her purse and began reading aloud about the show at the Belmont.
When George returned, he paid me a visit. “How are you and Cynthia getting along?” he asked. “I called at her apartment, but there was no answer.”
“I haven’t seen her,” I replied. “Probably she’s away on one of those trips of hers.”
“Very likely,” said George. “Well, I’ll keep trying to reach her. I want to get you two together again as soon as she comes back.”
But Cynthia did not come back. George says he always thought some day she’d find some place she liked so much that she’d just stay there, but he worries because she doesn’t write, and says he misses her.
Frankly, I can’t imagine why he would—a woman like that who could call on a man unescorted. She certainly was no lady.