The Stories of John Cheever

He next heard about Joan from a young doctor who was a friend of theirs. “Have you seen Joan recently?” the doctor asked Jack one evening when they were having dinner together. He said no. “I gave her a checkup last week,” the doctor said, “and while she’s been through enough to kill the average mortal—and you’ll never know what she’s been through—she still has the constitution of a virtuous and healthy woman. Did you hear about the last one? She sold her jewelry to put him into some kind of business, and as soon as he got the money, he left her for another girl, who had a car—a convertible.”

Jack was drafted into the Army in the spring of 1942. He was kept at Fort Dix for nearly a month, and during this time he came to New York in the evening whenever he could get permission. Those nights had for him the intense keenness of a reprieve, a sensation that was heightened by the fact that on the train in from Trenton women would often press upon him dog-eared copies of Life and half-eaten boxes of candy, as though the brown clothes he wore were surely cerements. He telephoned Joan from Pennsylvania Station one night. “Come right over, Jack,” she said. “Come right over. I want you to meet Ralph.”

She was living in that place in the West Twenties that Jack had found for her. The neighborhood was a slum. Ash cans stood in front of her house, and an old woman was there picking out bits of refuse and garbage and stuffing them into a perambulator. The house in which Joan’s apartment was located was shabby, but the apartment itself seemed familiar. The furniture was the same. Joan was the same big, easygoing girl. “I’m so glad you called me,” she said. “It’s so good to see you. I’ll make you a drink. I was having one myself. Ralph ought to be here by now. He promised to take me to dinner.” Jack offered to take her to Cavanagh’s, but she said that Ralph might come while she was out. “If he doesn’t come by nine, I’m going to make myself a sandwich. I’m not really hungry.”

Jack talked about the Army. She talked about the store. She had been working in the same place for—how long was it? He didn’t know. He had never seen her at her desk and he couldn’t imagine what she did. “I’m terribly sorry Ralph isn’t here,” she said. “I’m sure you’d like him. He’s not a young man. He’s a heart specialist who loves to play the viola.” She turned on some lights, for the summer sky had got dark. “He has this dreadful wife on Riverside Drive and four ungrateful children. He—”