Chapter 9
Judy hung onto her chair. She had bought an orchard. She had bought an orchard she had never seen or heard about, when an orchard was the last thing in the whole wide world she wanted.
Someplace along the line she had slipped out of time. Any moment now a commercial would come on and Rod Serling return her to the proper dimension.
"It's this way." William John took a third helping of pot pie; he'd probably had an early breakfast. "As long as Judy Hubbard has any money in any bank, she will find herself underwriting her sister-in-law's demands because she'll be placed in a position where she has to. All right. So how do we cure this condition? Simple. Remove the money, and put it in the one investment Martha doesn't dare criticize."
"But-" Judy began.
"But nothing. By the time Luigi and I work your orchard over, you can sell it and make as much on it as your savings and bonds put together would have given you in interest. So what have you got to lose?"
Judy leaned far back in her chair. She'd had a symbolic vision of her money as a batch of eggs, a bag of cement hanging over them, ready to drop at any moment.
The bag had dropped but she still had her eggs-that is, her orchard.
Suddenly she sat up, radiant. "What a wonderful idea! How much am I paying for it? Am I in debt so I'll have to spend most of my salary? Is it an oldy like the Cody one?"
"How much money have you put away?"
Judy closed her eyes and added. "Only about twenty-seven hundred left, plus two bonds. Altogether I could raise, with what's left in my checking account, forty-five hundred. Is that enough?"
"Do for a starter. Your take-home pay, I understand, is two hundred and ten a week. Incidentally, you have only two acres. It's on that rise that juts above the Cody lane to the east, the one that cuts the sun off the Cody orchard."
"It wouldn't have a house?"
"Now that is the question, if what's there should be called a house. I'd say shack. Artist threw it together for primitive living while he did primitives of the area."
Then she wouldn't need a station wagon for a bed when she ran out of rent money. Wonderful. She had a roof, one big room and a lean-to and a fireplace.
If she had any money left, after she was fired, she'd buy a beagle baby from-"William John," she cried, "the beagles-what about-"
He waved an arm, and she turned. Pressed against the big front window were five black spots: noses. Adonis and four other beagles were all anxiously surveying warmth and smelling food.
"I bought 'em. Fellow was unloading on Martha because he had to get rid of them; new zoning law. No, I'm not going in the business. I'll sell them at cost to friends who're looking for beagles."
He finished the coffee, drew a deep breath and asked, "Now shall I tell you the truth?"
She reviewed the truth all the way into the nearest town. She had driven past her orchard, caught one glimpse of her shack. Well, almost hers.
Martha had spent the Thanksgiving weekend in town, and Martha had been at her enterprising best.
William John Jones' orchards had the nearest telephone to the old Cody place. Martha had given his telephone number and assumed, since he'd been so kind, he would accept delivery of various items and pay. Judy would immediately reimburse him.
In short, Martha was buying up sidelines which would keep her in funds until the crop came in.
"Take ceramics," Jones had said. "First lessons; then a kiln, clay, paints, the works."
After the third call William John had done "some heavy thinking." He didn't reveal he'd had Thanksgiving dinner in the city and had had quite a run-down on the lovely Martha and her little sister-in-law.
Martha, having handled Judy's money, school allowance, clothes and incidentals since she was sixteen, still felt her responsibility. She intended for Judy to have the social life she'd enjoyed at her age, and for that she needed a good income.
William John had known the two acres and artist's shack would be put on the market for a quick sale to close out an estate. When the beagle incident had occurred and Judy had given him a check for two hundred without filling in the name because she hadn't known it, he'd taken a chance, subject to her approval.
"You don't have to go through with it," he had told her earnestly. "I had to work fast. I'll take it off your hands, buy it myself as an investment." , "And I can buy it clear, no payments?" she'd asked. "Then suppose I'm pushed into obtaining a mortgage on it?"
"We have a homestead law here which will take care of that."
Judy had dropped back into the big chair, a great sigh breathing out. She felt safe for the first time since Martha's return. Now if Martha lost the old Cody place, Judy had a roof to offer her.
"William John," she said earnestly when they came from the realtor's office, "you are wonderful. Now I can work without worrying about what's coming out."
"For instance?"
"A clearance sale ad. I wrote: Values slashed, instead of prices. Unloading instead of clearance. And-Pay now; buy later. You'll be glad you did when you've seen our stock."
The little car floated through the rain like a silver cloud. Not only did she, Judy Hubbard, own a roof with two acres of roof trees; she had a place to spend her weekends while Benjy was out with his other woman.
She would be "on the scene" to help Martha win William John. He was already interested. He said he had never met any woman like her.
He'd also said, as had Stayton, if Martha was ever lucky enough to find a partner who could back her schemes, she'd be a onewoman gold rush.
"She's a challenge," he'd confided.
Not until she'd reached her apartment did she consider how she was going to tell Stayton about the beagles.
By the time he was ready to discuss it next day, he'd received a call from his banker friend. Had they done anything to offend Miss Hubbard? She'd withdrawn every penny she had in the bank, even cleared out her safety deposit box and turned in the keys.
Had she given any indication why she had done this? Stayton asked anxiously.
"Well, she had a certified check drawn for the full amount, made out to a bank in Sonoma County. She said something about money going into an orchard."
Stayton's head dropped into his hands. He'd really tossed Martha to the beagles.
Then up came his head and on his face was a pleased expression. Now Judy would have to write copy as he wanted it. She'd again be the girl he'd hired, eager to please. Now she had to keep her job.
And if the two girls came a financial cropper he would give them a financial hand; then he'd really be in control.
Just as he'd told the boys in the locker room, when discussing missing out on the Wednesday night dinner, "But the lads doing the pruning on the orchard needed cash for their Thanksgiving dinner, so I took a run up." Well, just so he could refer to "my little fruit spread up in the country."
Benjy, coming in feeling a bit low (that storm due to blow out had, but it had turned around and blown back in again), saw Judy looking as she hadn't looked since their first real date.
"What gives?" he asked, leaning against the doorway.
"Oh, Benjy, I bought me a he."
Benjy's mind took a leap. So old Bill had crashed. And for Judy, when they'd planned this for Martha. Maybe that was what she meant. She had cleared the way for Martha to hook William John Jones.
He repeated the name and shuddered. No wonder he hadn't recognized it when he'd first heard it. Imagine Bill Jones, of all guys, being an orchardist.
"Well?" Judy demanded of him. "You had a she, so-Oh, Benjy, you're getting dense. Your boat is a she, isn't it? Then a shack on terra firma would be a he. I bought one so I could play weekends while you were out liquidating your hard sells."
Contrite, he stepped in. "Darn it all, Judy, I'd thought we could weekend together, but these lads I take out want a femme-free voyage."
Naturally. What man could maintain his masculine supremacy once his girl or wife had seen him slapped down by a rough sea?
"Look, I can't talk now; Stayton's giving me the come-on. How about dinner tonight?"
"Good; at my apartment. I've loads of food begging to be eaten."
"What time?"
"Oh, just powder your nose and come up. And, Benjy, don't tell His Highness about my purchase. Promise?"
Benjy spent quite a little time with Stayton. Judy glanced across occasionally. They weren't talking about her. Or were they?
Responding to the buzzer, Judy went to Stayton's office to have both him and Benjy look at her as though they expected her to pull a rabbit out of a hat. And she had no hat handy.
"I suppose Benjy told you he sewed up the fishing craft contract," Stayton remarked. "Now they want an idea for a TV commercial. I think we can get Babine Brewster, build it around her. What's your reaction?"
"If you want Mama to think a gorgeous blonde like Babine goes with every fishing craft, Papa's going to have a tough time buying one."
"Break it down," ordered Benjy.
"Few young men," she bowled to Benjy, "can afford a fishing-craft. Customers are the middle-aged and older men, the married ones."
"Don't tell me you'd pose some plump matron on the bow of the boat trying to land a salmon."
Judy brushed aside that idea. "Buying resistance will come from the home. So what does Mama want most? To keep Papa around. These days, with every medium advertising ulcers and heart attacks as the thing for UMC men, she'd relate to an antidote."
"Ease the ulcer," mused Stayton, delicately resting hand to belt.
"Soothe the heart." said Benjy mournfully.
"I have it." Stayton brightened. "The rest that restores."
"Sounds like a mattress ad," objected Judy. "Now if I were a middle-aged man with a telephone," she waited until Stayton was through with his, "and/or a ticker tape," again she waited while, brow furrowed, he checked his, "and a reception room full of people waiting to take up my time-" This time she waited until their receptionist left, having thrown her hands in the air.
"Go on," urged the two men.
"I'd use this: 'Help Dad get away to where he can't be got at.' "
"What execrable-"
"Wait," offered Benjy hopefully.
Judy was gazing into the distance. "Pan in on an old fisherman talking to an exhausted city man; background harbor with fishing craft in the foreground. Fisherman says, 'Now me, I'd get out-' et cetera. Full view of craft salesman doing promotion bit; then fade into cyclorama of clouds and sea, deck of craft with close-up of no-longer-exhausted city man, feet on the railing."
"That's it." Stayton's hand hit the desk. "Do me some sketches, now. Phrase acceptable, coming from the old salt." And wistfully he repeated, "Get out where I can't be got at," as he reached for the telephone.
Judy's intentions were perfect. Now, above all times, she must give her best to her job. But something was happening to her best. The clouds ballooned on the horizon, beautifully, but the sea kept humping up into hills, and the fishing craft took on the look of a shack with a fireplace.
Sublimation, she stormed at herself. Now stop it. Your orchard isn 't going to get you away from getting got at, not with Martha across the lane.
And thank goodness William John had loaded her car with frozen food. And she had left some out of her own small compartment to thaw. William John had confided, that as he was a bachelor, every housewife in the area imagined he was starving to death and brought largesse to his larder.
She could feed Benjy well as they talked. Oh yes, the sketches. Now that she had a shack and an orchard as well as a sister-in-law, she'd better please Stayton.
She did. He took her first draft in one hand, his hat in the other and, with Benjy, took off. She knew the routine. They always made the buyer feel that it was he who supplied the ideas. Adroitly they would feed the line to him, and just as Stayton would swear he'd been the orginator, no matter which member of his staff had supplied the thought, so would the buyer.
Steaks were ready for the broiler, french fries browning, when Benjy reached Judy's apartment, wearing an air of triumph like a red necktie.
"Going to shoot the first clear weather; be ready to run the commerical with a new sportsman series which starts middle of January. Darnedest thing, Judy; I had a time keeping Stayton from buying a craft."
"Why stop him? He's beginning to look ragged."
"Heck, honey, that fellow gets sick in a rowboat."
Judy didn't go into her purchase of an orchard too deeply. She merely said she'd heard of this good buy and thought her money safer in the ground than in the bank.
"You're so right," Benjy agreed. "To tell you the truth, I'd rather have a spread than a craft, but-"
"An orchard isn't a status symbol," Judy finished for him, "unless it is on the edge of a forest with a hunting lodge attached. But then the hunting season is so limited it wouldn't pay off.
"Benjy-" she whisked a hot platter out and carried it to the table, now artfully spread,-"don't your customers catch the 'bit' when you invite them on a cruise?"
"Oh, sure, but they're old hands at being fed malarkey. Not one of them but believes he can't be sold anything he hasn't wanted to buy before the salesman ever showed up."
"Hm," buzzed Judy.
The dinner was delicious. Benjy said so. Judy knew it to be true and blessed the ranch women for looking after William John so thoughtfully.
And now she and Benjy would have that talk that had been put off since he'd bought his fishing craft.
"I'll just tuck things in the fridge and stack the dishes," she said. "You relax."
A few moments later she found Benjy had really obeyed her. He reclined in her one extravagance, a contour chair. She doubted that even as a baby had he ever slept with such complete abandon.
My, do I feel married! she mused, and decided she might as well wash the dishes.
Occasionally she looked in, smiled and turned back. This surely must be love. She yearned for a robe to tuck him in, to pat his head and murmur soothing words.
Fire sirens on trucks caroming around the block did the necessary. Benjy opened his eyes, yawned, stretched, then came to the floor with a leap.
"Just dropped off a minute," he began, glanced at the clock and groaned. "It's your fault, Judy; you make a fellow feel so at ease."
"Run along home before you pass out on your feet," she advised.
He did, but not before his apologies had revealed something new, something that wiped sleep from his eyes.
For a long time she sat looking out on the scaffolding of the building going up next door. Despite new accounts, Benjy was getting more deeply in debt. It took time, he explained, to gain a license. Fellow had to know everything, from how to handle his craft to tides, undercurrents, shorelines and how to read weather reports.
It also cost money, as did a pilot, moorage and a few other minor items.
We'll be ready for social security before we can be married, she worried. I do wish he wasn 't another Martha.
And then she thought with longing of the acres and shack she had bought, sight unseen, and sat straight up.
Who was she to talk? She'd sunk every penny she had as a result of the super-sales talk, the indirect approach, of one William John Jones.
She had to get up-country immediately and stop the sale.