Big Money by John Dos Passos

down for a minute. I’ll see what
Eveline’s up to.” He pointed to a horsehair sofa and went through the sliding doors into a back room.
    He came back immediately carefully pulling the door to behind him. “Why, that’s great. Eveline says you’re goin’ to have supper with us. She said you just came back from out there. How’d things seem out there? I wouldn’t go back if they paid me now. New York’s a great life if you don’t weaken. . . . Here, I’ll show you where you can clean up. . . . Eveline’s invited a whole mess of people to supper. I’ll have to run around to the butcher’s. . . . Want to wash up?”
    The bathroom was steamy and smelt of bathsalts. Somebody had just taken a bath there. Babyclothes hung to dry over the tub. A red douchebag hung behind the door and over it a yellow lace negligee of some kind. It made Charley feel funny to be in there. When he’d dried his hands he sniffed them, and the perfume of the soap filled his head.
    When he came out of the door he found Mrs. Johnson leaning against the white marble mantel with a yellowbacked French novel in her hand. She had on a long lacy gown with puff sleeves and wore tortoiseshell readingglasses. She took off the glasses and tucked them into the book and stood holding out her hand.
    â€œI’m so glad you could come. I don’t go out much yet, so I don’t get to see anybody unless they come to see me.”
    â€œMighty nice of you to ask me. I been out in the sticks. I tell you it makes you feel good to see folks from the other side. . . . This is the nearest thing to Paree I’ve seen for some time.”
    She laughed; he remembered her laugh from the boat. The way he felt like kissing her made him fidgety. He lit a cigarette.
    â€œDo you mind not smoking? For some reason tobaccosmoke makes me feel sick ever since before I had the baby, so I don’t let anybody smoke. Isn’t it horrid of me?”
    Charley blushed and threw his cigarette in the grate. He began to walk back and forth in the tall narrow room. “Hadn’t we better sit down?” she said with her slow irritating smile. “What are you up to in New York?”
    â€œGot to get me a job. I got plans. . . . Say, how’s the baby? I’d like to see it.”
    â€œAll right, when he wakes up I’ll introduce you. You can be one of his uncles. I’ve got to do something about supper now. Doesn’t it seem strange us all being in New York?”
    â€œI bet this town’s a hard nut to crack.”
    She went into the back room through the sliding doors and soon a smell of sizzling butter began to seep through them. Charley caught himself just at the point of lighting another cigarette, then roamed round the room, looking at the oldfashioned furniture, the three white lilies in a vase, the shelves of French books, until Paul, red in the face and sweating, passed through with more groceries and told him he’d shake up a drink.
    Charley sat down on the couch and stretched out his legs. It was quiet in the highceilinged room. There was something cozy about the light rustle and clatter the Johnsons made moving around behind the sliding doors, the Frenchy smell of supper cooking. Paul came back with a tray piled with plates and glasses and a demijohn of wine. He laid a loaf of frenchbread on the marbletopped table and a plate of tunafish and a cheese. “I’m sorry I haven’t got anything to make a cocktail with. . . . I didn’t get out of the office till late. . . . All we’ve got’s this dago wine.”
    â€œCheck. . . . I’m keepin’ away from that stuff a little. . . . Too much on my mind.”
    â€œAre you round town looking for a job?”
    â€œFeller goin’ in on a proposition with me. You remember Joe Askew on the boat? Great boy, wasn’t