Come Along with Me by Shirley Jackson Page A

that needed saying.
    For the rest of the day she was happy. There was a constant delight in the relief from her weight of fear and unhappiness, it was pure joy to know that there was no longer any residue of suspicion and hatred; when she called him “John” she did so demurely, knowing that he participated in her secret amusement; when he answered her civilly there was, she thought, an edge of laughter behind his words. They seemed to have agreed soberly that mention of the subject would be in bad taste, might even, in fact, endanger their pleasure.
    They were hilarious at dinner. John would not have made her a cocktail, but when she came downstairs from putting the children to bed the stranger met her at the foot of the stairs, smiling up at her, and took her arm to lead her into the living room where the cocktail shaker and glasses stood on the low table before the fire.
    â€œHow nice,” she said, happy that she had taken a moment to brush her hair and put on fresh lipstick, happy that the coffee table which she had chosen with John and the fireplace which had seen many fires built by John and the low sofa where John had slept sometimes, had all seen fit to welcome the stranger with grace. She sat on the sofa and smiled at him when he handed her a glass; there was an odd illicit excitement in all of it; she was “entertaining” a man. The scene was a little marred by the fact that he had given her a martini with neither olive nor onion; it was the way she preferred her martini, and yet he should not have, strictly, known this, but she reassured herself with the thought that naturally he would have taken some pains to inform himself before coming.
    He lifted his glass to her with a smile; he is here only because I am here, she thought.
    â€œIt’s nice to be here,” he said. He had, then, made one attempt to sound like John, in the car coming home. After he knew that she had recognized him for a stranger, he had never made any attempt to say words like “coming home” or “getting back,” and of course she could not, not without pointing her lie. She put her hand in his and lay back against the sofa, looking into the fire.
    â€œBeing lonely is worse than anything in the world,” she said.
    â€œYou’re not lonely now?”
    â€œAre you going away?”
    â€œNot unless you come too.” They laughed at his parody of John.
    They sat next to each other at dinner; she and John had always sat at formal opposite ends of the table, asking one another politely to pass the salt and the butter.
    â€œI’m going to put in a little set of shelves over there,” he said, nodding toward the corner of the dining room. “It looks empty here, and it needs things. Symbols.”
    â€œLike?” She liked to look at him; his hair, she thought, was a little darker than John’s, and his hands were stronger; this man would build whatever he decided he wanted built.
    â€œWe need things together. Things we like, both of us. Small delicate pretty things. Ivory.”
    With John she would have felt it necessary to remark at once that they could not afford such delicate pretty things, and put a cold finish to the idea, but with the stranger she said, “We’d have to look for them; not everything would be right.”
    â€œI saw a little creature once,” he said. “Like a tiny little man, only colored all purple and blue and gold.”
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    She remembered this conversation; it contained the truth like a jewel set in the evening. Much later, she was to tell herself that it was true; John could not have said these things.
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    She was happy, she was radiant, she had no conscience. He went obediently to his office the next morning, saying good-by at the door with a rueful smile that seemed to mock the present necessity for doing the things that John always did, and as she watched him go down the walk she reflected