“I might as well—you did. Out of sight, out of mind. He never entered your head, once I took hold of you. You call that true love? Or even fair fighting?” Dave’s voice became casual. “By the way, are you going to mention this little interlude to him? . . . No, I can see you won’t feel that’s necessary. It won’t be cheating—much. Well, that’s your affair.”
“Dave, stop!” I choked. I tore free and started blindly across the porch away from him—found a door, stumbled through it, and went on—anywhere, just so it was away from him. The big, dim, shabby hall seemed unfamiliar suddenly, unbelievable, a place in somebody else’s dream. Dave came in carrying my cardigan, strode after me, caught my arm not ungently, and turned me in the opposite direction.
“Enough’s enough, is it? All right. Come on, your room’s this way.”
I actually let him lead me across the hall and around the stair. Then I shook off his hand and said, “I’ll go alone!”
“Relax, I had nothing else in mind.” He stopped, though, and stood looking at me, faintly scornful, in the feeble yellow light of the wall sconce above us. “So I played a little rough. You had it coming. You ought to thank me for the education.”
I felt perfectly exhausted. Almost with detachment I said, “I think I literally hate you.”
“No doubt. But you certainly didn’t hate being kissed—and kissed for keeps—by somebody who wasn’t bothering about your delicate sensibilities. In fact, by me. Did you? Admit it.” He held my eyes relentlessly a moment, found what must have been there, and relaxed. “There, now did that hurt you?”
I said bitterly, “That’s all you wanted, wasn’t it? Your ego salved.”
I’ll never understand Dave Kulka. He gave one of those brief, ambiguous laughs—I never knew whether they mocked me or himself. “No, you little fool. Oh well, you can’t learn everything in one night. Go on to bed.”
“I’ll be so glad to.”
“You can dream of murdering me,” he suggested helpfully. He put both hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall to watch me go, his face half shadowed, his voice musing. “Ballet dancing, was it?” he said softly. In silence I snatched my cardigan from the crook of his arm. “It’s too bad,” he said. “I suppose you’ll always remember me as a pig.” He was still smiling a little as I turned away. “But I’ll bet you remember me,” he added.
I walked on down the passage to my room, managed to restrain myself from slamming the door hard enough to wake everybody in the house, and went straight to my dresser drawer to find a handkerchief and scrub my mouth so hard it hurt. It already hurt a bit from Dave’s bruising attentions. So did my wrist. So did my self-esteem. So did something else inside me that I hoped would get well pretty soon if I didn’t look at it. I found I was shaking with reaction, so I went over and curled up in my big chair and hugged my knees tight, calling Dave Kulka everything I could think of in three languages, including a lot worse things than “pig.” That helped the shaking, but it didn’t do a thing for my smarting pride or for the other thing inside that I could see right now wasn’t going to get well at all until I looked at it good and hard.
It turned out to be fear—as usual. I’d found one more thing to be scared of, besides that list Dave had named over. I was scared he was absolutely right—about absolutely everything he’d said.
One thing you had to concede about Dave Kulka, and I sat there conceding it, I can’t tell you how reluctantly. He saw things straight, and he was bluntly honest. Brutally so—but never mind. That was better than being so dishonest you could even lie to yourself. I wondered if I had any integrity at all. I wondered what I could be made of, to walk straight from Sherry’s arms into Dave’s, as recklessly as if I’d been longing to for weeks—well, I had (quit lying!)—and without any idea of the outcome. I hadn’t even found it in me to admit I had to know the outcome—Dave had told me. I’d never thought of Sherry—Dave had done that. I hadn’t known or cared whether it was matches or TNT I was playing with, and Sherry, who wasn’t playing and who knew nothing about any of this, was trusting me right this minute as if I deserved it. Blindfolded—by me. I’d told him he didn’t know Shannon.
I leaned my head on both hands and held on tight while I reached an unnerving conclusion. I didn’t know Shannon either—not if she was a hypocrite and a cheat. I wondered if anybody did, besides that gimlet-eyed, thrice-blasted Dave. He’d seen right through her weeks ago. And tonight he’d tired of her minuet, decided the ball was over, and torn away her mask.
Worst of all, this was a mask I hadn’t known I was wearing. It raised the question of how many more masks there might be underneath. It raised another question, too, one I didn’t even want to formulate yet and couldn’t answer.
A difficult half hour later I’d decided to take first things first. It was high time Sherry and I both got acquainted with this tricky masquerader, sans domino. There was at least one thing I wouldn’t stoop to do, and that was to walk straight from Dave’s arms back into Sherry’s—not until I’d faced that other question—certainly not until Sherry knew just whom he was holding. This time I wouldn’t cheat, I wouldn’t lie, and I wouldn’t just talk about Shan—I’d show her to him. First thing tomorrow I’d give my word to go with him to that picnic or whatever it was, and he could see the whole girl for himself. After the picnic I’d tell him about Dave. Then let the heavens fall.
5
The End of August
1
The heavens did fall as a result of that picnic, but in a way I could never have foreseen—though I foresaw every other dire eventuality in nearly a week of nervous brooding.
Ideally—say, in a well-written play—that week would not have existed. The picnic would have followed immediately on my decision to go to it, and I would have gone, head up, on a high, keen note of sheer nobility and at the highest pitch of my resolve. But I’ve often noticed how widely fiction differs from real life in this sort of thing. During five real days that must be worried through, not only can a person’s high resolve work itself down into a crumbling ruin, but also the pattern of everything can shift.
Unfortunately, I had given my word to Sherry, first thing Tuesday morning, while my nobility still had the upper hand, and had arranged with Rose to trade days off. So there I was, caught, while the practical aspects of keeping up my courage began a rapid decline. Sherry wasn’t around much to sustain me. Park-strolling weather ended Tuesday afternoon when Oregon gave up and lapsed into its normal chilly drizzle. At the time I welcomed this. The picnic might be canceled; meanwhile, rain ruled out tête-à-têtes with Sherry, and therefore kissing—which I meant to rule out anyway until a few things were straighter in both our minds. He did walk home with me Tuesday evening—run home with me, through a downpour—and come hopefully into the living room, but Miss Heater and Dr. Edmonds were there, too, so though the evening was sociable, it was a mile from being intimate. My sleep that night was a mile from being restful, too. Wednesday evening was worse, because as we were climbing the porch steps, we met Dave coming down. Sherry gave him a curt nod. Dave responded with an amiable one, accompanied by a casually penetrating glance—then turned a velvet eye on me that said, “Still our secret, is it?” as plainly as words could.
After that I was too afraid the living room might be intimately empty even to risk finding out. I stopped on the porch and told Sherry I had a headache—truthful enough because I could feel one rapidly coming on—and that I wanted to go right to bed.
He stood looking down at me a minute, then turned to stare thoughtfully after Dave. “I wonder why I don’t like that guy any more?” he remarked. Then he looked back at me.
“I can’t think why you ever liked him in the first place,” I said hurriedly. “Well, good night, Sherry. I’d better go get these wet shoes off.”
“Good night,” he said, even more thoughtfully, but he let me go.
It was not a good night. I was out of bed as much as I wa
s in, padding about because I couldn’t lie still, or leaning beside the rain-dark window because I was too tired to pad any longer. I did not see how I could tell Sherry what had happened five minutes after I left him Monday night. I did not see how I could not tell him. I could not forget, ignore, or explain away anything Dave had said, though I’d been trying hard for two days now. Worse, I could not explain or even want to forget the way I’d felt when Dave first kissed me. That had been a real honest-to-gosh emotion, right enough—big and dangerous and about as disturbing as anybody could feel. But the trouble was . . .
The trouble was that the question I hadn’t wanted to formulate had relentlessly formed itself, had matured into a full-grown paradox, and was now coming at me head-on. It had the devastating simplicity of a homemade bomb: Dave, whom I didn’t even like, had turned loose in me the biggest emotion I’d ever felt; Sherry, whom I thought I loved, had not yet tapped it. I didn’t know whether he could or not. I only knew he never had.
Well, that’s explainable, surely, I thought, padding back to the window for the fiftieth time. He’s never kissed me the way Dave did.
The real difference might be that I’d never kissed him as I had Dave—submitting absolutely, drowning and forgetting where I was and who he was and all the rest of it. Never. I always held back, just as I’d always held back so much else from Sherry, right down to what my name was. I always drew an inward line and never stepped over it. Did I call that true love? Maybe it was exactly that. On the other hand, maybe it was cheating. This was one thing Dave hadn’t straightened me out on—he’d simply yanked me over the line, willy-nilly. But Sherry would never grab more than I was ready to give. He didn’t force things out of a person, not even information, much less emotions too powerful to control.
I didn’t know whether to be glad or not. I’d finally told him my name and what I’d thought was the whole truth, but truth seemed to have as many layers as an onion, and until Sherry and I got to the real middle of it, I’d never step over that line—I’d as soon step off the Eiffel Tower. Scared to commit myself, scared of being hurt. Just a natural coward, I thought bitterly. Scared to feel, scared to live—and maybe plain scared (or unable?) to be in love with anybody, ever . . .
And though it seems silly to be frightened by a metaphor, I grew more and more scared to peel any more layers of the truth away for fear I’d end the way you end up with an onion—by finding there isn’t anything there in the middle at all.
Well, by the time I finally got to sleep, I felt as if that night had lasted twenty years. I guess my battle scars were beginning to show. Thursday morning Rose asked if I were catching cold, and Helen said, “You know, dear, I think you ought to change your shade of makeup. That one makes you look kind of sallow.” Mr. Bruce said nothing until the morning coffee hour was over, but I caught his eye on me several times. When the place thinned out, he came over to the table I was clearing and began to help.
“We been working you too hard, Miss Smith?” he asked. “Take off a little early this afternoon. We can manage.”
“Oh, gee, no. I’m fine.” I looked up and met his eyes. They were gray and patient and a bit mournful, and looked as if they knew everything about anything you cared to name, and had known it for a long, long time.
“I wish you wouldn’t worry so,” he said. “Things’ll probably come out all right, you know—just take your time.” While I was wondering if a remark could possibly be so apt without being clairvoyant, he glanced toward the front of the counter, murmured, “What’s keeping Sherry today? He’d cheer you up,” and went off toward the kitchen with his load.
That gave me something fresh to think about, right enough.
As for what was keeping Sherry, he had an exam, like everybody else. The rest of the week would be full of exams and the Rainbow full of morose, preoccupied faces, and nobody would be in any shape to cheer me up before Saturday, when summer school ended. After that, everybody would be so cheerful I wouldn’t be able to bear them. On Monday grades would appear, and the exodus would begin; by that evening everybody in sight would have packed and gone home. Then we really would have a morgue around here—a decor with which my frame of mind by then would blend beautifully, no doubt.
I went on putting scoop after scoop of ice cream in a milkshake container until Helen sighed long-sufferingly and said the noon rush was beginning, dear, and if I could move faster, she knew the students would appreciate it, because they did have a lot on their minds.
I said, gee, I was sure lucky to be carefree, and drifted away, reminding myself that by Monday Helen, too, would have gone home. We were training her replacement. In every cloud, I reflected, there is a slightly tarnished silver lining.
Sherry turned up at quitting time, but only to take me for a very short prowl around the block—a thoroughly unsatisfactory one, hampered by gusty winds and an umbrella—to say he had to study the rest of the evening. “It’s my calculus—I told you I was no good at it. Once that exam’s over tomorrow, I’ll be OK. Oh—and did I mention I’m going home Monday morning, to Bell Landing?”
“No,” I said in a voice of doom.
He eyed me around the umbrella handle in mild surprise, which changed to gratification. “Well, don’t look like that. I’ll only be gone a week. I got a letter from my mother yesterday—she has this idea she ought to see me once in a while, and she’s a fierce woman when roused. I haven’t been home since Easter.”
“Of course, Sherry, don’t mind me. I think you ought to go.”
“Well, I do, too. But you won’t be rid of me for long. I’ve landed a second job. Got to be back to start it on the twenty-sixth.”
“What kind of job?”
“Oh, something clerkish in the administration office. Just mornings. Then I’ll turn back into Herndon’s mop-leaner every night, like Cinderella. It’s only till fall term begins, but it’ll add to the fund.”
I felt a prickle of hope. “Then you’ve changed your mind about skipping graduate school?”
“Oh, no.”
“But that’s what your fund is for!”
He said gently, “That was the original idea. I’ve got a better motive now—at least I hope I will have, soon.” He stopped and faced me, standing very close and holding the umbrella like a little dripping tent over our heads. “You think I will have?”
I said, “Sherry, it’s beginning to pour,” and edged away.
He caught my elbow and held me. “Maybe you’ll think so once Sunday is over.”
I didn’t answer. I thought once Sunday was over, he was more likely to have every motive for going back to his original idea. And after last night’s vigil, I was further than ever from sorting out my motives for anything. But obviously Sherry was counting on that picnic to solve all problems, sweep away my last resistance, and end like a Grade B film with a fade-out kiss against the sunset . . . and here came my paradox again.
When he splashed in Friday noon for a quick hamburger before his exam, I said, “Look here—we’d better skip our walk tonight, and tomorrow night, too. You’ve got to study, and there’s all this rain—”
“Oh, the rain’s going to stop this afternoon, right after my exam, and Saturday everything’s going to dry out, and Sunday’s going to be hot and clear. Perfect picnic weather.” He smiled. “Anyway, that’s my plan. Unless it’s really cloud-bursting, see you tonight.”
I picked up my tray and my Georgetta accent and went back to work, praying for a monsoon. I was beginning to feel exactly like the Barred Bandicoot, with expert dodging my only defense.
The heavens favored me with a perfect torrent Friday night, but it was their final effort. Before I went to sleep, I saw a star, and by Saturday morning Sherry’s weather forecast had won the vote. I got into my green uniform wishing I never had to take it off again, wishing I’d never met Sherry or heard of the truth, wishing a car would run over me before I had to peel off more
layers of it tomorrow. Why had I ever thought I was tired of my domino—lovely, protecting green thing? It was the only safe place to be, and Monday morning I’d dive back into it and stay. All I asked was to work at the Rainbow and be Georgetta E. Smith until I was ninety-five. So I told myself, until it struck me that Sherry’s continued presence around the neighborhood, after he’d learned to loathe me tomorrow, might detract a trifle from my comfort. So would Dave’s . . . Maybe I’d better just find a deep, deep hole and crawl in.
I braced myself for the callously cheery mood I’d find at the Rainbow today and started for work wondering if life in a nice, peaceful deep, deep hole didn’t sound just the thing at that. On my way out—like an answer—I found one of Miss Jensen’s envelopes on the mail table; inside was a postcard from Franz, with a picture of a Vienna street and the little Konditorei he and I had haunted one Christmas holiday, spending whole mornings over one cup apiece of kaffee mit schlagobers and endless games of tick-tack-toe. He’d written, “Remember this place? I lodge in the next street now. I think of you.” Remember it? I wished I were there this minute.
That’s what gave me the idea, I suppose. I began wondering why I shouldn’t go there—if not this minute, then in early fall. Franz had as reasonable a facsimile of a deep, deep hole as I’d ever find. He lodged obscurely in the Praterstrasse, probably lived on pastries and mocha at that little Konditorei, and trudged daily to the university to attend his round of lectures. When he thought he could pass an exam, he’d arrange to take one; after several years of this he’d have a degree. No coping with personal relationships or dormitories full of other students. No campus activities or picnics. You could go to school at a place like the University of Vienna for years and never even get acquainted with your professors. So why not write off this year as lost, accept my fate, crawl on back to Europe, and hole up in the University of Vienna? Or the Sorbonne. A degree from the Sorbonne should certainly ease Dad’s pain. And if things got rough, I could go over to the Pension Algère and talk to Auguste.