It was a long ride to her house. He wasn’t sure where to get off. Three stops past the top of the hill, she’d said. He counted three blocks on the left side and then pulled the cord. It was the wrong street. He walked back a long block, saw the weeping willow tree she’d mentioned and turned in.
Her house was the first one on the right side of the street, a low-slung, brick structure with a little stone porch.
He looked around for the doorbell when he reached the porch but there wasn’t any. He tapped lightly on the glass-paned door. Through the white, ruffled curtains he saw a movement of skirt. The door opened.
She had a finger across her lips. She took his hand and led Erick through the livingroom. On the couch slept a short blonde girl.
In her room, she took the envelope and told him to sit on a chair. Then she stood smiling down at him as though he were something she’d been waiting to see for a long time and she was going to enjoy it now for all it was worth. She closed the door.
“I hope I didn’t disturb her,” Erick said.
“No,” she said, “Leo sleeps like a log.”
She stood before him again. She smiled brightly. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
She sat down on the bed. “Did you have any trouble finding the house?”
“I got off a block too late.”
“Did you count three blocks on the right?”
“On the left.”
“Silly. No wonder.”
Then she opened the envelope and took out the story. “Is it good?” she asked guilelessly.
He smiled, “I hope so.”
She smiled back at him as if the remark were of prodigious moment. Then she started reading. At the first sentence the smile faded abruptly and a look of serious intent suddenly crossed her honest face. Erick smiled to see it. She was completely wrapped up in his story.
He looked at her as she crossed her legs.
She had on a light green print dress. Her brown hair was curled at the bottom and cut in a straight line across her forehead. Her full lips were red and moist. He watched them as she read, looked at them studiously and wondered how it would be to touch his mouth on hers.
She sat very straight and silent on the bed. Her breasts lifted sharply from the line her shoulders started to her waist. They moved slowly and evenly as she read. Erick feasted his eyes on them as she read, feeling a brief tightening in his stomach. Then, with a slight shudder, he looked up again and ran his glance down her face, her shoulders, the smooth upward arc of her breasts, her hips, stomach and long shapely legs and feet.
He closed his eyes and shivered.
* * * *
When she finished the story she put it down on her lap. Slowly. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, lips slightly parted.
“Like it?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment. “It’s wonderful!” she said, “So good!”
“Really?”
“Yes! May I keep it and show it to Leo?”
“If you … if you think she’d like it.”
“Oh, she will.”
Then she smiled tenderly as if she felt that her enthusiasm hadn’t been convincing.
“It is good, Erick,” she said.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said.
It was past three and they decided to leave.
As they went into the living room Leo opened her eyes. She looked startled at first.
“Did we wake you?” Sally asked.
“Yes,” Leo said sleepily, then looked groggily at Erick.
“This is Erick,” Sally said.
Leo looked at him and pressed down into the pillow with a sensual movement. “Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” he said, noticing the flesh of Leo’s upper stomach where her body tight sweater had slipped out of her skirt.
“We’re going to the concert,” Sally said.
“Mmmmm,” Leo said. She closed her eyes. “See you,” she muttered indistinctly, turning on her side.
Sally closed the door behind them. As soon as she came up beside him, her warm hand took his.
“Isn’t she pretty?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Oh, she is,” Sally said, “I wish I had such perfect features.”
“I think I said something about your features once,” Erick said.
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I think I’ll remember that the rest of my life,” she said.
Then, after a moment’s silence, she said,
“What are they playing, do you know?” Her hand tightened in his. The feel of it in his brought her completely to him. It was as though with the one act of holding his hand firmly, she had taken his life and their paths were forever bound forever.
He told her he wasn’t sure what the orchestra was playing but that Miss Spouse of the music department was going to play Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto.
“Really!” She gave his hand another excited squeeze. “I love that! Isn’t that wonderful?”
He hadn’t thought about it being wonderful. But maybe it was. He smiled and the thought came distractingly to his mind that maybe it was just a pose on her part, this seeming ability to get elated over almost anything.
Yet it was impossible to believe. She was too convincing. He knew she wasn’t the sort who could effect such an air. But whatever it was she was practicing on him, she made him feel as if this were the most wonderful date she’d ever had on the most wonderful day of the year and that he was the most interesting person she’d ever known.
“Isn’t it a wonderful day?” she asked, she told.
“It’s nice.”
She took a deep breath of the warm, flowing air. “I love April,” she said. And he thought—she does.
“Have you written any other stories lately, Erick?”
“No. I don’t have the time. The show took it all up.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And beside, it isn’t easy.”
“I bet it is for you.”
And he thought that if anyone else had said that to him it would have sounded like blatant sycophancy. But he believed her.
The bus came and they went to the back. He sat down beside her and as soon as he did, she took his hand firmly. I like that! he thought with sudden delight. No girl ever did that to me before; making it seem as though I belonged. No girl ever talked to me like you do.
“How’s school?” she asked, as if it were a question of most vital importance to her.
“Fine,” he said, “I don’t like most of my subjects but it’s fine.”
“Oh,” she said, almost distressed. The she brightened. “You’re in Journalism School, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“What do you take?”
“Oh, history of journalism, ad prin, news …”
“Ad prin?”
“Principles of Advertising.”
“That sounds good.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, what do you do?”
“Oh we sit in class and take notes until our arms fall off. Then in lab we write in tall, graceful letters—The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog—something like that.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
Did it matter? his other mind said and he had to stifle the words from his lips.
“It sounds interesting,” she said. And his other mind looked up, squinting unpleasantly and speaking a puzzled—Wha? Then he smiled. Maybe it was interesting to her.
“Are you going into advertising?” she asked.
“Good lord, no. They get ulcers, you know.”
“Do they have to?”
“Of course. No self-respecting advertising man would be without his own private ulcer.”
“Huh,” she smiled in pleasant depreciation.
“No advertising for me,” he said.
“What then?”
And, as if the words were magic, his mind spread out instantly, probing into the future
he had dreamed of so often that the details were becoming almost stodgy. Writing success, shapeless visions of accolades and triumphs in Hollywood and Broadway. People speaking his name. A home in the country, a wife and lovely children fitting politely and quietly into the pattern …
Around there the pattern clouded. And, sometimes, when he dreamed too much, he suddenly grew bored as though he already had all those things and he was surfeited with triumph and wanted something more but there was nothing more. And it made him feel ill at ease. Then, every time, a second floor, the house of dreamcards would flop spattering to the floor and he’d be back in the presence of unrealized potential.
“I want to write,” was all he said to her.
“You will. You’re good.” she said confidently, squeezing his hand again. One story and she says that, his mind told him. But, somehow, when she said it, it made him feel strong and he felt inclined to say, “Yes, I will, after all, won’t I?” But he didn’t.
“What will you write?” Sally asked, “Books?”
“Everything,” he said, caught again in the great shapeless desire, “Books, short stories, plays … everything. I’ll even write singing commercials, no I won’t.”
She smiled at him. Like a loving woman, he thought.
“It’s all bubbling in you, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes,” he said, “It is.” And it occurred to him that Lynn was the only other person he’d ever bared himself to, even this much.
“You’ll do it,” she said and she tightened her grasp and her face shone as she looked into his eyes. The strength of her confidence seemed to pour into him. She’s excited, he thought, excited over a vague group of ambitions proclaimed in a bus. How much he liked her. She got so much out of life. Nothing was taken for granted. Life seemed an endless play to her, replete with new, with ever-exciting surprises. And she sat spellbound in the audience, clapping her hands with delight at each new development.
“Here’s the stop,” Sally said and the bus ground to a halt. Erick got up and jumped down from the step. Automatically he held up his hand for her.
“Thank you,” she said as if his gesture had come as another completely wonderful surprise. He had the sense that a rare person walked by his side as they started toward the campus. How different everything seemed just being with her; as if she were a lens through which he saw a brighter world.
“That’s where I go,” Sally said as they passed the Methodist Church. “Oh.”
“It’s beautiful inside,” she said, “You’ll have to come sometime. I sing in the choir.”
“I didn’t know you sang. I thought you danced.”
“Oh, I’m talented,” she laughed. Then she seemed to be even embarrassed at the joke. “I’m not so good at singing,” she said as if atoning, “But in all those voices no one can tell.”
“I’ll come to hear you drowned out.”
She smiled. “All right.”
They went up a cement path and under the archway into the campus. It was becoming bright green under the April sun. The carpet of grass was almost complete to the ground. And the campus-lining trees were budding thickly.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she said.
“It is,” he agreed, feeling completely at ease in saying it although he was also aware of the fact that he didn’t usually comment on the prettiness of anything.
“I like it here,” he said, “I always wanted to go to a college like this.”
“You’re on the G.I. Bill, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Mmm-hmm. Public Law 16.”
“What’s that?”
“For disabled veterans.”
She looked alarmed, suddenly concerned. “What’s wrong Erick?” she asked.
“Nothing much. I froze my tootsies in Germany, that’s all. Long ago.”
“Are they all right now?”
“They’re all right.”
Her hand tightened in his. “Oh, good.” she said, relieved. She skipped once and changed her stride to match his. They walked in silence a little way, close together. Erick breathed in deeply of the fragrant air. And it felt nice to be young and free and with Sally.
A girl in a long white dress handed them programs as they went in. The hum of soft voices touched their ears. The floor creaked beneath them.
“Where would you like to sit?” he asked her.
“Wherever you usually sit.”
“You lead.”
She took his hand and started up the dress circle steps. “This all right?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said as they sat down. “God there aren’t many people here.”
“I think that’s terrible,” she said, “More people should come. Those poor kids go to all this trouble.”
They looked at their programs, and he wondered how old she was.
“I never heard this before, did you?” she asked, leaning over and pointing.
“No,” he said, “Rameau.” He sniffed. “Nice perfume.”
“Do you like it?”
“Mmmm. Night on Bald Mountain?”
“White Shoulder.”
“I’m talking about the program,” he said, smiling.
“Oh!” she laughed. “Yes.”
The orchestra was starting to come out on the stage, girls in long dresses, boys in dark suits.
“We got here just in time,” she said, “Oh, look there’s Felix.”
“The cat?”
“Silly. You met him that night.”
“Oh, the big one.”
“Now be nice, Erick.”
“Yes, dear.”
She smiled at him, her eyes moving over his face.
“Do you play football?” she asked.
“Only in my dreams,” he said.
He felt a slight separation for a moment, Sally was so wonderfully robust and athletic. And, although Erick wasn’t scrawny, he was no athlete. And he felt vaguely that someone like Felix was more suited for her. More, more … what was the word? he wondered. Bedable?
He was silent and the urge came to push her away from him because he had doubted for a moment that she could love him.
Then the audience started applauding.
On the stage, the conductor was threading his way through the seated orchestra members. He stepped up to the podium. The audience grew silent. Sally reached over and closed her hand on Erick’s, their fingers interlacing. He turned a little and she smiled sweetly at him. He looked away, his throat moving and the orchestra started to play Suite from Dardanus by Rameau.
At first Erick couldn’t pay any attention to the music. The feeling of her hand in his was all there was. He felt blood pulsing into his fingers, felt them expanding between hers. The music was only an indifferent sound, her presence was everything.
Then, slowly, he began to relax and drift into the music.
He began to get the feeling which so often came to him; a desire to draw every impulse, every scrap of import from the passing seconds. He heard the music, smelled the ancient smell of the auditorium, powder, perfume, caught movements of color and light as people shifted on their hard seats. The slight movement of Sally’s legs crossing caught his eye. He concentrated on the music, listened for the harmonies, followed one instrument through several phrases, then switched to another, then relaxed and let the overall sound swell untended in his mind. Then he was back to her, held tightly, their hands grown into one comforting joint.
The piece ended and she applauded, then took his hand again as if it were absolutely essential to her. There was no doubt in the way she took it, the way she held it in her lap.
The conductor came onstage again, leading, amid applause and leaning cellos, Miss Spouse.
She set herself at the polished black piano. Breathless silence. Then, a powerful blast of horns, the broad percussion of strong fingers playing the opening chord groups. Sally’s fingers tightened in his, they both turned at the same moment.
Something seemed to flicker between them, impelled by the music. An idea,
a sensation, a sudden response. His hand tightened on her’s. They drank in the sight of each other, holding themselves fast with their eyes. Her lips moved slightly as if she were about to speak. He saw her exhale through parted lips. Then she turned away quickly and he saw her breasts swell out and knew that her temples were coloring even though it was too dimly lit to see.
He turned back front.
Some moments he was deep in each pulsation of music. Others, he was deeply conscious of himself and of her. Once, he knew, she was looking at him, but he didn’t turn. And, after a while, she returned her gaze to the orchestra.
* * * *
During intermission they went down into the basement and Erick showed her the Dramatic’s Green Room. Both the Green Room and the Drama office were locked up. They peered in through the glass windows.
“Not very exciting,” he said.
“That’s because there are no people there,” she said.
Their faces were close together as they looked. He could smell her perfume. His cheek brushed against her’s. She took in a little shuddering breath. He turned suddenly and kissed her cheek lightly. She touched his hand.
“Erick,” she said, softly.
* * * *
The concert ended and there was an encore and they all went out into the hall again. They passed Felix and two other football players. Felix looked at Erick with stolid venom.
“I hope he doesn’t know where I live,” Erick said.
“Why?” she asked.
“He’ll come there and break my neck.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, “Felix is a nice boy.”
“Brutus is an honorable man.”
She gave him an off-glance. “I wonder what brought them here,” he said to clear the air.
“I don’t know,” she said.
As they walked up the campus, he asked her, “Do you have to go anywhere tonight?”
“No,” she asked, “Why?”
“Well,” he said, “I th-thought you might like to see a movie.”
“Why I’d love to!” she said.
Sudden happiness welled up into him again, the entire series starting over again. Just being with her, he thought, having her boundless happiness beside me. It did something to him.
They decided to go to the Variety Theatre. It was the least expensive show in town. She insisted she wanted to see the picture again.