Shabby Street by Orrie Hitt

Author:Orrie Hitt [Hitt, Orrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4050-9
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1954-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

Selling Talk

I FOUND JANET lying in a narrow white bed playing solitaire.

“Cripes,” I said. “I thought you had the seven year crud, or something.”

She smiled and stuck the cards under her pillow. She looked real dark, lying there against all that white — her hair, her eyes, the nut brown of her skin.

“What happened, baby?”

She glanced down at the foot of the bed, studying the way her toes stuck up in the air and made twin tents.

“I had a miscarriage,” she said demurely.

I almost went out of the window on my back. Then I stopped worrying because it was all over and I guess that was the way it happened sometimes.

“I didn’t know I was that way. The doctor said I — couldn’t.”

She’d been wrong so many times I didn’t know what to think. If she was trying to cut my mortality table down five or ten years she’d made a first class start. I decided to give up on this one. She was past history.

“Well, that’s too bad,” I told her.

Her stare was steady and wise.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk just to hear what you can say.”

“All right.” I sat down on the edge of the bed. “What’s up? What do you want with me?”

The old hurt clouded her eyes.

“I thought you might pay the hospital bill.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t have any hospitalization and I don’t have any money.”

I lit a cigarette and she told me to put it out. I kept smoking, anyway.

“You ought to have a Family Protective policy.”

“You needn’t sneer.”

I took her gently by the shoulders and brought her around. I bent over and kissed her on the cheek. She didn’t try to get away and she didn’t move in any closer.

“Listen,” I said, “you twist up everything I say. I’m talking about a new insurance agency I started over in Waymart. That’s the name of it. The Family Protective. It’s going to turn into a gold mine.”

I got up and walked around the room, talking fast, and she kept watching me. I’d been tired before but now I was wide awake and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this plan right at the start. I ought to have somebody over in Waymart, watching things in my new office, and Janet didn’t have any place else to go. She could answer the phone and days when I didn’t get over there she could bank the money. Later on she might need some help and I could get a couple of jerky kids to work for her.

“It doesn’t sound so bad,” she said when I’d finished. “Only there’s one thing about it, Johnny.”

“Shoot!”

“No more of the — other.”

Was she kidding?

“Whatever you say, baby.” I went over and sat down beside her again. I held her face between my hands and looked right down into her eyes. She blinked back the wetness and gave me back a smile. “Look, Janet, we’ve been a couple of kids and we both know it. I’ve been sort of — lousy. I won’t be that way any more.

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