In the Isaly’s dairy store they took a booth near the back, though she could tell — he saw in her eyes that she knew he was hiding them — he didn’t want to be seen from the street. They sat for a moment, and the waiter — a boy who worked in his off-study hours — took their order.
Sylvia: milk shake.
Caclass="underline" nothing but whirling thoughts.
She sat silently for a moment, studying the glass of water and the rectangular fold of the paper napkin, and finally looked up at Cal. The mouth in the face on the body in front of Cal spoke, and said something, and he answered, but the face relaxed and smiled, and he assumed he’d said the right thing, and if not, so what?
Then the horror, the slow horror began.
The waiter brought her so-smooth milk shake; he stood by the table for a minute, as though a landmark for what was to sweep over them next.
The guys came in, with their girls. Five guys and five girls, they came in. And as though they had been briefed by the Devil, as though they had known he would die and wither within himself if they saw him, they all called out, “Hey, look who’s here! It’s Cal!”
And then one of the girls, a honey blonde with a pretty Boston name like Clarice or Maude or Pamela added, “And look who he’s with … isn’t that that, uh, what’s her name? That Sylvia?”
Then the wave of them washed across him with the greeting and the snide hellos, and before he knew it they were all packed in the booth, with Sylvia across from him, and both of them jammed against the wall where there was no escape, and extra chairs, drawn up so everyone could sit.
Then the horror went full into itself.
“How’s studies, Cal? Making a four-point this quarter?”
Cal tried, God how he tried, but he couldn’t get his eyes to come up from staring at his own water glass, half filled now with tiny bubbles clinging to the sides. “No. No four point.”
Then the chatter turned to other things, and none of it was addressed to Sylvia. As if they had not quite realized she was there, yet he knew they were aware of her, that it was all a ribbing session to make him feel ridiculous, and to make her feel left out.
Finally, one of the girls said, “Hey, Cal, the prom’s day after tomorrow. Who’re you taking?”
And Cal could not answer, for the weight in him dragged him down and down …
The silence grew and one of the boys, urging, added, “Yeah, who, Cal? I’m taking Patty here. Who’re you taking?”
Another said, “I’m going with Marlene. You got a date yet, Cal?”
Answer. Go on and answer. Answer them that you have a date with a girl in dorm number seven, a girl with clean hands and a straight body and a mother and a father and hours to be in at night. Go ahead and answer.
While they stared at Sylvia, to see her expression.
Go ahead.
“I’m, uh, not, uh, going, I don’t think. No dough. And lot of, uh, lots of studying. Midterms soon. No, I don’t really think I’ll be …”
He trailed off. It was hollow. It was worthless. It was meant to degrade her, and she’s done nothing to deserve it. Nothing. They didn’t know here was a woman, they only knew here was a shadow and they never saw the girl behind it. They didn’t know she was gentle and good to him when he needed somebody who was warm and gentle. None of that, and they’d made him carry all his own rottenness into the light, where it stood stinking for all to smell.
They stared at Sylvia, not at him.
She moved, and they moved away from her. She reached up to grasp the back of the booth, and they slid out, letting her get up. Then they sat down, and she stood all alone, watching nothing, staring at him but not seeing him. Or, perhaps, seeing him for the first time, and seeing all of them, and realizing what they were.
Then she reached into her pocket and brought up a quarter; she carefully set it down beside the still-full milk shake glass. To pay for it. To pay for it.
She walked away from them, to the front door, and no one said goodbye. The prophet Elijah had come and gone, and they had known he was there, but there was no acknowledging it.
She walked through the door, and they watched as she crossed the street. She passed across the street with her head lowered. The wide pool of a streetlight caught her as she stopped on the opposite curb. A bus wheezed to a stop, invited her with air-puffed open doors, then shrugged away down the street. She didn’t turn around, but they saw her head sink even lower, then abruptly rise, with some obscure growing pride. Then she walked away into the night’s smothering darkness, and was gone to them always.
They sat, and their stares riveted back on Cal.
He knew it, knew the pattern of it, knew they were staring at him.
What?
What could he say? Was there anything? He knew he had to say something to show them he was with them, but not of them, that he knew her and that they were rotten, and he was ashamed, God how ashamed. So he said it, and knew it wasn’t right, but said it just the same.
“Oh hell, she wouldn’t have wanted to go anyhow.”
But they knew what he meant.
Because there was one like her on every campus.