“I could sleep on the couch, couldn’t I?”
“Sure, if you like lumps.”
“I like lumps better than floors. I’ve got an interview that Friday afternoon in Richmond so I’ll get to your place about supper time. And Saturday morning I’ve got two more scheduled, one at ten and one at eleven-thirty. Your place is really convenient and I really appreciate your mother saying I can stay.”
Your mother, your mother. Why did he have to keep dragging my mother into this? At least he wasn’t using his retread voice.
He sounded like another person altogether. Brisk and efficient. I’d met the funny Nick, the tape-recorded Nick, and now here was another Nick. Brisk and efficient. No doubt a fine way to approach things. I reminded myself that anything Ginger could do, I could do. I told myself that cousins were easier to talk to than regular people. I said—out loud, without rehearsal or planning or dreaming—“As a matter of fact, there’s a dance at my school that night. Would you like to go with me?”
He did not answer.
My stomach twinged instantly. “Never mind,” I said hastily. “I’m sure you’ll be tired after all that driving and interviewing and all.”
“No, I’m just trying to think about clothes. I wasn’t going to bring anything for, you know, for a dance. I’m not sure I even own anything. I—”
“No, no, no, no. That’s no problem. It’s a jeans-and-shirt dance. I’m wearing my old faded Wranglers and a pink ruffled blouse and—” I broke off. As if Nicholas Nearing cared whether my blouse had pink ruffles.
“Well, okay. If you want,” he said, noticeably lacking enthusiasm. I remembered that Nick was the sort of courteous person who opened doors and wrote thank you letters. No doubt he also went to dances when his hostess placed the demand upon him.
“Well, I don’t want to drag you to it,” I said, trying to sound highly amused by his reluctance.
“No, no, it’s okay. Great. I’m looking forward to it.”
Tape-recorded, definitely a retread remark. I said helplessly, “Fine. I’ll see you Friday.”
“I’ll bring my jeans.”
“Great.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
I hung up and said “Yuck” to my Barbie doll collection. I’d done it. I’d asked the boy to the dance. And he’d said yes. It wasn’t much of a yes, it was a very dutiful yes, but still it was a yes. And with my scintillating personality, no doubt I could manage to turn Friday into an evening so wonderful Nick would never forget it.
“Believe it,” I said sarcastically to my Barbies. Barbie never gets turned down when she wants Ken to go to a dance. Ken has never done anything but grin in his entire life.
I sat awake that night making mental lists of interesting topics that Nick and I could talk about.
Next day I spent study hour in the guidance office reading up on the three colleges where Nick was having his interviews. They were good schools. I wondered what kind of grades and college boards Nick had. What he wanted to major in. What his interests and hobbies were. All I knew about Nick’s future was that he planned not to have it unfold in Nearing River.
In a way it was good to be so totally ignorant about Nick. How could we possibly run out of conversation when we had his entire life to discuss?
I went to history smiling to myself, and turning to the next blank page of my notebook I wrote “Nicholas” in medieval letters. After class Rod Holmes stopped me in the hall and asked me to go with him to the Final Fling.
For a moment I just stared at him.
I liked Rod. A lot. I always had. Now that I’d made one phone call to a boy and lived through the ordeal of one invitation to a dance, I had a glimmer of an idea of what it felt like to nerve oneself to extend invitations. To get oneself ready to catch a girl by the sleeve and say, Hey, Nance, wait a sec, listen, say, you want to go with me …
I hated turning him down. I hated it because of the way my stomach and head had felt when Nick had answered me so slowly and reluctantly. I didn’t want to do that to anybody else. “Oh, Rod, I’d love to,” I said. His face lit up and I felt like a sap. “I wish you’d asked me yesterday.” And I did wish it. What could be worse than going to the Final Fling with a guy who went because your mother was letting him stay at your place and he had to be polite about it? “But I’m going with—well, actually, my cousin is in town and I asked him to take me.”
If anything Rod looked glad to hear this. All my sympathetic feelings evaporated and I was just infuriated. How dare he be glad I couldn’t go?
“Gee, that’s too bad,” he said happily. “Well, maybe I’ll see you there. I might go stag.”
We stared at each other. Really, boys are mysterious.
“But how about a Coke this afternoon?” said Rod, still happy with how things were turning out. “Are you busy or could we go to Hardee’s or someplace and have a Coke?”
I was busy. I had a meeting for next year’s yearbook committee. I began to understand why attendance at this sort of meeting was erratic. Choices have to be made and I know where my duty lies. But I also know no boy has ever asked me out before, and besides, I didn’t want to see Rod smile even wider if I said no. “I’d love to. I’ll meet you by the band room after seventh period, okay?”
“Good enough,” and Rod was gone, galloping down the hall and vanishing into the stairwell.
We had to go past the elementary school on our way to Hardee’s. A bunch of little kids were playing out among the swing sets. “I used to love doing that,” said Rod.
“Doing what?” I said. There were two little boys pouncing on the tiny girls who foolishly walked past the hemlock hedge. Was that what he used to love doing? I watched the girls scream and aim strong kicks at the boys, who leaped backwards. Ah, to be six years old and know which team you’re on.
“Jungle gyms,” he said. “Slides, too. And sandboxes, of course. I was crazy about swings. I remember thinking I was so tough the first time I hung by my knees from the top of the jungle gym.”
I’d worn trousers that day instead of the lavender skirt my mother had suggested at breakfast. I knew I had good instincts; I congratulated myself. “Bet I can climb it faster than you can, Rod.” I raced over the hopscotch pavement and across the grass to the jungle gym. Rod passed me like a horse going for the Derby and shot up the jungle gym before I had even arrived.
We hung companionably upside down for a while.
I watched Rod’s face get redder and redder. “I’d forgotten about growing,” said Rod sadly, his hair brushing in the sand.
“It’s supposed to be for six-year-olds, not six-footers,” I agreed. My hair and I were short enough not to touch the ground. I wondered if Nick would have done this with me. What would Rod think of Nick and his ponytail? Would he notice it, or care? Rod gave my rear end a push and swung me. The little kids came over to watch and we stared back at them from upside down.
“You look dumb,” said a little girl solemnly.
“Yeah, but we feel great,” said Rod. He swung up, straddled the pole, yelled horsey sounds, and pretended to ride his steed away from the bad guys. The little kids were really impressed by that and immediately mounted poles of their own. We all jumped fences and leaped chasms until I lost my balance whinnying too loud and tumbled off. Rod scraped me out of the sand, brushing it off my clothes, paying a lot more attention to this than I would have. The little kids, who were small but not dumb, made many remarks about it.
“So much for our second childhoods,” said Rod. “Let us proceed.”
For some reason we hobbled along, as if our legs were tied together for a three-legged race. Clinging to each other, we staggered and giggled, Rod yelling things like, “Almost there! And the finish line is in sight! Come on, team!”
The instant we reached the sidewalk, we moved apart and continued very sedately on our way. Rod began to speak with an English accent and I stopped speaking altogether and just laughed.
At Hardee’s we took a booth for two near the windo
w so we could, as Rod said, have an unblocked view of the parking lot and the gas station. We sipped our Cokes. Actually mine was Mello Yello and Rod’s was Dr. Pepper, but still, it was a sort of a Coke date. “Rod?” I said, feeling brave.
“Yeah?”
“How come you were, well, sort of glad when I couldn’t come to the Final Fling with you?”
“Oh, you mean you could tell?”
“It was the wide grin that gave you away.”
“I’m sorry, I really am. I … well, the truth is, my mother made me promise her I’d ask somebody to the dance. But I hate the thought of even trying to dance. The night of the Final Fling I plan to be rebuilding the brakes on my car.”
I laughed so hard the Mello Yello dribbled out of my mouth and I had to wipe myself up with a napkin. “Then why’d you ask me for Cokes?” I said. “Your mother insist on that, too?”
“Aw, don’t hold that against me.” Rod made a helpless face. I grinned at him and he smiled back. His teeth were crooked, but not enough for braces, just enough to be sort of attractive. “I drink Cokes fine,” he said. “It’s one of my better skills. It’s just dancing I don’t do.”
“I see. You were so grateful to me for not going to the dance with you, you wanted to reward me.”
“Aw, stop teasing me. I just wanted to have a date, okay? Without dancing.”
We kidded around until the manager began to send us meaningful glances. They have a new rule in all the hamburger places near the high school: No teenagers can stay more than half an hour. The kids were cluttering up the restaurants so much that adults wouldn’t come in anymore. I can see the managers’ point, but when you’re making friends or on your first real date, half an hour is not long enough. “Actually,” I said, “I’m supposed to be at that yearbook meeting. I’d better run back.”
“I heard that announced, Nancy, it started right after school!” Rod sounded concerned.
“Yes, it did, but I wanted to … well, you know, have a Coke.” That sounded so stupid. I tried to say that I’d wanted to accept, and be with him, but I couldn’t get the words out. Rod apparently didn’t mind, or he understood without my having to say so. He walked me—swiftly—back to school and we agreed we’d have to do it again sometime.
So I went into the meeting, which was wrapping up, feeling guilty for purposely missing it, and feeling absolutely wonderful that Rod wanted my company.
“Nancy,” said the editor, “while you were gone, you were elected chairman of advertising sales.”
“Oh no!” I yelped. “I resign. I refuse. I wanted to do favorite quotes.”
“Favorite quotes went to Jeannine. Those who are not present to decline nomination cannot argue with the decision of the majority.” The editor smiled wickedly. She was right, I’d skipped out. I gave up and agreed to be in charge of advertising. Already my next school year was looking grim.
Except, of course, for Rod. And Nick. The maybe of my love life.
Ten
“NICK?” I SAID. “NICK?”
He was as embarrassed as a sixth-grader the first day out in public in his braces. He flushed, looking like he didn’t want to come in. The fact that I was standing in the doorway may have contributed to this difficulty. “Hi,” he mumbled.
I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and ran my fingers over the back of his head where his ponytail had been. “I love it,” I said, shaking my head in surprise. “But I thought you weren’t going to cut it off for another year. You know. Matter of principle and demanding relatives and kidding friends and all that.”
He shrugged and tugged at his clothes, now that he could not tug at his hair. “I panicked about my college interviews. I had on this three-piece suit and I was buttoning up the vest and in the mirror I noticed this ponytail bouncing around between my shoulder blades. With this stupid red rubber band around it. All of a sudden I knew I couldn’t get through an interview with a ponytail. So I cut it off.”
“Well, it looks terrific. I love it.”
“Really? You do?” He looked as if he really cared about my opinion. My heart lifted about a yard. I felt out of breath, as if an elevator had whisked me up there with my heart. “Yes, I do,” I said.
Nick nodded about twenty times over that. “Besides,” he said, “you asked me to this dance of yours. Now, in Nearing River, everybody knows me. They’re used to my hair. They expect my hair. In fact, they’re going to laugh at me without my hair. But at your high school, I’d have to get introduced to all these strangers and there’d be this ponytail in the way, and all their eyebrows going up, looking at me. You know?”
I burst out laughing. “And to think when I first met you at Nearing River House, I thought you were completely cool and relaxed.”
“I am at ease there. It gives me the Continental soldier look. Or it did. I don’t know how I’ll look now.” He explored the short hair with a nervous hand. “Look, Nancy, can I come in or am I going to be sleeping out here in the stairwell?”
I jumped out of the doorway. “No, of course not. I mean, yes, come in. I’m sorry. I forgot about you. I mean, yes, come in. I’m sorry. I forgot about you. I mean, I didn’t forget, I—”
Nick put his index finger to stop my babbling and walked in. I looked at his passing profile and then his back and I thought, Is he ever cute!
“Nick!” exclaimed my mother. “Good heavens. I wouldn’t have known you. Glen plaid suit with vest and leather belt. Neatly cut hair. Polished shoes. You look so respectable.”
“Mother,” I said irritably, “he looked perfectly respectable before.”
“No, he looked interesting before. Not respectable. I like it, Nick. It’s an immense improvement.”
“That,” said Nick, groaning, “is a taste of what I’ll have to go through when I get back to Nearing River. How much I’ve improved. Which means, of course, that I was never up to snuff before.”
“Up to snuff,” said mother. “My goodness, what an antique expression. You’ll have to be careful, Nick, your father’s profession is infecting you.”
“You mean,” I asked him, “that nobody has seen your short hair yet?”
“It isn’t short, Nancy,” said my mother. “It’s a lot less long, but it isn’t short.” It was clear that she felt a second visit to the barber was in order and the sooner the better. Nick cast his eyes ceilingward. “No,” he said, “I cut it in Richmond, just about an hour before my interview. Even my father and my Aunt Catherine don’t know.”
“They’ll be so pleased,” said my mother, patting him. “Really, Nick, it’s such a sign of your growing up. You look adult for a change.”
Nick made a face.
“I see what you mean,” I said to him. “It’s going to be awful, isn’t it?”
“I figure I’ve got a three-day weekend in Virginia to get used to myself and kind of prepare to face the music,” said Nick. He sank onto the couch and began frowning. I thought the frown was for all nagging relatives back in Nearing River until I saw his eyes going from corner to corner, examining our apartment. “Well,” he said, “the place is … well … it’s … it’s—”
“Horrible,” said my mother.
I was trying to think of something cheering to say to her when Nick said fervently, “It sure is. I never thought anything would make me want to get back to antiques. What are you going to do to fix it up?”
I was completely astonished when Mother leaned forward as if to tell Nick a confidence. “I thought I’d start with new paint,” she said. “I’m sick of these cream-colored walls. Especially where you can see the lighter places where my quilts hung. What would you think of shiny cranberry red for the window wall and a slick royal blue for the rest of the room? Maybe lemon yellow mini-blinds for the windows and emerald green upholstery for the chairs?”
We gaped at her. “That doesn’t sound very early American,” said Nick in the sort of voice his Aunt Catherine would use if she couldn’t understand you.
“I’ve been through my e
arly American stage,” said Mother firmly. “I’m reaching out for something else. I’ve always liked bright colors. I want a whole rainbow in here. Something that will smack you in the face when you open the door.”
“It’ll be cheerful,” said Nick doubtfully.
“What about beige?” I said.
“Beige! I’ve had it with the natural look. All those tans and neutrals and wood and weeds. They sent me photographs from Bloomingdale’s showing their kitchen exhibit and you should see some of that stuff. They’ve built all sorts of levels and cabinetry and barn-siding walls and rippling kitcheny areas, with my old things sort of hanging around for atmosphere against all the walls—but up front! You should see up front! Purple laminated Parsons tables and brushed stainless steel lamps and lucite napkin rings and—”
“Good grief,” said Nick. “Talk about turning over a new leaf. And all I did was cut my hair.”
We all three began laughing helplessly, looking at the disaster that was the living room and imagining Mother’s lemon yellow blinds, scarlet walls, and brushed stainless steel lamps.
“How about supper?” said Nick. “As long as you’ll settle for cheeseburgers and french fries, it’s my treat.”
“I,” said Mother brightly, “have this marvelous idea.”
We looked at her nervously.
“No, no, not decorating the apartment. My idea is, since I want to lose some weight and I do not need french fries nor burger buns, you two go by yourselves and live it up. Have dessert. Go all out. I’ll stay here and have a cup of bouillon and meditate on whether I want lime green or pumpkin orange mugs.”
“You sure?” said Nick. “A cup of bouillon sounds depressing.”
“It is. Anything slimming is depressing.”
“Come with us,” said Nick again, and he really seemed worried. Did he really not want Mother to have bouillon, or did he not want to be alone with me? I had a piercing thought that as long as Mother was along, we were cousins—but alone, we might be a date. And all Nick wanted, as he’d so clearly told me, was to get away from the long endless cluttered line of N. C. Nearings. I shook off the thought. “Well, Nick,” I said, “let’s go then. See you after the dance, Mother.”