“How was it?” she asked.
“Okay,” he said angrily.
And, she thought, he could not bring himself to speak of it. Wrong to speak, she thought. And she thought: My god. Wrong to talk about it in front of a woman. He can talk about it with his drugstore pals; they probably talk about it all the time. But I’m like his mother or a teacher, I shouldn’t hear about it.
And she thought that in a stupid sense she was in love with him. She had a crush on him, an adolescent crush; the kid in her was aroused.
But she could not help being contemptuous. What did he have to say? He was ignorant, young; he shuffled his feet and stood inert. But he was nice-looking. He was strong and, she thought, he had a natural purity. From his youth. The fact that he was so young. He had done so little; he knew so little.
“How did you imagine it would be,” she said, “when you were a child? Is it anything like you expected? Or did you have a lot of idealistic dreams and notions . . .”
He grunted.
“Do you know anything about erogenous zones?” she said.
On his face was an expression of distrust and horror: he did not know what she meant, but he did not like the sound of it.
“I think there’re nine of them,” she said. “In a woman. Probably it differs between different women.”
At the door he lingered; he was unable to leave. But he wanted to leave.
She said, “Would you feel better if I put something on?”
“You ought to get up,” he said.
“Did you know that some women can tome to a climax by fondling their breasts?”
He left the room. In the kitchen he collected eggs and bacon from the refrigerator. For a while she remained on the bed, and then she got up and put on a skirt and blouse. And then she changed her mind. She put on only a half slip, from her waist to her knees. Wearing that, she followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
Smoking a cigarette, she watched him fix himself breakfast. “What is it?” she said. “Do I bother you?”
“Go put something more on,” he said.
“I don’t get a chance to do this,” she said. “How many times in my life can I loll around like this? I don’t have to work today . . . I can’t go to work with my eye the way it is.”
“Suppose somebody comes.”
She shrugged. “Suppose they do. You can answer the door.”
“Suppose Jim Briskin shows up.”
“Oh,” she said, eyeing him, “does that worry you?”
“I d-d-don’t like it.”
“What do you want me to put on? Do you want me to dress up? Are we going somewhere?”
He seated himself across from her and began to eat . . .. The smell of bacon made her ill, but she remained at the table. Smoke from her cigarette drifted around him; turning his chair, he ate with his plate between his knees.
“That’s no way to eat,” she said.
“Go to hell,” he mumbled, his mouth full, his face flushed.
“Didn’t your mother teach you how to act at the table? Does Rachael let you eat that way? There’s so many things you’re going to have to learn. What about your clothes? You can’t wear those again today. Don’t you have anything else you can wear?”
“They’re home.”
“Then buy some more. Or go get them.” Lazily she leaned back, her arm over the top of the chair. “Why don’t you take the car and go by your place and pick up your clothes? And you need a shave.” Reaching, she touched his chin; he ducked away. “It’s true. You can’t go out like that.”
She went into the bedroom and finished dressing. When she came out, he was standing at the living room window, his hands in the back pockets of his slacks. The crease was gone from the slacks, and they hung unevenly, bagging at the knees. All night his clothes had been piled up on the chair.
“How do you like this skirt?” she said; she had put on a bright blue skirt and a white frilly blouse.
He said nothing; he did not look.
“I thought I’d go downtown and shop,” she said. “If I’m not going to have to go to work, there’re some clothes I want to buy. I have a list of errands.”
“How about your eye?”
“It’s improving.” She went to the basin in the bathroom and splashed cold water on it. The skin was discolored, but it was not as hard, not as distended.
“You can’t go outside looking like that,” he said at the bathroom door. “You look awful.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well stay here, then.”
“I’m not sticking around here,” he said vehemently. “I can’t stand just s-s-sitting around. Anyhow, I have to get over to Larsen’s. I’m supposed to be there every day.”
“All right,” she said, “you do that. I’ll stay here and catch up on my letter writing.” As an afterthought she added, “there’s another thing you probably should do.”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t you call Rachael and tell her you’re okay? She’s probably worried about you.”
Art said, “Let’s go away.”
“Go away? With you?”
He gave her a deadly, impassioned look.
Sobered, she said, “What do you mean? For how long?”
“Let’s just go.”
“My job,” she said.
“The hell with your job. Pack your stuff up and let’s go.”
“Do you have any money?”
“No,” he said.
“Then,” she said, “how can we go away?” Now she felt more secure. “And I don’t have any money. If you want, you can look around; look in my purse if you care to.”
“You can sell your car.”
“No, I can’t.” The presumption shocked her, the absolute disregard of her interests. “I don’t have the pink slip. I still owe eighteen hundred dollars on it. I won’t own it until May 1958.”
“You can borrow on it.” He seemed to have made up his mind. Dealing her possessions out, she thought.
“Why do you want to go away?” she asked, unable to follow the process involved. Impulsive, she thought; it was a boy’s whim. But the coolness was shocking. The assumptions.
Art said, “Somebody might c-c-come here.”
“Like who?”
“Jim Briskin.”
“Why does Jim Briskin worry you?”
“Because,” he said in his brusque, unreasoning voice, “you’re his girl.”
He made her pack all her things: her clothes from the closet, medicine from the bathroom, the cosmetics from her vanity table in the bedroom, the slips and bras and underpants and stockings and sweaters and blouses from the dresser drawers. As fast as he could, he carried everything to the bed, on which her suitcases rested end to end, one of them already full, the next half full. Whenever she looked up, there he was with more things. No limit, she thought. How systematic he was. And, she thought, in the face of this flow she drifted along she was captured and held fast.
“What else?” he demanded.
“There’s enough here already,” she said. “I don’t really need all this.” He said, “I don’t know what you need. Let’s not take it; take what you need.”
“If you won’t tell me where we’re going or how long we’ll be gone, I can’t tell what I need. Isn’t that so?”
But his mind was on the car. “People sell cars they don’t own. You can get something out of it.” Picking up the telephone, he called a number. As she packed, she listened to him; be was asking questions in monosyllables and grunts.
She thought: If I am not careful and do not keep some control, I will give him the car. I will let him take everything.
“Who was that?” she said when he hung up. “Who did you call?”
“My brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother. Is he older than you?”