"Isn't that nice?" Michael said. "What's mine is yours. Love is the sweetest thing."
"The way they look at each other," Laura said. "As if one of them was going to vanish any minute, and they didn't know which one it would be."
"Young lust. Don't tell me you've never seen it before?"
"Of course I have," Laura said.
"Take off your shoes," the boy was saying.
The girl pulled away from him, frowning. "Why? What's the idea?"
"Come on, take your shoes off," the boy said. "You're catching a cold."
"I know I'm catching a cold. Is running around barefoot going to make it any better?"
"Look, your feet are wet. Take off your shoes and socks and I'll dry your feet. Then you can wear my socks until we get home. How's that for thinking?"
The girl began to laugh again. "Harry, you're crazy! What good'll that do, wearing your socks? They're just as wet as mine."
"Oh," the boy said. "Yeah." He poked halfheartedly at his own shoes and socks. "All right, forget it. It was just an idea."
"I mean, it's an awfully nice thing to do, Harry, but there wouldn't be any point to it. I'd just get wet again."
"Yeah, I know," the boy said, still examining his feet. "I just liked the idea of you wearing something of mine."
"That's sweet," The girl touched him lightly on the back of the neck, just where the hair begins. "Harry, that's very sweet."
"Forget it. It was a stupid idea."
"Well, look," the girl said. "Look, we could trade coats. Mine might be a little tight on you, but I guess we could manage it. You want to, Harry?"
"No," the boy said. "I didn't mean it like that. Forget it, Norma."
The girl smiled slowly and vaguely, as though she were trying to remember a dream. Her finger and thumb kept gently opening and closing on the back of the boy's neck. "Harry," she said huskily. "Harry, look at me."
"That's it," Michael said. "That's the ballgame. Look into a girl's eyes, and you see everything you ever believed about yourself. And you can never see her ugly because that would mean that you also are ugly and untrue. Up the creek, up the creek. Look at the poor sucker."
"Michael, I'm jealous too," Laura said.
The boy and girl had leaned to kiss each other. Their eyes were shut so tightly that the lids were wrinkled, and it took them a moment to find each other's mouths. They kissed damply and noisily and then sat as close together as they could, hip to hip, arms around each other's shoulders. The girl was still smiling. She nipped at the boy's ear and said, "I think we better go, Harry."
The boy pushed the plastic kerchief back from her head and plowed his fingers through the lank curls. "You've got soft hair," he said.
"Baby-fine hair. I'm the only one in my family who's got it. My mother says my grandmother had hair like that. I don't remember her. Harry, we better go."
Her voice was higher than it had been, and shaky now, for the boy's hand had dropped from her hair to her shoulder, from her shoulder to her waist, and from her waist to her hip, where it remained. There was something tentative about the arch of the fingers, as if their movement or lack of it depended entirely on the girl's reaction. Without even reaching to take the hand off her hip, she slid a little away from it, and the boy promptly let it drop. "Harry," she said, teasing rather than scolding. "Not in a graveyard."
"Not in a graveyard," the boy said pleasantly. "Not in a living room. Not on a roof. Not in a park. Not in a movie. Not in the middle of the goddam Sahara Desert, right? Right?"
"Don't shout," the girl said. When he would have turned his head from her, she took his chin in her hand and held his hand still. "Harry, it's just that I don't want to spoil this. I don't want something bad to happen to us because one of us got—you know, grabby."
"Grabby! Holy goddam, I touch you through a goddam coat and a dress and whatever kind of suit of armor you wear, and I'm grabby. Jesus."
"Sometimes I'm afraid for us," the girl said. "I really am, Harry."
The boy wrenched his chin free from her hand. "Goddam," he said. "Holy goddam."
"Amen," said Michael
"Harry, Harry," the girl said. "Turn around and look at me."
"Don't you do it, Harry," Michael warned.
But the boy had turned, and the girl stretched to kiss his forehead. Murmuring, "Harry, Harry, Harry," she drew his head down to her small breasts and held it there, patting his cheek and curling his hair around her fingers.
"My Harry," she whispered. "My poor, greedy Harry."
"And don't baby me, Norma." The boy's voice was somewhat muffled. "Don't baby me. You always do, and I don't like it."
The girl laughed. "Is this babying you?" She held his head even closer against herself.
"Yes," the boy said, but Michael and Laura could barely hear him. He was bent forward at a very awkward angle with his head on the girl's breast, and he kept trying to wiggle his legs and rump into a more comfortable position. He said something else, and the girl bent to listen.
"What did you say, Harry?"
"I love you." She had stopped holding his head, but he did not straighten up.
"I know it. I know you love me."
"Well, I'm telling you again," the boy said loudly. "I love you, Norma."
"And I love you." She lifted his head, kissed him on the mouth, drew her hand slowly down his cheek, and said, "Let's go, Harry. We'll get some coffee or something and take on my mother. Think you can handle her?"
"Bring her on," the boy said. He jumped from the wall, landing in a deep crouch. Turning and holding out his arms to the girl, he said, "Jump. I'll catch you."
"You sure?" The girl beckoned him closer to the wall. "You won't drop me?"
"I wouldn't drop you," the boy said. "Muscles Harry? Come on, honey. It's all right."
"Okay," the girl said. She slid cautiously off the wall, and the boy caught her and lowered her safely to the ground. He kissed the corner of her mouth and put his arm around her. As they started back toward the hothouse, Michael and Laura heard the boy say, "Nice night, honey?"
"Wonderful," the girl said. "We'll have to do it again."
When they were gone, Michael sighed and said, "Hooked. What an all-purpose weapon the carrot of sex is, in good hands. Poor bugger."
"I think she loves him," Laura said. "She never once took her eyes off him."
"Of course not. When a cat's stalking a nice, fat bird, it isn't interested in the scenery. She knows all about eyes. 'Harry, look at me. Look at me.' Hypnotism combined with mild asphyxiation. When she dragged him down into her breast, he was still fighting. When he came up out of it, he was gone. Beaten. Sure, she loves him. But they've got two different ideas of love. He wants to dance with her on a terrace with a full moon and a thirty-six-piece orchestra; he wants to go singing through storms with her, like Gene Kelly. She knows about thirty-six piece orchestras. You have to feed them, and then there's nothing left for the children."
People were going to work in the city. Almost at the same time, they spilled out of their houses and into the empty streets, getting into cars, waiting for buses, going down into subways, marching along the gray sidewalks. In time the streets, empty a minute ago, full now, would be empty again, as the blotter of the city absorbed the men. And in time it would give some of them, most of them, back, providing that it were wrung enough and squeezed enough and torn enough between now and then.