I see.
He took a pipe and a pouch of tobacco from his jacket pocket and went through the laborious routine of cramming tobacco into the bowl and lighting it with a butane lighter. When the pipe was going properly he turned to her and smiled again, the same sad smile.
“Margo’s an unhappy woman,” he said. “You heard her line about wearing out bedsprings? She’d like nothing better, I suppose. But she’s not a promiscuous gal and she has trouble holding onto a man for long. She can attract a guy, sure — but that’s not all there is to it. Margo’s the dominant type, has to run the show or she goes nuts. Not every man likes to be dominated — damn few of them do — and Margo wouldn’t settle for the Casper Milquetoast variety. She wants a strong man and no strong man will stick with her.”
April said, “That’s a shame.”
“It’s her personal tragedy. We all have a personal tragedy, April. Every last one of us.”
“We do?”
“Of course. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.” He drew on the pipe and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Mine is simple enough. I was born in Dayton. I hate Dayton. I always wanted to get out of this backwater and into the big time. And I never did.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “A perfect question. Unhappily, there’s no perfect answer. I had big dreams, April. Correspondent for the Times, political columnist, best-selling novelist. Dreams are cheap, April. Remember the song in Gypsy? ‘Some people sit on their butts, Got the dream but not the guts’ — that sums up Franklin Evans, Frank to his friends and enemies alike. Dayton pays me a hundred dollars a week. Dayton gives me steady work, so steady I’m scared to leave it. And I stay and remain bored and go to parties at Craig’s house.”
April found nothing to say. Frank let out a long sigh and followed it with a mirthless chuckle.
“So there’s my tragedy. And it’s not all that tragic. You need a heroic figure for real tragedy and I’m afraid I don’t quite fit the bill. But how about you, April North? My God, you’re far too young to be tragic. Why don’t you go home?”
She stared at him. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“You should go home. You’re getting yourself in for the wrong kind of scene here, April North.”
“Why do you call me by my full name?”
“Because it’s a remarkable name. You’re just messing yourself up, hanging around with a crowd of has-beens and nymphomaniacs and alcoholics. Has-beens? Never-wases is more like it. Stick around here and you’ll be just like everybody else. Are you living with Craig, April North?”
She flushed. “I live at home,” she said. “With my parents.”
“But you sleep with Craig?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Probably not. It’s your business, though.”
“What do you mean?”
His pipe had gone out. She waited, trembling slightly, while he thumbed the butane lighter and sucked at the pipestem, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth. When the pipe was lighted evenly he closed the lighter and dropped it into his pocket. He regarded the bowl of the pipe thoughtfully, drew on it a few more times, and then took it again form his mouth.
“I mean he’ll ruin you,” he said.
She said nothing.
“He’ll make a mess of you, April North. He’ll have you crawling on your hands and knees and when he shoves you away you’ll be rotten inside. He’s worked that way with more women than you’ve lived years, which isn’t saying too much, I suspect. He turns decent girls into whores and takes their backbones away in the process. He’s no good, April.”
“He has what he wants,” she said.
“He does?”
“He isn’t working for five thousand a year in a job he hates,” she said angrily. “He doesn’t dream about a New York job he’ll never have or a book he’ll never write. He’s far away in front of you, Mr. Evans.”
The words hurt him. She saw his shoulders sag and felt sorry for what she had said but not sorry enough to apologize. He stood up slowly, turning to her.
“Some day you’ll realize that Craig is a failure himself,” he said. “And by then it will be too late. For you, I mean.”
He left her to wonder what he meant.
Larry Ellis was short and stocky, with a sneer always present on his thin lips and a look of profound disenchantment never leaving his icy blue eyes. He had backed her into a corner and she held a cigarette ready before her, knowing that nothing could stop an aggressive male the way a lighted cigarette could. Yet he did not seem ready to make a pass at her.
“Don’t go into the bedroom,” he said. “Sue Maylor’s in there. Know what she’s doing, kid?”
“What?”
He laughed wickedly. He said, “I guess you are interested, aren’t you? You know I could kind of go for you.”
“I’m complimented.”
She felt herself blushing. His hand reached out, calmly and dispassionately, and encircled her breast. He squeezed and her own reaction completely surprised her. She loathed Larry Ellis with a vengeance and would not go to bed with him for all the coffee in Brazil, but his hand on her breast was enough to set her off. She felt the nipple stiffen, seemingly of its own accord, and she felt familiar jolts of desire coursing through her firm young body. She hated Larry Ellis, hated him and wished he would leave her alone. But the fact remained that she was getting excited.
He said confidently, “How about it, April, kid? How do you want it?”
“You’re disgusting. Let go of me.”
He released her breast, then neatly flicked the nipple with his thumbnail. Her knees felt weak and she wanted to cry. “I suppose you think that’s funny?”
She finally got rid of him. He tried to shock, she knew, but he had merely disgusted her.
Something else gave her the shock.
She was on her way to the bathroom. She paused to light a cigarette, and a bedroom door, opened. Two people came through that door.
The girl was Sue Maynor. And April recognized the man.
Craig.
There was a long minute, a long, unhappy and uncomfortable minute while she simply stood staring at him, her mind making the necessary connections haltingly.
The picture sickened her.
Craig, her Craig, a participant in the action. Her man with that red-haired slut.
Craig was looking at April, saying something to her. But she could not hear a word. Her mind was doing cartwheels and she knew that any moment she would be sick to her stomach. Craig was saying something to her, and the red-headed whore was looking at her, smirking at her, and it was all too much.
April ran.
She scurried past them, and raced down the carpeted hallway and into the bathroom. The room was empty. She ducked into it, pulled the door shut, and twisted the key in the lock. She drew a deep breath, shuddered. Her stomach was doing handstands. She went over to the toilet, yanked up the seat, and spent several minutes throwing up.
When she had finished, she washed her hands and face with cold water and sat down, trying to think.
Craig.
That hurt her.
Her man, the man she loved, had made love to another girl. Her man, who meant everything to her, had cheated on her. And now what was she going to do?
She had no idea. She could leave, give up Craig forever as Frank Evans had advised her to do. But she did not want to leave, could not face going back to life as an average little student at Antrim High. Craig was too important, and his friends were too important — no, she could not do that.