“Then did you do anything wrong?”
“No.”
He sighed. “If you run away,” he said gently, “you’ll be admitting that you’ve done something wrong. You’ll be running away from Antrim and from the ideals of Antrim.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Stay here.”
“But I hate it here.”
“Do you?” He grinned. “I thought you liked my house, April.”
“I mean that I hate Antrim. And—”
“Stay here,” he said firmly. “Stay in Antrim. But don’t stay as a child — that’s as bad as running away like a child. Grow up, April. Grow into yourself. You can’t act like a little girl because you’re not a little girl any longer. You’ve given up the right to be a little girl. You’re a woman now.”
He was silent. She sipped some of the scotch, thinking about what he had told her. Despite her earlier feelings, she knew that Craig Jeffers was right. She could not run away. To run was to give up, and to give up was wrong.
But how could she stay in Antrim? If she went on with the life she had been leading, she would only manage to serve as the butt of every off-color joke told in the Antrim High locker rooms until the day she graduated. The boys were absolutists, she knew. Give in to one of them and you were a tramp and nothing more. There were no shades of moralistic gray. Everything was either black or white.
“What can I do, Craig?”
He picked up his glass, swung it in a little circle so that the ice cubes bounced against one another. He took a quick sip of the scotch and put the glass down again. “You’ll go on living at home,” he said. “You’ll continue to go to high school, unless they throw you out or something like that.”
“And?”
“And you’ll have nothing to do with the boys and girls in your classes. You’ll cut them dead. They’re just children, April. You don’t need them.”
It was so easy to say. “What will I do, then?”
“You’ll be with me.”
“With you?”
He stood up and began to walk across the room. He turned suddenly and held his arms out. “There’s a whole wonderful world that you don’t know a thing about,” he said. “Do you think I’m the only person in the state of Ohio who knows how to live? I’m not, April. There are other men and women like me, mature people who’ve managed to grow up without getting stuffy. Fellows who drive fast cars and girls who have come to realize that a bed is more comfortable than the back seat of a car. April, you may not go to the senior prom, but I’ll take you to parties that your friend Danny Duncan would give his left testicle to attend. You may not ride around in hotrods, but you’ll find out what a 300-SL can do on a straight track. You won’t drink warm beer at the beach — instead you’ll get high on good scotch with soft music cooking in the background.”
He took a breath. “I sound like a preacher describing heaven, don’t I? Sometimes I get a bit carried away with myself, April. But I mean what I’ve said. You don’t have to feel deprived because you can’t be a baby any more. Instead you have to learn to be a woman.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“You’re ready.”
She studied the floor. In a low voice she said, “I’m not very smart or sophisticated. I don’t know the right things to say. Your friends would laugh at me.”
“No one will laugh at you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. April, you’re smarter than you think you are. And as far as sophistication goes, it’s not something a person is born with. It’s developed, when you’re ready for it.”
“And you think I’m ready?”
“I know you’re ready.”
She finished her drink. The liquor was working and she could feel its effects, yet she did not feel all. Instead it was as though the liquor mar clearer and more vivid, as though she co now as they really were. Craig was right, was absolutely right
She finished her drink. The liquor was working and she could feel its effects, yet she did not feel drunk at all. Instead it was as though the liquor made everything clearer and more vivid, as though she could, see things now as they really were. Craig was right, she decided. He was absolutely right.
She stood up. Craig had a mustache, she thought. In Antrim only a few old men had mustaches what was the mater with him. But Craig looked good with his, she knew It made him look dashing and exciting. She decided that he was the only really exciting person she had ever met.
“April—”
She looked at him. He was standing straight as a ramrod now, his eyes beckoning to her. She walked over to him like a person in a hypnotic trance. Her whole body tingled with life. She moved closer, wishing he would take hold of her, and when his arms reached for her she threw herself against him, her heart racing.”
He kissed her. His lips were tender at first, incredibly tender, and then he was holding her tightly and his tongue was a flaming sword that burned the inside of her mouth. She felt her breasts drawn hard against his chest, felt desire building up in her loins and spreading through her body like a raging forest fire. Her knees were shaking and she could barely breathe.
Suddenly he released her. She floundered for a moment, then regained her balance and stepped backward slightly. She wondered what he was going to do next
He said, “You’re sweet, April.”
She was silent.
“Very sweet,” he said. “Do you want to go to bed with me, April.”
She nodded.
“And I want to go to bed with you, April. But not now. Tomorrow night, April. When we have all the time that we need.”
He laughed. “Come on,” he said. “I’m going to take you April.”
She went with him.
4
There was only one point where she felt foolish. All the way home, her neat buttocks cupped by the bucket seat of the low-slung Mercedes, her suitcase propped again upon her knees, everything seemed perfectly logical, perfectly free and easy. And when Craig leaned over lazily in front of her house to brush her lips with a fleeting kiss, everything was still quite perfect and quite sensible.
But when the Mercedes roared like a lion and headed back for Craig’s home, and when she was left to enter her house alone, suitcase in hand, everything was not quite so perfect or logical or sensible any longer. Alone now, she was a little girl who had been trying to run away from home, and who was now returning with her suitcase in her hand and her tail between her legs. No matter how sensible her actions might be when viewed from a distance, here she was with her silly suitcase and there was her house, looming ominously at her, and there was just no way to get the suitcase into the house without looking like several different kinds of a damn fool. The hour was quarter to eight — she had missed dinner and she was getting home just in time to tell Jim Bregger that he could go to hell for himself because she was not going out with him, after all. Perhaps some people could have felt perfectly calm about coming home under such circumstances but April was not one of them, not by any means.
The front door was ajar. She gave it a shove and walked in, hoping that no one was home. But just as she stepped into the hall her mother materialized, dishcloth in hand and worried look in eyes.
“April—”
“I meant to call,” she said, improvising furiously. “I tried once and the line was busy, and then it was time for dinner. And after dinner I figured it would be just as quick to come home as to call, so I didn’t. Call, that is. I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Where were you?”
“Judy Liverpool’s house,” she said. “I went over there after school and then they asked me to stay for dinner and I figured it would be all right.”
“You should have called, April.”