“Positive.”
“Cutting classes is a bad habit to get into.”
“Don’t you cut classes?”
“I’ve cut most of my classes since the second semester of my freshman year,” he admitted. “I go to about one class out of every five.”
“So?”
“That just shows what a bad habit it is. I got into the habit and I’ve been at it ever since:”
They were both smiling now. He stood up and walked out from behind the desk. “Tell you what,” he began. “I guess I’m not going to be able to get rid of you for a while so I might as well make the most of it. Let’s take a run down to the Landmine and grab some coffee.”
“Landmine? What’s that?”
“The Landmark Grill — only place in town that stays open all night. I call it the Landmine.”
“I don’t want to keep you from your work. You’ll be up all night as it is.”
“It’ll only be for a few minutes.”
“Honest,” she said, “when I asked to stick around I didn’t mean to get in the way.”
“You’re not in the way. I need a coffee break anyway, and it’ll give me the chance to run the rest of the copy down to the printer at the same time. Besides, with you around I’ll probably get done quicker than I would otherwise. You already saved me a good half-hour reading proof.”
“All right,” she said. “I’d like some coffee.”
She waited while he scooped up the contents of the OUT box, turned off the lights in the inner office and locked the door. Then he took a soiled trench coat from a hook near the door and put it on. The coat, which looked as though it had been slept in for at least a month, made him look a little more like the stereotype of the average newspaperman. All he needed now was a crushed fedora with a press card stuck in the band. But, she reflected, the beard and crew cut just didn’t fit in with the stereotype.
He flicked a switch and turned off the lights in the outer office but didn’t lock the door, explaining that it was left open twenty-four hours a day in case some staff member got an inspiration and wanted to pound a typewriter. Then they walked down the hallway and down the flight of stairs and through the building and out of the door, with the building seeming even emptier and larger than it had when she first entered it.
His car was parked around the corner, a broken-down blue Chevrolet nine years old with one windshield-wiper missing and one fender badly crushed. He walked around the car and got in on the driver’s side without opening the door for her, but she didn’t feel slighted or ignored. He was treating her as a person, an equal, and that made more sense to her than an outdated code of chivalry. She got into the car and rolled down her window, relaxing into the seat.
“I hope the car starts,” he said, fishing in his pocket for the key.
“Doesn’t it usually start?”
“It always starts. But with a car like this I hate to take anything on faith.”
He fitted the key in the ignition, turned it and pressed the starter button. The engine gave a startled cough, as if it was outraged at being requested to perform at such an absurd hour of the morning, and turned over. Don pulled away from the curb and drove off toward the center of town.
For a few minutes he didn’t say anything, driving slowly and concentrating on his driving. She felt as though she ought to make conversation, but at the same time she felt that making conversation wasn’t necessary with Don. If he had something to say he would say it, and if she had something to say she would say it. The two of them didn’t have to go through the rigmarole that other people went through.
She told herself that she was building sandcastles. She had no right to think that anything existed or would exist between herself and Don. He was just taking her to the Landmine to be decent, in return for the work she was doing. He probably couldn’t waste his time on a freshman girl anyhow, and he certainly wouldn’t waste it on her. Still, she couldn’t help hoping that something might eventually develop between the two of them.
Don pulled the car up in front of an unprepossessing white frame building on the main street of town. “Back in a minute,” he said, and she waited in the car, watching him walk to the side door of the print shop, his long legs covering the ground quickly in determined strides. He unlocked the door and disappeared; moments later he came out, closing the door behind him and returning to the car.
“That takes care of the copy,” he said. “Now let’s get something to eat.”
He started the car again, parking in the lot next door to the Old Landmark Grill. The place was almost empty, with two students whom she vaguely remembered seeing around campus playing chess in a corner booth and another seated at the counter, reading a book and scribbling furiously on a pad of lined note-paper.
The waitress who brought them cups of bitter black coffee and orders of scrambled eggs had permanent circles under her eyes and frizzly black hair. She recognized Don and smiled at him, a tired smile that barely got the corners of her mouth lifted before the smile was over. One of the chess players waved lazily to him and the scribbler at the counter gave him a nod.
“Everybody knows you,” Linda told him.
“I’m regular here,” he said.
“It’s a nice place.”
“It’s a horrible place. But it’s open. The only game in town.”
She looked blank.
“The only game in town,” he repeated. “An ancient joke and also the title of an excellent novel by Charles Einstein. Remember the joke now?”
She told him she didn’t.
“Well, there was this faro player. Ever play faro?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think anybody ever did. I don’t even know how the devil you play the game, but that’s how the joke goes. There’s this faro player, and he plays at this one game, and it’s crooked. So a friend comes up to him and says, ‘Why do you play here? Don’t you know the game is crooked?’ And the guy gets very indignant and says, ‘Of course I know it. What the hell do you think I am?’ ‘Then why are you here?” the friend asks. And the guy answers, ‘Cause it’s the only game in town.’”
“Oh,” she said.
“And that’s about the only reason in the world to eat here.”
She sipped at her bitter coffee and wrinkled her nose, agreeing with him.
“Clifton,” he said, “is the only college in town.”
“That’s not much of a compliment to it.”
“It’s not much of a school.”
They talked — about the school, about her, about him, about the Record, about a good many things. Not much time passed, about twenty minutes or so, and they each had a second and a third cup of the bitter coffee. From the conversation she felt he knew quite a bit about her, but she still knew that she didn’t know him at all. There were so many sides to him, so many aspects. All she really knew was that she wanted to know him better and that she liked him very much.
And that she was attracted to him. Strongly attracted to him.
“Let’s get back,” he said finally. They stood up and he put on his coat and paid the check. They walked outside and it was colder out now, and she walked very close to him, hoping he would put his arm around her. But he didn’t, and again he let her open the door for herself while he walked to his side of the car.
They were sitting in the car and he had the key in the ignition. He was about to turn it when he stopped and turned to her instead. He looked at her — a long, intense look, and she returned his stare without saying a word.
“Linda,” he said. Just her name.
She didn’t say anything.
“Linda — would you like to sleep with me?”
It was very strange, she thought. The question came as a complete surprise, but at the same time she was neither shocked nor startled. She was in fact very calm, and she was not blushing for a change. He continued to look at her and she kept on looking back at him, and for several seconds neither of them said a word.