Seasons of Her Life (49 page)

“We don't know how much to order and we need to ask some questions. Like how long will flour keep?”

“Tightly closed you can keep it forever. The butter and shortening need refrigeration once the cans are opened. Get your eggs from a local farmer. I hate dealing with eggs. No money in eggs. Everybody bitches when they get cracked. Brown eggs are the best. Anything else, ladies? Oh, yeah, I need forty-eight hours' notice for an order unless it's an emergency. I been in this business a long time, and I only had one emergency and that was when the Red Cross needed food for disaster relief.”

The honest, honorable streak in Ruby made her blurt out, “Mr. Saltzer, will you still make a profit selling to us at this price? We don't want charity, even if Paul was good enough to ... to agree for you . . . what I mean is ...”

Abe rocked back on his heels. He shook his head, the cigar wobbling in his mouth. “Ladies, you don't ever ask a question like that. Now, what kind of businesswomen are you going to turn out to be if you go around asking dumb questions?”

“Honest ones,” Ruby said forcefully.

“Well, as one honest businessman to another, yeah. I'm still making a profit, but for Christ's sake, don't go blabbing this to anyone, okay?”

“Okay. We'll be in touch, Mr. Saltzer.”

“Cash!” Saltzer called after her.

“Cash,” Ruby called over her shoulder. “And the cookies.”

“Yeah, don't forget the cookies.”

“He's practically
giving
it to us, and he's still making a profit,” Dixie said in awe. “We're being robbed at the grocery store, you know that?”

“I've known that for a long time,” Ruby muttered.

After they had made a similar deal for their bags with a man named Petrocelli, they headed for home.

When, forty-five minutes later, Ruby swerved into her driveway, she ran over the same rosebushes she'd mutilated in January. She didn't care. All she wanted was to sleep. She made it into the house on her own. Dixie led her to the couch, turned up the heat, and covered her with an afghan. She turned the phone down to ring low before she let herself out of the house by way of the garage so Ruby would be locked in.

The garage was huge, oversized. Dixie closed her eyes and tried to visualize the place filled with thousands of colored bags of cookies, waiting for delivery. It was such a pleasant picture that she smiled. Success. She was glad she was going to share in it. Her only misgiving was she had no money to put into the business and yet Ruby was willing to split everything fifty-fifty. Her own eyes closed wearily. What she couldn't give in the way of money would have to be made up in work. That she knew how to do.

The first thing she was going to do when she got some money was go to a doctor and see about getting some stronger pain pills. The arthritis the last doctor said was going to set in was already entrenched. Some mornings she could hardly get out of bed. A hot, steaming bath was the only thing that helped, along with four or five aspirin.

Already, she could feel the beginnings of stress and strain. She'd been blithe about Hugo with Ruby, but she somehow suspected that he was working up to a nasty mood, one she would suffer from if she didn't try to head it off. “If he would just die, I'd be so happy,” she whispered. She was filled with shame immediately. Hugo wasn't going to die, and she wasn't going to leave him because she was tied to him in a sick kind of way. She wished she had Ruby's guts. Ruby always managed to land on her feet even when things were at their worst. This business venture, if it got off the ground, was proof. One minute she had nothing but an idea, and the next minute they were in business. It would get off the ground because Ruby said it would. Her last-minute decision to sell the cookies for a dollar a dozen instead of fifty cents had already netted them, providing they sold, twenty-eight dollars each. Just what she'd made working in the gift store. If she worked hard, right alongside Ruby, she could net one hundred forty dollars a week. Once she handed over twenty-eight dollars to Hugo, she would have one hundred twelve dollars to bank. In a month she'd have four hundred and forty-eight dollars. If Ruby agreed. She'd been stupid to say she'd settle for twenty-eight dollars. But Ruby was fair, she thought uneasily. If she worked hard, banked her profits, she might be able to shed her husband.

Wearily, Dixie struggled to her feet. “I wonder what it's like to live by yourself and not have to answer to anyone. It must be a kind of heaven.” She closed and locked the garage door.

She hated going home, hated making dinner for Hugo, hated sitting across from him. She hated the silent meals and the silence in the house after meals, when Hugo read the paper. She wondered if Hugo would be the same married to someone else. Maybe she was the problem. Maybe she was too plain, not educated enough. Maybe, maybe, maybe. So many times she'd gone over the same things in her mind. She'd tried so hard, even harder after her accident, but there was no way she could camouflage her deformity. She knew he hated it. He'd called her a damn cripple so many times, she'd lost count. She could feel his eyes on her when she moved about the house, and she'd read the disgust in his eyes. Her eyes sparked momentarily. He'd made her this way, and then had the gall to look disgusted. “Die already and make me a widow,” she muttered. This time she felt no shame. None.

Hugo was waiting for her in the kitchen when she walked through the door. She cringed when she saw the look on his face.

“Where were you?” he demanded.

To lie or not to lie. Dixie felt like a cornered rat. Had he gone by the church or, worse yet, stopped by the gift store? She realized in the split second it took him to ask his question that she could turn around and walk out the door and go to Ruby's house. Ruby would let her stay in one of the kids' bedrooms. Ruby could make it right. Thank God for Ruby.

“I was out,” she said curtly. “You could have started dinner,” she added, walking toward the refrigerator. She didn't take off her coat. She removed a bowl of leftover spaghetti and set it on the counter. Vegetables for a salad were next. She reached for the salad bowl with one hand while the other picked out a knife from the knife holder, a sharp, pointed knife. She still made no move to take off her coat. She turned around, knife in hand. It's coming, she thought. He'd going to tell me he knows I wasn't at the church and that he knows I was fired. He's going to tell me I can't see Ruby anymore. Her grasp on the knife tightened as did her lips.

“Is something wrong, Hugo?” she asked coldly. The strength in her own voice stunned her. Hugo, too, she could tell. It must be the knife, she decided.

Hugo Sinclaire was a tall and intimidating man. Something he drew on every day of his life. He was attractive in a way, but getting jowly. The beard and mustache he was growing gave him a sinister look, something Dixie didn't like even though he kept both well trimmed. He dressed nicely, much more so than she did. Right now, Dixie thought, he looks pitiful. She'd never seen him uncertain, never seen him back down. She was almost giddy with the pleasure of it.

“You're over an hour late. The church was closed and locked and so was the gift store. Where the hell were you? You know I like my supper on time.”

“I told you I was out. The longer we stand here talking, the longer it's going to be till dinner. Do you want rolls?”

“Out doesn't tell me where,” Hugo blustered. His eyes never left the knife in her hand.

“Actually, I was driving around for a while. I stopped by Ruby's but she was . . . busy. Now, do you want rolls or not?”

“No, bread is good enough. Aren't you going to take off your coat?”

Dixie thought about the question for a full thirty seconds. “No. I'm going to warm this dinner that you could have warmed yourself, and then I'm going back out. Do you,” she said, enunciating each word carefully, “have a problem with me going out after dinner?”

He would have a problem with it, she knew. Dixie never left the house after dark. His voice took on a singsong quality when he said, “It depends on where you're going and why. I don't see any need for you to leave the house. We have milk and bread, so you don't need to go to the store. The church is closed and so is the post office, and you don't have any letters or bills to mail.”

Dixie's voice took oh the same quality as her husband's. “I'm going over to Ruby's. She's helping me make a quilt. For your mother for Mother's Day.” She was stunned at how easy the lie rolled off her tongue. “I'll be over there a lot from now on. It takes a long time to make a quilt. Of course, if you'd rather spend the money to
buy
a quilt, that's fine with me. Your mother said that's what she wanted.” She waved the wicked-looking knife in the air to make her point.

“All right, all right, get supper on the table and don't be all day about it,” Hugo said resignedly.

Dixie turned, the knife still in her hand. “Set the table, Hugo. You can do the dishes, too. I don't have time.” This must be what Ruby meant by asserting yourself. She shivered and shook at her own brazenness. Hugo had never once in their married life set the table or washed a dish. For a moment she thought he wasn't going to do it. Her eyes were as narrowed as her husband's. You can be intimidated only if you allow yourself to be intimidated. She'd read that in a magazine in the dentist's office last month. So far she'd made no move to put the spaghetti in a saucepan. “Don't set a place for me.” God, I'm really pushing it, Dixie thought. Going into business was heady stuff, but she felt ready to deal with anything, even Hugo.

Still wearing her coat, but weaponless, Dixie ladled out the spaghetti onto her husband's plate. She filled his glass with milk and set his salad and bread just so. She felt as if she should unfold his napkin and tuck it under his chin. “Will there be anything else, Hugo?” She was out the door a minute later with no place to go.

Dixie drove aimlessly until she saw a crowd of women heading toward St. Jude's Catholic Church. Bingo night. She pulled into the parking lot and gambled away her milk and bread money. When she left the church basement at ten o'clock, she had seven dollars. She'd won the round robin but had to split it with four other women.

Dixie elected to drive past Ruby's house. There was a light on in the kitchen. That had to mean her friend was awake. She stopped, tooted the horn lightly. The outside light flashed as the front door opened.

“I'm hungry,” Dixie said, shrugging out of her coat. “Wait till you hear how I ... what I did was I asserted myself. I could never have done it before.” She shrugged. “For want of a better word, today was a milestone of sorts for me. I think the knife helped. Can you believe it? Hugo set his own place at the table, and I told him to do the dishes. You should have seen me, Ruby. I had backbone. I actually stood up to him. God, it felt great!”

“Listen, Dixie, I don't want you taking chances where Hugo is concerned. He's not exactly predictable. I think it's wonderful that you got the confidence to stand up to him, and I'm glad that our business venture gave you that confidence. But please be careful. I don't want him to forbid you to see me, and I don't want to have regrets later.”

“Ruby, that could never happen. No matter what, you and I will always be friends. You're the sister I never had. If it ever came down to choosing between you and Hugo, I'd ...”

“No, no, don't say that. You are not going to have to make a choice, so don't even think about it.” The phone rang. “Oh-oh, that's Andy.”

“Yo, Ma! I have good news!” Ruby smiled as she held the phone away from her ear. Dixie giggled as the boy's voice boomed over the wire. “Wait till you hear this. I sold all the cookies except one bag that my roommate ate by mistake. I could have sold more. Zack and I took them over to the student union and we were sold out in an hour. I sent you out a money order this afternoon. I called Jeff down at Princeton, and he said it took only forty-five minutes. He's sending his money order tomorrow morning. But that's not the good news. You ready, Ma?”

I m ready, Andy.” She winked at Dixie and mouthed the words “Is this kid on the ball or what?”

“One of the guys from the Fiji house bought a bag of cookies. His girlfriend was with him. The Fiji house is a frat and they have a sun porch. He said you could sell cookies from there. His girlfriend said she'd handle the concession. She belongs to a sorority. She said she and her sisters could sell three hours every afternoon. The brothers want enough cookies for the frat house and so do the girls. Nine guys in Fiji and there's thirteen in the girls' sorority. No money paid out, but I said you'd kick through with something if sales are up. Whatcha think, Ma? Super, huh?”

“That's wonderful, Andy!” Ruby said weakly. “When do they want us to start?”

“Next week sometime. We'll put it in the paper and the guys said they'd make a sign for the front yard. I'll oversee it. You want I should call Jeff and ask him if he can make the same kind of deal?”

“Do you want to run that last sentence by me again, Andy? I thought you went to college to learn proper English. And yes, tell Jeff to go ahead. This is so unbelievable.” She told him about her and Dixie's trip to Easton.

“Ma, that sounds great. Listen, I have another idea. I know a couple of girls over at Douglass, freshmen fifteeners. They'll go for it in a big way. You want I should . . . I mean would you like me to call them and present the idea?”

“Why not?” Ruby said giddily. Dixie was already adding columns of numbers on a piece of paper. “What's a freshmen fifteener?”

Andy's laughter boomed again. “Freshman girls usually put on fifteen pounds their first year. Us guys work it off, they sort of hang on to it until their sophomore year and then we have a new batch to watch. Did I do good, Ma?”