“In college?”
“I think he’s through with college, Mom.”
“Are you sure he’s a nice boy, April?”
“Yes,” she said with finality. “He’s a very nice boy, Mother. I wouldn’t go out with him otherwise.”
She finished her coffee in silence, then went out in the back yard to get some sun. It was a good day for Antrim, the sun high and hot, the air clear, the sky cloudless, a gentle breeze blowing. She stretched out on the chaise and almost fell asleep again thinking about Craig.
At twelve her mother called her to the phone. It was Bill Piersall.
“I have to talk to you,” April, he said. “Jim Bregger said you said something to him and I have to talk to you.”
“I don’t have to talk to you,” she said angrily. She hung up on him.
He called back immediately. “April,” he said, “just listen for a minute—”
She hung up on him again.
Ten minutes later she heard his car take the corner of Schwerner Street and gun up Hayes at top speed. There was no missing Bill’s hotrod, a Model A Ford with a late-model Chrysler motor and a LaSalle transmission and Bill had built it himself. He was very proud of it — the rod could outdrag anything else in Antrim. As far as April was concerned, he could take the thing and drive it off a cliff.
She sighed, stood up and walked down the driveway to the front yard. She might as well talk to him, she thought. Otherwise he would only keep annoying her. This way she could get rid of him once and for all.
She got to the front yard just as he was piling out of the car. He hurried over to her, a strange expression on his face. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Damn it, I just don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing much to get,” she told him. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Period. Isn’t that simple enough for you to understand?”
He stared at her. She looked at him, mentally comparing him with Craig. Actually there was no comparison at all. He was a boy and Craig was a man, and that was all there was to it. He bore the same relationship to Craig that his silly hotrod bore to Craig’s Mercedes.
“April,” he said, “would you like to go for a ride?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Listen, we have to talk. You don’t understand.”
“I understand,” she said sweetly. “You laid me yesterday and you can’t get over it. Well, I can, Bill. I’m completely over it, and I’d just as soon not see you again. So hop in your car and—”
“April,” he said. “Jesus, you don’t understand. April, I don’t think you’re just another girl to lay and forget about. Maybe Danny felt that way but I’m not Danny. April, I want to talk to you and go places with you and spend time with you and get to know you. Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
“I don’t really care.”
His eyes blazed. “I’m trying to say that I’m in love with you, April.”
She sighed. “That’s interesting,” she said. “Very interesting. Now get in your car and go away, Bill.”
“Listen—”
“I listened. I’m not interested.”
“Damn it, did I do something? If I did, tell me about it. I just don’t get you, April.”
“That’s it exactly.”
“Huh?”
“You just don’t get me,” she said. “Now go away, Bill. I’ll see you around, if I can’t help myself.”
He ground the gears, raced the motor, and left a patch of rubber on the street. She looked at it and laughed. Then she returned to the yard and stretched out in the sun.
5
By five o’clock she had finished her shower. By five-ten she was dressed, and by a quarter after five she was nude again and pawing around for something better to wear. She rejected dress after dress, scurrying through her closet in a hectic rush to find the one garment which would suit the occasion better than any other.
A dress to be seduced by Craig in, she thought — a very special sort of dress. She remembered a line she had heard somewhere: “The ideal dress makes a man want to rip it off you,” and she looked for that particular type of dress. The closest she came, ultimately, was a green affair which her mother had insisted made her look at least five years older. This, according to Mrs. North, was why the dress was unsuitable. It was also the main reason April had purchased it in the first place.
The top was silk, a tailored sort of top with a muted Chinese print. The skirt, tight and trim, was a darker cotton. Somehow the overall effect was the ultimate in sexiness but with no hint of cheapness. The skirt hugged her hips securely, swept in at her slender waist. The top was tight around her breasts, and the neckline dipped slightly to give a hint of the majestic cleavage below. Without being too obvious, the green dress managed to make quite clear the undeniable fact that April North had a highly desirable body.
She had bought it but she had never worn it. Antrim lacked occasions where such a dress would be suitable. She might have worn it to the senior prom, in fact had planned to do so. That was out now.
But she could wear it for Craig.
She had the dress halfway on when she stopped suddenly and peeled it off again. She remembered how Danny Duncan had struggled with the clasp on her bra, how he had worked her panties down over her hips. She didn’t want Craig to struggle — although it was a good bet that his hands would be deft at such a task. She wanted it easy for him. She wanted to take off her dress and be nude beneath it. Completely, entirely nude. And ready for him.
When she put the green dress on again, there was nothing under it but April North. The silk blouse of it was sensuously luxurious against the tips of her big breasts, and her inner thighs rubbed together when she walked, rubbed in an earthy rhythm.
She studied herself in the mirror. I am sexy, she told herself. I am terribly sexy, and under this dress there is nothing but sexy little me — nothing but naked flesh.
Naked flesh.
She stayed in front of the mirror, combing and brushing her long hair. No pony tail tonight, she knew. No bun, no bangs, nothing but light brown hair falling freely over her shoulders. She put on a pair of plain black suede, high-heeled pumps. No stockings, she thought. No stockings, because she was not wearing a garter belt to hold them up. Just a body, a dress, and shoes.
She looked at her watch. He was coming for her at six and it was ten minutes before six already. Ordinarily she would have waited upstairs, then would have called to her mother that she would be down in a minute after he arrived. Then she would keep him waiting five minutes, maybe ten.
But she knew intuitively that this would not work with Craig. That particular sort of feminine deception would not impress him in the least. She left her room, walked downstairs, and took a seat in the living room.
Her mother appeared, the inevitable dishtowel in one hand. “A shame you’ll miss dinner again,” she said. “Two nights in a row. And you know how you love fried chicken.”
“Craig’s taking me to dinner.”
“I know, April. Boys don’t usually take you to dinner, do they?”
“Craig’s older,” she said. “Besides, his parents aren’t living. If he didn’t take me out, he’d have to eat alone.”
“You could ask him to have supper with us, April. There’s plenty of the chicken—”
She had to struggle to keep back laughter at the picture of Craig at a family dinner. She imagined all of them sitting around the table stuffing their mouths with fried chicken, wiping greasy hands on cotton napkins and talking about business at the drugstore, the latest item of importance before the Ladies’ Aid, and Link’s prowess at football. That would be just the way to start off an evening with Craig, she thought. That would send him screaming out of the house, leap into his Mercedes and point it for New York.