We didn’t do anything about the cat, the fuse box, or anything else. We crept into bed, and she cracked up. She cried, and then got a chill so she was trembling all over, and it was a couple of hours before I could get her quiet. She lay in my arms a while, then, and we began to talk.
“Never again, Frank.”
“That’s right. Never again.”
“We must have been crazy. Just plain crazy.”
“Just our dumb luck that pulled us through.”
“It was my fault.”
“Mine too.”
“No, it was my fault. I was the one that thought it up. You didn’t want to. Next time I’ll listen to you, Frank. You’re smart. You’re not dumb like I am.”
“Except there won’t be any next time.”
“That’s right. Never again.”
“Even if we had gone through with it they would have guessed it. They always guess it. They guess it anyway, just from habit. Because look how quick that cop knew something was wrong. That’s what makes my blood run cold. Soon as he saw me standing there he knew it. If he could tumble to it all that easy, how much chance would we have had if the Greek had died?”
“I guess I’m not really a hell cat, Frank.”
“I’m telling you.”
“If I was, I wouldn’t have got scared so easy. I was so scared, Frank.”
“I was scared plenty, myself.”
“You know what I wanted when the lights went out? Just you, Frank. I wasn’t any hell cat at all, then. I was just a little girl, afraid of the dark.”
“I was there, wasn’t I?”
“I loved you for it. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know what would have happened to us.”
“Pretty good, wasn’t it? About how he slipped?”
“And he believed it.”
“Give me half a chance, I got it on the cops, every time. You got to have something to tell, that’s it. You got to fill in all those places, and yet have it as near the truth as you can get it. I know them. I’ve tangled with them, plenty.”
“You fixed it. You’re always going to fix it for me, aren’t you, Frank?”
“You’re the only one ever meant anything to me.”
“I guess I really don’t want to be a hell cat.”
“You’re my baby.”
“That’s it, just your dumb baby. All right, Frank. I’ll listen to you, from now on. You be the brains, and I’ll work. I can work, Frank. And I work good. We’ll get along.”
“Sure we will.”
“Now shall we go to sleep?”
“You think you can sleep all right?”
“It’s the first time we ever slept together, Frank.”
“You like it?”
“It’s grand, just grand.”
“Kiss me goodnight.”
“It’s so sweet to be able to kiss you goodnight.”
Next morning, the telephone waked us up. She answered it, and when she came up her eyes were shining. “Frank, guess what?”
“What?”
“His skull is fractured.”
“Bad?”
“No, but they’re keeping him there. They want him there for a week, maybe. We can sleep together again, tonight.”
“Come here.”
“Not now. We’ve got to get up. We’ve got to open the place up.”
“Come here, before I sock you.”
“You nut.”
It was a happy week, all right. In the afternoon, she would drive in to the hospital, but the rest of the time we were together. We gave him a break, too. We kept the place open all the time, and went after the business, and got it. Of course it helped, that day when a hundred Sunday school kids showed up in three buses, and wanted a bunch of stuff to take out in the woods with them, but even without that we would have made plenty. The cash register didn’t know anything to tell on us, believe me it didn’t.
Then one day, stead of her going in alone, we both went in, and after she came out of the hospital, we cut for the beach. They gave her a yellow suit and a red cap, and when she came out I didn’t know her at first. She looked like a little girl. It was the first time I ever really saw how young she was. We played in the sand, and then we went way out and let the swells rock us. I like my head to the waves, she liked her feet. We lay there, face to face, and held hands under water. I looked up at the sky. It was all you could see. I thought about God.
“Frank.”
“Yes?”
“He’s coming home tomorrow. You know what that means?”
“I know.”
“I got to sleep with him, stead of you.”
“You would, except that when he gets here we’re going to be gone.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“Just you and me and the road, Cora.”
“Just you and me and the road.”
“Just a couple of tramps.”
“Just a couple of gypsies, but we’ll be together.”
“That’s it. We’ll be together.”
Next morning, we packed up. Anyway, she packed. I had bought a suit, and I put that on, and it seemed to be about all. She put her things in a hatbox. When she got done with it, she handed it to me. “Put that in the car, will you?”
“The car?”
“Aren’t we taking the car?”
“Not unless you want to spend the first night in jail, we’re not. Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing his car, that’s larceny.”
“Oh.”
We started out. It was two miles to the bus stop, and we had to hike it. Every time a car went by, we would stand there with our hand stuck out, like a cigar store Indian, but none of them stopped. A man alone can get a ride, and a woman alone, if she’s fool enough to take it, but a man and a woman together don’t have much luck. After about twenty had gone by, she stopped. We had gone about a quarter of a mile.
“Frank, I can’t.”
“What’s the matter?”
“This is it.”
“This is what?”
“The road.”
“You’re crazy. You’re tired, that’s all. Look. You wait here, and I’ll get somebody down the road to drive us in to the city. That’s what we ought to done anyhow. Then we’ll be all right.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m not tired. I can’t, that’s all. At all.”
“Don’t you want to be with me, Cora?”
“You know I do.”
“We can’t go back, you know. We can’t start up again, like it was before. You know that. You’ve got to come.”
“I told you I wasn’t really a bum, Frank. I don’t feel like no gypsy. I don’t feel like nothing, only ashamed, that I’m out here asking for a ride.”
“I told you. We’re getting a car in to the city.”
“And then what?”
“Then we’re there. Then we get going.”
“No we don’t. We spend one night in a hotel, and then we start looking for a job. And living in a dump.”
“Isn’t that a dump? What you just left?”
“It’s different.”
“Cora, you going to let it get your goat?”
“It’s got it, Frank. I can’t go on. Goodbye.”
“Will you listen to me a minute?”
“Goodbye, Frank. I’m going back.”
She kept tugging at the hatbox. I tried to hold on to it, anyway to carry it back for her, but she got it. She started back with it. She had looked nice when she started out, with a little blue suit and blue hat, but now she looked all battered, and her shoes were dusty, and she couldn’t even walk right, from crying. All of a sudden, I found out I was crying too.