evening on the curbstone in front of the C. H. and D.
It was happening with more completeness every day. The waiting for the telephone message. The waiting on the corner of Sixth and Race, to meet him to go to lunch. The waiting with him at the C. H. and D. for the tiny hurried good-bys as he caught the five-forty-five for Hamilton.
Precisely nothing else mattered. The days were punctuated by how much you could be together, how these meetings could be arranged, where to meet, when to meet, and how not to be too conspicuous about it.
Curious, but from the first, this need to be furtive established itself on an undiscussed basis.
“It won’t be easy for me to stay in tonight, Babe. That wouldmake three Wednesdays in succession, and the first thing I know, Mother will begin bothering her head about why I stay down-city so often.”
That sent the bottom scuttling out of Wednesday evening, leaving it simply something to be endured through until Thursday luncheon, assuming that luncheon could be arranged.
Luncheons were simpler, but not always possible.
On Tuesdays the Dutch Treat Club met, an organization of fifteen or so of the town’s young Jewish men, who assembled for luncheon at the Stag. The town’s best, Ray noted with pride, as realization of young Saxel’s connections began to impress her. Walter’s father, a Hamilton businessman who had died twenty years before, had been first cousin to Stanley Hoffheimer, of the Hoffheimer Avondale Promotion Company, with whom Walter had lived during the three years he attended Woodward High School. Members of the Dutch Treat Club comprised such names as Milton Freiberg, Walter Seasongood, Jr., Stephen Straus (Straus and Mindlin), Junior Sonnenfeld, Mark Wise, Lester Wormser, and the Bowman boys. You walked on Wormser-laid sidewalks in Freiberg shoes. The huge Straus Clothing advertisement was as regular a feature in the
Enquirer
as the death-notices.
It was a matter of pride to relinquish Walter to these upstanding occasions, even when secretly it seemed to her he should at least have made the offer to relinquish them in favor of lunching with her, around at a place called Hayden’s, famous for potato pancakes.
Had the situation, she often told herself, been reversed, nothing could have taken precedence over the possibility of an hour with Walter. Indeed, always on the supposition that such an hour might unexpectedly offer itself, it soon became her technique to accept only tentatively whatever invitations presented themselves.
“I think I can go, but I can’t let you know definitely.” (Must ask Walter if there is any chance of his staying in the city Tuesday evening.)
“Don’t count on me for certain; I’ll come if I can.” (Two or three times, lately, Walter’s mother had developed sudden euchre games, making it unexpectedly possible for him to remain in the city.)
These little matters were scarcely sacrifices, because nothing mattered very much relatively, except being with him, therefore you lied, prevaricated, maneuvered. A man was different somehow. Walter, now, for instance, was always talking about justice and being fair to the other fellow. As if that mattered. Of course, if he cared for Tom, Dick, and Harry more than he cared for you! That was scarcely the point, and she knew it, and yet somewhere, deeply imbedded in each of them, was a different set of ethics. Walter cared, all right. But if he had told a party he would meet him at the Burnet House at five o’clock, and desperately she wanted to see Walter at five o’clock before he caught his train, Walter was sorry, as sorry as could be, and she must know how much seeing her mattered to him, but there was that arrangement to see that certain party at the Burnet House at five, and nothing was farther from his makeup than to lie or prevaricate his way out of it.
“Of course, if any mere appointment is more important—”
“It’s not that, Ray!”
“Tell him you have to stay at the bank
It was happening with more completeness every day. The waiting for the telephone message. The waiting on the corner of Sixth and Race, to meet him to go to lunch. The waiting with him at the C. H. and D. for the tiny hurried good-bys as he caught the five-forty-five for Hamilton.
Precisely nothing else mattered. The days were punctuated by how much you could be together, how these meetings could be arranged, where to meet, when to meet, and how not to be too conspicuous about it.
Curious, but from the first, this need to be furtive established itself on an undiscussed basis.
“It won’t be easy for me to stay in tonight, Babe. That wouldmake three Wednesdays in succession, and the first thing I know, Mother will begin bothering her head about why I stay down-city so often.”
That sent the bottom scuttling out of Wednesday evening, leaving it simply something to be endured through until Thursday luncheon, assuming that luncheon could be arranged.
Luncheons were simpler, but not always possible.
On Tuesdays the Dutch Treat Club met, an organization of fifteen or so of the town’s young Jewish men, who assembled for luncheon at the Stag. The town’s best, Ray noted with pride, as realization of young Saxel’s connections began to impress her. Walter’s father, a Hamilton businessman who had died twenty years before, had been first cousin to Stanley Hoffheimer, of the Hoffheimer Avondale Promotion Company, with whom Walter had lived during the three years he attended Woodward High School. Members of the Dutch Treat Club comprised such names as Milton Freiberg, Walter Seasongood, Jr., Stephen Straus (Straus and Mindlin), Junior Sonnenfeld, Mark Wise, Lester Wormser, and the Bowman boys. You walked on Wormser-laid sidewalks in Freiberg shoes. The huge Straus Clothing advertisement was as regular a feature in the
Enquirer
as the death-notices.
It was a matter of pride to relinquish Walter to these upstanding occasions, even when secretly it seemed to her he should at least have made the offer to relinquish them in favor of lunching with her, around at a place called Hayden’s, famous for potato pancakes.
Had the situation, she often told herself, been reversed, nothing could have taken precedence over the possibility of an hour with Walter. Indeed, always on the supposition that such an hour might unexpectedly offer itself, it soon became her technique to accept only tentatively whatever invitations presented themselves.
“I think I can go, but I can’t let you know definitely.” (Must ask Walter if there is any chance of his staying in the city Tuesday evening.)
“Don’t count on me for certain; I’ll come if I can.” (Two or three times, lately, Walter’s mother had developed sudden euchre games, making it unexpectedly possible for him to remain in the city.)
These little matters were scarcely sacrifices, because nothing mattered very much relatively, except being with him, therefore you lied, prevaricated, maneuvered. A man was different somehow. Walter, now, for instance, was always talking about justice and being fair to the other fellow. As if that mattered. Of course, if he cared for Tom, Dick, and Harry more than he cared for you! That was scarcely the point, and she knew it, and yet somewhere, deeply imbedded in each of them, was a different set of ethics. Walter cared, all right. But if he had told a party he would meet him at the Burnet House at five o’clock, and desperately she wanted to see Walter at five o’clock before he caught his train, Walter was sorry, as sorry as could be, and she must know how much seeing her mattered to him, but there was that arrangement to see that certain party at the Burnet House at five, and nothing was farther from his makeup than to lie or prevaricate his way out of it.
“Of course, if any mere appointment is more important—”
“It’s not that, Ray!”
“Tell him you have to stay at the bank
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