“I see. You wouldn’t let Henry meet me.”
“Henry is off today.”
“Then of course you wouldn’t meet me yourself. In seven and a half years this was the first time I wasn’t met by anybody.”
George Lockwood snorted. “I declare, I think you expected us to meet you with a brass band.”
“No such thing, and you know it, Father. I expect to be punished, and I hope I take it like a man. But picking on me for not wearing garters. And returning my cigarette box.” The son’s voice broke. “Honestly.”
“Good God, not tears. You’re certainly running the gamut, from swearing like a trooper to now, blubbering like a girl. If you’re going to bawl, go on up to your room.”
“I’m not going to bawl any more. I’ll tell you once again, what I told you over the phone, I’d give anything if I could do over again. I’d rather flunk out than cheat.”
“Or be caught cheating. I understand you got away with it once before.”
The son hesitated. “I got away with it twice before. But I wish I’d let nature take its course and I’d flunked out.”
“Yes, it would have been a lot easier to get you in some place else if you’d only flunked out. You could even have got back into Princeton. As it is, you’ve been turned down by Penn State and Bucknell.”
“You mean you applied for State and Bucknell?”
“I spoke to friends of mine. I can get you in Bucknell next year. Your mother has a cousin, a Baptist minister in Wilkes-Barre.”
“I don’t want to go to Bucknell, or any place else.”
“Oh, you’ve made your own plans. What are they, may I ask?”
“I’m going out to California and get a job.”
“In a bank, I suppose.”
“What are you trying to do? Kick me in the nuts? No, not in a bank. One of my roommates’ father is more willing to give me a chance than my own father. I have a job on a ranch, and I’m leaving next week. I could leave tomorrow, as far as that goes.”
“Well, why don’t you? I won’t stop you.”
“You couldn’t stop me. I hope I never see you again as long as I live. Good—bye, Father.”
“Just a minute, before you make your dramatic exit. Your mother is waiting to see you. What are you going to tell her?”
“I’ll tell her that I have a job in California, and that I have to leave tomorrow.”
“Just so we get our stories straight, that’s all I care about. Bear in mind when you go upstairs that this may be the last time you ever see her again. That is, if you plan to stay in California any length of time.”
“How long?”
“If you stay a year. And if you do anything to excite her now, you may have to postpone your trip a few days. So don’t be dramatic with her.”
“Why couldn’t it be the other way?”
“God damn you! Don’t expect me to forget that.”
“I won’t,” said Bing Lockwood.
His mother took off her boudoir cap as he entered her room. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, in nightgown and negligee, her satin-slippered feet on a carpeted circular footrest. She quickly ran her fingers through her hair and held out her hands. “Géorgie, I’m going to turn you over my knee, that’s all there is to it. Give me a kiss.”
He kissed her, and sat in a matching high-backed chair on the opposite side of the fireplace.
“Smoke. Go ahead. And give me a puff,” she said.
“When did you start smoking?”
“When did I start smoking? Exactly thirty years ago. Cubebs, when I was fourteen.”
“Did they have cubebs then?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was only joking. I never have smoked, but I know you used to smoke cubebs. When you were fourteen, and even younger.”
“Did you know it then?”
“How could I help knowing? You could smell them a mile away. Have you had your supper?”
“No.”
“You must be hungry.”
“Not very. I had an oyster stew in the Reading Terminal.”
“You’ve been talking with your father, I know. I could hear your voices, but I couldn’t make out what you were saying. He’s very upset, of course. But he’ll come around. Do you remember Cousin Charley Larribee? I don’t know whether you’d remember him or not. He was my second cousin, and he came here one time to preach at the Baptist church. He spent the night with us, but you couldn’t have been more than three or four. Well, he’s done very well in the ministry, the Baptist ministry, and I happened to remember reading somewhere that he was a trustee at Bucknell. So I suggested to your father that we might write and tell Cousin Charley all the circumstances. Not holding back anything, but putting it to him as a Christian minister—”
“I know, Mother. Father told me.”
“He did? Well, I knew he was going to. And you’ve been accepted for next year. At least, you will be. They’ll take you. And you’ll have a degree. It’s only for a year, dear.”
“A degree doesn’t mean that much to me,” said the son. “I’m through with college.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. But you mustn’t make up your mind now. I know what you’re thinking. That they’re showing favoritism in taking you at Bucknell. But wherever you go, it’s going to be much more difficult for you than for anyone else in the school. They’ll watch you like a hawk, and at the first sign—well, you know. But for that reason you ought to go. That’s the best possible way to make up for what happened at Princeton. Erase the bad mark on your record. Bucknell is willing to give you that chance, and I hope you’ll go there and get your degree and show them at Princeton that you profited by your mistakes.”
“Well, I’m going to, Mother. But not by going to Bucknell. I’m sure they’re very decent to give me the chance, but I’m fed up with college. Look at my marks all the way through. Barely passing, and I cheated last year too. I never should have gone in the first place. It was a waste of time and money. Maybe it’s a good thing I got caught, although a hell of a thing to happen when I was almost through. Four more months.”
“Then maybe it is a good thing. If you’d got through by cheating, I wonder how that would affect the rest of your life. Well, what are your plans?”
“Steve King my roommate’s father says he has a job for me.”
“In California? All the way out there? It takes a week by train, dear.”
“Well, I thought of going to China, and I don’t know how long it takes to get there.”
“What would you do in California?”
“Work on Mr. King’s ranch.”
“A cowboy?”
“No, it isn’t a cattle ranch. He raises fruit. Oranges and things like that.”
“Would you like that?”
“I won’t know till I try it.”
“What would you do? Pick oranges?”
“I guess I will at first. He says I’ll start at the bottom. Manual labor. Hard work. But if I want to make something of myself, he says this is my chance.”
“You’ve talked to Mr. King, the father?”
“I had a letter from him. He doesn’t say much about the kind of work I’d do, other than to say it’d be hard work, and I know from Steve that when he says hard work he means it. Rowing is nothing for Steve after a summer on the ranch.”
The mother’s hand hung limply over the arm of the chair. “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes, I knew it. I knew it. I knew you were coming to say goodbye. Stand up, Géorgie. Let me look at you. Turn around. Oh, my dear. My dear!” She put out her arms and he knelt to come within her embrace.