The Wayward Bus (31 page)

Norma was saying, “One of the things I'd like to have you show me is how you handle—well, fellas.”

Camille laughed shortly. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, you take Pimples. I can see how he's been—trying, and he can't get to first base with you, and at the same time you don't even seem like you're doing it. And you take that other fella. That salesman. Well, he's pretty clever and you handled him just like nothing. I wish I knew how you did it.”

Camille was pleased. Much as she might be worried by this incipient millstone, it was pleasant to have admiration. Now was the time to tell Norma she wasn't a dental nurse, to tell her about the giant wine glass and the stags, and yet she couldn't. She didn't really want to shock Norma. She wanted to be admired.

“Thing I like is you never are mean or nasty about it and still they never lay a finger on you,” Norma continued.

“I never noticed,” Camille said. “I guess it's kind of like an instinct.” She chuckled. “I've got a girl friend that can really handle men. She just don't give a hoot and she's kind of mean with men anyway. Well, Loraine—that's her name—was—well, she was kind of engaged to this fellow and he had a good job and so he wasn't any trouble. Loraine wanted a fur coat. Of course, she had a short wolf jacket and she had a couple of white fox furs because Loraine is a very popular girl. She's pretty and little and when she's with girls she'll keep you laughing all the time. So Loraine wanted a mink coat, not a short one, but a real full-length one, and they cost three, four thousand dollars.”

Norma whistled between her teeth. “Jesus God!” she said.

“Well, one afternoon Loraine said, ‘I guess I'll get my fur coat now.' And I said, ‘You're kidding.'

“ ‘You think I'm kidding? Eddie's going to give it to me.'

“ ‘When did he tell you?' I asked her.

“Loraine just laughed. ‘He didn't tell me. He don't even know it yet.'

“ ‘Well,' I said. ‘Look, you're nuts.'

“ ‘You wanna bet?' Loraine will take a bet on anything.

“I don't bet on things so I said, ‘How are you going to go about it?'

“ ‘If I tell you, will you keep it to yourself?' she said. ‘It's easy. I know Eddie. I'm gonna needle him tonight and keep needling him till he gets mad. And I'm gonna keep right on until he throws a punch at me. I may even have to step into one because when Eddie's a little drunk he misses pretty bad. Well, then I'm gonna let Eddie stew in his own juice. I know Eddie. He'll get to feeling mean and sorry. You want to take that bet?' she said. ‘I'll even lay down a time. I'll bet you I have that coat by tomorrow night.'

“Well, I don't bet anything, so I said, ‘Two bits you don't.' ”

Norma's mouth was open with excitement, and a gleam of reflected light came from between Mrs. Pritchard's closed lashes.

“Did she get it?” Norma demanded.

“Well, I went over to her place Sunday morning. Loraine had a mouse all right, a real blue shiner, and she had a patch over it and her nose was cut up too.”

“Well, did she get the coat?”

“She got the coat all right,” Camille said. There was a frown on her face, a puzzled look. “She got the coat and it was a beauty. Well, then she took off all her clothes. There were just two of us there. She turned that coat inside out and she put it right on next her skin with the hair next her skin. And then she rolled and rolled on the floor and she laughed and giggled like she was crazy.”

Norma's held breath exhaled slowly. “God,” she said, “why did she do that?”

“I don't know,” said Camille. “It was like she—well, it was like she was a little crazy, kinda nuts.”

Mrs. Pritchard's face was glowing. She breathed very rapidly. Her skin tingled, and there was an aching, itching feeling in her legs and stomach she had never felt before, and there was an excitement in her that she had had only once in her life and that was on horseback a long time ago.

Norma said judiciously, “I don't think it was nice. If she really loved Eddie and he was going to marry her, I don't think it was a nice thing to do.”

“I don't either,” said Camille. “It kind of bothered me about Loraine and I told her so, but she said, ‘Well, some girls just take the longer way around. I wanted it quick. It'll be the same thing in the end, anyway. Somebody was gonna work Eddie over.' ”

“And did she marry him?”

“Well, no. She didn't.”

“I'll bet maybe she never loved him at all,” Norma said heatedly. “I'll bet she just gold-dug Eddie.”

“Maybe,” said Camille, “but she's been my girl friend for a long time, and if I ever needed anything she was right there. One time when I had pneumonia she sat up with me for three days and nights, and I was broke and she paid the doctor.”

“I guess you just can't tell,” Norma said.

“No, I guess not,” said Camille. “Anyway, you asked me about how to handle men.”

Mrs. Pritchard was beating herself with words. Her reaction had frightened her. She said to herself, even whispering the words, “What a horrible, vulgar story. What animals those young girls are. So this is what Elliott means by ‘getting down to the people.' Oh, that's horrible. We just forget how people are, how nasty they can be. Dear Ellen,” she wrote frantically, and the excitement was still tingling on the insides of her legs. “Dear Ellen, the trip was terrible between San Ysidro and San Juan de la Cruz. The bus went into a ditch and we just sat and waited for hours. My Elliott was very sweet and made me a bed in a funny cave. You said I would have adventures. Remember? You said I always would have adventures. Well, I did. There were two vulgar, illiterate girls on the bus, one of them a waitress and the other was rather pretty. She was a you-know-what. I was resting and I guess they thought I was asleep and they went right on talking. I couldn't put in a letter what they said. I'm still blushing. Gentle people just don't know how these little things live. It's incredible. I always think it's ignorance. If we only had better schools and if—well, if you want the truth—if we who should be examples were just better examples, I'm sure the whole picture might change, gradually, but certainly.”

Ellen would read the letter over and over to people. “I just had a letter from Bernice. She's having the most exciting adventures. You know, she always does. Why, I want you to hear what she says. I've never known anyone who could see the good sides of people the way Bernice can.”

Norma was saying, “If I liked a fella I wouldn't think of doing a thing like that to him. If he wanted to give me a present he'd have to think of it himself.”

“Well, that's the way I feel about it too,” said Camille. “But I haven't got a fur coat, not even a chubby. And Loraine's got three.”

“Well, I don't think it's fair,” said Norma. “I don't think I'd like Loraine.”

“God Almighty!” Camille cried in her mind. “You don't know if you'd like Loraine. I wonder if you've got any idea what Loraine would think of you?” No, she thought, that isn't true. Loraine would probably take this girl and fix her up and help her. Whatever you could say about Loraine, nobody could say she wasn't a good scout.

CHAPTER 16

Mildred put her head down to keep the rain from misting her glasses. The gravelly road felt good under her feet and the exercise made her draw her breath deeply. It seemed to her that the day was getting darker. It couldn't be very late, and still an evening light was creeping in, making light things, such as pieces of quartz and limestone, seem lighter, and dark things, such as the fence posts, seem black.

Mildred walked quickly, her feet stabbing at the ground and her heels striking into the gravel. She was trying to push the quarrel out of her mind. She did not remember having seen her mother and father fight before. But this had been a practiced thing with a routine-like quality that indicated it was a far from uncommon process. Her mother must maneuver the quarrels into the bedroom where no one could hear them. She had built up and maintained a story of the perfect marriage. This time the tension had got to a breaking point and there was no bedroom to retire to. There had been mean little drops of yellow venom in the quarrel that disturbed Mildred. It was a poison that seeped subtly in, not an open, honest rage but rather a secret, creeping anger that struck with a thin, keen blade and then concealed the weapon quickly.

And there was this endless trip to Mexico ahead. Suppose Mildred didn't come back? Suppose she walked on and caught a ride and disappeared—rented a room someplace, perhaps on the coast by the sea, and spent the time on the rocks or on the beach? The idea was very pleasant to her. She could cook for herself and get to know other people on the beach. The idea was ridiculous. She hadn't any money. Her father was very generous—but not with cash. She could charge her clothes and sign checks in restaurants, but her actual money was always very short. Her father was generous but very curious. He wanted to know what she bought and where she ate, and he could find these things out on the monthly bills.

Of course, she could go to work. She would pretty soon anyway, but not right yet. No, she had to weather it out. She had to stumble through this horrible Mexican trip, which could be so wonderful if she were alone, and then go back to college. It wouldn't be long until she would go to work, and her father would approve of that. He would say to Charlie Johnson, “I'd give her anything she wants, but no, sir, she's got too much get-up-and-go. She's making her own living.” And he would say it with pride, as though some virtue of his own was involved, and he would never know that she was working for the sake of privacy, so she could have her own apartment and some spending money, for things he didn't know about.

At home, for instance, she was free to go to the liquor cabinet any time she wanted, but she knew that her father had in his memory the exact level of liquid in every bottle, that if she took three drinks he would know it immediately. He was a very curious man.

She took off her glasses and wiped them on the lining of her coat and put them on again. In the road she could see Juan's tracks, long strides. There were places where his foot had slipped on a rock, and there were muddy stretches where the whole prints of his feet were visible, with the line broken by the drives of his toes. Mildred tried to walk in his tracks, but his step was too long for her, and she felt the pull on her thighs after she had kept it up for a while.

He was a strange, compelling man, she thought. She was glad she had got out of that crazy experience of the morning. No sense in it, she knew. Irritation and functioning glands interplaying—she knew all that. And she also knew herself to be a girl of strong sexual potential. There would come a time in the not far future when she would either have to get married or make some kind of permanent arrangement. Her times of restlessness and need were growing more frequent. She thought of Juan's dark face and shining eyes and she was not affected. But there was warmth in him and honesty. She liked him.

As she cleared the hill she saw the deserted farm below and was fascinated. She could feel the despondency of the place. She knew she couldn't pass the house without looking through it. Her steps quickened. All her interest was aroused.

“Bank foreclosed,” Van Brunt had said, “and the family had to move, and the bank wouldn't be interested in an old house. It was the land they were taking.”

Her strides were almost as long as Juan's now. She came swinging down to the foot of the hill to the muddy entrance of the farm and suddenly she stopped. Juan's tracks turned in. She walked along the road a little to find whether they emerged and continued, but she could find no other footsteps ahead.

“He must still be in there,” she said to herself. “But why? He was going out to the county road. There couldn't be a telephone here.” She grew cautious as she realized she didn't know what was going on, and she didn't know much about this man. She walked slowly into the entrance and moved out on the grass so that her feet would not make a rasping sound on the gravel.

There was something dangerous about the deserted house. She recalled old newspaper stories of murders in places like this. Her throat tightened with fear. “Well,” she consoled herself, “I can turn right around and go out. Nobody's stopping me. Nobody's pushing me in, but I know I must. I know I won't leave. Maybe those murdered girls could have got away too. Maybe they were asking for it.”

She saw a vision of herself lying on the floor of one of the rooms, strangled or stabbed, and there was something in the vision that made her laugh—her glasses were still on. And what did she know about Juan? He had a wife and a business. Then there was a headline she remembered. “Father of three in sadist murder. Parson murders choir singer.” Why are so many choir singers and organists murdered, she wondered. There seems to be a high occupational hazard about choir singing. Choristers are always being found choked behind the organ. She laughed. She knew she was going into this house. Should she just clump on in or should she steal in and catch Juan Chicoy at whatever he was doing? Maybe he was just going to the toilet.

She put a careful foot on the step and paused when the floorboard creaked under her weight. She went through the house opening cupboards. There was an overturned pepper can in the kitchen and a coat hanger in the closet of the bedroom. She turned her head sideways to look at the old comic pages under the peeled wallpaper. She read a strip of “Happy Hooligan.” The mule, Maud, drew back her legs and kicked and Cy sailed through the air, and on the seat of Cy's pants were the imprints of the mule's hoofs.