Mary and the Giant Read online

  “No, not before.”

  “Did you know her, that day?”

  “She wasn’t around, that day,” the girl reminded him. “They didn’t show up until later.”

  “How does she strike you?”

  “She’s attractive.” A shade of envy touched the girl’s voice. “Such a lovely figure.”

  “She’s fat.”

  “I don’t call that fat,” Mary Anne said, closing the subject. “That little man, that Danny Coombs, he was a creep. There was something wrong with him.”

  “I agree,” Schilling said. He slid an lp from its sleeve and, holding it by its edges, examined it for scratches. “Coombs tried to kill me once.”

  She was interested. “Really?”

  Putting down his record, Schilling pushed back his coat sleeve; he unscrewed his gold cuff link, parted his clean white cotton shirt-sleeve, and showed her his wrist. A bumpy line made its way among the hairs. “He broke my wrist at that point, by hitting me with a tire iron. Then my man Max showed up.”

  Impressed, she studied the scar. “He tried to kill Tweany, but—” She broke off. “It didn’t work out.”

  “Beth told me a number of the details.” He reset his cuff link and smoothed down his coat. “Coombs had a pathological streak…the sight of a Negro evidently brought it out. The Negro is a musician, I understand.”

  “Sort of. Why did Coombs try to kill you? Were you hanging around his wife?”

  Schilling was embarrassed. “Nothing like that at all. Coombs was always on the verge of the brink. He lived in a world of vitriolic distortion.”

  “Why did she marry him?”

  “Beth is a little mixed up, too. Their manias jigsaw.” He explained: “She told me Danny was expelled from his grade school for peeping the girls’ gym. Later on that camera was his roaming eye.”

  “And she likes to—exhibit herself,” Mary Anne said, with aversion.

  “Beth was an artists’ model. That’s how Coombs met her…he was running a girl-picture agency. He wanted a model who would pose nude. You can imagine how happy that made her. It was a satisfactory arrangement for both of them.”

  He was, of course, relieved that Coombs was dead. Beth, alone, was little or no menace; the mistake of five years ago had finally ceased to plague him. It meant a turning point in his life.

  “I’m not sorry to have him gone,” he said.

  “That’s the wrong attitude,” Mary Anne informed him.

  “Why?” He was surprised.

  “It’s just wrong, that’s all. He was a human being, wasn’t he? Nobody should be killed; capital punishment and all that, it’s wrong.” With a shake of her head she dismissed the topic. “I’m going to have to change into some other shoes; I wore these so I’d look older.”

  Amused, he said: “I know how old you are. You’re twenty.”

  “You’re a wizard.” She hobbled to the door. “I’m going home and change. Is the job decided? Everything’s set, isn’t it?”

  His humor departed. “The job is open, yes.”

  “Well, I’m applying. Do I get it or not?”

  “You get it,” he said, with a tug of emotion. “At two-fifty a month, a five-day week, everything we talked about when you were in before.” Good God, it had been four months. He had waited for her that long. “When do you want to start?”

  “I’ll be back this afternoon, as soon as I’ve changed.” For a moment she lingered. “What should I wear? How formal do you want me to dress? Heels, I suppose.”

  “No, not necessarily.” But he experienced a kind of delight at the idea. “You can wear flats, if you want. But definitely stockings.”

  “Stockings.”

  “Don’t go overboard…but don’t come in wearing jeans. Whatever you’d wear to go shopping downtown.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said, consulting with herself. “How often do you pay, every two weeks?”

  “Every two weeks.”

  Without embarrassment, she asked: “Can I have ten dollars right now?”

  He was partly captivated, partly outraged. “Why? What for?”

  “Because I’m broke, that’s what for.”

  Shaking his head, he got out his wallet and handed her a ten-dollar bill. “Maybe I’ll never see you again.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mary Anne said, and disappeared out the doorway, leaving him alone, as he had been before.

  At one-thirty in the afternoon the girl returned, wearing a cotton skirt and a short-sleeved blouse. Her hair was brushed back and her face was shiny with eagerness; she looked ready to go to work. But with her was an indolent-looking young man.

  “Where can I put my things?” she asked, meaning her purse. “In the back?”

  Schilling showed her the steps leading to the basement stockroom. “That’s the safest place, down there.” Reaching into the stairwell, he snapped on the light. “The bathroom’s down there, and a closet. Not very large, but enough for coats.”

  While Mary Anne was absent, the young man sauntered up to him. “Mr. Schilling, they told me you’d give me the word on music.”

  From his coat pocket the man got out a crumpled envelope; he began flattening it on the counter. It was a list of composers, Schilling saw; all contemporary and all individualistic experimentalists.

  “You’re a musician?” Schilling asked.

  “Yeah, I play bop piano over at the Wren.” He scrutinized Schilling. “Let’s see how good you are.”

  “Oh,” Schilling said, “I’m good, all right. Ask me something.”

  “Ever heard of a fellow named Arnie Scheinburg?”

  “Schönberg,” Schilling corrected. He couldn’t tell if he was being made fun of. “Arnold Schönberg. He wrote the Gurre lieder.”

  “How long have you been in this racket?”

  He computed. “Well, in one form or another since the late twenties. This is my first retail shop, though.”

  “You like music?”

  “Yes,” Schilling said, worried in an obscure way. “Very much.”

  “Don’t you do anything else? Don’t you get outdoors?” The young man strolled around, taking in the store. “This is an elegant little shop. Shows good taste. But tell me, Schilling, don’t you sometimes feel cut off from the broad masses?”

  Mary Anne appeared from the back. “Well? Let’s get with it.”

  Having loaded the young man up with records, Schilling steered him into a booth. At the counter Mary Anne was busily opening the cash register.

  “Friend of yours?” Schilling asked, amused that, in her world, introductions did not exist.

  “Paul plays over at the Wren,” she answered, starting to count the one-dollar bills. As soon as she had left the store she had gone home to her apartment, changed, and then hurried to the Wren to pay Paul back his ten dollars…money that had kept her going since she cashed her final check from the telephone company.

  “That place?” Nitz had said. “That record shop? That’s the fellow they said I should talk to.”

  “Come along,” Mary Anne had urged him, timid at the idea of returning to the store alone. “Please, Paul. As a favor to me.”

  He had raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You scared?”

  “Sure I’m scared. It’s a new job; it’s the first day.”

  “What do you know about this character?”

  Evasively, she had said; “I met him once. He’s an older man.”

  Tossing down his paperbacked Western, Paul Nitz had climbed to his feet. “Okay, I’ll go along and chaperone you.” He clapped her warmly on the back. “I’ll even challenge him to a duel—just give me the nod.”

  “What are you doing?” Schilling asked, watching her fingers fly as she counted the bills.

  “Seeing what we need from the bank.”

  When she had completed her list, Schilling showed her the miniature safe by the night-light. “I go to the bank once a week. Otherw
ise I draw from this.”

  “You should have told me.” Finishing with the money, she went to get the broom. “I’m going to clean up this place,” she informed him. “It really needs it…how long has it been since you swept out?”

  Disconcerted, Schilling went on sorting records. Later he stepped into the back office and plugged in his Silex coffeemaker. In the first listening booth Mary’s friend had barricaded himself behind his records; he stared blankly out.

  Here was a girl, Schilling reflected, who, on her first day at work, had borrowed money from her employer, had set her own moment of appearance, and, when she finally appeared, had brought along a friend prepared to spend all day listening to the store’s records. And now, instead of waiting dutifully for instructions, she was announcing her own tasks.

  “Why don’t you move the counter back?” Mary Anne said as he appeared with the coffee.

  “Why?” He began filling two cups.

  “So you can get directly to the window.” She gave the counter a fretful swat. “It blocks the way.”

  “Miss Reynolds,” Schilling said, realizing that he was entering a pattern that must have included all her employers, “put down your broom and come over here. I want to talk to you.”

  She smiled at him, a quick flash of her very small lips. “Wait until I’m finished,” she said, and disappeared out the front door with the dustpan. When she returned she found a dust cloth and began going over the surface of the counter.

  Nettled, Schilling sipped his afternoon coffee. “I think you should learn how my inventory is handled and what I expect in customer relationships. I’m trying out something new of my own; I want a personal, more individual arrangement. We should know every customer by name, and we should learn to use those names as soon as they set foot inside the store.”

  Mary Anne nodded as she dusted.

  “When the customer asks for something, you’ve got to be able to respond with information, not a slack-jawed stare. Suppose I come in here and say to you: ‘I heard a Bach piano concerto played on the violin. What is it?’ Could you do anything with that?”

  “Of course not,” Mary Anne answered.

  “Well,” he conceded, “I don’t really expect you to. That’s my job. But you’ve got to learn enough to handle the regular classical buyer. You’ll have to know how to meet requests for the standard symphonic works. Suppose somebody comes in and asks you for a good Dvořák symphony. You better be sure how many he wrote, which are the best recordings, and what we have in stock. And you’ve got to know Smetana and Brahms and Suk and Mahler and all the other composers a buyer of Dvořák might enjoy.”

  “That’s what Nitz is doing,” Mary Anne said.

  “Nitz? What’s that?”

  “Paul Nitz, in the booth. He never heard any of that serious music before.”

  “My Point,” Schilling said sharply, “is that whenever a buyer is introduced to a new field by a salesperson, the buyer becomes dependent on that salesperson. That means you have a responsibility not to sell the buyer short by simply pushing merchandise on him for the sake of getting rid of it. That’s where this business becomes an art with standards. We’re not selling gum or soda pop—we’re selling, to some people at least, elements that make up a way of life.”

  “What’s the name of that?” Mary Anne asked. “That music he’s playing.”

  “What are you talking about?” The girl was paying no attention to him. “Miss Reynolds,” he said, “have you heard anything I’ve said?”

  “Of course I have,” she answered, industriously dusting. “You said I have to know what it is we’re selling. But I can’t learn that overnight…you’re going to have to help me.”

  “Do you want to find out what’s on these records? Do you care?”

  “Yes, I care.”

  “Listen to what your friend is playing.” The rattle of a Chávez percussion experiment was audible. “Can you honestly tell me you like that? Damn it,” he protested, “stop that dusting. You don’t like that kind of music; it doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “It’s terrible,” Mary Anne agreed.

  In despair, Schilling said: “Then what can I do with you? I can’t make you like it.”

  She scrutinized him shrewdly. “Do you like it?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I don’t care for experiments in pure sound.”

  “What do you like, then?”

  “I’m a vocal collector. I’m interested in lieder.”

  “But you can sell this stuff.” She resumed her dusting. “Do you really believe music is important?”

  “Well,” Schilling said, “it’s my whole life.”

  “Your whole life?” Again she fixed her intense eyes on him. “You mean there’s nothing more important to you than music?”

  “That’s what I mean,” he said, with a stir of belligerence. There was no comment from the girl; she heard and accepted his statement, filed it away somewhere in her mind. “Why not?” he demanded, following her around as she dusted.

  “That’s the way it is with Paul. Sometimes I wish I had something like that.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “No reason, I guess. Except that around here, this town—well, who ever heard of that stuff you gave Paul? He never heard of it, and he’s a musician.”

  “That’s why I came here. That’s why I settled here.”

  “Anyone who would live here is a moron.”

  “Am I a moron for coming here?”

  “I mean somebody growing up here, not seeing anything, not knowing anything. Like Jake Lovett. Like Dave Gordon…all the rest of them. Drinking malts, hanging around the drugstores and gas stations. But you’re different. You’ve seen enough to know what you want and what you enjoy. You came from outside.”

  She had stopped dusting; now she stood deep in thought. Joseph Schilling went over and firmly took the dust cloth from her. Taking her hand, he led her over to the counter and stationed her behind it. She went obediently.

  “Now, Miss Reynolds,” he said, “you listen to what I’m going to tell you. We’re going over the mechanics of selling a record.”

  She nodded.

  “All right.” He laid an LP down on the counter before her. “I’d like to buy that; I’m an elderly customer. What’s your first step?”

  Mary Anne picked up the record and gazed at the brightly colored jacket with its drawing of violins. “What is it?” Lips moving, she worked out the composer’s name. “Prokofiev.”

  “We’re selling the record; this has nothing to do with the music. What do you do when a customer brings his purchase to the counter?”

  Mary Anne groped under the counter and found a record bag.

  “No,” Schilling said, “first you examine the record to make certain it isn’t scratched.” He showed her how to draw the record from its envelope and hold it by the edges. “See?”

  She did so.

  “What next?” he asked, again laying the record down.

  “Then,” she said, “I put it in the bag.”

  “No, then you write up a sales slip. So we can get the customer’s name and address.” He presented her with a mechanical pencil and showed her how to use the machine that rolled out duplicate sales slips. “Then,” he said, “you put the record and his copy of the slip in the bag. Our copy goes on that spindle.” He did that for her, too.

  Mary Anne slid the LP into the bag and folded the handle. Suddenly she looked up at Schilling and gave him the warmest Smile he had ever seen in his life. “Thank you,” she said, and pushed the record bag across the counter.

  “What?” he murmured.

  Still smiling, she gave a little half-curtsy. “Thank you for buying the record.”

  Gruffly, Schilling said: “You’re welcome.”

  She continued to smile at him, a sweet and utterly guileless glow that charmed him and, at the same time, made him uncertain of himself. “The next step,” he went on, “is the cash register. You suppose you can w
ork it?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. “Sure,” she said, at last.

  “What else?” He couldn’t seem to collect his mind. “Do you know where to find record prices?”

  “No.”

  He got the Schwann LP catalogue open and showed her the price list at the back. “They’re all here. Until you’ve learned them, always look them up.”

  “Would you like to buy another record?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, “one is fine, thanks.”

  From a nearby pile, she selected the top record. “Buy this.” She read the title. “Schubert Piano Music for Four Hands. Buy that…it’s pretty.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes,” she said, “very pretty.”

  “Maybe I will, then.”

  “Want me to put it on the phonograph for you?”

  “Yes,” he said, with a kind of eagerness.

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Put it on the phonograph yourself; you’re grown up.”

  Schilling laughed unsteadily. “Apparently you’ll do all right.”

  With a flounce of dismissal, Mary Anne went to get her dust rag.

  At four-thirty Paul Nitz emerged from the smoke-drenched record booth, loaded down with records, which he deposited on the counter. “Thanks,” he said to Schilling.

  “Did you enjoy them?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Some of them.”

  Schilling began grouping the records by brand. “Why don’t you come around Sunday? I’ll be playing some new Virgil Thomson.”

  Nitz was fumbling in his pocket. “I’ll buy that top one there.”

  “Paul,” Mary Anne said sharply, “you don’t have a phonograph.”

  Nitz hung his head. “That has nothing to do with it.”

  Dropping the stock covers she had been making out, Mary Anne hurried over and took the record away from Nitz. “You can’t do it; I know what you’re going to do, you’re going to just sit home and look at it. What’ll looking at it do for you?”

  Nitz muttered: “You sure are bossy, Mary Anne.”

  “I’ll put it under the counter,” she told him. “You go buy a phonograph; when you have a phonograph, come back and get your record.”

  Schilling stood watching as she pushed the man out of the store and onto the sidewalk. The episode, to him, had a fabulous and unreal quality; it could not really happen in a store. In its own way, it seemed funny.