She sighed.
“How about it, April?”
His car was parked at the curb. She looked at the souped-up hot-rod and curled her lip in disdain. “I wouldn’t ride in that bucket of bolts,” she said. “Not even if I liked the driver.”
“It’s a good car, April.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It may not be much for looks,” he said, “but it’s what’s under the hood that counts. I put plenty into that car, April. I did every bit of the work myself. I took the shell of an old Ford and made a car out of it, and you ought to feel how it runs. It’s a peach.”
“That’s nice.”
He forced another smile. “Just let me run you over to your house,” he said. “Believe me, April, you’ll never get a ride in a better car.”
The timing could not have been more perfect. Just as he was saying this, hands on hips and smile on lips, April heard a roar, a most familiar roar, as a car took a corner two blocks away. She looked up and Bill looked up, and they saw Craig’s Mercedes, sleek and lovely, burning up the street at a speed way over the legal limit. Craig dropped the car down into second, hit the brakes, and the Mercedes pulled up at the curb.
Bill was staring at it.
“Bill,” she said, “I guess I’ll never get a ride in a better car, will I?”
Then she told him what he could do with his camshaft. She wasn’t too clear on what a camshaft was, but she guessed that one shaft was as good as the next for what she had in mind. She turned away from him, wanting to race to Craig, but controlling herself, playing the scene for all it was worth.
She walked like a queen to the Mercedes. Craig leaned across to open the door for her, and she stepped in regally, seating herself in the snug bucket seat, fastening the belt around her middle. She leaned over to kiss Craig quickly on the cheek, then turned around slightly just as Craig dropped the Mercedes into first and put the accelerator on the floor.
She would not have traded the expression on Bill’s face for anything in the world.
7
Together they laughed over Bill. Craig suggested that Bill had a great career ahead of him as a gas-pump jockey, April added that he might have trouble making change for a dollar and they laughed their heads off.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked suddenly. Home.
“My home?”
“God, no,” he said. “I’d just as soon not make sad comments about the danger of the welfare state with your petit bourgeois father, if you don’t mind.”
“Dad’s working.”
“Or make church talk with your mother. Let’s go to my place, April.”
“Fine.”
“You can cook me a dinner,” he went on. “And then I’ll help you with your homework. Or won’t your mother let you out on a school night?”
“She likes to have me home. But since I’ll be with you—”
“She’ll know you’re perfectly safe,” he finished for her. “That’s fine. You need a great deal of help with your homework, little girl.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I thought I was doing fine.”
“For a beginner.”
“I still have a lot to learn?”
“Of course,” he said. “It takes a lifetime to become an expert in the art of love.”
The art of love, she thought. She liked the sound of the phrase. A woman who was good in bed was an artist, like a person who wrote or painted or acted. The notion seemed to make everything she did with Craig that much more proper and correct. It was not sin, not at all. It was art.
“I’ll do my best,” she said. “And maybe I can work my way up to a whorehouse in Marseilles.”
“Maybe.”
She glanced at him and he seemed quite serious. She shrugged and sighed. “It’s nice weather,” she said.
“Let’s not talk about the weather.”
“What should we talk about?”
“About dinner.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t cook very well,” she said. “You’ll have to put up with me.”
“I’ll try.”
“What should I cook?”
“Whatever your best dish is.”
She squeezed his hand. “I make a wicked peanut-butter sandwich,” she said, “but it’ll probably be pretty pallid after Kardaman’s. Are you used to fancy cooking?”
“I’m used to good cooking. It doesn’t have to be fancy.”
“But it has to be good?”
“It’s better that way,” he said, grinning.
“Well,” she said dubiously, “I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not guaranteeing anything.”
“You said the same thing about bed. And you did very well.”
She closed her eyes. This was nice, she thought. Rocketing along in the Mercedes, heading for Craig’s house where she would cook him a dinner just like — well, like a wife. This would be fun, a way to pretend, a way to have a good time.
She realized with a start that she wanted more than the pretense. She wanted to be Craig’s wife. To be April Jeffers, Mrs. Craig Jeffers. She kept her eyes closed, afraid to let her expression give her away.
Because Craig would not approve.
Craig did not want a wife. He had not said this in so many words, but she knew it was so. He wanted a mistress and — since she functioned satisfactorily in that capacity — he was willing to spend time with her. But a man like Craig was by no means ripe for marriage. He cherished his independence far too much to throw it away easily.
Still, she was going to marry him.
To accomplish that, she knew, would take time. But in time he would love her, would love her so completely that he would want nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with her. She would have to play her cards close to her pretty chest to keep him from the realization that she had her cap set for him. But she would do what she had to do. She would give him her love until he returned it in full measure, and then he would ask her to marry him, and she would.
April Jeffers.
Mrs. Craig Jeffers.
She called her mother from Craig’s house.
“This is April, Mom.”
“Where are you, dear?”
“Craig picked me up after school,” she said, honestly enough. “You know I’ve got a paper to write for English, on Hamlet.”
“I know.”
“Well, Craig majored in English at college. He took a great Shakespeare course and he’s helping me with the paper. I’m over at his house now.”
“At his house, April?”
“Well, sure.”
“Why didn’t you bring him here, April?”
“Well, he’s got all his books here,” she said. “And his notes. There’s nothing wrong, is there, Mom?”
There was a pause. Then, “No, I don’t suppose so, April. Just be careful, dear.”
“Careful?”
Another pause. Then, “April, when you get home, I’d like to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. I heard something about your young man, April. I don’t know that it’s true, of course, but it’s not too pleasant, and I’d like to discuss it with you.”
“Mom—”
“Not now,” her mother said. “Will you be home for dinner?”
“Well, we’re eating here, and—”
“I see. I’ll talk with you when you get home, April. And don’t be too late. You have school tomorrow, you know.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Goodbye, April.”
She heard the click as her mother replaced the receiver. For a moment she stood still, holding the dead phone in her hand. Then, slowly, she replaced it.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing really,” she told Craig. He had taken a quick shower while she phoned her mother and his body was still glistening with droplets of water. He had a towel wrapped around his waist.
“What’s the matter with Mrs. North?”