Complete Stories - Dorothy Parker Part 42

The real life of the Plank party is Arlette-Mrs. Plank let herself go, for the only time in her life, in the choosing of her daughter's name.

Arlette is, at the present writing, crowding nineteen summers, and she looks every day of it. As for her mode of living, just ask anybody in the apartment house.

Arlette stopped school three years ago by her own request. She had no difficulty in convincing her mother that she had enough education to get along with anywhere. Mrs. Plank is a firm believer in the theory that, unless she is going to teach, there is no earthly use of a girl's wasting her time in going all through high school. Men, says Mrs. Plank-and she has been married twenty-one years, so who could be a better judge-do not select as their wives these women who are all full of education. So for the past three years Arlette's intellectual decks have been cleared for matrimony.

But Arlette has not yet given a thought to settling down into marriage. There was a short season when she thought rather seriously of taking up a screen career, after someone had exclaimed over the startling likeness between her and Louise Lovely. But so far she has taken it out in doing her hair in the accepted movie-star manner, to look as if it had been arranged with an egg-beater.

Most of Arlette's time is spent in das.h.i.+ng about in motors driven by young men of her acquaintance. The cars were originally designed to accommodate two people, but they rarely travel without seven or eight on board. These motors, starting out from or drawing up to the apartment house, with their precious loads of human freight, are one of the big spectacles of the block.

The Skids for Eddie It is remarkable how without the services of a secretary Arlette prevents her dates from becoming mixed. She deftly avoids any embarra.s.sing overlapping of suitors. Her suitors would, if placed end to end, reach halfway up to the Woolworth Tower and halfway back.

They are all along much the same design-slim, not too tall, with hair s.h.i.+ning like linoleum. They dress in suits which, though obviously new, have the appearance of being just outgrown, with half belts, and lapels visible from the back.

The average duration of Arlette's suitors is five weeks. At the end of that time she hands the favored one a spray of dewy raspberries and pa.s.ses on to the next in line.

The present inc.u.mbent, Eddie to his friends, has lasted rather longer than usual. His greatest a.s.set is the fact that he is awfully dry. He has a way of saying "absotively" and "posolutely" that nearly splits Arlette's sides. When he is introduced he says, with a perfectly straight face, "You're pleased to meet me," and Arlette can hardly contain herself. He interpolates a lot of Ed Wynn's stuff into the conversation, and Arlette thinks it is just as good as the original, if not better.

Then, too, he knows a perfectly swell step. You take three to the right, then three to the left, then toddle, then turn suddenly all the way around and end with a dip; the effect is little short of professional.

But Arlette has lately met a young man who has his own car and can almost always get his father's limousine when he takes you to the theater. Also, his father owns a chain of moving-picture houses, and he can get a pa.s.s for her.

So it looks from here as if the skids were all ready to be applied to Eddie.

Mrs. Plank worries a bit over her daughter's incessant activities. She hears stories of the goings-on of these modern young people that vaguely trouble her, and she does wish that Arlette would take more rest. Naturally, though, she hesitates to bring the matter to her daughter's attention. Occasionally she goes so far as to hint that Arlette might take a little interest in watching her do the housework, so that she can pick up some inside stuff on household matters that might be useful in her married life.

For all Mrs. Plank wants, she says, is to live to see her daughter making some good man happy.

Arlette's ideas, now, seem to be more along the lines of making some good men happy.

The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post, August 20, 1921.

Men I'm Not Married To.

No matter where my route may lie,

No matter whither I repair,

In brief-no matter how or why

Or when I go, the boys are there.

On lane and byways, street and square,

On alley, path and avenue,

They seem to spring up everywhere-

The men I am not married to.

I watch them as they pa.s.s me by;

At each in wonderment I stare,

And, "but for heaven's grace," I cry,

"There goes the guy whose name I'd wear!"

They represent no species rare,

They walk and talk as others do;

They're fair to see-but only fair-

The men I am not married to.

I'm sure that to a mother's eye

Is each potentially a bear.

But though at home they rank ace-high,

No change of heart could I declare.

Yet worry silvers not their hair;

They deck them not with sprigs of rue.

It's curious how they do not care-

The men I am not married to.

L'Envoi In fact, if they'd a chance to share

Their lot with me, a lifetime through,

They'd doubtless tender me the air-

The men I am not married to.

FREDDIE.

"Oh, boy!" people say of Freddie. "You just ought to meet him some time! He's a riot, that's what he is-more fun than a goat."