“Oh, you want a marine view,” said the real estate man. “Not for that price, lady.”
A “marine view.” I didn’t want a marine view; I only wanted one window facing the sea. Surely with all those windows—.
I left the real estate man and began wandering about. I asked a group of Italian women and they exclaimed in a chorus “No marine views left.” I hadn’t said a thing about a “marine view.” I wandered further and it was always the same. Some were smug and some were sorry but they all spoke of a “marine view” in a certain tone of voice, as Boston people say “Boston.”
It was getting hot. I could not remove my coat because my waist was a lace front. Only a hair net restrained me from utter frumpiness. Still I was not altogether beaten and when I came to a nice countrified looking house standing alone in the midst of modern art and a man came out I asked him. The moment I did there came into his eyes a hunted glitter and he told me how he had held out against them and how he had been besieged for years to rent his marine view and wouldn’t.
As I turned away I met an Irish delivery man and he said that there were dozens of vacant apartments very reasonable and waved his hand vaguely in the direction where I’d been searching. I like the Irish but his cheerful fibbery was the last straw and I went home.
The next day my friends called up and said that they had a marine view for me. I was to live all summer in the apartment of the So-and-Sos while they were away. So now I am. They are artistic and I drink my coffee from saffron colored cups on a bay green table runner over a black table under a turquoise blue ceiling with a view of the bay from the window.
But I am humble and if some day I meet a hot, tired looking woman who can’t find an apartment on Russian Hill, I shall say: “Shucks, a marine view isn’t so much.”
Hilly-Cum-Go
This is a story for children, because they will know it’s only fooling, while grown-up people will believe it’s true.