The Stories of John Cheever

“Well, maybe I’ll do that, now,” Mrs. Harley said. In this way, Mrs. Harley had begun an arrangement that gave her a few free hours each week.

 

When Renée hadn’t come by half past ten that Sunday, Mrs. Harley knew that she wasn’t coming, and she was disappointed because she had counted on going to church that morning. She thought of the Latin and the bells, and the exhilarating sense of having been sanctified and cleansed that she always felt when she got up from her knees. It angered her to think that Renée was lying in bed and that only Renée’s laziness was keeping her from prayer. As the morning passed, a lot of children had come to the park, and now she looked for Deborah’s yellow coat in the crowd.

The warm sun excited the little girl. She was running with a few children of her age. They were skipping and singing and circling the sand pile with no more purpose than swallows. Deborah tagged a little behind the others, because her coordination was still impulsive and she sometimes threw herself to the ground with her own exertions. Mrs. Harley called to her, and she ran obediently to the old woman and leaned on her knees and began to talk about some lions and little boys. Mrs. Harley asked if she would like to go and see Renée. “I want to go and stay with Renée,” the little girl said. Mrs. Harley took her hand and they climbed the steps out of the playground and walked to the apartment house where Renée lived. Mrs. Harley called upstairs on the house phone, and Renée answered after a little delay. She sounded sleepy. She said she would be glad to watch the child for an hour if Mrs. Harley would bring her upstairs. Mrs. Harley took Deborah up to the fifteenth floor and said goodbye to her there. Renée was wearing a negligee trimmed with feathers, and her apartment was dark.

Renée closed the door and picked the little girl up in her arms. Deborah’s skin and hair were soft and fragrant, and Renée kissed her, tickled her, and blew down her neck until the child nearly suffocated with laughter. Then Renée pulled up the blinds and let some light into the room. The place was dirty and the air was sour. There were whiskey glasses and spilled ashtrays, and some dead roses in a tarnished silver bowl.