A crumpled five-dollar bill, a ticket to San Francisco, a legal document terminating a marriage lost long ago in angry words— These were all she had. But between today and tomorrow a strange thing happened. She had a chance to build a whole new life, a life based on a lie.
She climbed the rooming-house stairs like a puppet dangling from slack strings. She was about twenty, with small, well-turned features, but her cheeks were a little too thin. Blond hair hung listlessly, as though no heed had been paid to it for some time past. The heels of her shoes were a little run over.
She managed the three flights, somehow, stopped at the door and took out a key. A wedge of white protruded under the door; it lengthened into an envelope as the door swept back above it. She picked it up. Her hand shook. She seemed to come alive a little.
Only her name, no address. She moved to the middle of the room, snapped on the light. She ripped hastily along the top of the envelope, and her hand plunged in. It held no message. She turned it over and shook it.
A flutter of paper came down on the table.
A five-dollar bill. Just an anonymous five-dollar bill, with Lincoln’s picture on it. And a strip of railroad tickets, running consecutively from starting-point to terminus, the way they do. The first coupon was marked “New York”; here, where she was now. The last was marked “San Francisco.” San Francisco, which she’d left one day two years ago.
There was no return. It was for a one-way trip.
The envelope fell to the floor. Her hands clasped each other nervously but somehow with purpose too. A little gold circle came off one of her fingers, and dropped to the floor. It rolled in a circle and came to rest under the edge of her foot. It was as though she were grinding it down into the shoddy carpet.
She brought out a battered valise, placed it on the bed, and threw back the lid.
Her face kept twitching intermittently, as if it were struggling to burst forth into some kind of emotion. For a moment or two it seemed that it might be weeping, when it came. But it wasn’t.
It was laughter.
Laughter should be merry and vibrant and alive.
This wasn’t.
The train had already left the Chicago station and she hadn’t yet found a seat. She struggled down car-aisle after car-aisle, swaying, jostled from side to side. The aisles were full of standees.
None of the seated men she passed offered her a seat. Their places had been too hard-won on a transcontinental train where anyone who stood, stood for hundreds of miles, through half-a-dozen states.
She’d been too late at the gate in the station, and too late getting on the train. The crowd had spilled past her. She’d been too slow, and too tired, and a little too helpless with her leaden valise. No more cars now. This was the last. Choked from end to end like all the rest. She stopped midway through the car. She could see there weren’t any seats vacant.
She set down the valise, and settled herself on its edge, the way she saw so many of the others doing. But it was lower than a seat would have been, and harder to settle down upon. She floundered badly and almost fell. Then when she’d settled down she let her head rest wearily against the nearest seat-back.
The tilt of her head gave her only a downward view into the little patch of floor-space in front of the seat. A pair of man’s brogues and a diminutive pair of kid pumps rested side by side. The brogues slung one above the other, the owner’s legs coupled at the knee. The pumps were cocked pertly, ankles crossed.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then one of the pumps edged over and dug sharply at the man’s ankle. A newspaper rattled. Both brogues swivelled slightly aisleward, as if their wearer’s upper body had turned in the seat to take a look.
Then they came down flat and he stood up. He came out through the seat-gap and motioned her in.
“Take my place for awhile.”
She tried to demur with a faint smile.
“No, go ahead,” he said heartily. “That’s quite all right.”
She stood up and accepted the offered seat.
The couple were both young, only a little older than she was, pleasant, friendly-looking. The girl had red-gold hair, fluffed out around her face. She had a beautiful mouth, which alone was sufficient to make her lovely looking, drawing all notice to itself as it did. When it smiled, everything smiled with it. Her nose crinkled, and her eyebrows arched, and dimples appeared in each cheek. She looked as though she smiled a lot.
She was smiling at Helen now, to put her at ease. Her fingers toyed with her wedding-ring. It had a row of diamonds, with a sapphire at each end of the row of stones. A lovely ring, one she was obviously proud of.
“I appreciate this very much,” Helen said.
The young husband said, “Guess I’ll go out on the platform for a smoke.”
His wife glanced around to make sure he’d left them. Then she dropped her voice confidentially. “I could tell right away. That’s why I made him get up.”
Helen didn’t say anything. What could she say?
“Me too,” the wife added. She turned her ring around a little more, gave it a caressing little brush.
