Eleven Kinds of Loneliness Read Online Free Page B

beside her typewriter—from Mr. Atwood, her boss—and tucked inside the envelope that came with it was a ten-dollar gift certificate from Bloomingdale’s. Mr. Atwood had treated her with a special courtliness ever since the time she necked with him at the office Christmas party, and now when she went in to thank him he was all hunched over, rattling desk drawers, blushing and barely meeting her eyes.
    “Aw, now, don’t mention it, Grace,” he said. “Pleasure’s all mine. Here, you need a pin to put that gadget on with?”
    “There’s a pin that came with it,” she said, holding up the corsage. “See? A nice white one.”
    Beaming, he watched her pin the flowers high on the lapel of her suit. Then he cleared his throat importantly and pulled out the writing panel of his desk, ready to give the morning’s dictation. But it turned out there were only two short letters, and it wasn’t until an hour later, when she caught him handing over a pile of Dictaphone cylinders to Central Typing, that she realized he had done her a favor.
    “That’s very sweet of you, Mr. Atwood,” she said, “but I dothink you ought to give me all your work today, just like any oth—”
    “Aw, now, Grace,” he said. “You only get married once.”
    The girls all made a fuss over her too, crowding around her desk and giggling, asking again and again to see Ralph’s photograph (“Oh, he’s cute! ”), while the office manager looked on, nervously, reluctant to be a spoilsport but anxious to point out that it was, after all, a working day.
    Then at lunch there was the traditional little party at Schrafft’s—nine women and girls, giddy on their unfamiliar cocktails, letting their chicken à la king grow cold while they pummeled her with old times and good wishes. There were more flowers and another gift—a silver candy dish for which all the girls had whisperingly chipped in.
    Grace said “Thank you” and “I certainly do appreciate it” and “I don’t know what to say” until her head rang with the words and the corners of her mouth ached from smiling, and she thought the afternoon would never end.
    Ralph called up about four o’clock, exuberant. “How ya doin’, honey?” he asked, and before she could answer he said, “Listen. Guess what I got?”
    “I don’t know. A present or something? What?” She tried to sound excited, but it wasn’t easy.
    “A bonus. Fifty dollars.” She could almost see the flattening of his lips as he said “fifty dollars” with the particular earnestness he reserved for pronouncing sums of money.
    “Why, that’s lovely, Ralph,” she said, and if there was any tiredness in her voice be didn’t notice it.
    “Lovely, huh?” he said with a laugh, mocking the girlishness of the word. “Ya like that, huh, Gracie? No, but I mean I was really surprised, ya know it? The boss siz, ‘Here, Ralph,’ and he hands me this envelope. He don’t even crack a smile or nothin’,and I’m wonderin’, what’s the deal here? I’m getting fired here, or what? He siz, ‘G’ahead, Ralph, open it.’ So I open it, and then I look at the boss and he’s grinning a mile wide.” He chuckled and sighed. “Well, so listen, honey. What time ya want me to come over tonight?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Soon as you can, I guess.”
    “Well listen, I gotta go over to Eddie’s house and pick up that bag he’s gonna loan me, so I might as well do that, go on home and eat, and then come over to your place around eight-thirty, nine o’clock. Okay?”
    “All right,” she said. “I’ll see you then, darling.” She had been calling him “darling” for only a short time—since it had become irrevocably clear that she was, after all, going to marry him—and the word still had an alien sound. As she straightened the stacks of stationery in her desk (because there was nothing else to do), a familiar little panic gripped her: she couldn’t marry him—she hardly even knew him. Sometimes it occurred to