GARDEN OF EDEN by Ernest Hemingway

“I’m sure you will.”

‘Would you rather I was not so deeply brown?”

“You’re a nice color. Get that color all over if you like.”

“I thought perhaps you’d like one of your girls lighter than the other.”

“You’re not my girl.”

“I am,” she said. “I told you before.”

“You don’t blush anymore.

“I got over it when we went bathing. I hope I won’t now for a long time. That’s why I said everything—to get over it. That’s why I told you.”

“You look nice in that cashmere sweater,” David said. “Catherine said we’d both wear them. You don’t dislike me because I told you?”

“I forget what you told me.

“That I love you.

“Don’t talk rot.”

“Don’t you believe it happens to people like that? The way it happened to me about you two?”

“You don’t fall in love with two people at once.

“You don’t know,” she said.

“It’s rot,” he said. “It’s just a way of talking.”

“It isn’t at all. It’s true.”

“You just think it is. It’s nonsense.”

“All right,” she said. “It’s nonsense. But I’m here.”

“Yes. You’re here,” he said. He was watching Catherine as she crossed the room, smiling and happy.

“1-lello swimmers,” she said. “Oh what a shame. I didn’t get to see Marita have her first martini.”

“This is still it,” the girl said.

“How did it affect her, David?”

“Made her talk rot.”

“We’ll start with a fresh one. Weren’t you good to resuscitate this bar. It’s such a sort of tentative bar. We’ll get a mirror for it. A bar’s no good without a mirror.”

“We can get one tomorrow,” the girl said. “I’d like to get it.

“Don’t be rich,” Catherine said. “We’ll both get it and then

we can all see each other when we talk rot and know how rotty it is. You can’t fool a bar mirror.”

“It’s when I start looking quizzical in one that I know I’ve lost,” David said.

“You never lose. How can you lose with two girls?” Catherine said.

“I tried to tell him,” the girl said and blushed for the first time that evening.

“She’s your girl and I’m your girl,” Catherine said. “Now stop being stuffy and be nice to your girls. Don’t you like the way they look? I’m the very fair one you married.”

“You’re darker and fairer than the one I married.”

“So are you and I brought you a dark girl for a present. Don’t you like your present?”

“I like my present very much.”

“How do you like your future?”

“I don’t know about my future.

“It isn’t a dark future is it?” the girl asked.

“Very good,” Catherine said. “She’s not only beautiful and rich and healthy and affectionate. She can make jokes. Aren’t you pleased with what I brought you?”

“I’d rather be a dark present than a dark future,” the girl said. “She did it again,” Catherine said. “Give her a kiss David and make her a fair present.”

David put his arm around the girl and kissed her and she started to kiss him and turned her head away. Then she was crying with her head down and both hands holding the bar.

“Make a good joke now,” David said to Catherine. “I’m all right,” the girl said. “Don’t look at me. I’m all right.” Catherine put her arm around her and kissed her and stroked her head.

“I’ll be all right,” the girl said. “Please, I know I’ll be all right.”

“I’m so sorry,” Catherine said.

“Let me go please,” the girl said. “I have to go. “Well,” David said when the girl was gone and Catherine had come back to the bar.

“You don’t need to say it,” Catherine said. “I’m sorry David.”

“She’ll be back.”

“You don’t think it’s all a fake now do you?”

“They were real tears if that’s what you mean.

“Don’t be stupid. You aren’t stupid.”

“I kissed her very carefully.”

“Yes. On the mouth.”

“Where did you expect me to kiss her?”

“You were all right. I haven’t criticized you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t ask me to kiss her when we were at the beach.”

“I thought of it,” Catherine said. She laughed and it was like the old days before anyone had mixed in their life. “Did you think I was going to?”

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