Free Wives and Lovers by Margaret Millar Page A

circumstance like herself. To a lesser degree she felt sorry for George too, because he had what Mrs. Freeman called a “nice open face” and a shrewd eye. From this shrewd eye Mrs. Freeman deduced that George knew quite a lot about women, and it was her opinion that men who understood women could be more easily duped by any individual woman than one who didn’t. Take her husband, Robert, for instance. Robert had never understood women, never wanted to, never pretended to, yet he’d had a wife as faithful as the day was long.
    As faithful as the day is long, Mrs. Freeman thought, sighing. She turned for comfort to the City News Briefs. Here, in blunt paragraphs, were recorded the mistakes and sorrows, and the petty complaints and transgressions of that large but neglected and anonymous section of the community to which Mrs. Freeman unwittingly belonged. Names were seldom mentioned in the News Briefs. More tactful devices were used for identification: “A woman in the 500 block of W. Los Olivos complained to police of a dog barking in the neighborhood.” “An intoxicated middle-aged man was found sleeping in an alley and was given lodging by the police overnight.” “A rancher from the Arroyo Burro district reports that two sorrel mares have strayed or been stolen from his premises.” “Several juveniles were warned by police when they were found aiming rocks at a boulevard sign near the swimming pool.” “Two Mexican nationals were arrested in a local café after becoming involved in an argument with the proprietor.”
    These items were cunningly spaced between advertise­ments, so that to make sure of not missing anything Mrs. Freeman read all the advertisements too: slenderizing salons, used cars, potato chips, lost dogs, apartments, lending libraries, Swedish Massage and Hawaiian choco­lates.
    While she read Mrs. Freeman talked half-aloud to her­self. “Seems a lot of money for a 1939 Ford . . . I wonder what café they were arrested in, seems silly not to mention the name . . . that friend of Mrs. Lam­bert’s lives on Los Olivos, but that’s east not west, but it could easily be her anyway, newspapers are always making mistakes like that . . . trying to stop a dog barking. Might as well stop the wind blowing, what are dogs for, I’d like to know . . . sorrel mares, never heard of sorrel, but mark my words they were stolen, human nature can get very low.”
    She heard one of the girls coming downstairs and she stopped talking abruptly. She didn’t want any of them to think she was balmy, talking to herself like that, and she was certain that none of them had enough sense to realize that if you have no one else to talk to, you talk to yourself.
    It was Ruby.
    â€œDressed already?” Mrs. Freeman said cheerfully. “That’s a pretty suit. It goes with your eyes.”
    Ruby blushed with pleasure and averted her eyes, afraid, breathlessly afraid that if she let Mrs. Freeman look at her eyes again Mrs. Freeman might change her mind and say, no, the suit didn’t go with her eyes.
    She went down the hall, hugging the thin compliment to her heart, letting it nestle there, warm and protected, until it grew fat: she said I have nice eyes. She said, what a pretty suit, it goes with your beautiful eyes. Like stars, she said.
    She pictured herself telling Gordon about it tonight, if he could get away from the house to meet her. She would say to him, “Oh, she’s a funny old bird, Gordon. You know what she said to me as I was leaving tonight? She said I was beautiful. Me, beautiful! Gosh, you could have knocked me over with a feather! She said, with eyes like that, you ought to be in the movies, Ruby.”

6
    Ruby had never lived in a small town before, and she was unaware of the speed and intricacy of its grapevine. She assumed that she had in Channel City the same anonymity she had in San Francisco, and that no one