I paid my bill and left, reflecting that my best course would be pure, unadulterated bluff. Tomorrow I’d simply deny the whole thing, lie like a pitchman, and invent an airtight story proving that I was nowhere near that corner all day. Just now, I was so demoralized that I could barely work out how to get home without appearing to have come from town. I did accomplish that, taking two buses and ending by cutting through Mrs. Hockins’ rose garden to our back door. I encountered nobody but a cat during this maneuver, and once safe in my room, I stayed, eating an egg for dinner so as not to risk meeting Sherry at the Rainbow. None of this did any good. Sherry merely presented himself at the boardinghouse that evening and asked Mrs. Jackson to fetch me. If he’d sent Wynola, I could have sent her right back to say I had a headache or a nervous breakdown. As it was, I went myself to tell him something—I couldn’t think what.
He was waiting just inside the front door. He turned and smiled at me and without preliminaries asked gently if I’d go for a walk. “And, Greensleeves, please don’t tell me you’ve got a headache.”
“Oh. Why, no, I wasn’t going to,” I said guiltily. “But—that is—what about your job?”
“I’ve got all night to do that. Come on.”
He took my elbow and led me firmly out of the door. I came quietly, feeling fatalistic, and began rapidly inventing and rejecting airtight stories. We walked in silence over to the park near the college, found a bench near the statue and not too near a streetlamp, and sat down. It was a beautiful evening, clear and gray-blue, with a bit of sunset color left in part of the sky and the trees as still as if they’d been etched against it. I’d roughed out a fairly decent story and was filling some airholes when Sherry took my hand, smiled, and said calmly, “OK, Greensleeves, what are you up to?”
“Up to? What do you mean? I—”
“Don’t waste time. I want to know the name of the girl I met on the street today. I want to know when she lived in England. I want to know all about her.”
I feigned astonishment, fighting down rising panic. “Well, my word. How do I know who you met on the street today?”
Sherry sighed. “I met a girl on the street today,” he began patiently, “with wonderful red hair, and big black eyes like yours, and a mole on her left earlobe like yours, and a little hollow in her upper lip like yours . . . and the funny thing was that she had your voice—with a different accent—and she was wearing your watch and your white shoes with the scuffed place on the right heel, and she walked away from me with your walk, which isn’t like anybody else’s, anywhere. She could think mighty fast—like you—but she didn’t fool me for a minute.” He looked down at me a moment, smiling faintly. “Greensleeves, did you really think I wouldn’t know you?”
My panic had long since collapsed for lack of employment. Obviously, the crisis was all over; my team had lost the match several hours before. The finality of it left me stunned and without the haziest notion of what to say now. I just gazed at Sherry and said nothing.
He said gently, “You put an awful lot of faith in a hairdo and a funny name.”
“They worked—for a while,” I got out finally.
“Yes, with people like Helen, maybe others. I was pretty sure from the beginning that you were somebody else. You just had to be.”
“It was because I said ‘white coffee’ and mentioned Brünnhilde and wore my watch,” I said bitterly.
“No it wasn’t. Listen, Greensleeves, don’t be ridiculous. You can dye an Easter egg bright purple with green polka dots, but it’s still quite clear that it’s an egg.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered.
Sherry grinned briefly but, being Sherry, added, “Actually an egg’s a beautiful object, when you study it. You’ve just got to study it.”
“You certainly seem to have studied me.”
“I certainly have,” Sherry said. He added pointedly, “I still don’t know who that girl on the street was.”
“And I’m not going to tell you,” I said slowly. I was beginning to emerge from my daze and feel the situation I was in, and I didn’t like it. It gave me claustrophobia.
“You mean not ever? Or just—not yet?”
“I mean not ever.”
Sherry frowned down at me, then let go my hand and faced me, resting his arm along the back of the bench. “But, Greensleeves, why not?”
Because you wouldn’t like that girl. Because I’m scared silly you’d go away and never come back. “I can’t—that’s all,” I said.
“Can’t? You can tell me anything; it’d never go any farther.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
I squirmed claustrophobically and said nothing.
Sherry’s usual easy calm had gone. So had the usual humor in his eyes. “You don’t trust me, is that it? You don’t want me to know you. I can go hang for all you—”
“Sherry, it’s not that. It’s not anything like that.”
“What is it, then?” He didn’t relax. “Listen, by any chance does Dave Kulka know that girl? Did he know her before she was Georgetta?”
“Not by any chance at all,” I said wearily. “Sherry, you’re nagging. Quit it. Can’t we just—”
“No, we can’t. Greensleeves, I care about this. If you trusted me, you’d tell me what it’s all about. I got only a glimpse of that girl on the street, but I want to know her.”
“No, you don’t!” I said, feeling absolutely cornered. “That’s the point, if you must have it. You don’t want to know her at all. You wouldn’t like her—nobody does. Sherry, please believe me. I know what I’m saying.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“No, I won’t let you. It wouldn’t work.”
“Well, this won’t work either.” Sherry clawed a hand through his hair and sighed explosively. I’d never seen him so upset, so nearly angry—and so blind to the fact that I was upset, too. “Be sensible, Greensleeves! You can’t go on acting like Georgetta Smith any longer—not with me, not now.”
“I know, I know.”
“And if you won’t tell me who you really are—not even your name—”
I shook my head hard, feeling suddenly as if I wanted to cry. If once I told him I was Shan Lightley, I’d begin being Shan Lightley, because all the old tiresome problems and confusions and rootlessness and boredom and indecision and hopelessness that belonged to Shan Lightley would come right home to roost—and if anything could be more fatal to absolutely everything—! “Do I have to have a real name?” I said desperately. “Can’t I just go on being Greensleeves?”
Sherry was silent so long that I turned to look at him and found him staring at me with a stricken expression on his face and all the anger gone. “Yes. Of course you can,” he said huskily. His arm came off the back of the bench and swept me close against him. “Greensleeves, you’re crying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, almost.” His other arm came around me, tight. “Oh, darling, I’m sorry. What the heck have I been doing? This is important, isn’t it? Really private and really important.”
“Yes, really.”
“I must have holes in my head. Be anybody you darn well please. I’ll never mention it again.”
“You will, though.”
He drew his head back long enough to look straight down into my face. “I won’t. I may want to, but I won’t. I promise.”
“Well—thank you, Sherry,” I said, a bit distracted because he was holding me so tensely, and had called me darling, and acted very much as if he meant it. He looked very much as if he meant to kiss me, too, and presently he did, in an intent, experimental way as if he were afraid I’d run—which I didn’t dream of doing.
“‘Thank you’ nothing,” he murmured. “I’ve given you a bad time, haven’t I? From the beginning. Nagging you, trying to find things out
. . . senseless.” He moved one hand to run his fingers gently up the nape of my neck. “Simply senseless. Doesn’t matter who you are. I’m a goner anyway.” He interrupted himself to kiss me again, this time with a single-minded concentration that left me dizzy, and perhaps him, too, because afterward he drew a long, shaky breath against my ear. “Greensleeves, or whatever your name is,” he whispered. “I’ve got something to tell you, as if you didn’t know. I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for weeks.”
“You—have?”
“I have. I am. I think you’re the most wonderful, fascinating, contradictory, unexpected, upsetting, maddening, I don’t know what all girl on earth, and when I’m not thinking about you, I’m asleep dreaming about you. I can’t get my mind on anything else, and I’m probably going to flunk all my courses. I don’t care, either. I don’t want to get my mind on anything else. I don’t want to do anything else but kiss you. I’m in a complete rut.”
I was half laughing, half tearful. “You might have told me.”
“You really didn’t know it?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Neither did I, I guess—until I got so jealous that day and found out I couldn’t stand for anybody else to even look at you.” Sherry’s arms tightened fiercely. “Greensleeves, tell me the honest truth, or so help me I’ll hit you. Do you really think Dave Kulka is a jerk?”
“Not—really,” I puffed. Sherry loosened the vise a trifle but still glowered as if he might hit me, so I hurried on. “You know he isn’t. Not a jerk. Be fair.”
“I don’t want to be fair. I want you to say you loathe the ground he walks on. Then I want you to stay a mile away from him.”
“Well, that’s different. I do loathe the ground he walks on, and I intend to stay as far from him as I can get. That’s the honest truth.”
I thought it was, too. I immediately had my breath cut off again by Sherry’s excess of relief. After a moment he drew away and silently memorized my face, then kissed me once more and took his time about it. He could have taken the rest of the evening. I was filled with a sort of happy disbelief and was in no hurry to discover that this was all a mirage or something.
That part ended soon enough. For a few minutes Sherry went on telling me lovely but fairly idiotic things that don’t sound right when they’re repeated. Then he reluctantly unwrapped his arms a trifle and peered at me. “Greensleeves, you haven’t said a word.”
“How could I?”
“I mean—about how you feel about me. If any way. Come on—and it better be the honest truth again.”
“Well, I—love you, too, I think,” I told him nervously.
“You think.”
“You said the honest truth. Sherry, it’s—well, all been a bit quick, hasn’t it? It’s rather soon to know exactly how I feel.”
“Is it? Not for me. I know the real thing when I find it.” Sherry suddenly let go of me and turned away. “And now that I’ve found it, I can’t do a thing about it,” he added. “I didn’t mean to say any of this yet. It was because of what happened today—running into that other girl on the street—I got stampeded. It seemed as if you were just going to vanish or something, get away from me altogether. Scared me to death. I didn’t mean to say a word until I could say everything—make it definite and permanent.”
“Permanent?” I felt a sudden, alarmed urge to tramp on the brakes. “Are you talking about—getting married?” I asked uneasily.
“Of course I’m talking about getting married.” He gave me an odd, inquiring glance. “That hadn’t occurred to you?”
“Well, no—I mean, not yet.”
“I know. I’m rushing everything.” Sherry was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, talking to the air in front of him. “Don’t worry. I can’t do anything but talk. I’ve got to graduate next spring. Then I’ve got to get a job drawing cereal boxes—if I can. Then I’ve got to get a raise over beginner’s pay . . . It’s going to be quite a spell before I can support a wife on anything but roots and berries. Maybe two years.”
“Longer,” I said quickly. “Remember Oxford and all that.”
“I’ll skip all that. Two years is bad enough.” He turned to frown at me earnestly in the dimness. “Greensleeves, have I got a right to ask you to wait that long?”
“Oh, my word, I’m only eighteen. That’s not very long. I mean, I probably wouldn’t be doing anything else, anyway.” This new trend the conversation had taken was putting me into a kind of queer panic. “You mustn’t skip anything, Sherry. That’d be—all wrong. To cheat you out of something you want so much—and I’d be responsible.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I would. Sooner or later you’d hate me for it, too.”
“Hate you? Listen, I couldn’t hate you even if you—”
“Resent me, then. You would, Sherry. Maybe later instead of sooner, but you’d resent me, because there I’d be, in your way. And too late to do anything about it.”
“It may not be possible to do anything about the other. Listen to me a minute, Greensleeves. You’ve got the idea that just because I keep talking about Oxford, I’m all set up to go there. That’s wrong. It’s all just talk.”
“But you said—you mentioned some scholarship or something,” I said warily.
“Some miracle, you mean. Just count that out.”
There, I thought. That’s how much he wants it. I said, “Couldn’t you save up the money?”
“Oh, I’ve had a fund going for quite a while, though lately it’s not going anywhere very fast. I keep buying records and things with my dough instead of socking it away.”
He didn’t sound as concerned as he did ruefully amused. It bothered me. “But, Sherry!”
“Will you quit worrying? I don’t need to go to Oxford or any place else.”
“But you’ve been perishing to for years. Dr. Edmonds said you ought to.”
“Oh—‘ought to,’” Sherry said disparagingly. He looked away. “Of course I’d like to—it’d be great.”
If somebody dropped the money in your lap? I asked silently. The way you went to England when you were taken? Is it true what you said about yourself, that maybe all you want is to stand around wondering what it’s like in Timbuktu? “Sherry, that’s just being a penguin!” I burst out. “If you want something, go after it! You’ve got to quit buying records! You ought to put every spare penny in that fund!”
“Well, for the love of Mike,” he said mildly.
“I’m sorry. I guess it’s none of my affair, but—”
He smiled and reached for my hand. “I did do that for quite a while, Greensleeves—squirreled away every acorn I could get my paws on. Then a few months ago I thought—well, I sort of slacked off.”
I relaxed, feeling disproportionately relieved. A few months ago he had begun counting on the scholarship, whether he’d admit it or not. He might still get it, too—Uncle Frosty had said so. I said, “Well, slack right on again. You’re not skipping anything, not on my account.”
“You know what?” Sherry said slowly, staring past my right ear at an idea. “I might not have to. If that miracle should actually work out. Or if I could save enough more. Maybe it wouldn’t be two years, only one. Maybe next spring . . .”
“Sherry, wait!” I begged. “Are you actually thinking you could go to Oxford and take me along? That’s the most impractical—”
“How do you know? I’ll do it that way or not at all—that’s sure.”
“No, it’s not sure, nothing is! I’m not even—I’m not really—” I stopped.
“You’re not even sure you love me. Is that what you mean?”
Is that what I mean? I asked myself. Then I looked at Sherry sitting there waiting, with his long, interrogative face turned to me, and his questioning eyes and his gentle mouth, and I thought, Oh, no, I can’t mean t
hat. I must love Sherry—there was never anybody so lovable. Suddenly, I felt the most peaceful sensation, a kind of dizzy happiness. What was I dragging my feet about? This was what I’d said I’d do, wasn’t it? Just stay right on College Street until I got married? Maybe this was my new life showing up. Why not? If I grabbed it, I’d never have to decide about college or Europe. I could forget all that, forget everything, and start my life fresh from tonight.
Forget everything? I thought. And just as suddenly, Aunt Doris and Dad and Jeanne and London and Harlan Manning and Tivoli and the Pension Algère and Franz and Vienna and the Lausanne airport and Uncle Frosty and my bargain all came crowding in on me, and I was confused and panicky again. How could I forget all that? It was all I had to remember.
“Don’t you know what you mean, Greensleeves?” Sherry said.
“No. That is, yes, but— Oh, Sherry, I mean I just don’t want to talk about it any more right now. Please.”
He was silent for a moment, studying me. “I don’t want to talk about anything else, for some reason.”
“Well,” I said breathlessly, “that works out, because actually we’ve got to quit talking, anyway. You have to sweep floors, and I have to go home.” I stood up. “Don’t bother to walk back with me. I’ll just—”
“You trying to get rid of me?” Sherry asked, standing up, too.
I took a long breath. “I guess so—right at the moment. I sort of want to—think, or something.”
Sherry smiled, then put his arms around me tight and kissed me, and that beat back Europe and my panic to a comfortable distance again. “OK, Greensleeves,” he said. “Just so you think about me.”
I told him, with feeling, not to worry.
He struck off through the park in the direction of town, and I walked slowly back toward College Street in the dim blue evening, feeling weightless and unreal. What Sherry had told me changed all sorts of things; having someone in love with you simply puts a new complexion on the world. What I wished I knew for sure was which things were changed, and how, and what they would mean to me in specific terms. All I knew was that life was now a different shape and could never go back to the way it had been that morning.