Advice About Women

Ronnie Hodge had been married to Clarise for about three months and, because he and Clarise were getting along together so well night and day, he was convinced that Harry Banning was a man of superior wisdom when it came to knowing about women.

When Ronnie had first thought about marrying Clarise, he was afraid that she was too young and carefree to settle down to plain housekeeping and staying home at night, but the more he thought about it, the more confident he became that it would be wise to ask her to marry him, and use persuasion afterward to get her to change her ways, before somebody else came along and married her.

Clarise was a lively, fun-loving, dark-haired girl of twenty-one who liked to go out on late dates and not get home until three or four o'clock in the morning. She had been a recording clerk at the courthouse for the past year, but she promptly resigned from her job as soon as Ronnie asked her to marry him. Her parents lived on a farm in the country and she had lived with her grandmother in Berryville since graduating from high school.

It was Harry Banning who had convinced Ronnie that he should cast all doubts out of mind and go ahead and marry Clarise. Harry, who was in his late forties, and superintendent of the city water system, was several years older than Ronnie. He had been married to Annie for nearly ten years, and during that time he and Annie had lived together in a small four-room house near the water works with scarcely a harsh word passing between them. Annie was a jolly, broad-hipped, blonde-haired woman of thirty-five who spent most of her time making strawberry jam in summer and canning blackeyed peas in winter. When she was resting, she liked to stretch out flat on her back in bed, loosen her clothes, and laugh at the jokes Harry had heard down-town during the day.

A week before Ronnie and Clarise were married, Harry Banning had stopped Ronnie in front of the Berryville post office.

"Ronnie, I hear that you and Clarise are thinking about getting married," Harry had said. "Is there any truth to that?"

"I've been giving it a lot of thought and consideration, Harry, and I've just about made up my mind that I ought to go ahead and take the step."

"Then take my advice and go ahead and marry her, Ronnie. You wouldn't find a better looking girl around town if you waited ten years."

"Clarise is a good-looking girl, isn't she, Harry?" Ronnie had said proudly.

"Good looking!" Harry had exclaimed. "I'll say she is! For the past two years I've watched her walk up and down the street in that bouncy way of hers, and it seems to me that she's better looking from head to toe every time I see her. And I'll tell you something else, too. If it wasn't that I'm already married to Annie – –"

They had stood in front of the post office talking about Clarise for half an hour, and after that they walked down the street together.

"I want to give you some sound advice, Ronnie," Harry had said confidentially. "There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything in this world, and I'd like to see you and Clarise keep from getting into spats and quarrels the way most married folks do. There's not a bit of need for spats and quarrels."

"How can it be helped?" Ronnie had asked.

"I'll tell you how it can be helped. Let Clarise have her whims, Ronnie. Let her have them a dozen times a day – every day in the week – if she wants them. When a woman gets a notion in her head, no matter how silly a man thinks it is, give in to her. Let her go ahead every time and do what she wants to. That's the finest, and cheapest, insurance in the world to keep peace under the roof, and peace is what a man wants around the clock when he's married. Don't ever forget that, Ronnie. If you act up and throw your weight around, and tell Clarise she can't do whatever it is she's set her heart on doing, the time will come when you'll regret it so much you'll wish you'd never been born. That's why I say let her have her whims, Ronnie. Let her have her whims."

"Yes, but suppose Clarise wants – –"

"Ronnie, don't make the mistake of looking for exceptions and loopholes," Harry had warned him. "That's the worst thing you could do."

"But suppose – –"

"Stop supposing, Ronnie. Let her have her whims, like I told you."

Ronnie and Clarise had been married early in March, and about three months later, when the first warm weekend of summer arrived, Ronnie shut down his lumber-planing mill at noon on Friday. Ronnie, like Harry Banning and a number of other business men in Berryville, owned a small summer cottage on the Gulf at Seahorse Beach, which was about an hour's drive away, and Clarise had said she wanted to spend the week-end there. It was not a good time to shut down the planing-mill on Friday noon instead of Saturday noon, because there was a large order of pine siding to plane and ship, but Clarise had said she wanted to go to the cottage at Seahorse Beach for the weekend, and so the mill was shut down.

After leaving home, and while they were driving down the main street in front of the post office, Clarise said she wanted a new bathing suit for the season, and so Ronnie stopped the car and gave her some money and waited while she went into one of the stores and tried on dozens of bathing suits until she found one she liked.

It was mid-afternoon when they reached the Gulf and drove up to the beach cottage. After Ronnie had unlocked the front door and carried in their two suitcases and a box of groceries, Clarise said she wanted to go swimming right away. She quickly undressed and put on the new bathing suit and then spent another half-hour admiring herself in the mirror. Ronnie had hoped to be able to do some fishing before the afternoon was over, but Clarise said she wanted him to go swimming, and so he undressed and put on the faded cotton swim shorts that had hung on a nail in the bathroom all winter.

It was nearly five o'clock and there (continued on page 14)Advice About Women(continued from page 11) were about two hours of sunlight left when they locked the cottage door and walked over the sand dunes toward the water. Seahorse Beach was long and curving and broad, and they could see numerous other weekenders in front of the scattered beach cottages. Some of the weekenders were swimming in the placid blue water, some were sunning on the sand, and five or six men and boys were fishing off-shore in small boats. It was a warm, early-summer afternoon, and the Gulf breeze was languid and mild. Now that he was at the beach, Ronnie was glad Clarise had said she wanted to come for the week-end.

"Let's hurry and get in the water and do some splashing, Clarise," Ronnie said enthusiastically. "It's been eight or nine months since the last time I went swimming down here. Let's go!"

Clarise, shaking her head decidedly, dropped to her hands and knees and stretched out on the sand.

"What's the matter, Clarise?" he asked her.

"I don't want to get my new suit wet, Ronnie," she told him. "It'd be a shame to get it wet so soon."

"But I thought that's what we came down here for, Clarise," he said unhappily. "Didn't we?"

He waited hopefully, thinking she might change her mind. While he stood there looking down at her, he remembered very clearly what Harry Banning had said about letting Clarise have her whims, thereby avoiding spats and quarrels, and he decided it would be best if he did not say another word about going swimming. He sat down on the sand beside her.

"Clarise," he said presently, "I think I'll get my tackle and do a little fishing before dark."

He could see Clarise promptly shake her dark hair with a vigorous toss of her head.

"Stay here, Ronnie," she said firmly. "I don't want you to go off fishing and leave me here all alone."

"But I won't stay very long, Clarise," he pleaded. "That's a promise. I'll be back in an hour, at the most. It'll be all right for you to stay here by yourself that long. I won't be out of sight, anyway. And if you want me to, I'll fish off that old pier piling out there, and not even take the boat out. Won't that be all right, Clarise?"

Clarise turned over on her back and shook her head again.

"I don't want you to go fishing, Ronnie," she said flatly.

Ronnie gazed at her wonderingly for several moments. She had closed her eyes as though there was nothing more to be said on the subject.

"Look here, Clarise," he said presently, speaking out more boldly than usual. "Is that a whim of yours?"

"A what?" she asked lazily.

"A whim!"

"You can call it anything you want to, Ronnie," she told him. "I just don't want you to go off fishing, that's all."

With a deep sigh, Ronnie stretched out on the sand beside Clarise. He lay there in the lulling warmth of the sun and sand with his eyes closed and thought about Harry Banning's advice and wondered if it were something he wanted to live by for the rest of his life. After a while Clarise moved closer and put her arm over his chest, and soon he had stopped thinking about Harry's advice. Turning to Clarise, he put his arms tightly around her and hugged her affectionately, and in a little while they both were asleep.

It was after sunset when Ronnie and Clarise woke up. The Gulf breeze was damp and the sand was no longer warm. Both of them were thoroughly chilled.

"Let's hurry to the cottage and get warm, Clarise," he urged, pulling her to her feet.

Shivering, she asked, "What happened, Ronnie?"

"Nothing happened – except the sun went down while we were asleep."

They raced up the path between the dunes, and as soon as they went into the cottage they wrapped blankets around themselves. After that, Clarise lighted the kitchen stove and Ronnie made coffee, and it was not long until they sat down at the oilcloth-covered table and began eating the meal she had prepared.

It was dark when they finished washing the dishes and went to the front porch. Clarise sat on his lap and softly sang fragments of songs to herself while they watched the moon beaming on the Gulf. From time to time, Clarise kissed him excitedly, and he was glad he had had sense enough to listen to Harry Banning's advice.

Presently, after excitedly kissing him once more, Clarise got up and took off her new bathing suit and went to the porch steps. As she stood there in a rigid pose, her body gleamed like a statue in the moonlight.

"What are you going to do, Clarise?" Ronnie asked.

"I'm going to the beach for a while," she said.

"Like that?" he asked. "With nothing on?"

"Of course," she answered unhesitatingly.

"But suppose somebody – –" he began.

"Oh, stop behaving like a scaredy-cat, Ronnie," she said with annoyance. "I'm just going to run up and down the beach in the moonlight for a while. It's a wonderful night to be naked on the beach in the moonlight."

Ronnie got up and went to the porch steps.

"Then I'd better go with you." he said.

"No," she said, turning and pushing him backward. "You stay here."

"But I don't think you ought to – –" he protested.

"But I want to, Ronnie," she told him firmly. "I want to!"

He said nothing more to Clarise, but wondered if Harry Banning really knew what he was talking about, and she ran down the path between the high white dunes to the beach. He could see her running lightly and carefree over the sand at the edge of the water, and after a while he sat down in a chair to wait for her to come back to the cottage.

After half an hour of anxious waiting, Ronnie got up and went to the front steps and looked up and down the beach. He could not see Clarise anywhere. Calling her as he went, he made his way through the deep sand to the beach.

Still not seeing her, he ran along the edge of the water calling her as loudly as he could. After going about half a mile, he turned around and ran back toward the pier at the other end of the beach. At first he had thought she might have gone into the water and had accidentally drowned, but later he decided it was unlikely that she would have gone into the water at all. After searching for more than an hour, and still calling her, he went back to the cottage.

He had hoped that Clarise would be there waiting for him, even laughing at his concern for her, but he could find no indication that she had been there. Her clothing was strewn carelessly on the bed as she had left it when she put on her new bathing suit, and the suit itself was still on the chair where she had placed it.

At midnight Clarise still had not returned, and Ronnie went to the beach again. The moon had gone down by that time and it was too dark to see anything in the night. He stood there listening to the gentle lapping of the waves on the sand for a while, and then, after calling desperately several times and hearing no response, he walked disconsolately back to the cottage and lay down on the bed.

It was dawn when Ronnie opened his eyes. Immediately, he sat upright in bed, but Clarise was not there beside him.

Hurriedly dressing, he left the cottage and ran down the beach to Harry Banning's cottage a quarter of a mile away. Harry's car was parked beside his cottage, a certain indication that Harry and Annie had come to the beach for the week-end, and Ronnie ran up the front steps and knocked loudly on the door.

There was no answer for a long time, but finally Annie, clutching her nightgown at her throat, and staring sleepily at him in the pale light, appeared at one of the bedroom windows.

"Annie, where's Harry?" Ronnie asked excitedly.

"He's not here, Ronnie," she answered, yawning and brushing her tousled blonde hair back from her face.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know." Annie rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "Harry hasn't been here all night."

"Where did he go?"

"I suppose he went night-fishing. He said something about it after supper last night. I know he put his tackle in the (concluded on page 65)Advice about women(continued from page 14) car when we left Berryville yesterday afternoon."

Annie hugged her breasts tightly in the chill morning air.

"Clarise is gone, too!" Ronnie told her. "She didn't come home at all last night!"

"She didn't?" Annie said vaguely.

"No! She didn't!"

"Well. I'll declare!" Annie said, yawning again. "I wonder why not?"

"And she was naked, too. She didn't have any clothes on – not even her bathing suit."

Annie looked at him in silence for a long time.

"Did you understand what I said, Annie?" Ronnie spoke out impatiently, raising his voice. "Clarise didn't come home last night, either!"

Annie suddenly left the bedroom window, and then in a few moments she opened the screened door and came to the porch. The morning sky was tinged with glowing red splotches of the rising sun and squawking sea gulls glided over the sand dunes in front of the cottage.

"Annie – what am I going to do?" Ronnie begged anxiously. "Clarise didn't come home all night long! She stayed out just like she used to do before we got married!"

Annie did not answer him, but he could see that she was gazing over the dunes toward the Gulf. As she continued to stare in that direction, Ronnie turned around to see what she was looking at so intently.

In the glow of the rising sun, he saw Harry Banning trudging laboriously through the deep white sand of the dunes. Harry looked tired and sleepless and thoroughly exhausted. If he had been night-fishing, he had forgotten his tackle and left it somewhere on the beach.

Harry had almost reached the porch steps when Clarise, wrapped in a blanket, suddenly appeared at the side of one of the dunes. Pausing indecisively, she waited several moments before coming any closer to the cottage. Not a word was said while Harry was coming up the steps, and he was soon followed by Clarise. She smiled faintly at Ronnie as she clutched the blanket more tightly around her.

Fully awake by that time, Annie stared at Harry for moment after moment as if absorbed in deep meditation, and then suddenly, with a fling of her arm, she pointed at the cottage door. Harry, saying not a word and looking straight ahead, meekly crossed the porch and went inside. After he disappeared from sight, Annie went into the doorway, slamming the screened door shut and latching it securely.

"Ronnie," Annie said in an even tone of voice, speaking slowly and precisely, "Ronnie, did you listen to some advice from Harry Banning?"

"Well, yes, I did," he admitted.

"Advice about women's whims, or some such thing?"

Ronnie nodded slowly.

"Well, take my advice and find somebody else to get your advice from after this," Annie told him.

"You going outside like that?" asked Ronnie.