You remember that book he sent me from Germany? You know–those German poems. “Mother,” the girl interrupted, “listen to me. He calls me Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948,” the girl said, and giggled. “Mother, Seymour told Daddy that he’d pay for it. They want four hundred dollars, just to–” Did Daddy get the car fixed, incidentally?” He was even trying not to look at the trees-you could tell. I asked him to stay close to the white line, and all, and he knew what I meant, and he did. “Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?” “Mother,” the girl interrupted, “I just told you. “He drove? Muriel, you gave me your word of–” But, no, he had to-Are you all right, Muriel? Tell me the truth.” “I told your father you’d probably call last night. I can hear you beautifully,” said the girl. “Why haven’t you called me? I’ve been worried to–” This is the hottest day they’ve had in Florida in–” The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear. “I tried to get you last night and the night before. Why haven’t you phoned? Are you all right?” The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. “Thank you,” said the girl, and made room on the night table for the ashtray.Ī woman’s voice came through. “Hello,” she said, keeping the fingers of her left hand outstretched and away from her white silk dressing gown, which was all that she was wearing, except mules-her rings were in the bathroom. She sat down on one of the made-up twin beds and–it was the fifth or sixth ring–picked up the phone. With her dry hand, she picked up a congested ashtray from the window seat and carried it with her over to the night table, on which the phone stood. She then replaced the cap on the bottle of lacquer and, standing up, passed her left–the wet–hand back and forth through the air. With her little lacquer brush, while the phone was ringing, she went over the nail of her little finger, accentuating the line of the moon.
She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty. She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. Operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole.
She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. In a women’s pocket-size magazine, called “Sex Is Fun-or Hell.” She washed her comb and brush. There where ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. A perfect day for Bananafish (short stories)
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