Free Wives and Lovers by Margaret Millar Page B

knew about the relationship between Gordon Foster and herself, not even the owner of the café which was their meeting place.
    She was not interested in or curious about the other people and she rarely paid any attention to them even when she was sitting waiting for Gordon and had nothing to do but drink coffee. She would have been surprised to learn that at least a dozen habitués of the café knew her and Gordon by sight and guessed the relationship, and several more knew them by name and were sure of the relation­ship. In the latter group was Al Gomez, who owned the café, and Gordon Foster’s wife, Elaine. Neither nature nor experience had equipped Gordon for a life of intrigue, and Elaine had found out about Ruby a week after Ruby arrived in town.
    Elaine, as a churchwoman and the mother of three children, believed in divorce even less than she believed in marriage and Gordon, so she didn’t discuss the subject of Ruby at all. She merely telephoned the café two or three times in an evening, and asked Mr. Gomez politely to send Gordon home, one of the children had a sore throat, or a wrenched knee, or a headache, or a spot that might be measles. She never asked to speak to Gordon personally; she used Mr. Gomez as the messenger. This proved, at first, to be an effective device, for the messages, delivered in Gomez’s harsh, low voice sounded quite alarming. Mr. Gomez would shuffle over to the back booth where Ruby and Gordon were sitting, fix Gordon with his hot little eyes, and croak, “Wife says one of the kids fell out of bed, broke his arm.”
    These messages, however startling they were in the beginning, had gradually lost their power, and the only people who were affected by them any longer were Gomez, who was tired of answering the phone, Ruby, who was infuriated by Elaine’s wily deceptions, and the two older Foster children. They had learned for the first time, listening to their mother on the telephone, that they were frail and mortal, surrounded by their enemy, death. They developed hourly symptoms, and screamed in real terror over a scratch or a bruise. Elaine, who believed she loved her children, was very much concerned because her five-year-old boy suffered from nightmares, and the girl, seven, was disgustingly fat from overeating. The girl found solace in food; even during school hours, or in bed at night, she chewed surreptitiously. As a result she frequently suffered abdominal pains which were relayed to Gordon, via Mr. Gomez: “The wife phoned, says one of the kids got a bust appendix.”
    â€œThank you, Gomez.”
    â€œOr maybe polio.”
    â€œIf she phones again, tell her I’ve left.”
    â€œCheck.”
    â€œPolio,” Ruby said, clenching her fists until the knuckles showed white. “ Polio .”
    â€œI’d better be leaving, Ruby.”
    â€œBut you just got here.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI hardly ever see you.”
    â€œI know that too.”
    When no one was looking, he kissed her goodbye.
    He was often late for their meetings in the back booth, and sometimes he didn’t show up at all. Ruby would sit there the entire evening, sipping coffee, which was all she could afford, and watching the front door until her eyes went out of focus and her face looked drunken in its owlish intensity.
    Once in a while Mr. Gomez would pause on his way to or from the kitchen.
    â€œLate, eh?”
    â€œOh, he’ll be along. He should be here any minute.”
    â€œMaybe the wife says no.”
    â€œShe’s always saying no. That wouldn’t make any difference. He’ll be here, I’m not worried.”
    â€œMarried man.”
    Mr. Gomez’s abbreviated speeches, delivered in a cracked monotone, were difficult to understand. Ruby was not certain whether he was telling her that he too was a married man and knew how it was with wives, or whether he was reproving her for having a date with a married