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Title: Excitement for sale
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Release date: May 26, 2024 [eBook #73704]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1957
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXCITEMENT FOR SALE ***
EXCITEMENT FOR SALE
By STEPHEN WILDER
_Suppose a salesman knocked at your door and said: "I'm selling
happiness--any kind your heart desires. Every shape, size or
description--and the price is right." Would you know instantly the
thing you wanted above all else? Maybe you'd better think it over in
advance. The salesman might turn up any day._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic January 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Illustration: He was a mood-merchant, a happiness-huckster, peddling
dreams from door to door.]
Mary-Jean closed the cover of the current _Woman's Home Journal_ with a
little sigh and walked into the kitchen to put a light under the stew
she was cooking for supper. One thing about Tom, she thought--Tom was
her husband--there was no problem with leftovers because Tom liked stew.
But there ought to be a law, Mary-Jean thought, against such magazines
as _Woman's Home Journal_. She sighed again, remembering the many
stories she had read to pass the afternoon hours, as if, despite the
careful pattern and routine of the household chores, killing time was
still the most important function of the housewife.
There ought to be a law, all right. The heroine in the first story
Mary-Jean had read went off to Caracas, Venezuela, in search of
petroleum with her husband. The heroine of the second story was an Army
nurse stationed in divided, exotic, intrigue-filled Berlin. The heroine
of the third, Mary-Jean thought dreamily, had spent a memorable summer
with the son of a fabulously wealthy Oriental potentate in Shalimar,
Kashmir.
Mary-Jean went upstairs to take her daily shower, still thinking of
Shalimar, Kashmir. The Vale of a Thousand Delights, it was called. Do I
have one? thought Mary-Jean. Just one genuine delight like the girls in
those stories? Oh, there's Tom: Tom's good natured, but an accountant.
An accountant. She shuddered slightly as she got ready for her shower.
And Tommy, Jr., aged seven. But Tommy, Jr., showed every sign of being
a normal, everyday boy who would grow up into a normal, workaday man
like his father.
* * * * *
Sighing again, Mary-Jean stripped before her mirror for the daily
scrutiny preparatory to showering. I'm only twenty-eight, she thought.
No sags in the wrong places. No excess fat and no gawky bones sticking
out, either. But let's face it, Mary-Jean, you're no raving beauty.
You're just a normal, plain, supposedly well-adjusted housewife who--
Who has been waiting every minute of every day of her life, Mary-Jean
thought with unexpected bitterness, for something thrilling to happen
to her. Only, it never did. There was the dulling, oddly frightening
hand of routine, and nothing else. No Vale of a Thousand Delights,
Mary-Jean thought, and laughed at her own unexpected, childish
pipe-dreams.
She had already stepped into the glass-enclosed shower stall when the
door chimes rang pleasantly through the house. Momentarily she debated
answering or pretending she wasn't home. But even a door-to-door
vacuum cleaner salesman would break the routine with his chatter, she
decided, and slipped into a dressing gown on her way downstairs.
Tom, who had a do-it-yourself workshop in the basement, had installed
an ingenious one-way looking slot in the front door sidelight, and
Mary-Jean used this now to see who her visitor was. She frowned, almost
regretting her impulse to answer the door.
A little old man stood outside, holding an enormous suitcase. He was
obviously a peddler. He was a rotund little man with a cheerful-enough
face, red-cheeked, eyes sparkling and an incongruous little rosebud
pout of a mouth under a long--make that, Mary-Jean observed, an
incredibly long nose. He wore nondescript clothing--except for the hat.
The hat was one of those sporty Tyrolean things which went so well with
the tweeds and the college set. Yet oddly, the natty headpiece did not
seem out of place on the rotund little man's head.
Suddenly the little old man did a curious thing. He smiled at
Mary-Jean. Smiled at her through the one-way glass. It could not be,
she told herself, a coincidence. He was smiling right at her, smiling
eye-to-eye, as it were, although he could not possibly see through the
one-way glass. He removed the Tyrolean hat from a round bald dome of a
head and executed a little bow. Mary-Jean fought down a crazy impulse
to curtsey and instead opened the door with a quick, almost an angry
motion. Her heart was pounding.
"You called, madam?" the little old man demanded in a chirp of a voice.
Chirp was the only word Mary-Jean could think of. The little old man
sounded just like a bird.
"Called?" Mary-Jean said in some confusion as the rotund peddler
brought his enormous suitcase into the living room and unsnapped it on
the sofa before Mary-Jean could stop him. There was an iron-clad, if
unwritten rule, in Mary-Jean's household: nothing unclean ever visited
that sofa. And the little peddler's bag looked as if it had spent time
in every sooty waiting room from here to--Shalimar, Kashmir.
"Not five minutes ago, you called," the peddler chirped. "Here I am.
Now then, what will it be?" As he spoke, the peddler had arranged the
enormous suitcase, now open, like a showcase. For some reason she could
not fathom, Mary-Jean felt an unexpected thrill of fear clutch icily
at her spine.
"You can show me whatever it is you're selling," Mary-Jean heard
herself saying. "But please let's get one thing straight. I didn't
call. I didn't send for you. You must be a cold-canvasser. Aren't you?"
* * * * *
The peddler rubbed plump hands together, shaking his head. "We
Happiness Salesmen never canvass without being called."
"Hap-happiness salesmen?"
"I--" here the peddler returned the Tyrolean hat rakishly to his bald
head--"am a Happiness Salesman."
"But what--exactly what--do you sell? Can I see?" Mary-Jean asked,
edging toward the enormous suitcase.
"Specifically?" chirped the peddler.
"I--I can't seem to see anything in your bag. That's strange."
It certainly was strange, Mary-Jean thought. The suitcase was crowded
with various items, she could sense that. Yet try as she might to see
them, an eerie kind of haze seemed to be hanging over the suitcase. She
could see nothing through it. Absolutely nothing.
"Naturally," said the peddler. "But to answer your question. I sell
people."
"No. I don't want to know whom you sell. I want to know _what_ you sell
to them."
"I told you, madam. I made it quite clear. I sell people."
"People?"
"People."
"Really, if this is some kind of an elaborate sales pitch--"
"May I ask you a question, madam?"
* * * * *
Almost, Mary-Jean was disappointed. It was coming now. After the snappy
beginning to hook her interest, the sales routine was sinking into its
familiar pattern. Are you satisfied with your present vacuum cleaner,
madam? Did you know that I am the new Fill-strip Brushman in your
community? Have you ever thought of owning your own encyclopedia, for
when the children grow up? I have here in this suitcase, madam....
Mary-Jean nodded.
"When you were thinking, some ten minutes ago," said the little old
man, "that it would be so nice if something unexpected, something
thrilling, came into your life--did you have anything specific in mind?"
Mary-Jean's eyes widened and she felt the same icy fear race up
her spine. How had the peddler known that? A shrewd guess because
Mary-Jean looked like the typical late-twenties housewife who would be
thinking such thoughts almost constantly? Or--something else, something
Mary-Jean couldn't possibly explain. Instead of answering, she stood
there open-mouthed as the peddler went on:
"Usually, it isn't anything specific. Usually, it's vague and general.
Although--" here he smiled, revealing yellowed, wide-spaced teeth
which made it look as if the healthy pink old-man's skin had been
superimposed on a rotting skull--"although sometimes the specific
nature of the daydream would startle you. When they're specific,
though, they're atypical. I have had specific requests--granted, of
course, for that is my function--for some mighty peculiar items. Are
you interested? Come, come, are you interested?"
"In any peculiar--peculiar items, you mean?"
"Naturally."
"I'm interested in what's in your suitcase."
The peddler stood aside after making a flourish with his plump hands.
Haze hung over the enormous suitcase like dense smoke.
"But I can't see anything," Mary-Jean protested as her curiosity got
the better of her fright.
"Naturally you can't. Until you make your selection. You want something
unusual, something unexpected to happen. You want to be lifted out of
your humdrum life and given adventure, romance, a fling at the exotic
and the improbable, an--"
"These are the things you sell?" Mary-Jean asked in disbelief.
"To women. Only to women such as yourself."
It was still a sales pitch, Mary-Jean told herself. An elaborate one,
to be sure, but presently the peddler would come down to earth with
the offer of some specific product, perhaps a beauty cream or perfume.
Still, she had to admit that the strange haze over the open suitcase
certainly was effective.
"What do you charge for selling--for selling a fling at the exotic, as
you say?"
The peddler laughed. It was a birdlike sound, a chirping, twittering
laugh. "Oh, no, my dear," he said, rocking with his laughter, "you
don't understand. You've already paid."
"I already paid?"
"All your life, for every day of your life, you have paid. Every day
you accepted the mundane and the humdrum, you have paid. You have paid
a thousand times over."
"You mean I get this--this whatever it is you're selling--free of
charge?"
"Very well. Call it that if you want. But shall we get down to
business? I sell happiness. I sell happiness in the form of personal
adornment."
* * * * *
Here it comes, Mary-Jean told herself. Personal adornment. Cosmetics?
Jewelry? The pitch was coming down to earth.
"Personal adornments," the peddler went on, "to change your life, to
remove it from the sphere of the humdrum, to--"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, come to the point," Mary-Jean snapped
irritably. She did not want to admit that she was disappointed because
the peddler seemed to be coming out of the clouds of her pipe-dreams
and down to earth.
"Personal adornments," the peddler went on, unconcerned, "which each
and every still-young housewife, every victim of the mundane and
prosaic, craves. For example, if I were to ask you what personal
adornment, either general or specific, you craved the most, what would
be your answer?"
Mary-Jean perked up. There still was no beauty cream or hand-balm or
one ounce of imported Parisian perfume. And there was, she had to
admit, an intriguing question. Ordinarily, she found herself thinking,
a girl would need days and days to decide on an answer to a question
like that. But this wasn't ordinarily. This question had come on the
heels of Mary-Jean's monthly reading of _Woman's Home Journal_. And
what, Mary-Jean thought, did the young woman who had gone to Caracas,
Venezuela, and the one who had been an Army nurse in divided Berlin,
and the one who had spent a summer with the potentate's son in
Shalimar, Kashmir--what did they all have in common? What was it they
had which Mary-Jean so craved?
They attracted.
* * * * *
Attracted, she thought. And she did not merely mean attracted men,
although that was part of it. To be sure, she told herself dreamily,
all but forgetting the little peddler for the moment, sex-appeal was a
part of it, perhaps a considerable part. But it was by no means all.
For Mary-Jean did not want to attract men for their sake alone. She
was happily, if mundanely, married. Universal sex-appeal was, thus,
an adjunct to what she wanted, but not the sum-total of it. Mary-Jean
wanted to attract, all right. She wanted to attract like the Caracas
girl or the Army nurse or the Shalimar girl, the girl of the Vale of a
Thousand Delights.
She said, "You--you won't think I'm silly?"
"My dear lady! I consider no requests silly, I assure you."
"Well, I--I find it difficult to put into words."
"Try, dear lady. I have sold happiness to a thousand women like you
over a thousand years."
"You _what_? What did you say?"
The peddler looked as if she had insulted him. He said, his chirp
of a voice getting shriller still: "Did you actually think that I
restricted my sale of happiness to one block--or perhaps one postal
zone number--here in your city, here on this particular day on this
particular yearly calendar? My dear lady! My very dear foolish lady,
please tell me what it is you wish."
Mary-Jean blushed now that she had decided to go through with it, to
bare her soul to this strange little peddler in a way that she had
never bared it even to her own Tom, her husband, the sharer of and
provider for her mundane existence. Still blushing, she said,
"I want to--to attract adventure. I--I want to be like a magnet for--a
magnet for the iron filings of adventure! I want romance and exciting
things to--to embrace me."
She clutched her throat wildly. The words had expressed her thoughts
precisely, but they were not her own words. Or, more probably, they had
come from her throat almost of their own volition.
And the little peddler laughed and laughed.
Mary-Jean felt suddenly crestfallen and strangely cheapened. She
deserved this. She deserved his laughter. It was a new sales pitch,
she had to admit that. The prospective buyer is made to practice
self-mortification and then, to rid herself of the only witness of her
shame, she buys almost anything.
"All right, I fell for it," Mary-Jean said. "What do I have to buy?
I'll buy whatever you want. Just get out of here quickly."
"But isn't it clear? I sell happiness. And you told me what kind of
happiness you want. Since, as I have indicated, you have already made
payment, it only remains for me to grant your wish and--"
"Then why were you laughing at me?"
"Dear lady! Because you thought your request would be so peculiar.
Don't you realize, it isn't peculiar at all. It is the request of most
young housewives. They are bored, they are fairly shriveling up with
the hot desert blast of routine. They want change, adventure, intrigue,
romance. They want to attract these things. Precisely as you want."
"Then--"
"Then, you may consider it a sale. Here...."
And as the peddler reached into his enormous suitcase, the obscuring
haze vanished abruptly. With an eager little cry, Mary-Jean glanced
over his shoulder--and saw nothing but row and row of small white
bottles, like bottles of hand cream.
* * * * *
"But--" she began.
"Eh, dear lady? Oh, I see. Naturally, naturally you expected something
far more exotic than a kind of lotion. Well, didn't you?"
"I--I guess I did."
"Which explains the haze. If you saw the bottles of lotion, you'd
never bare your heart to me. If, on the other hand, you saw merely
a closed suitcase, it would not intrigue you so much as an opened
suitcase, its contents obscured by haze. Correct?"
Mary-Jean nodded as the peddler selected with his plump hand a small
white jar from the second row. He placed it in Mary-Jean's hand and she
felt a strange tingling as contact was made. Her fingers instinctively
clutched the jar.
"One application," the peddler said, closing his suitcase. "One only:
the entire contents of the jar, please."
"But where--how--?"
"Just apply the balm anyplace on your person. Then you may shower.
Then--but then you will see."
"Yes, but--but isn't there going to be anything else. I mean, surely
you _must_ be selling something."
The peddler smiled, showing the broken yellow teeth again. "Dear lady,
I have already sold it. May I wish you all the best of luck." He walked
with the enormous suitcase to the front door. He opened the door and
paused on the threshold. "There is one thing," he said.
So here it comes at last, Mary-Jean thought.
"I shall return in twenty-four hours to see what your decision is."
"My decision?"
"We allow our customers the right to accept our product on a
twenty-four-hour trial basis. I shall return here in precisely
twenty-four hours. I mean _precisely_; you see, my schedule is a busy
one. If at that time you wish to become your old self again, you have
merely to tell me. On the other hand, if you are satisfied with the
change, with your new personality, all you have to do is not keep the
appointment with me and the change will then be a permanent one. You
understand?"
And, before Mary-Jean could answer, the old peddler had disappeared.
Not walked up the flagstone walk and to the sidewalk. Disappeared. In
the blinking of an eye. Simply vanished.
* * * * *
Mary-Jean shuddered with a sudden chill although it was early summer.
Then she ran upstairs clutching her jar of happiness balm.
She removed her robe and went to the mirror again, looking at herself
critically. A nice little figure, she thought, thinking the word nice
so it meant average and decent and ordinary, but nothing special.
A moderately pleasing face, if she spent sufficient time making up.
But she just wasn't the sort of person who would attract adventure.
She never had been and never would be and her life would go right on,
mundanely and prosaically, unless....
Wildly before she could stop the sudden impulse, she unscrewed the
cover of the jar of happiness balm, took a big gob of the sticky white
stuff with the vaguely exotic perfumy smell on each hand and began to
rub it all over herself.
* * * * *
When she finished the brief operation, when the jar was completely
empty, she felt a moment of shame. You're a fool, Mary-Jean, she
thought. There's not a thing going to happen, not one solitary thing
because of your happiness balm. Attract adventure, my foot! But
strangely, the balm stiffened on her bare skin, began to tingle. She
had never felt anything quite like it and soon the tingling became so
strong that it began to alarm her. She ran into the shower and turned
the needle-spray on full power. And, she told herself, showering
was part of the happiness balm treatment. Oh, great. Just great,
Mary-Jean. You're a baby. A big, twenty-eight-year-old pipe-dreaming
baby. Because you really did fall for it, all right. If that practical
joker of a peddler could see you now, he'd laugh his bald little head
off. And this, she continued the silent monologue as she scrubbed
herself with a cloth and soap, this is one harmless little escapade
you'll never mention to Tom. Tom has no mercy that way. He'd laugh so
hard he'd hardly be able to eat his supper.
His supper! Mary-Jean jolted herself with the sudden thought. She had
forgotten all about the cooking stew. Probably, it needed more water.
Probably, it was already burning, already ruined....
She rushed from the shower, clutched her robe, flung it over her
shoulders like a cape and fairly flew downstairs. She ran into the
kitchen and could just make out the first faint suggestion of a
scorching smell. She removed the pot from the burner, assayed the
damage, stirred the contents, added water, and replaced the pot with a
little sigh of relief.
She went upstairs slowly, still wearing her robe like a cloak over her
nakedness. And strangely, she realized all at once, although she had
washed the so-called happiness balm off herself thoroughly, her skin
still tingled.
And, now that she was growing accustomed to it, the tingling was
a decidedly pleasant sensation. Decidedly. It was like a thousand
thousand tiny fingers racing across her skin, racing, racing....
With a sudden wild impulse Mary-Jean flung the robe off and looked at
herself in the mirror. Her knees went weak on her, so weak that she had
to clutch the edge of her vanity table for support.
She was beautiful.
She looked again. The beauty, the delirious thought of that beauty,
could wait. She was changed. Different. Changed utterly.
She wasn't Mary-Jean Wilson any longer.
The transformation left her breathless. There was no doubt about her
new looks. She was beautiful. Her hair was not the washed-out dirty
blonde it had been, but a gossamer veil of finest platinum blonde
framing a lovely face, a face right out of the women's slick magazines
she always dreamed over. And her body--she shivered with delight. She
had always been a little shy about her body, even with Tom. There had
never been any reason, not really: she had a perfectly adequate little
figure and Tom always said, particularly at night, that he liked the
way she was built.
But now she was statuesque. She turned slowly, nude, before the mirror.
She had a long curving length of calf and bold firm swelling thighs
and a sweeping arc of hip below a narrow, flat waist and proudly high
breasts....
* * * * *
It was some kind of hallucination, she told herself. It had to be.
You're Mary-Jean Wilson. You haven't changed. She moved away from the
mirror uncertainly. The glorious apparition moved away, inside the
mirror. She moved back. It moved back. She touched a hand to her bare
throat. It touched a hand to its bare throat.
Mary-Jean Wilson, she thought. Cross out Mary-Jean Wilson. I'm a new
edition. I'm ... I'm ... tears welled in her eyes. There wasn't any
doubt about it: she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, in
real life, in the movies, in the slick magazines, anywhere. She had
been changed utterly. Transformed. Metamorphosed. Into a stunning,
radiant creature.
The happiness balm?
But of course. It had to be the happiness balm.
Wait until Tom saw her ... held her....
Tom?
She shuddered. How did you tell your husband? How did you reveal
yourself? Here's the new me, Tom? How do you like it? How--how do you
like the merchandise I bought from a peddler who came around in the
afternoon.
She couldn't tell Tom. Not now, not yet. She wouldn't know how to
approach him. Probably, he wouldn't even believe her. He'd never accept
this beautiful creature as his mundane little wife. Never--
Then what did you do? Run away?
But she had nothing against Tom. Plain, steady Tom with his normal
likes and dislikes, his pillar-of-the-community attitude, his
pipe-smoking solidness, his liking for carpet-slippers and the
newspaper after supper. She couldn't desert Tom.
But neither could she reveal herself--her new self--to him.
All at once she remembered. Twenty-four hours. Then the peddler
would return. She looked at her watch. He would be back at exactly
four-fifteen tomorrow afternoon. _Exactly_ four-fifteen, she reminded
herself. To be precise was crucial.
Very well, that decided it for her. She would have twenty-four hours
before she had to tell Tom. Until four-fifteen tomorrow afternoon.
Twenty-four hours. It wasn't a long time, but oddly it frightened her.
Because there wasn't any doubt about the new body, the new face. They
would attract--and she wasn't only thinking of sex-appeal. Naturally,
they had sex-appeal. For a woman, that was part of--perhaps a large
part of--attracting adventure.
* * * * *
Twenty-four hours, Mary-Jean told herself. Mary-Jean? It didn't
sound right. It no longer fit her new personality. Then what? What
name? Even a new name for the twenty-four hours. I know, she thought
happily, her skin still glowing, still tingling strangely. I'll be
Jeanne--Jeanne-Marie! It sounds so French and--and exciting.
It was almost the cocktail hour now, not that Mary-Jean went for
cocktails. But Jeanne-Marie? Jeanne-Marie might. Indeed, she might.
So Jeanne-Marie got into a cocktail dress which fit her properly for
the first time. Actually, she found, although she looked much taller
than Mary-Jean, she wasn't, not really. There were subtle structural
differences which made her look taller, slimmer, statuesque. And the
dress fit her like a sheath.
* * * * *
She scrawled a note for Tom. Plain, honest Tom, she thought, with some
sadness. _Dear Tom: Called out of town unexpectedly. I wish I could
explain. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon._ She wanted to add _maybe_
but did not. _There's supper for you and Tommy in the fridge. Don't
worry about me because I'll be all right. I'll be fine. That's putting
it mildly--I'll be just great. See you tomorrow. Love, Mary-Jean._
Almost, she had signed Jeanne-Marie. She looked at the note, frowned,
and tore it up. It would be an adequate note for Mary-Jean to write,
but not Jeanne-Marie. She took a fresh sheet of paper and scrawled:
_Back tomorrow. Called away suddenly. Mary-Jean._
That was more like it: a note with the trip-hammer, cryptic mystery of
a telegram. The other note made it seem as if Tom took her for granted,
would fortify any such notions he had. That might have been all right
with Mary-Jean, but Jeanne-Marie wouldn't stand for such a thing.
Satisfied, Jeanne-Marie went downstairs.
And the front door opened.
It was Tommy, she thought with sudden alarm, seven-year-old Tommy back
from school and his cub scout pack meeting. She watched him come in.
Mechanically, because there was nothing else to do, she continued down
the stairs.
"H'lo," Tommy said, looking at her. "My mother upstairs?"
"Why, no, no, she isn't," Jeanne-Marie said. "She went away for the
day. She left a note for your father."
"Who're you?"
"Oh, just a friend. Be--be a good boy until your father gets home,
Tommy. Why don't you play with your trains?"
"Who told you I have trains?"
"Oh, your mother told me." She was at the front door now. "Your mother
did. Well, g'bye."
"Bye," Tommy said.
A taxi was waiting at the curb. She had known--almost--that it would
be. For Jeanne-Marie did not have to seek things out. They sought
her--grateful for the privilege.
The cabbie stared at her with frank admiration and she didn't mind.
She didn't mind at all. You couldn't consider it fresh. It was more
like--more like homage. It was her due.
The cabbie's expected question: "where to, lady?" was replaced by a
polite, "Madam?"
On impulse, Jeanne-Marie named the city's most fashionable cocktail and
supper club, the Black Flamingo. Then she settled back in the cushions,
relaxing. Traffic was heavy and the cabbie stole several admiring
glances in the rear-view mirror, but still they made incredible time,
as if all the other drivers knew that Jeanne-Marie had twenty-four
hours of glorious adventure ahead of her and wanted to embark on it at
once.
All the traffic made way for Jeanne-Marie. Naturally it did.
* * * * *
Homage was paid Jeanne-Marie at the _Black Flamingo_ too. There she
was ushered across the crowded floor and given a ringside table
near the cocktail hour pianist. The sweet, seductive music he
played, the dimness within the _Black Flamingo_, the almost abstract
pattern of flamingos in motion on the walls, the cigarette haze, the
constant humming buzz of cocktail chatter, the first cocktail--a
gibson--Jeanne-Marie ordered, all combined for an effect of drowsiness,
of time suspension, which Jeanne-Marie had never experienced before.
Then the conversational buzz receded, like a tide ebbing. Jeanne-Marie
blinked. Most of the crowd was gone. She looked at her wrist watch and
saw that two hours had passed, looked at the small round surface of
her table with the _Black Flamingo_ placemat and saw three cocktail
glasses, all empty. Soon, Jeanne-Marie realized with a growing sense of
disappointment, the before-theater crowd would bring the tide flowing
back to the _Black Flamingo_ again. But her disappointment stemmed
from the fact that nothing had happened to her and it was now almost
seven o'clock. Oh, she had been stared at, admired, ogled even--but
what beautiful girl wouldn't be? It was not that Jeanne-Marie had
taken her twenty-four hours of beauty for granted. Rather, it was not
beauty--certainly not beauty alone--she had wished for. And it wasn't
sex-appeal, either, she told herself. Jeanne-Marie loved her husband
and had experienced no lewd, day-dreaming fantasies about a secret
lover who would sweep her off her proverbial feet. But Jeanne-Marie
had waited, with a mixture of patience and passion, all her life--for
something to happen. Something out of the ordinary. Something
thrilling, as far removed from the pattern of her humdrum day-to-day
existence as--as the spiral nebula in Andromeda.
But, Jeanne-Marie told herself, I don't seem to attract adventure--not
even when I'm beautiful. Would she then have to spend all the rest of
her life waiting, waiting for that sudden knocking at the door, for the
face of the unknown to make itself thrillingly known?
She sighed and ordered another drink. She sipped it slowly, and sipped
it, she knew, as if she spent much time sipping cocktails. Naturally,
Mary-Jean's consumption of cocktails had been limited--generally to one
a year, and that on the day of her wedding anniversary. But an ability
to drink cocktails in a sophisticated manner seemed to go with the new
body--with Jeanne-Marie.
* * * * *
When Jeanne-Marie was staring in moody silence at the little pickled
pearl onion in the bottom of the now-empty cocktail glass, she was
aware that someone had sat down beside her. A thrill of surprise
and delight went through her body, making her shiver. This was the
unexpected, she told herself. She knew it would be a man without
looking. Knew it would be a good-looking fellow with the stamp of the
man-of-the-world on his features. He could be nothing else.
And so it was.
Then Jeanne-Marie turned around slowly, not knowing if she should
smile. When she faced the man now seated at her table, she gave him a
cool quizzical look. He was a big man somewhere in his mid-thirties,
with a craggy but handsome face and very wide shoulders. He was
dressed, Jeanne-Marie decided, in quite good taste but expensively.
He muttered, "Didn't expect you to be so pretty."
Cocktail patter, thought Jeanne-Marie. "That's a very funny way to put
a compliment."
The man said, still in hardly more than a whisper, "Fellows looking
around. Three or four of them. Act like you know me. A thousand
dollars. You're my wife or something like that."
He had already arranged the cocktail glasses on the table so that it
looked as if both of them had been drinking. He said, "Well?"
"What did you mean about not expecting--?"
"You. Back of your head was all I saw. A girl, I thought. Obscurity of
a couple when they're looking for a single man. But you. You stand out
like Niagara Falls in the middle of the Sahara. See what I mean?"
"Thank you," Jeanne-Marie said. "Who is looking for you?"
"Remember what I said. Start looking like we mean something to each
other."
* * * * *
And, before Jeanne-Marie could offer a protest, the man slid his
chair around the small table, clutched at Jeanne-Marie's hand with
one of his hands and put his other arm around her shoulder. He smiled
at her, his face inches from hers, holding a cocktail glass up as if
making a toast. He seemed to be relaxed and having fun, but this close
Jeanne-Marie could tell his face was set tensely, rigidly, in an easy
cocktail smile. When she saw the tension leave, she knew that whoever
it was who sought him was gone--at least for now.
"All right," she said coolly. "I've shielded you. Now get out of here."
"I said a thousand dollars, but you haven't earned it yet."
Jeanne-Marie gave him the kind of scathing look which went very well
with her new face but which, on Mary-Jean's face, would have been
ludicrous. "Do I look as if I need a thousand dollars?" she asked.
"No, but--"
"So if you'll just find yourself another table."
Actually, Jeanne-Marie did not mean those words. Her new face and body
were designed to attract adventure. Were they, then, bait for this
man? She decided that they were, but the conversation had taken a
natural course which she instantly regretted.
"But I can't do that," the man said. "Maybe they caught a glimpse of me
here. Not enough to recognize me, but enough to know I belong with the
gorgeous dame at such-and-such a table. See what I mean?"
* * * * *
"Who are you?"
He smiled, still holding her hand. He squeezed it. "Call me Lucky. But
I don't know about tonight--lucky or not, I mean."
"Are they the police?"
"Yeah. They're the police."
"You did something?"
"What do you think they're doing, practicing?"
"I--I'm sorry. What did you do?"
"Let's drop it. You wouldn't want to know."
"Oh, but I would."
"You'd make me beat it. Or you'd call them."
"I will--if you don't tell me."
He smiled. "I guess you kind of got me."
"What did you do?"
"It was a meeting. Call it a board of directors meeting and you'd be
close. We--"
"Board of directors of what?" The questions came quickly, unbidden
almost, to Jeanne-Marie's lips. She felt suddenly very quick-minded and
very capable.
"Well, call it a syndicate."
"The national syndicate of crime? Is that what you mean? Are you one of
the directors?"
He nodded slowly and said admiringly, "Baby, you're not only beautiful,
you've got a mind like a trip-hammer."
"Go on."
"There was the last thing such a board of directors would ever want. A
fight."
"Someone was hurt?"
"Killed."
"Oh, I see." But she did not see. The words came automatically. What
did Jeanne-Marie--or Mary-Jean--know of murder?
"I was fingered," Lucky said.
"You did it?"
"I say I didn't do it. Who do you believe?"
"I don't believe anyone," Jeanne-Marie said, the words coming quickly
to her, apparently plucked from air. "I never believe anyone. What's
the difference?"
"Plenty of difference. Because I'm getting out of here. But I'll never
get out alone. They're looking for a single man. I can get out with
you, I think."
Just then, before Jeanne-Marie could answer, he leaned forward quickly
and kissed her. Jeanne-Marie stiffened and then relaxed for a moment,
then stiffened again. She pushed him away gently, saying curtly, "Don't
try that again."
"I can't figure you out," he said. "One minute you talk like a woman
who's been around, the next like some dilly of a housewife from
suburbia. What do you think I kissed you for? Just because you're
beautiful? Hell, I've seen beautiful girls before. Plenty of them, and
some as beautiful as you. Well, almost, anyway," he added, and they
both smiled. "I kissed you because one of the cops drifted through.
Listen, baby. Will you be my passport out of here?"
"Why should I be?" Jeanne-Marie asked him coolly.
"Because I'm asking you. Because maybe fate meant we should meet like
this tonight--"
"Oh, now, really," Jeanne-Marie said. "You don't mean that and you know
you don't. One sure way _not_ to get me to do anything for you is to
throw me a line like that."
Lucky shrugged. "O.K., baby. If you were in my place, what would you
do?"
"Umm-mm. I see what you mean. But I wouldn't throw you such an obvious
line if I threw you a line at all."
"Can I force you to come with me?"
"I don't know. Can you?"
"O.K.," Lucky smiled. "Let's try it. I've got a gun in my pocket, baby."
She grinned back at him. "That's nice."
"Maybe I'm pointing it at you under the table. Well, it's possible,
isn't it?"
"It's possible."
"How'm I doing?"
"Pretty good--if I thought you had a gun. Anyway, I like it much better
than the line."
"Good. If you don't get up and walk with me, quietly, walk right out of
here with me--I'll use the gun. I'm desperate. Do you believe me?"
* * * * *
"No," Jeanne-Marie said promptly. For all his hard, capable good looks,
Lucky seemed crestfallen. "But," Jeanne-Marie added slowly, "I'll go
with you. As far as the street and no further."
Lucky squeezed her hand and signaled for the waiter. "I'll pay the
check," he said.
"You're darned right you will," she said, and they both laughed.
Two hours in my new body, Jeanne-Marie thought, and I'm helping a
murderer to elude the police. A murderer? Well, he says he's not. His
word is the only word I have so I guess I can go through with it with
something like a clean conscience. Clean conscience or not, she knew
she'd act as Lucky's passport out to the street. Because Lucky, she
could somehow sense, was the adventure that the new Jeanne-Marie, the
peddler's Jeanne-Marie, had summoned.
The bill paid, they got up from the table. Lucky slipped his arm
through hers and, their flanks together, they walked toward the exit.
The pianist was playing a rhythmic rendition of the September Song. The
pre-theater crowds were out now, Jeanne-Marie knew, filling the _Black
Flamingo_ and the other cocktail places, and the street as well. Once
on the street, Lucky could probably make good his escape.
They went by the hat-check booth now, and out across a carpeted
hallway, to a French door which led, up a little flight of stairs, to
the street. A doorman swung the French doors out.
"Stop!" someone cried behind them.
Acting on instinct, the doorman slammed the French doors. Lucky
whirled and swung his right fist brutally at a man running up behind
them. Jeanne-Marie screamed as the man fell heavily. Then, incredibly,
Lucky did have a gun in his hand. He pointed it at the doorman and
said something and magically the doors swung open. Still holding
Jeanne-Marie's arm and all but dragging her, Lucky sprinted up the
short flight of stairs to the street. Footsteps pounded up after them
as Lucky waved down a cab.
* * * * *
Jeanne-Marie tried to pull herself away from him, but his fingers dug
into her upper arm painfully. "I'm not playing now," he said, his voice
brutal. "Maybe it was a more subtle line than you thought, baby, but
I'm not playing now. You're still my passport and you're going on being
my passport till I tell you different."
He threw open the rear door of the cab and heaved Jeanne-Marie inside.
She fell against the leather upholstery and heard the driver say:
"Hey, what the hell is this?"
Voices shouted outside the cab. Feet pounded across the sidewalk. "I
don't want no part of this!" the driver shouted. It was almost a wail.
Lucky waved the gun and said in a quiet voice which still must have
thundered in the driver's ear. "Start driving and start driving fast."
A moment later the cab leaped away from the curb.
As they joined the heavy stream of pleasure-bound traffic, Jeanne-Marie
felt an instant of intense panic. Lucky had admitted it: Lucky's smooth
line inside the _Black Flamingo_, his suave man-of-the-world attitude
had been the real decoy. And Jeanne-Marie had fallen for it. But smooth
line and man-of-the-world attitude, she knew now, hid a desperate
fugitive who would stop at nothing.
Lucky wasn't watching her now. His eyes were glued to the rear window
of the cab, watching the traffic behind them; looking for signs of
pursuit.
"How about a break, Mac?" the driver asked. "I could let you off at a
bus stop or a subway or something. I could--"
"You could keep on driving out to the expressway and keep going north
on the expressway until I tell you different."
But at that moment the cab braked slowly to a stop for a red light.
On the far side of the street, on the curb, Jeanne-Marie spied a
policeman. Watching the cab-driver's face, she knew he had seen the
uniformed patrolman too. A muscle throbbed in his jaw and Jeanne-Marie
knew suddenly he was going to try something.
A word, she thought. One word between them could mean so much. Because
if she could help him, if she could occupy Lucky's attention at the
precise moment the cab driver tried to signal the policeman....
* * * * *
But Lucky must have seen it too. He leaned forward and slashed the
automatic across the driver's neck, barrel-first, the sights raking
the flesh and leaving a twin track of blood. The driver shook his head
from side to side, like a fighter who has taken too much punishment. He
opened his mouth to yell but Lucky's arm went around his throat.
"Don't," Lucky said. "I've killed a man already tonight. I can kill you
too and it wouldn't make any difference. Just drive."
There, thought Jeanne-Marie, it was out now. He had killed a man. He
admitted it. All sham, all pretense was gone. The charming man of the
world was now completely gone, replaced by the ruthless killer.
The light changed to green--had been green for some time now. Horns
blared behind them. The driver shifted gears and they began to drive
again.
Still standing on the corner, the policeman had seen nothing.
* * * * *
Three hours later, they were still driving. The city was behind them
now. They had sped through the darkness and obscurity of the northern
suburbs as night fell and now were in a rural area. The expressway
rimming the city had become the state parkway going north, and some
twenty minutes ago they had left the parkway behind them, traveling a
two-lane black-top road.
"Next left," Lucky told the frightened driver, and moments later the
cab braked and turned up a dirt road hardly more than a trail.
"Friend of mine used to own this place," Lucky explained as they
stopped before a small log cabin. Actually log, Jeanne-Marie thought,
only ninety-some miles from the city. It was totally unexpected. "Used
to use it for a hunting lodge."
He opened the door and held it that way for Jeanne-Marie, who climbed
out of the cab. Then Lucky leaned in across the driver and removed the
ignition key from the dash, pocketing it. "You get out of there, too,"
he said.
"I thought I'd just be going now, mister."
"That's very funny."
"I thought--"
"I said, get out."
"Look mister, the wife will start to worry. If the wife worries, she
calls the company. The company makes a check and realizes I haven't
called in. We got a two-way radio hook-up and you're supposed to call
in on all fares. If the company sees I haven't called in, they start
looking. Then where would you be?"
"Right here," Lucky said. "With you. And they'll never find you here.
Any other questions? No? Then get out. That's right. Go inside the
cabin. You ought to find some canned goods in there, and some sterno.
Whip up supper for us, will you?"
Grumbling, the driver went up the split-log railed porch and into the
cabin.
"It isn't locked?" Jeanne-Marie said.
"No lock on it. Nice here, isn't it?"
"Who cares if it's nice or not? You're a fugitive, you're running
away, I'm a hostage. That's all that matters."
"Is it? You know, baby, there's something nice about being desperate.
Something real fine. I don't even know your name. You don't know mine.
Except Lucky. And you know something? I'm not even going to ask you
your name. I can suddenly start admiring things, too. Like the scenery."
"You're talking in circles."
"No, I'm not. When you're a fugitive, with utterly nothing to lose, and
when you happen to have as a hostage the most beautiful girl you've
ever seen, and if your capture puts a permanent end to seeing any kind
of girl--let alone such a beautiful one--now do you see?"
Instead of answering him, Jeanne-Marie walked quickly up the hill from
where the cab was parked to the cabin. The driver wouldn't be much
help--but his presence alone might stop Lucky....
But Lucky caught her before she had covered half the distance to the
cabin. "Figure I'm a dying man and well, like it's the wish of a dying
man to--to--listen, baby. You're very beautiful."
He held both her arms now, pinning them to her side. She struggled
fiercely against him, but he was very strong. She managed to tilt her
head back--and screamed.
Lucky let her go at once, and slapped her face very hard with his open
hand. She staggered back and tripped over something and fell heavily.
The cab driver appeared on the porch, but Lucky motioned him back
inside.
"There's no one else around," he said, "as far as I know. But don't
you ever try that again. Don't you see I have nothing to lose? Aren't
you convinced by now. I could try to make love to you because I have
nothing to lose--but I could also kill you for the same reason. Be
sensible, will you? Which would you rather I did?"
Jeanne-Marie stood up. For a moment her feet felt as if they might
buckle under her, but presently her strength returned. "Neither," she
said, walking toward the cabin again. "And if you try that any more,
I'm going to start hollering again. If you want to kill me, go ahead
and kill me."
In spite of her best efforts to control it, her voice caught on the
last words. Lucky laughed softly but harshly, and followed her into
the cabin.
She ate without knowing what the food was. Her mind was a blank slate
now. Impressions came and made tracks on it like chalk on a blackboard,
but they were immediately erased. She couldn't concentrate at all. It
was a state not far from hysteria, she knew. Lucky meant everything he
said.... Lucky, yes--Lucky.... It was so hard to concentrate. Lucky
might try to kill her or might try to make love to her or might try....
"... clean up and make it snappy," Lucky told the driver.
"What's your hurry? Going someplace?"
"When I'm in the mood for wisecracks, I'll crack them. Just clean up in
a hurry, that's all."
The driver did so, while Lucky sat smoking a cigarette. The cabin's
single all-purpose room was lit by a kerosene lamp hanging from the
ceiling on a big hook and casting uneven shadows as the wind came
through the open windows and stirred it. Jeanne-Marie felt herself
dropping off to sleep and had time to register amazement. She should
have been horrified, afraid for her life, beyond the point where sleep
was possible. Mary-Jean surely would have been.
Yes, she thought dreamily, Mary-Jean would have been. Which was one
lesson she learned from Jeanne-Marie at least. Useless fretting had
always been part of Mary-Jean's make-up. But then, it was not owned
exclusively by Mary-Jean: useless fretting probably took more energy
from more housewives....
She awoke with a start. She felt instantly refreshed. Somehow, she had
known she would. In that way, the beautiful Jeanne-Marie had a certain
animal-like quality about her. Sleep--and a quickening of the self. She
felt alert and capable, almost as if she had been dosed with benzedrine.
She heard a noise outside and went silently to the window. Lucky was
on the porch. He had found some rope and was tying the cab driver
there. Lucky--with a psychopath's mind. Not insane, of course. An
insane person was badly oriented. Lucky knew what he was doing--but he
didn't care about the consequences, as they affected other people. A
psychopath. A fugitive murderer psychopath with absolutely nothing to
lose whether he tried to make love to her or decided to kill her....
Adventure, Jeanne-Marie thought. This was adventure, all right. This
was what she had overlooked.
In adventure--always--was the element of danger. It was part
of the definition of adventure. And a housewife--a mother with
responsibility--had no business craving adventure.
No business?
Well, maybe once. Once only--to cure her. Or once, to keep with her
all her life through the dull times and the humdrum days. Provided,
Jeanne-Marie thought with a strange little smile, she lived through it.
"I see you're awake," Lucky said, coming inside the cabin. "What's so
funny?"
"Nothing you would understand. Why did you tie him out there, Lucky?"
"Why do you think? Do we have to talk about it?"
"Not if you don't want to, I guess."
"I found something to drink," Lucky told her. "Want some?"
She shook her head and Lucky poured just one drink. He downed it in a
gulp and Jeanne-Marie told him, "Keep drinking like that and you're
going to get drunk."
He poured and drank another. "Don't I know it, baby. But they won't
have any liquor where they want to send me, either. A man gets to
appreciate--sure you don't want some?"
"I'm positive, thank you." He's very matter-of-fact about it,
Jeanne-Marie thought. He's as matter-of-fact about enjoying his liquor
now as he is about killing me if I try to get away or about making love
to me if I stay here.
She looked at him. Lucky's altered behavior had not changed the fact
that Lucky was an attractive hunk of man. And that's what she was here
for, wasn't it? Romantic adventure. If in choosing the easy way out,
she also satisfied a lifelong whim too.... What am I thinking about?
she asked herself. It would satisfy him now and maybe afterwards,
with the drink and everything, he'd even go to sleep and I'll be
able to run somewhere for help. And anyway, it isn't me. It isn't
my body. It isn't Mary-Jean. It's Jeanne-Marie. But there's no such
person as Jeanne-Marie. Tomorrow, when I see the peddler at precisely
four-fifteen back home....
If I see him, she thought wildly. Because I'm a prisoner now.
She looked again at Lucky, who was drinking steadily now. Drinking
hard. Drinking so he could forget the fact that it would be all but a
physical assault if he got what he wanted.
It's not Mary-Jean, it's Jeanne-Marie, she told herself again. But that
didn't matter. All at once she knew it didn't matter at all. She would
feel unclean all the rest of her life and she could never say an honest
word of endearment again as long as she lived to her Tom, even if it
did help her to escape. She shuddered at the thought.
* * * * *
"Come here," Lucky said. "Getting late now, so come here." His voice
was thick and he took great care to enunciate each word distinctly.
Jeanne-Marie got up slowly and went across the room to him. He got
to his feet unsteadily, preparing to meet her halfway. He walked an
exaggerated straight line, as if to prove how sober he was. "Come
here," he said again, more thickly this time.
She let him take her in his arms. She let him kiss her lips and her
throat. That much, to allay his suspicions--and more. That much so she
could apparently return his caresses while he surrendered drunkenly to
the heat of the moment, while she....
Clutched at him wildly with her hands until he was used to the rather
unexpected sensation of her clutching hands--then, still clutching but
quite coldly and efficiently, searched his pocket for the cab-driver's
ignition key.
She found it and she said, breathlessly, "Lucky. I think I'll take that
drink now, Lucky."
He nodded, poured it and poured one for himself. "A toast," he said,
"to--"
He didn't finish. For Jeanne-Marie, smiling sweetly up at him, flung
the contents of the glass in his face.
He shouted hoarsely, rubbing at his alcohol-burned eyes. He lunched
around the room after her, but blinded like that it was a comparative
easy manner for her to stick out her leg and trip him near the door.
As he went sprawling, she got out of there.
"I'll send help back for you!" she called to the bound taxi-driver, and
sprinted across the porch and down the hill toward the cab. She got in
and slammed the door and with trembling fingers tried to insert the
ignition key. She finally shoved it home and heard footsteps pounding
across the wood of the porch. That would be Lucky. That meant only
seconds remained to her....
The starter ground and ground. The car wouldn't kick over.
She was still trying when Lucky reached her. At the last moment she
realized that the car was on a hill. If she released the handbrake she
would at least coast downhill away from him.
The car began to move as she tried the starter button again. Then the
door across from her was pulled open and Lucky threw himself into the
car, sprawling across the front seat toward her. At that moment, the
engine kicked over and Jeanne-Marie put the car in gear.
* * * * *
It started with a clashing of gears, leaping forward with a surge of
power. The door on Lucky's side was still open and swung back and
forth. Lucky was sitting up now, reaching for her, trying to pull her
away from the wheel.
They struggled while the car skidded from side to side of the road.
Jeanne-Marie kept her foot on the accelerator, though, and their speed
increased. The car swerved wildly and, she knew, might even overturn
on one of the steeper turns in the country road.
It swerved again, rocking. It went up on two wheels, the tires
screaming. Now the open door banged and grated against asphalt. Lucky
had a strong grip on her shoulder and his face was very close to her
own and she told him, "You'll kill us, you fool!"
"You think I care? You care, baby. I don't--"
She felt her fingers being pulled inexorably from the steering wheel.
If she lost her hold, the car, doing fifty now, would be entirely out
of control.
The car swerved again, went up on two wheels, lurching. Her right elbow
was suddenly free and she jabbed with it, hitting something. The car
lurched again, as if deciding whether to right itself or go over on its
side.
And Lucky, arms and legs flailing, went out the open door.
Jeanne-Marie braked the car quickly. She could see him in the rear-view
mirror, a dark shadow on the surface of the road, not moving. She
stopped the car and used its two-way radio to call the cab company.
Then, making sure that the still form of the man on the road was not
moving now, she allowed herself an unexpected feminine reaction.
She fainted.
* * * * *
It was two o'clock the next afternoon. Rural sheriff's station, full of
city police now.
And Lucky: real name George Carmine, a prisoner.
And confused police.
"But, miss. You caught him for us. The reward is yours. Don't you want
the reward?"
"No, please. Not if I'll have to identify myself."
"Afraid you will. There's no identification on her, Captain. Can you tie
it?"
"I can't tie it," said the captain. "No one could tie it."
"We have the whole story, miss. All but you. Who you are, how you
happened to find him. Fingerprints don't match any in Washington, miss.
We've already checked. You won't tell us your name. Description doesn't
match any missing persons. Have a heart, miss."
"I haven't done anything, have I?"
No, she hadn't done anything.
"Then just let me go. Please?" She had to hurry. Driving fast, she
could just make it back home in time for the peddler. She had to
make it. If she did not, the peddler would assume she wanted the
adventure-procuring face and body of Jeanne-Marie all her life....
"We'll have to insist on your name and address. We'll have to insist on
a routine investigation of you, to close out the case, you understand."
"Really, I'll have to be going."
"We'll have to insist.... Just go with the matron. Wait back there with
the matron. Perhaps (hopefully) you'll talk to the matron?"
She would not talk to the matron. But she would go with the matron if
they wanted her to.
The cabbie was just going outside. She said good-bye. He said good-bye.
He said he was very grateful. He had said almost nothing but that for
hours. Lucky, who had a broken collar bone, said nothing.
They passed a street door. After Lucky, it would be easy. Anything
would be easy. She shoved the matron. She opened the door and went
outside and slammed the door and ran.
"Holy Mac," the cabbie said, getting into his car.
"Show me how grateful you are?"
"I can't--"
"Just to the city line and a subway station. Please? But you've got to
hurry...."
He uttered an understandable curse and let her in and they sped away
before the matron could come outside and see in which direction her
charge had disappeared....
At precisely four-fifteen, the cab turned into her block. The driver
had changed his mind, had taken her all the way there. She was about
to point out her house--knowing she could never be checked there
because instead of Jeanne-Marie the police would find, praise be, plain
Mary-Jean--when suddenly she spotted him on the street.
Rotund little man, long nose, enormous bag. The peddler. "Stop here,"
she said. The driver needed no coaxing.
"I was grateful," he said. "But we're even now, lady. There won't be
any charge." And away he went.
* * * * *
"Hello, there," she said.
"Hello," said the peddler.
"I made up my mind."
"Naturally."
"What did you say?"
"Naturally, my dear lady. They always do. You've decided you'd had
enough of adventure, right?"
"Well--y-yes."
"Always do. All right."
"Don't you have to do anything to change me back?"
"Nope. They always do. It wears off, you see. Besides, the memory of
it keeps them happy, sort of. Or content. I don't know. Never was a
housewife. Well, good-bye, dear lady. Got a job down the block."
"Right down _this_ block?"
"Someone you know? Of course, it's someone you know. You'd be surprised
how many housewives we Happiness Salesmen do visit. They keep it
secret, of course, like you'll keep it secret."
And the peddler walked off with his enormous bag.
Jeanne-Marie watched him for a while. While she was watching him, she
became Mary-Jean. She could feel it. The electric tingling was gone
from her skin. The ravishingly beautiful face and the million-dollar
figure were gone.
She went toward the front door of her house. She was just plain
Mary-Jean now. She liked it suddenly. She never thought she would like
it.
Mary-Jean suddenly knew, without knowing how she knew, that sooner or
later the Happiness Salesman visited almost every housewife there ever
was.
Somehow, the thought of it made her feel very good.
THE END
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