I had put the cockroach carefully into the well-padded box, not really expecting it to be still alive when it reached its destination, but satisfied that, dead or alive, it would be a handsomely macabre gift.
I didn't make a practice, of course, of sending out such incoherent letters as the one to Miss Nestleburt that accompanied the cockroach. Usually after an interruption I returned to the letter I had been writing, picked up the thread of what I had been saying, and resumed as though there had been no interruption. But occasionally it amused me to let evidence of each interruption appear in the letter.
It's so customary to find strangers in the living room, talking or using the telephone, that when I am ready for bed at night I don't dart out of the bathroom and leap into bed as I did at first. First I press my ear against the door, so that I can hear the rumble of voices if anyone is in the living room. If I don't hear anything, I open the door slowly and stick my head out. If only Grant is in the living room, and if the door between the living room and the office is closed, so that no one can suddenly open the outer office door and see me in all my pajama-ed glory, I rush across the floor and jump into bed.
When winter was well under way, our irascible old neighbor Mr. Featherbrain still had not spoken to us since summer, when he had been so incensed at Grant's pulling in off the highway customers that might have been his. Whenever I met him in the grocery store across the street, I smiled up at him sweetly, only to be rewarded with a tightening of the thin line of his mouth and a slight quivering of his roseate chin.
One night when Grant was in Arizona on a business trip, the office bell rang. I put on my robe sleepily and went to the door. Our "no vacancy" sign had been blazing for hours, so I was surprised to hear the bell.
It was the young sailor to whom I had rented the last cabin that night.
"We was just gettin' ready to turn in," he explained, "and we was gonna take a shower, but there wasn't any water. Not even enough for a drink. We can get along okay, we'll just turn in without a shower, but I thought I oughta let you know, so you could maybe get it fixed by morning so we could take a shower before we pull out."
I thanked him feebly, a little stunned at the realization of what a calamity had befallen me. I tried the faucet in our kitchen; there was a hiss of air and a dispirited gurgling, and three large drops fell into the sink.
It lacked ten minutes of being midnight--hardly a time to be making phone calls. Anyway, I didn't know whom to call. All the service shops were closed, and the workers home in bed.
The office of the Blue Bonnet motel, across the street, was dark. All the motels in town were full by now, of course; therefore the owners would all be asleep.