Gentleman's Agreement by Hobson Laura Z

Author:Hobson, Laura Z. [Hobson, Laura Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453244401
Publisher: Cherokee Publishing Company
Published: 2011-12-27T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

I’LL TRY AGAIN at noon, Kathy was thinking. She moved away from the bedside table so that the phone would not persuade her into a third attempt. He’d ring back the moment he could. This was no crisis to justify asking Miss Wales to put the call through to him in the meeting.

She went firmly into the bathroom and weighed herself as if that had been her intention for many minutes. In a way it was a crisis. She’d known it when he left her; she’d known it when she’d fallen asleep; she’d known it all day yesterday when instinct cautioned her from telephoning him and telling him what she was going to do.

She glanced down at the revolving tape of the scale. Two pounds off. Worry it off; toss it off in your chivied sleep; eat it off from the heart. What made her go all skewered on this damn business when they talked about it, when they were not apart on it at all, in theory or in fact?

There was something mysterious in the process of quarreling. You said one wrong thing and then tried to justify it and said a further thing. That in turn needed explaining or defense. All the time you helplessly knew that if you could only step off the treadmill of dissension and start anew—but something held you where you were with demoniac persistence. Then it was too late. Emotions came in; his face showed disapproval and surprise; anger spat in you that he should misread your motives. Or pride reared up, and you’d be damned if you’d risk seeming abject and always at fault. The sense of crisis deepened, and your helplessness with it.

With Jane and Harry last night she’d been in no snarl at all. She’d been unequivocal, incisive. But he hadn’t been there to hear.

“You’re saying in effect,” she’d said, “that it’d be nice if he just wouldn’t embarrass any Jew haters you might have at the party.”

It was nice to remember that sentence. Why had she reserved such clarity for Jane and Harry when it was Phil she cared about?

With a start she saw she was still on the scale, staring down at it malevolently as if it were an insect she was steeling herself to squash. She went back to the bedroom. She was tired; her back was tired; her neck was tired. She wished he would get out of the meeting and call her. She glanced at her watch. Less than ten minutes had passed since her second try.

With Bill, when things went wrong, she’d never felt this dull ache or fear or whatever it was. There’d been a kind of remoteness instead. But in those days she’d always felt right on the issue they disagreed on. Twice now with Phil she’d known she was somehow in the wrong. She should resent him for making her feel so; that was supposed to be human nature. But it didn’t work that way. She just hurt. This frightened wonder about losing him was what hurt.

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