Part 17 (2/2)
This morning, however, he had begun to show some signs of life. He was developing possibilities. Whereupon, at this critical stage in the story-writing game, the hair-was.h.i.+ng mania seized Mary Louise. She tried to dismiss the idea. She pushed it out of her mind, and slammed the door. It only popped in again. Her fingers wandered to her hair. Her eyes wandered to the June suns.h.i.+ne outside. The hero was left poised, arms outstretched, and unquenchable love-light burning in his eyes, while Mary Louise mused, thus:
”It certainly feels sticky. It's been six weeks, at least. And I could sit here-by the window--in the sun--and dry it----”
With a jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her hair, and her wandering eyes away from the suns.h.i.+ne, and her runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes the snap of the little disks crackled through the stillness of the tiny apartment. Then, suddenly, as though succ.u.mbing to an irresistible force, Mary Louise rose, walked across the room (a matter of six steps), removing hairpins as she went, and shoved aside the screen which hid the stationary wash-bowl by day.
Mary Louise turned on a faucet and held her finger under it, while an agonized expression of doubt and suspense overspread her features.
Slowly the look of suspense gave way to a smile of beatific content. A sigh--deep, soul-filling, satisfied--welled up from Mary Louise's breast.
The water was hot.
Half an hour later, head swathed turban fas.h.i.+on in a towel, Mary Louise strolled over to the window. Then she stopped, aghast. In that half hour the sun had slipped just around the corner, and was now beating brightly and uselessly against the brick wall a few inches away. Slowly Mary Louise unwound the towel, bent double in the contortionistic att.i.tude that women a.s.sume on such occasions, and watched with melancholy eyes while the drops trickled down to the ends of her hair, and fell, unsunned, to the floor.
”If only,” thought Mary Louise, bitterly, ”there was such a thing as a back yard in this city--a back yard where I could squat on the gra.s.s, in the suns.h.i.+ne and the breeze---- Maybe there is. I'll ask the janitor.”
She bound her hair in the turban again, and opened the door. At the far end of the long, dim hallway Charlie, the janitor, was doing something to the floor with a mop and a great deal of sloppy water, whistling the while with a shrill abandon that had announced his presence to Mary Louise.
”Oh, Charlie!” called Mary Louise. ”Charlee! Can you come here just a minute?”
”You bet!” answered Charlie, with the accent on the you; and came.
”Charlie, is there a back yard, or something, where the sun is, you know--some nice, gra.s.sy place where I can sit, and dry my hair, and let the breezes blow it?”
”Back yard!” grinned Charlie. ”I guess you're new to N' York, all right, with ground costin' a million or so a foot. Not much they ain't no back yard, unless you'd give that name to an ash-barrel, and a dump heap or so, and a crop of tin cans. I wouldn't invite a goat to set in it.”
Disappointment curved Mary Louise's mouth. It was a lovely enough mouth at any time, but when it curved in disappointment--ell, janitors are but human, after all.
”Tell you what, though,” said Charlie. ”I'll let you up on the roof. It ain't long on gra.s.sy spots up there, but say, breeze! Like a summer resort. On a clear day you can see way over 's far 's Eight' Avenoo.
Only for the love of Mike don't blab it to the other women folks in the buildin', or I'll have the whole works of 'em usin' the roof for a general sun, ma.s.sage, an' beauty parlor. Come on.”
”I'll never breathe it to a soul,” promised Mary Louise, solemnly. ”Oh, wait a minute.”
She turned back into her room, appearing again in a moment with something green in her hand.
”What's that?” asked Charlie, suspiciously.
Mary Louise, speeding down the narrow hallway after Charlie, blushed a little. ”It--it's parsley,” she faltered.
”Parsley!” exploded Charlie. ”Well, what the----”
”Well, you see. I'm from the country,” explained Mary Louise, ”and in the country, at this time of year, when you dry your hair in the back yard, you get the most wonderful scent of green and growing things--not only of flowers, you know, but of the new things just coming up in the vegetable garden, and--and--well, this parsley happens to be the only really gardeny thing I have, so I thought I'd bring it along and sniff it once in a while, and make believe it's the country, up there on the roof.”
Half-way up the perilous little flight of stairs that led to the roof, Charlie, the janitor, turned to gaze down at Mary Louise, who was just behind, and keeping fearfully out of the way of Charlie's heels.
”Wimmin,” observed Charlie, the janitor, ”is nothin' but little girls in long skirts, and their hair done up.”
”I know it,” giggled Mary Louise, and sprang up on the roof, looking, with her towel-swathed head, like a lady Aladdin leaping from her underground grotto.
The two stood there a moment, looking up at the blue sky, and all about at the June suns.h.i.+ne.
<script>