Chapter II: Dinner

Dinner times with the Harpers varied slightly according to the way Mattie had spent the afternoon, the amount of work at Joe’s office and where the Harpers were dining. They usually dined at home, but, once a week, usually Saturday, when they followed the feast with a visit to the theatre, they ate at one of the table d’hote restaurants some place within ten blocks of Broadway and Forty-second Street.

They thought themselves quite cosmopolitan because they had been to Italian, Greek, French, Chinese, Russian and Armenian restaurants, choosing in each the dish prepared for the curious—and eating it according to American table customs as they practised them.

This particular Tuesday they were dining at home.

Joe reached the apartment exactly at six-thirty, the trip home taking nearly an hour. Joe had been watching the clock for the last twenty minutes of his business day so as to escape at the first possible opportunity.

Mattie, in the kitchen, heard his key in the lock and hurried to greet him. They kissed quite as fondly as they had in the morning, Floppit gave a little yip of welcome and received a pat on the head in reply.

Dinner was nearly ready, Mattie informed Joe, table set and all.

Joe hurried with his ablutions and reached the dining-room, accompanied by his newspaper, the _Journal_ this time, at a quarter of seven. He divided the paper so that Mattie might have the last page, where are shown the strips of comics—he had read them hanging to a strap in the subway. Then he helped Mattie to bring in the hot dishes from the kitchen.

There was a small platter of five chops, fried quite brown, two for each one of them and one—to be cut into bits later—for Ikkle Floppit. Mattie always fried chops or steaks the days she went down-town, and sometimes other days besides.

There were potatoes, in their jackets to save her the trouble of peeling them, a dish of canned corn. There was a neat square of butter, too, and some thinly sliced bread on a silver-plated bread plate—a last year’s Christmas present from one of Mattie’s aunts—and a small dish of highly-spiced pickles.

Besides this, on the new tea wagon stood two pieces of bakery pastry, of a peculiarly yellow colour that had aimed at but far surpassed the result of eggs in the batter.

They sat down. Joe served the chops, Mattie the potatoes and corn. Mattie had put on her bungalow apron as soon as she returned home—so as to save her suit from the spots and wear incidental to dinner-getting. Joe looked just as he had in the morning, plus a small amount of beard and minus his coat and vest.

Yet, as the morning’s conversation had been spontaneous and enthusiastic and happy, this evening’s meal had a curious cloud of restraint over it.

“Good dinner,” said Joe, after his first mouthful.

“Yes, it does taste good,” agreed Mattie.

“Go down-town?”

“Uh-huh, I went down about eleven. Just got home an hour ago. I looked at the waists, but didn’t get any—they seemed awfully high. I may go down and get one to-morrow or Thursday. Any news in the paper?”

“Not much doing,” Joe rustled his own sheets.

He never really read at dinner but he liked to have the paper near him.

“Look at Floppit, Joe. Isn’t he cute, standing up that way? I’ve just got to give him a bite. It won’t make him too-fat, not what I give him. Come here, Missus’ lamb.”

Silence, then, save for the sound of knife against plate, a curious silence, a silence of avoidance. Then meaningless sentences, bits about anything, a struggle to appear happy, indifferent.

Joe, then,

“See any one down-town you know? Where’d you have lunch? Thought maybe you’d call up and have lunch with me.”

“I did think of it, but I didn’t come down your way. I stopped at Loft’s and had chocolate cake and a cherry sundae. No—I didn’t see any one I knew—exactly.... Anything happen at the office?”

“Well, nothing much. We got that Detroit order.”

“Did you, Joe? I’m sure glad of that.”

A silence. Then, Joe, suddenly, enthusiastically, as if some barrier had broken, as if he could no longer stay repressed, upon the path he had set for himself.

“Say, Mattie, guess what happened this afternoon! You know Ferguson, the fellow who used to be in our office, whose brother is in the show business? Well, he came in and gave me a couple of seats to see ‘Squaring the Triangle’ for Friday night. They say it’s a good show and in for a long run, but they want to keep the house filled while the show is new, till it gets a start.”

“Did he, honestly? Say, that’s great, isn’t it? Where are they, downstairs?”

“Sure. You don’t think he’d give away balcony seats, or at least offer them to me, do you? Remember, he gave us some last Spring. That makes three times this year we’ve been to shows on passes. Pretty good, eh, Mattie?”

“Well, I guess yes. We’re some people, knowing relatives of managers. I tell you, I think—”

A pause, then.

Mattie’s face lost its sudden smile and resumed its sadness of the earlier part of the meal.

“What’s the matter?” asked Joe.

“Nothing the matter with me.”

“Something else happened, too,” Joe went on, enthusiastically, “at noon, I’d just left Childs’—and guess who I passed on the street?”

“Some one we know?”

“We don’t know him exactly.”

“Oh, I can’t guess. Tell me.”

“I know you can’t—well, it was—William Gibbs McAdoo! Honest to goodness—McAdoo. It sure seemed funny. There he was, walking down the street, just like I’ve seen him in the movies half a dozen times. It sure gives you a thrill, seeing people like that.”

Why the mention of William G. McAdoo should bring tears to the eyes of a woman who had never met him may be inexplicable to some. But tears came into the eyes of Mattie Harper. She wiped her eyes on the corner of her bungalow apron, sniffed a little, came over to Joe, put her arms around him.

“I just—just can’t stand it,” she sobbed. “I’ve been worrying and worrying. Your seeing McAdoo seems the strangest thing, after what happened to me.”

“What was it, Mattie?”

Quite kindly and understandingly, Joe pushed his chair back from the table, gathered his wife on his knee.

“What was it, honey? Come tell Joe.”

“It wasn’t anything—anything to cry about. I—don’t know what’s the matter with me. It—it was in Lord & Taylor’s, this afternoon. I was looking at gloves—and I looked up—and there, right beside me, not two feet away, stood Billie Burke. Honestly! I know it was her. She looked exactly like her pictures—and I saw her in ‘The Runaway’ years ago, and not long ago in the movies. Yes, sir, Billie Burke. Joe, she’s simply beautiful.”

“Well, well, think of seeing Billie Burke!”

“And Joe, when I saw her, the awfulest feeling came over me. I tried not to tell you about it—after the letter this morning. I’d been thinking about Burton Center—but seeing Billie Burke just knocked it all out. Joe, you know I love you and want to do what you want—but, I—I just can’t move to Burton Center—unless you’ve got your heart set on it. I’d go then, of course—any place. But I don’t want to be—buried alive in that little town. Imagine those people—never seeing or doing anything—no new shows or famous people—nor any kind of life. And here I went down-town and saw Billie Burke and you—”

Joe’s pats became even fonder. He smoothed her hair with his too-pale hand.

“There, there, don’t cry. It’s all right. Nobody’s asking or expecting you to go to Burton Center. Funny thing, that. I had the same feeling. First, passing McAdoo—and then those theatre tickets. I guess there’s something about New York that gets you. They’ve got to forget that stuff about Burton Center, I can tell you that.”

Mattie jumped off Joe’s lap, took the used dishes from the table, put on the pastry and sat down in her own place, across from Joe.

“This is good,” said Joe, taking a bite; “where’d you get it?”

“At that little new French pastry shop we passed the night the black dog tried to bite Floppit.”

“Oh, yes, looked nice and clean in there.”

They ate their pastry slowly. Mattie dried her eyes. Joe spoke to her:

“Say, Mattie, don’t worry for a minute more about that Burton Center stuff. After eight years of living in the city, seeing famous people, living right in the center of things—didn’t we see all the warships and airplanes nearly every day? They can’t expect us to live in a rube place like Burton Center. We’re used to more, that’s all there is to it.”

“I know,” said Mattie, “I’d just die if I couldn’t walk down Fifth Avenue and see what people wore. It’s just weighed on me, terribly. I just saw us on the train going out there, and living in an awful little house without hot water or steam heat—and seeing Billie Burke just—”

The ’phone burred into the conversation.

Mattie answered it, as usual, assuming a nonchalant, society air.

“Yes, this is the Harpers’ apartment. Yes, this is Mrs. Harper speaking. Who? Oh, Mrs. Taylor. How do you do. I haven’t heard your voice in ages. We’re fine, thank you.... No, I don’t know much news. A friend of Mr. Harper’s, a brother of Ferguson, the theatrical producer, invited us to see ‘Squaring the Triangle’ as his guests on Friday. They say it’s a wonderful show. We saw ‘The Tattle-tale’ last Saturday. Yes, we liked it a great deal.... Saturday afternoon? Wait and I’ll ask Mr. Harper if he has an engagement.”

Hand over telephone mouthpiece, then:

“Want to go riding with the Taylors in their new car Saturday afternoon and stop at some road house for supper?”

Resuming the polite conversational tone of the telephone:

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Harper and I will be delighted to go. Awfully nice of you. At four? Fine. By the way, did I tell you I saw Billie Burke to-day? I did. She looked simply beautiful, not a day older than she looked last year. Wonderful hair, hasn’t she? And Mr. Harper passed William G. McAdoo on the street. Yes, New York is a wonderful city. You did? Isn’t that nice! All right, we’ll be ready on Saturday—don’t bother coming up, just honk for us, that’s what all our friends do. Thanks so much, good-bye.”

Mattie sat down at the table again.

“Well,” she said, “it’s time they asked us—they’ll take us now and be through for a year. Still, we may have a nice time. But—what we were talking about—you sure you are in earnest about Burton Center?”

“You bet I am. The folks at home had the wrong dope, that’s all. Why, I’ve got my position here, too important to give up at any one’s beck and call. Didn’t the boss congratulate me to-day on the way I wrote those Detroit letters? I bet I get a raise in another three months.”

They folded their napkins into their silver-plated napkin-rings, rose from the table, walked together into the living-room, stood looking out into the drab bleakness of One Hundred and Thirty-second Street, across to the factory-like, monotonous row of apartment houses opposite, where innumerable lights twinkled from other little caves, where other little families lived, humdrum, unmarked, inconsequential, grey. And from the minds of Mattie and Joe faded the visions of little white houses and cool, green lanes.

They remembered, instead, the city, their city—Mattie had seen a moving picture taken, once, from a Fifth Avenue bus—three years ago Joe had been introduced to—actually taken the hand of—William Jennings Bryan—they had both seen James Montgomery Flagg draw a picture for the Liberty Loan on the Public Library steps—a woman in a store had pointed out Lady Duff Gordon to Mattie—they had seen, on the street, a man who looked exactly like Charles M. Schwab—it might easily have been....

“I’ll write that letter right away and have it over with,” said Joe, “I won’t hurt ma’s feelings—she and Dad mean all right. Living in Burton Center all their lives we can’t expect them to understand things. It’s ridiculous, of course. I don’t know what came over us for a minute this morning. Of course we’ve got the crowded subways, here, and it costs a lot to live and—and all that. You can’t expect a place to be perfect. But—New Yorkers like us couldn’t stand that dead Burton Center stuff for five minutes. Why, we’re, we’re—city folks!”

INDIAN SUMMER