Chapter 12
Later that evening Benjy hit her with a shocker. He wanted her to move in with him on his boat.
"And I want you to marry me," he again stated with full determination. Judy responded in a way that led him to feel that he was finally breaking through.
Martha's plans for a Christmas party fell through when the weather prediction for fog made driving over 100 miles an insane notion. Benjy and Judy spent a quiet, sexy Christmas together.
Then one evening she made up her mind. She dispatched two quick messages, one to the hostess of the upcoming party and another to Benjy. The messenger got to the dock just as The Gulliver eased into her moorage.
Tom was with Benjy, and he grew concerned as he saw his furrowed brow. "Benjy," he urged. "With a girl like Judy, be careful. You're probably going to lose her."
Benjy looked at him as though he had lost his mind. "Judy? Man you're crazy. Why, Judy wouldn't look at another man. No, she's just hepped on this idea of not going into debt."
Tom gave a look at the long, sleek lines of the fishing craft and grunted, "That's what I mean."
Judy talked to herself for seventy miles. Now why had she been packing for days? She had told herself it was to ease the space in the crowded apartment. Yet she wondered, considering what she'd packed, and which now rode jauntily in every inch of space in her small car.
Favorite pots and pans. Her best set of dishes. All of the bits of brass and copper, the favorite books which turned her apartment into a home.
She rose early the next morning and went into action. She sandpapered, wiped off and set out to dry chairs and tables. Drapes went up as she waited; the kitchen cupboards were enameled.
She worked with what she would have called "controlled fury," to drop into bed, exhausted.
Bookcases were a problem, she found the next day. She also found old bricks, scoured them; old boards, scoured them; and when they'd dried lay them between tiers of clean brick.
Clothes were a problem until she found a length of pipe, laboriously carved half-circles in cleats into which to fit the pipe, then used shower curtains to enclose a corner clothes closet.
What I need, she informed the shack, is a bedroom. And tile for the floor; this linoleum is awful.
Anyone else would have had another room built. It wouldn't cost much, and she was making over eight hundred a month, wasn't she?
She looked at the salmon-pink shower curtains with their white storks and water lilies and saw what they did to her otherwise lovely room.
Monday she drove swiftly into town, bought quick-drying floor enamel, some cheap drapes that didn't scream at the room proper, and groceries.
She moved all of the furniture to one end of the big room and painted as far as she could, muscles screaming a protest. And that night she sat far from the fire.
What a way to spend New Year's Eve, she stormed.
There were others who echoed her thought. But Rosa Padroni had warned William John, and he had warned Bess Henderson.
"If she can't take it, the sooner she finds out the better. There'll be other New Year's Eve celebrations at the Grange."
It was the first New Year's Eve in her memory Judy had slept through.
Also she awakened earlier than ever before on New Year's Day. The painted half of the floor waxed and dried, she moved the furniture to that area and painted the other half, the bathroom, the kitchen floor. Unable to clear off the paint because she couldn't reach the paint remover, she backed out of the kitchen door into her car and took off for the city.
At the apartment she softened momentarily. An armload of roses and a huge box of the best chocolates awaited her, with Benjy's apologies.
Swiftly she computed the cost. Fifteen dollars. Well, maybe it was just as well she was fixing up a home for her old age. If she started saving fifteen dollars at a time, she could add a bedroom with clothes by then.
Her head went into her hands. She wasn't being a cheapskate. No, she was simply fed up to the eyebrows with having those closest and dearest so bound to do the right thing no matter what it cost, they would do it if it put them into bankruptcy.
Judy shuddered at the word the next morning. Mr. Stayton was being Mr. Status. Saturday the agency would hold its annual cocktail party, which preceded the Executives' Dinner, held later at the same hotel.
"Now here," Stayton handed a sketch, "will be the ideal frock for you, as our senior hostess."
Two years before, maybe even a year before, Judy would have gone forth and wasted a week's wages on a frock she would wear once, then submit to hairstyling which made her feel alien.
Stayton waited. So did Judy; then she sniffed a little and shrugged her shoulders. "The model looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's all right, of course, but I do hope none of St. Sophia's girls drop in. They'd think I'd gone shop."
"Gone-"
"Come now," she beamed up at him.
"You know only those who have to impress the clientele resort to looking like something in an exclusive shop window."
"Oh, yes," he agreed hastily, "I merely thought the ensemble would be especially flattering to you."
He insisted a moment, so she broke in. "As a man, you may not have noticed Mrs. Sealy has worn the identical frock three years in succession. Of course with their social and financial background, she can afford to."
He nodded and looked at her musingly. He was really going to marry her as much as he disliked giving up the freedom that allowed him to play the field.
He smiled and looked at her so tenderly, Benjy, watching from outside, clenched his fists. "I know I can trust your judgment. Just appear as though you were to meet all of your old classmates."
She saluted and left and felt not a bit guilty, because she had been right.
Benjy came to the door the moment Stayton left. "Now what have you been up to?"
Judy wondered what he'd say if she confessed she'd just saved herself a week's salary to tell the truth.
"Debating," she replied, "wondering why one must pretend to have more money than one has to be acceptable. Who's fooled when we do? I'm worried about this merrygo-round of false standards. We're not really getting anyplace."
Benjy felt cheered. If it was the line she'd been handing Stayton, the old boy had probably been trying to convert her to production; pointing out how advertising agencies such as Stayton kept the production wheels in motion because said agency kept the goods produced moving into and out of the market.
"Going to your ranchito this weekend?"
"My what? Oh, you mean my shack." Judy shook her head. "Not worth it for one day."
All of the staff members were extra-busy the rest of the week. Occasionally Judy would lift her head and think wistfully of the shack. On her next visit she could relax. Maybe it would rain and she could just sit before the fire, knowing there was nothing to do because she could not afford to do anything.
Or maybe she'd be smart, like Martha, and take the new girl up with her so if Martha called she couldn't quarrel with her about what she'd done with what she had.
But Saturday she had no time to think, except under the dryer, and then she was too busy looking at magazines, picking up ideas for the shack, and recipes.
A change of hemline and narrowing of a skirt on a bronze cocktail dress Slayton had never seen, and Judy was ready for the big event.
"Rich but not gaudy," she muttered, twirling before the long dressing mirror and hoping her hair would stay under control until Stayton had seen that is was controlled.
The staff was early. The guests were late, as was anticipated. And, also as usual, Judy drew the boors as honey drew flies.
She had to listen to the distributor of fishing crafts tell of his great sales promotion idea. Yes sir, the crafts were selling rapidly. Of course, he admitted modestly, it was that little line he'd thought up; "Get out where you can't be got at." Neat, wasn't it? The subconscious desire of every harassed businessman.
Judy murmured at appropriate moments and longed to tell him just who had thought up that line and when and why.
Judy's lips parted. They remained open a little too wide for beauty. She was shocked.
Coming toward her was quite the handsomest man she had ever seen, in a well-tailored dinner jacket. And on his arm was a beautiful woman wearing the very gown Stayton had chosen for her, exclusive, expensive.
William John Jones and Mrs. Martha Hubbard.