Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

“Oh. Yes, I suppose it could look that way. But it’s much what you said about Burt: Anna and I love each other, have for yearsÄ and sometimes we express it in bed. But we’re not `in love.’ Each of us leans heavily toward men . . . no matter what impression you gained the other night. When Anna practically stole Burt out of your arms, I cheeredÄdespite fretting a bit about you. But not fretting too much because you always have a pack of men sniffing around after you whereas with Anna it had become a seldom thing. So I cheered. Hadn’t expected it to lead to marriage but it’s grand that it has. Here’s the Golden OrchidÄwhat shall we buy?”

“Wait a moment.” I stopped her outside the florist shop. “Goldie

ù . . at great risk to her life somebody went charging up to the bedroom of the farmhouse, carrying a basket stretcher. For me.”

Goldie looked annoyed. “Somebody talks too much.”

“I should have talked sooner. I love you. More than I love Burt for I’ve loved you longer. Don’t need to marry him, can’t marry you. Just love you. All right?”

XXVI

Maybe I did marry Goldie, sort of. Once we had Anna and Burt formally married, we all went back to the hotel; Burt moved them into the “bridal suite” (no mirror on the ceiling, interior decorations white and pink instead of black and red, otherwise much the sameÄbut much more expensive), and Goldie and I moved out of the hotel and sublet a little crackerbox near where Charleston slants into Fremont. This placed us in walking distance of the slidewalk connecting the Labor Mart with town and that gave Goldie transportation to any of the hospitals and made it easy for me to shopÄ otherwise we would have had to buy or rent a horse and buggy, or bicycles.

Location was that house’s sole virtue, maybe, but to me it was a fairy-tale honeymoon cottage with roses over the door. It had `no roses and was ugly and the only thing modern in it was a limitedservice terminal. But for the first time in my life I had a home of my own and was a “housewife.” My home in Christchurch had never truly been mine; I certainly was never mistress of that household, and I had been steadily reminded in various ways that I was a guest rather than a permanent fixture.

Do you know what fun it is to buy a saucepan for your very own kitchen?

I was a housewife at once as Goldie was called on that very day and went on watch at twenty-three hundred to work all night to ohseven hundred. The following day I cooked my first dinner while

Goldie slept. . . and burned the potatoes beyond salvage and cried, which is, I understand, a bride’s privilege. If so, I’ve used mine up against the day when I’m really a bride if everÄand not a phony bride as in Christchurch.

I was a proper housewife; I even bought sweet-pea seeds and planted them in lieu of that missing climbing rose over the doorÄ and discovered that gardening has more to it than sticking seeds in the ground; those seeds did not germinate. So I consulted the Las Vegas library and bought a book, a real book with looseleaf pages and pictures of what the compleat gardener should do. I studied it. I memorized it.

One thing I did not do. Although enormously tempted I did not get a kitten. Goldie might ship out any day; she warned me that, if I was out of the house, she might be gone without saying good-bye (as I had warned GeorgesÄand did do).

Were Ito get a kitten I would be honor-bound to keep it. A courier can’t carry a kitten everywhere in a travel case; that’s no way to bring up a baby. Someday I would ship out. So I did not adopt a kitten.

Aside from that I enjoyed all the warm delights of being a housewife. . . including ants in the sugar and a waste pipe line that broke in the night, two delights that I don’t care to repeat. It was a very happy time. Goldie slowly got my cooking straightened outÄI had thought I knew how to cook; now I do know how. And I learned to stir a martini exactly the way she preferred it: Beefeater gin threepoint-six to one of Noilly Prat dry vermouth, a twist, no bittersÄ while I took Bristol Cream on rocks. Martinis are too rugged for me but I can see why a nurse with tired feet would want one the minute she is home.