Make Room! Make Room!(81)

“Come on, Shirl, don’t beat it. What’s done is done. Why don’t you think about today? Can you imagine Grassy giving me a whole day off—just out of sympathy?”

“No. He’s a terrible man. I’m sure he had some other reason and you’ll find out about it when you go in tomorrow.”

“Now you sound like me,” he laughed. “Let’s have some breakfast and think about all the good things we want to do today.”

Andy went in and lit the fire while she dressed, then checked the room again to make sure that he had put all of Sol’s things out of sight. The clothes were in the wardrobe and he had swept shelves clear and stuffed the books in on top of the clothes. There was nothing he could do about the bed, but he pulled the cover up and put the pillow in the wardrobe too so that it looked more like a couch. Good enough. In the next few weeks he would get rid of the things one by one in the flea market; the books should bring a good price. They would eat better for a while and Shirl wouldn’t have to know where the extra money came from.

He was going to miss Sol, he knew that. Seven years ago, when he had first rented the room, it had been just a convenient arrangement for both of them. Sol had explained later that rising food prices had forced him to divide the room and let out half, but he didn’t want to share it with just any bum. He had gone to the precinct and told them about the vacancy. Andy, who had been living in the police barracks, had moved in at once. So Sol had had his money—and an armed protection at the same time. There had been no friendship in the beginning, but this had come. They had become close in spite of their difference in ages: Think young, be young, Sol had always said, and he had lived up to his own rule. It was funny how many things Sol had said that Andy could remember. He was going to keep on remembering these things. He wasn’t going to get sentimental over it—Sol would have been the first one to laugh at that, and give what he called his double razzberry—but he wasn’t going to forget him.

The sun was coming in the window now and, between that and the stove, the chill was gone and the room was comfortable. Andy switched on the TV and found some music, not the kind of thing he liked, but Shirl did, so he kept it on. It was something called The Fountains of Rome, the title was on the screen, superimposed on a picture of the bubbling fountains. Shirl came in, brushing her hair and he pointed to it.

“Doesn’t it give you a thirst, all that splashing water?” Andy asked.

“Makes me want to take a shower. I bet I smell something terrible.”

“Sweet as perfume,” he said, watching her with pleasure as she sat on the windowsill, still brushing her hair, the sun touching it with golden highlights. “How would you like to go on a train ride—and a picnic today?” he asked suddenly.

“Stop it! I can’t take jokes before breakfast.”

“No, I mean it. Move aside for a second.” He leaned close to the window and squinted out at the ancient thermometer that Sol had nailed to the wooden frame outside. Most of the paint and numbers had flaked away, but Sol had scratched new ones on in their place. “It’s fifty already—in the shade—and I bet it goes up to fifty-five today. When you let this kind of weather in December in New York—grab it. There might be five feet of snow tomorrow. We can use the last of the soypaste to make sandwiches. The water train leaves at eleven, and we can ride in the guard car.”

“Then you meant it?”

“Of course, I don’t joke about this kind of thing. A real excursion to the country. I told you about the trip I made, when I was with the guard last week. The train goes up along the Hudson River to Croton-on-Hudson, where the tank cars are filled. This takes about two, three hours. I’ve never seen it, but they say you can walk over to Croton Point Park—it’s right out in the river—and they still have some real trees there. If it’s warm enough we can have our picnic, then go back on the train. What do you say?”

“I say it sounds wonderfully impossible and unbelievable. I’ve never been that far from the city since I was a little girl, it must be miles and miles. When do we go?”

“Just as soon as we have some breakfast. I’ve already put the oatmeal up—and you might stir it a bit before it burns.”

“Nothing can burn on a seacoal fire.” But she went to the stove and took care of the pot as she said it. He didn’t remember when he had seen her smiling and happy like this; it was almost like the summer again.

“Don’t be a pig and eat all the oatmeal,” she said. “I can use that corn oil—I knew I was saving it for something important—and fry up oatmeal cakes for the picnic too.”