She didn’t get it at first. She stared at him, thinking that he was telling her to get out and never darken his doorway again, and she wondered what she had done wrong. But he explained soon enough.
“You can go to hell,” he repeated. “You’ve committed a cardinal sin and you can burn eternally as punishment for it. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“What?”
“You’ve slept with a man without being married to him. You’ve parted your lily-white thighs without benefit of clergy. This makes you a sinner, April dear.”
“I don’t feel like a sinner.”
“You don’t look like a sinner. Even with your pretty nipples pointing at the ceiling, you somehow don’t resemble the popular stereotype of the sinner. Do you feel sinful, April?”
“Not just now,” she joked. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, Craig.”
“Do you know what the only sin is?”
“What?”
“Self-denial,” he said solemnly. “That’s the only sin in the world.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Craig was right, she thought. He was living a good life, a life better by far than that of the sanctimonious hypocrites who cluttered up the world. You only live once, and the value of your life could be measured by the amount of pleasure you received in the course of that one lifetime of yours.
Suppose I had stayed a virgin, she thought. And suppose I was walking along the road and a car hit me. And killed me. And suppose I died a virgin—
She opened her eyes. Bill Piersall was standing in front of her, a determined look in his eyes, his hands planted firmly on his hips. He was wearing a dark blue suit. It was the only suit he owned, and he wore it once a week, to church and once or twice a year to a formal dance — these were the only times he wore a suit.
“I have to talk to you, April.”
She wondered how many suits Craig owned. At least a dozen, she decided. And a dozen sports jackets and a dozen pairs of shoes, and he probably paid as much for his underwear as William Piersall paid for his whole precious blue suit.
“You can’t keep on giving me the cold shoulder like this, April. It’s not right.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“April—”
“You don’t seem to understand,” she said haughtily. “I do not like you. I do not care for your company. You bore me and annoy me.”
He drew a breath. “I know what it is,” he said.
“Do you?”
“I was reading,” he said. “In a book.”
“I didn’t know you could read.”
He went on doggedly while she wished he would simply give up and go away. But he would not. “I read about it,” he said. “About what happens with a girl like you. You see, you’re a good girl. Deep inside you’re a good girl.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“And you’re not cheap,” he pushed on. “So what you and I did, it made you feel all guilty. You get it? And you make up for this feeling guilty by taking it out on me. You don’t want to blame yourself, so you blame me.”
“You ought to be a psychiatrist.”
He missed the sarcasm. “I read it,” he said. “In a book.”
“That’s the best place to read things.”
“They have stuff like it in newspapers, but the books are better. I could lend you the book if you want. You could read about it and know it better.”
She yawned.
“What I want to tell you,” he went on, “is I respect you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“And I’m not just after you on account of sex or anything. I wouldn’t even want to do it with you any more. I just want to be your friend.”
She laughed now. She laughed in his face, imagining how Craig would roar when she told him about it. I just want to be your friend. It was too much.
“Can we be friends, April?”
“Distant friends.”
“I’ll keep my distance, April. I mean it. I just want us to go out on dates and things, and go for rides, and maybe have cokes together and talk—”
“Distant friends,” she repeated. “Miles apart. In order to keep our relationship pure. I think we should see each other rarely. Otherwise our bodies will pull us together.”
“Sure. I mean—”
“We’ll see each other once a year,” she said. “At Christmas time. We’ll shake hands solemnly and go our separate ways. That way we won’t run into danger of fleshly sins. That way our love will be a pure love, William.”
He scratched his head. “You talk funny,” he said.
“I talk English.”
“Maybe. But not like everybody else.”
“That’s because I’m not like everybody else,” she said. “And thank God for that.”
“Look, April.” He cleared his throat. “Listen—”
“Go to hell.”
He stared at her.
“Drive there,” she said, “in your silly rod. Have a flat tire in hell so you can’t get back. Just leave me alone, Bill. I don’t like you.”
Her parents were a short distance away, hearing nothing but waiting for her to join them. She did and they headed homeward.
“Whom were you talking to?” her mother asked.
“Bill Piersall.”
“A friend of yours?”
“He thinks so,” she said. “I don’t like him.”
“He’s a sharp guy,” Link said. “You ever ride in that car of his?”
She shook her head.
“It’s great, April. You know, he built the whole thing himself. Set himself up with a tool shop in the garage and worked it all up. He bought the Model A for about fifty dollars, and he picked up a Chrysler engine, and hammered the body into shape and made a million changes to hop the car up, and it’s a real bomb. Bill can outdrag anything else around.”
She smiled softly. “What did you think of Craig’s car?”
“The Benz?”
She nodded.
“Well,” her brother said, “that’s different.”
“You like it?”
“It’s the best car I ever saw,” he said. His eyes were saucer-sized. “A 300-SL, for God’s sake.”
“Link—”
Link looked at his mother. “Sorry,” he said. “For gosh sake, I mean. That’s what I meant.”
“That’s better.”
“But it’s some car,” he told April. “Craig a good driver?”
“The best.”
“He’d have to be, with a car like that. Uh — you think I could ever get a ride with him?”
“Sure,” she said.
“You mean it?”
“I mean it.” In a whisper she added, “He might even let you drive.”
“I can’t get a license for a year.”
“That’s all right.”
“You mean it, April?”
She nodded, smiling. They all loved Craig, she thought. They all were just about ready to worship at his feet.
And she loved him, too.
Monday morning meant school. Monday morning meant getting out of bed far too early, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, taking a fast shower and leaving the tub not quite awake, going down for breakfast and eating in a fog, drinking coffee, and plodding out of the door with a book under her arm.
Monday morning meant her home room, six rows of five desks each, a teacher in front and twenty-nine students around her. Kids who seemed years younger than herself, after being with Craig, after feeling like a mature woman.
Monday morning meant English first period, when she volunteered a comment on Hamlet that would never have occurred to her before she met Craig. She had always been a good student. But now she was more perceptive, able to think more deeply and to form her thoughts more coherently. Her teacher, a gray-haired, washed-out woman who had long ago given up any possible hope that any Antrim High student would someday say something intelligent, was patently amazed. And pleased.