Read Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson for Free Online Page B

wonderful .
    Could you possibly consider becoming my wife? We would have to live with your family for a while until we found an apartment, but as you know, I have a good job with good prospects and it would be the ambition of my life to support you in a comfortable fashion, and of course for a while we would save money on rent .
    Please let me know at once. You will make me the happiest of men .
    Your own ,
    Allan
    95 Martin Lane
   Monday
    Marian dear ,
    The most wonderful thing has happened, and just wait till you hear. You know we are being thrown out of this apartment and honestly I was just desperate, but then last Sunday we went out to Connecticut to visit Eve Crawley and her new husband — you remember Eve, don’t you? With that amazing hair? — and what do you think? We just by pure blind luck found the most adorable little cottage for sale, and well, to make a long story short, we grabbed all our money on the spot and made a down payment on it, and we removing in next week. What do you think of that? It’s got four rooms and of course there’s some work to be done around the place — putting in a bathroom and whatnot, and fixing one corner of the roof, but Bill can do that nights when he comes home, because of course he’ll have to commute, and there’s nearly an acre of ground, and the loveliest old trees, and I’m going to drive him to the station every morning and meet him every night, and then during the day I can do the painting and papering around the house. And it cost only sixteen thousand, with the most miserable down payment, and we can take the rest of our lives to pay off the mortgage, if we want to — the bank was terribly nice about it. Aren’t you jealous of us, living in the country? And of course you’ll come and visit us just every chance you get, and we can all have loads of fun getting together and fixing the place up. Must go now — we’re signing the last papers this afternoon .
    Love ,
    Helen
    101 Eastern Square
   Tuesday
    Dear Mr. Burlingame ,
    If you still want my apartment you can have it. Heaven has just passed a miracle in my favor.
    Sincerely ,
    Marian Griswold
    36 Elm St.
   Wednesday
    Dear Bill …
    10 Oliver
   Thursday
    Dear Timmy ….
    1249 Jones
   Friday
    Dear Mom ….
    16 Arden’s Court
   Saturday
    Dear Allan ,
    I can’t tell you how pleased and flattered and happy I was at your letter, and I guess you knew all the time what I would say when you finally got around to asking me. Of course I will marry you, and I thinly it’s wonderful .
    Mother and Dad are also very happy at the idea and Dad says that now that their last child is getting married it’s time for them to move back to California, where they always wanted to be, anyway. So they are going to let us have this apartment and most of the furniture as a wedding present, and even though twelve rooms might be a little large for us at first, we can always manage to use the space for giving parties and such. Mother says come for dinner tomorrow night and we can talk it over .
    Love, from your
    Felicia

T HE V ERY H OT S UN IN B ERMUDA

    I T WAS THE FIRST false summer of the college year, the time when the lawns first come out green and the sky is first really blue; the apple trees had chosen to occupy themselves with faint pink blossoms; the campus buildings were beginning to look old and dusty and red between the fresh trees and the really blue sky. In another week it might be snowing again, with the sudden treacherous weather that goes with spring dances and precommencement engagement parties, and ends, finally, in a blaze of heat and lethargy, with final exams and the last tortured words of the term paper.
    It was Saturday; Katie Collins had spent all morning in the sun, starting the tan on her long legs and smooth back; by fall she would be startlingly brown, and could wear white evening dresses to set it off. Walking across campus, she watched her legs, still a little tan from last year,