“We won, didn’t we?”
“In spite of all your bad advice.”
“Pooh!”
“How about a picnic tomorrow, woman? You bring the food. I have to go look at the Judlund site again.”
“That’s a lovely place for a picnic. Too bad you’re going to ruin it putting a house on it. Sure, I’ll bring food.”
“We’ll make it an early night tonight, hey?”
“Dal, honey, I’m going to see Arnold Crown tonight.”
“Give him my best wishes for a pleasant evening.”
“I am. Really.”
He sat up abruptly. “Are you out of your mind? I... I forbid you to see that meathead.”
She sat up and glared at him. “You what?”
“I forbid you!”
“Why the hell do you think I want to see him?”
“To tell him to leave you alone, I would hope.”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
“Everything’s wrong with it. He’s got hallucinations about you. He isn’t rational. He ought to be locked up. And you want to go hold his hand! The answer is no!”
She narrowed her hazel eyes. “I’m twenty-three, Dallas. I’ve been away to school. I can earn my own living. Up until now I’ve done what I’ve thought best about my own emotional problems. I intend to keep on that way. If you can give me any rational reasons why I shouldn’t see Arnold, I’ll listen. But I won’t be shouted at and ordered around. I’m not a... chattel. You don’t own me!”
It was a quarrel, and it was unexpectedly bitter. He took her home earlier than had been planned. She gave his car door a hefty slam. He squealed the rear tires as he drove away. No one was home. She showered again and changed, got into her MG and went to a drive-in to ease the healthy hunger that was only partially blunted by her anger.
At eight-thirty as the street lights and car lights were coming on, she turned into Arnold Crown’s service station and parked beside the building. Arnold appeared immediately, silhouetted against the floodlights, bulking large, shadowing her.
“I knew you’d come, Helen.”
“I said I would. We have to have a talk.”
“I know. We got to have a talk, Helen. That’s for sure. Your car’ll be okay here. Go over and get in the Olds. I’ll be right with you, soon as I get a jacket.”
“Where will we talk?”
“I thought we could just ride around and talk, the way we used to.”
She walked over and got into his car. He seemed more relaxed than she had expected. Poor Arnold. You can almost hear the wheels in his head going around as he adjusts himself to any new idea. I didn’t ask him to fall in love with me. He drove me home that time because my car wasn’t finished, and we stopped and had a coffee. He seemed so terribly alone.
He got in beside her and drove out of the station and turned left on Jackson.
“Notice how good it sounds now?”
“What? Oh, yes, it does sound good.”
“It was the valve lifters making that racket.”
“Oh.”
A few moments later he said, “A guy with a station over on Division wants to sell. It’s a good location. I talked to the bank.”
“That’s good, Arnold.”
“I figure this way. One station won’t bring in enough. You’re used to things nice.”
“I don’t want you to talk like that!”
“That’s the way I got to talk. Honest to God, I never been so happy, Helen, you coming to your senses and stopping this kidding around. I read that thing in the paper, I nearly lost my mind, I’m telling you. I guess I’ve really been... kicking up a storm.”
“Let’s just say you kept me aware of your existence, Arnold.”
He made a flat, hard sound of laughter. “You kill me, the way you say things. Honest to God.”
“Arnold, I’m afraid you’re getting the wrong idea, about my agreeing to see you tonight.”
“It’s the best thing ever happened to me. I mean you go through month after month of hell, and all of a sudden it’s over and the sun comes out. I got a surprise for you, Helen, honey.”
“Can we stop somewhere and...”
“I found out one thing. Without you I’m nothing. I’m dead. There’s nothing left to me at all. That’s why this is like coming back to life, having you right here beside me again.”
She looked out to see where they were. He had followed the pike and then turned off onto Route 813, heading east. It had been a heavily traveled route until the pike was built. Now it was a secondary road, serving the widely scattered farms.
“Please find a place to stop so I can really talk to you, Arnold, and make you understand.”
He slowed the car, but it was several miles before he found a place that suited him. He pulled over and stopped. She could see a tumbledown barn with its roof making a sagging line against the stars.
She turned toward him, her back against the door on her side, and pulled her knees up onto the seat.
“Please don’t say anything until I’m finished, Arnold. Somewhere, somehow, you got the wrong idea about us. I don’t know whose fault it was. We’ve never even kissed. But you’ve got to get over it. You’ve got to stop dreaming, because the dreams aren’t going to come true. You’ve got to stop bothering me. I’m in love with Dal, and I’m going to marry him.”
She could not see his shadowed face. There was a long silence. She heard his deep, harsh laugh. “You got a couple things wrong there, Helen. It was you and me right from that first day.”
“It never was! You were lonely. I thought you should have somebody to talk to. That’s all.”
“You have to keep on playing those games, don’t you, right up to the end?”
“I’m going to marry Dal. Nothing can change that. And you must stop phoning me and writing me and following me.”
“You got it all wrong. You’re talking about the way it was, Helen. For all these weeks and weeks. Right up to tonight. It isn’t that way any more. You have to understand that. It’s different now. From now on, it’s you and me.”
Something in his voice gave her a chilly, uneasy feeling.
“Arnold, you have to try to understand.”
“I understand that you’re the only thing that can happen to me, Helen. The only possible way out. So it has to happen. It can’t happen any other way. That’s what you’ve got to understand. It’s like they say — a destiny.”
“I guess you’d better take me...”
“Now it’s time to tell you about the surprise I got.”
“Surprise?”
“I planned it all out careful, honey, just the way you’d like it. This crate is all tuned and gassed. Smitty is going to run the station. I got a thousand bucks cash on me. First time in my life I ever carried that much. In the trunk is two brand-new suitcases, yours and mine. Both full of brand-new stuff. I know I got pretty things you’ll like, and they’ll fit. So you don’t even have to go home again. We’re going to drive on through to Maryland and get married there and go on up to Canada for the honeymoon. How’s that for a surprise?”
She heard her own nervous laughter. “But I’m going to marry Dal...”
His big leathery hand closed suddenly on her wrist, so strongly that she hissed with pain. “That joke is over and I’m sick of it, Helen. I can’t get no more laughs out of that old joke. So drop it from now on. We’re taking off from here, right now. We’ll wire your folks. We’re going to drive right on through, so you see if you can go to sleep and rest up for getting married.”
He released her and started the car. She heard the high, hard whine of a car coming along the road behind them, coming the way they had come. As the Olds jumped forward she turned and opened the door and plunged out.
She made four or five giant running steps, fighting for balance, hearing a hoarse yell and scream of brakes, and then she tripped and dived headlong into a tumbled blackness where a sudden white light burst like a bomb inside her head, behind her eyes...