Mary And The Giant

"I'll put it under the counter," she told him. "You go buy a phonograph; when you have a phonograph, come back and get your record."

Schilling stood watching as she pushed the man out of the store and onto the sidewalk. The episode, to him, had a fabulous and unreal quality; it could not really happen in a store. In its own way, it seemed funny.

"He has to go to work," Mary Anne explained, hurrying back inside. "He plays bop piano over at the Wren."

"You cost me a sale," Schilling said, feeling still a little bewildered.

"Look ... if he bought that record he would have just gone home and sat looking at it. I know him; take my word. He never would have bought any more records; now he'll go get a phonograph and then he'll buy records all the time."

"Either you're very far sighted," he said, "or you're an exceptionally fast talker. Which is it?"

They faced each other.

"Don't you trust me?" she inquired.

He smiled grudgingly. "Some. But you're too intricate for me."

That seemed to intrigue her. "Intricate? In what way?"

"You're partly very young, very inexperienced and naive." He studied her intently. "And at the same time you're completely practiced. Even somewhat unscrupulous."

"Oh," she said, nodding.

"Why did you change your mind? Why did you decide to come back and work for me?"

"Because," she said, "I got tired of working at the phone company.

"Is that all?" He didn't believe it.

"No. I-" She floundered. "A lot of things happened to me. Somebody I depended on let me down. Now I don't feel the same way about him, or about anything."

"You were afraid of me, weren't you?"

"Yes," she admitted, "very much."

"But not now?"

She pondered. "No. I see you differently, and I see myself differently."

Schilling hoped it was true. "What did you do with the ten dollars?" he asked.

"Gave it to Paul Nitz."

"Then you're broke?"

She smiled. "Yes, broke."

"So I suppose you're going to borrow another ten dollars tomorrow."

"Can I?"

"We'll see."

Her eyebrows went up. "We will, will we?"

The store was empty. Outside, the late afternoon sun sent up a glare from the sidewalk. Schilling walked over to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets. Finally, to quiet his various emotions, he lit a cigar.

"Put that stinky thing out," Mary Anne ordered. "How do you suppose that smells to customers?"

He turned around. "If I invited you to dinner, what would you say?"

"It depends where." She seemed, instantly, to fold up in wariness; he was aware of her change in mood.

"What's a good place?" he asked.

She reflected. "La Poblana, up along the highway."

"All right, we'll go there."

"I'll have to change to go there. I'll have to get my heels and suit again."

He demolished her anxieties with the hand of quiet reasonability. "When we close the store, I'll drive you over to your apartment and you can change."

With relief he heard her say: "Fine." Pleased and gratified, he put out his cigar and, going into the back office, began preparing the Columbia order sheet.

It was a routine job he did not usually enjoy, but he enjoyed it this time; he enjoyed it very much.

14

That night he took her to dinner. And four nights later, on Saturday, he took her with him to a wholesaler's party in San Francisco.

As the two of them drove up the peninsula, Mary Anne asked: "Does this car belong to you?"

"I bought this Dodge back in '48. A package deal; it came along with Max." He added: "I gave up heavy driving." His eyes had become bad and he had, one night, hit a parked milk truck. He didn't tell the girl that.

"It's a nice car. It's so big and quiet ..." She watched the dark fields passing on either side of the highway. "What will this party be like?"

"You're not scared, are you?"

"No," she said, sitting very upright beside him, her hands around her purse. She had put on what looked to him like a pair of black silk pajamas; the trousers were tied around her bare ankles and the shirt flared out into a great pointed collar. On her feet were little flat slippers, and her hair was tied back in a foreshortened ponytail.

As she had skipped out of her apartment house and into the car he had observed: "Your hair is too short for a ponytail."

Breathlessly, she had settled beside him and slammed the car door. "Is this too arty? Am I dressed wrong?"

"You look wonderful," he had said in all honesty as he started up the car.

But she was, in spite of what she said, a little frightened. In the gloom of the car her eyes were large and serious, and she had almost nothing to say. Once, she got her cigarettes from her purse and bent toward the dashboard lighter.

"This may be fun," he said, to cheer her up.

"That's what you told me."

"Leland Partridge is a fanatic, what we call an 'audiophile.' There'll be speakers as large as houses, diamond cartridges, hi-fi recordings of freight trains and glockenspiels."

"Will there be very many people there?" she asked again, for the third time.