“Why?”
“Because you’re so damn cute,” he said, and he covered her hand with his affectionately, and then reached into his pocket for a cigarette. The touch was brief and hardly intimate, but she felt herself tensing as his hand covered hers, felt a desire to turn her hand over and clasp his fingers into hers. And then his hand moved away, he was fishing inside his shirt for cigarettes, she sat silently and stiffly on the seat beside him, scarcely daring to breathe, suddenly flustered. He offered the pack to her. Again, there was the smile on his face.
“Do you smoke, Kate?”
She was tempted to take one, but she knew it would be foolish to smoke here in the car on the way to town where everyone could see her, yet she was tempted because the offered package was a challenge, and yet she knew it was foolish.
“Not right now, thanks,” she said, and she knew by the smile on his face that he didn’t believe she smoked, although she really did smoke whenever she and Aggie and the other girls got together alone. And even her father had said she could begin smoking when she was eighteen, which was only a year and a half away, she was practically eighteen already, and there was a half-used package of king-sized cigarettes in the back of her dresser drawer where she kept it with the tiny piece of driftwood she had found at the lake the year before, minuscule and whorled, a tree in delicate miniature.
David offered a cigarette to Julia, who refused with a shake of her head. He lighted up and then threw the match out, lowering the window slightly, turning on the seat. His knee bumped against Kate’s, and together they said, “Excuse me,” and then laughed.
“Now we have to make, a wish,” Kate said.
“All right,” David answered. “What do you want most in the world, Kate?”
She almost said, “You.” Instead, she stared straight through the windshield, and said, “I don’t know. Besides, if I told you, it wouldn’t come true.”
“Oh, sure it would,” David said. “What do you think she should wish for, Mom?”
“Well, when I was a girl her age...” Julia started, and Kate quickly interrupted before she could augment a theme of sweet sixteen, which would remind just everybody in the entire world how old she was.
“Actually, I’ve got everything I need,” she said hastily.
“Have you got a diamond ring?” David asked.
Kate laughed a phony brittle laugh she had heard the married women of Talmadge use at cocktail parties in her house. “No. Shall I wish for one, David?”
“If you want one.”
“No.”
“Well, what do you want? Think hard now, Kate.”
“I’d like to go to Europe,” Kate said.
The car was still for a moment.
“Mims went to Europe last summer,” Kate said into the silence.
David said nothing. She could hear the wind whistling over the cloth top of the car, could hear the tires singing against the road.
“I may go to Europe,” Julia said suddenly.
David turned to look at his mother. Kate saw his eyes in that instant, puzzled, probing. Something odd had come into the automobile with her mention of Europe, and she didn’t know quite what it was, a curious tension that caused her to believe she’d said the wrong thing. And yet she couldn’t understand what was so terribly wrong about mentioning Europe, everyone was going to Europe these days, she had even heard her parents discussing a trip to Europe.
“I didn’t know you’d planned to go abroad, Mother,” David said.
Kate noticed that he’d called her “Mother” and not “Mom” as he had earlier, and she knew this meant something because she never called her own mother anything but “Mom,” except when she was particularly irritated or annoyed, or when she was threatening Bobby... or, wait, when she thought her mother was acting too frivolous and young for her age, like when she danced close to Daddy at a party, that was really degrading for a couple in their forties, well, Daddy was in his forties, still, to act like lovebirds on a dance floor. David was annoyed now, and yet all his mother had said was “I may go to Europe,” but Kate could definitely feel him tensing on the seat beside her.
“I’ve planned to go back to Italy for a long time,” Julia said, not turning to look at David, her hands firm and steady on the wheel, looking straight ahead at the road.
“To Aquila?” David asked.
“No,” she said. “To Rome.”
Kate sat between them and had the oddest feeling they were talking in a code only the two of them understood. She said nothing. David sucked in on his cigarette.
“Is this definite?” David asked. “I mean, have you really made plans?”
Julia laughed, and Kate recognized it as the same phony laugh she herself had used a few moments ago. She frowned. The tension in the automobile had somehow become unbearable. She wanted to get out and walk. If only she could say to David, “Let’s get out and walk to town.”
“Every year since the end of the war,” Julia said, “I’ve made plans to go back to Italy. And every year, something came up to prevent my return. Last year, I thought I’d surely go. And then Millie passed away and...” Julia let the sentence trail. “Maybe I’ll make it this year. Maybe this year, I’ll get back.”
“Maybe you don’t really want to go back, Mother,” David said.
“Maybe not. You young people today...”
Kate was grateful for that. She almost turned and kissed Julia.
“... are too psychologically oriented. I’m not of the school that believes nothing happens by accident. Too many things happen by accident.”
“But nothing’s really prevented you from going to Rome, Mother. Yes, Aunt Millie’s death. But other than that—”
“David,” she said flatly, “I want to go back. I’ve wanted to go back to Rome for as long as I can remember.”
“Then why haven’t you gone?” There was something harsh in his voice. “Why don’t you go back?”
“Maybe I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“What you need is a traveling companion, Mrs. Regan,” Kate put in quickly. She laughed tinnily. “I’ll be happy to apply for the job.”
“I might take you up on that,” Julia said, and laughed.
The car went silent again. David snuffed out his cigarette. They could see the church now, white against the blue sky, dominating the town as they rounded the curve and headed down the hill.
“Where can I drop you?” Julia asked.
“Where are you going?” David said.
“To Dr. Anderson’s office.”
“Why?” David said quickly. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing serious. A little indigestion.”
“Daddy thinks he’s a good doctor,” Kate said.
“He is a good doctor,” Julia said.
“Where are you going, Kate?”
“To the library.”
“I’ll buy you a soda,” David said.
“Okay,” she said casually. Her heart had begun to pound. She clenched her hands over her bag.
“Anywhere along here, Mother,” David said.
Julia pulled the car to the curb, and yanked up the hand brake. “I’ll be an hour or so. Will you want a ride back?”
“Not me, Mrs. Regan.”
“I’ll manage,” David said, and stepped out onto the curb. He held out his hand to Kate. She took it, feeling embarrassed and awkward all at once. They stood on the curb together, watching the Alfa as it pulled away and turned the corner, heading for Anderson’s office.
“Well, where to?” David asked.
“You said you’d buy me a soda.”
“I will. Which is the local teen-age hot spot these days?”
Kate squelched her sudden anger. “Well, the teen-agers hang out in the drugstore, but we can get sodas at the tearoom, and it’ll be quieter and nicer.” She paused. “Unless you have a preference for teen-age hot spots.”