Carl Van Marcus
The tempted bride
CHAPTER ONE
San Mateo, California, was suffocating under a coat of brownish-purple smog. On the Bayshore Freeway, traffic crawled, stopped, then crawled slowly forward another fifty feet before stopping again. Horns honked. Tempers were short.
Grace Hope was aware of neither the sweltering heat nor the traffic delay. She barely listened to Judi Sprague's monologue; besides, she already knew it by heart. Judi's favorite topic was men. As far as that went, that was all Judi lived for: men!
"Well," Judi was saying in her Bronx accent as she fluffed up her hair and gazed coquettishly at the young man in the Mustang next to her car, "I told him it was no go. I mean… who did he think he was? What did he think I was? Some common street girl? So I told him, 'See here, Bill Hill. I don't care if you are the Sales Manager. I'll thank you to keep your sweaty little hands to yourself.' So he started simpering and playing Mister Nice Guy and says I have him all wrong, that he didn't mean to imply I would go to bed with him. 'All I want,' says he, 'is a female companion for the weekend at Tahoe… someone to dance with, gamble with, walk along the beach with.' So I says right back, 'Well, why didn't you say so. Ah… where is it that you plan to stay at Tahoe?' He mentions some cheap cruddy flea-trap motel, and I says 'You'd never catch me dead in that cruddy dump. How about King's Castle. He kinda goes white around the gills and I can see him thinking it's going to cost him thirty bucks a day. Finally he says he'll get reservations. So… the weekend isn't shot anyway." Judi braked suddenly, viciously honked her horn, and swore at a woman who had abruptly switched lanes in front of her. She turned to Grace and asked, "What you doing this weekend, honey?"
"Oh, I plan to wash my hair, write a few letters, and do my laundry. And I thought I'd bake some cookies for Stan."
Judi chewed her gum silently and looked sympathetic. "You heard from him lately? I mean, he's okay and everything? That cruddy Vietnam." She brightened, blinked her eyes, and dimpled as she saw the Cadillac convertible driver in the far right lane staring at them in speculation and open admiration.
Grace seemed unaware that Judi had switched her attention from Stan to the other driver. She felt her eyes misting as she thought again about Stan and what he must be going through over there. Finally she cleared her throat and said, "He's okay. Or at least he was two weeks ago. They were getting ready to go out on patrol and he said he wouldn't be able to write for a while. I haven't had a letter for five days now. Maybe," she crossed her fingers, "there'll be one tonight."
"Gee… I hope so, for your sake. It's bad enough being alone, but when you don't get any letters either, I just don't know how you stand it, honey. Why, I'd be climbing the wall within a week if I didn't have an occasional fella to talk to."
In spite of her sorrow, Grace had to fight back a grin. "Talk to," indeed! Her apartment was right next to Judi's. They shared a common balcony, and it was difficult not to overhear what went on in the next apartment. Not much talking went on when Judi had one of her boy-friends over. A lot of grunting and panting and moaning, maybe, but not much talk.
Grace knew she probably should move out of the apartment complex; to stay there was to imply that Judi's promiscuousness was acceptable. To move, though, was out of the question. The apartment had been Stan's and her only home; true, they had been married less than three months when Stan went overseas, but still it was his bed she slept in, his television she secretly shared with him during the lonely nights, his clothes in the closet. That made it bearable, that made life livable, even during those hot summer nights when the sound of hot sexual love making came from the apartment next door.
Too, Judi was truly her only friend. Grace hadn't been around San Mateo long enough to make friends with other people. Married men she avoided… like the plague! And single men? The ones she knew who were still single were either homosexuals or always on the make. No, thank you; Stan had only nine more months in Vietnam. She'd spend it alone – maybe having coffee in the mornings and an occasional beer in the later afternoons with Judi. She kept busy, that was the main thing. And best of all, she had her self-respect, her love untarnished, her memories unblemished. Topping it all off was her unexpected promotion to Office Manager of Austin Motor Sales. Not bad for a twenty-three-year-old girl just recently from Butte, Montana. All she needed to make life complete now was Stan to come back to her.