Marijuana Girl (8 page)

They got in and Tony, jaw grimly set, started the motor.

"It was fun, wasn't it?" Joyce said. It wasn't what she meant. She meant glorious, wonderful, tremendous. But these were not words she could say. A man loved her, wanted her--would protect her. Frank was strong and able and adult. He was already a father, the very symbol of adulthood. He was successful, mature.

Tony said nothing.

"What's the matter with you?" she demanded.

He put the car in motion, driving down Randolph Road like a man escaping demons. At Central Avenue he forced the rebellious vehicle around the curve with a mad squealing of tires on the macadam.

After that, the convertible shot through the moonlit darkness, a thunderbolt of whistling winds and whirring motor in the silence of the night. Past the big, silent houses on Central Avenue, past the recurring streetlamps, past the end of the macadam where the street became a highway and turned to concrete paving, past the new development in South Paugwasset.

"Tony!" she said. "Where are you taking me?" In the dim lights from the dashboard, his face was brewing a storm of violence. "Answer me!" Still the car sped on. "Tony, you stop this car right this minute."

No answer.

"If you don't let me out of this car, I'll ... I'll ..." Sudden hysteria gripped her. She caught at the doorhandle, pressed downward and tried to force it open against the flying wind-stream. Tony reached over with one hand, not taking his eyes from the road, and caught her wrist with steely fingers, pulling her back into the car. Then he reached past her and pulled the door to full latch. After that, as though nothing had interrupted him, he drove forward into the night, faster and faster, until the whipping airstream lashed Joyce's unfastened hair down in stinging blows against her face. Suddenly she dropped her face into her hands, and sobs jerked at her shoulders.

"What are you doing, Tony?" she wailed. "Please, Tony."

Then he stopped the car, pulling it up sharply like a horse that is forced to rear, on the shoulder of the road.

The silence, after the roaring of wind and motor, was poignant, almost unbearable. Then, one by one, the night-sounds of the country insistently made themselves heard. Crickets in the tall grass that bordered the highway. A nightbird "hooooo-ed" in the distance, and somewhere ahead a late train on the Long Island railroad clicked its electric way over an untidy roadbed. Water gurgled faintly through a culvert, and leaves, lightly displaced in the gentle breeze, rustled softly.

Tony drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, offered it to Joyce and, when she refused, lit one for himself.

The girl stared at his grim face, she was frightened. Tony was never like this.

"Joyce," he said, suddenly, "are you in love with Burdette?"

She stalled, "What?"

"I asked if you are in love with--with that editor?"

"Don't be silly." Was that the right tone? Should she have said: Don't be ridiculous? Or: What are you talking about?

"He's a lot older than you are, Joyce." He wasn't saying it flatly. His voice was flat, but something underlay the flatness, as though he were keeping, by a tremendous effort, from breaking into sobs.

"Oh, stop talking like a child."

"I'm your age, Joy. If I'm a child, so are you."

"Girls mature earlier than boys."

"I've heard that before. It all depends on which girls, what boys."

"You'd better stop this nonsense and take me home."

"No, Joy. This is too important for us to just shrug off. If I find out that you're--you know I saw you last Friday with Frank."

"I don't care what you saw, and don't you dare threaten me."

"I'm not threatening you, Joy; I'm just telling you what I'm going to do if things turn out the way I suspect."

"You are absolutely the stupidest boy I've ever met."

"Keep it calm, Joy. We're not fighting. We're just clearing up some confusion."

Desperately she wished that Frank were here. Frank was a man, full-grown and protective. Strong, wise. He loved her and would defend her from--from this kid who had rejected her when she had needed him. She forgot that it was she who had really done the rejecting. "Well, let's clear it up then," She felt so much older and stronger than Tony.

"I don't know how you feel about it, but after last week, I feel that you belong to me, and it's up to me to look out for you. If you broke off with me for some other kid, that'd be all right I wouldn't be happy about it, and I'd probably make a big fuss, but it wouldn't be wrong--like this is."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Tm talking about Frank, and you know damned well I am. Joyce, you're too young to get involved with an older man, like that. He's married. He's got a wife and kid. Can't you get it through your stupid head that you'll ruin your life with that guy. Even if he loves you, he doesn't want to love you. He's--oh, hell, I don't know what he is, but he's not for you. And if I find out you're going too far with him--I'll tell your aunt. You know what she'll do."

Then the idea came to her. She forced her voice to a calm. "Tony, you know better than what you're saying." There was only one way to convince him. And, for one blinding moment, she saw herself as a martyr, sacrificing herself at the stake for her love.

She moved closer to Tony. "I'll show you who I love, Tony." She had to do something. If her aunt found out about Frank, she'd probably have him arrested, have him run out of town. She put her lips to Tony's and kissed him.

Frank and Janice went to bed that night like two strangers who, by chance, have been forced together into a shipboard stateroom. Janice was troubled because of something she could not bring into the forefront of her consciousness. She knew that something had happened which threatened her; knew too that some part of her had understood it fully and was weighing it; taking measures for her protection from it--she knew, too, that whatever had happened had lowered a veil of estrangement between herself and her husband. But what, exactly, it was that had happened she did not know, could not let herself guess.

But Frank's problem was far greater. He knew what had happened. Worse still, he knew that it would happen again and again. He loved Janice. She was his wife, the mother of his child, a capable, wonderful person on whom he could depend for everything he needed. But something about this strange kid, this seventeen-year-old femme fatale, had caught him in a terrible grip.

She was beautiful, intelligent, sensuous--but that wasn't quite it. Nor was it the tense, passionate excitement she roused in him. That, too, was mere seasoning for the dish. No. There was something else she gave him, something not quite healthy--not for either of them. A kind of unquestioning obedience. A slavish devotion to his orders and desires which flattered him and made of him more than he was, but which at the same time gave him virtually an incestuous feeling, like that of, say, a father over-affectionate with his daughter.

He looked across the room at Janice, brushing her soft, ash-blonde hair before the mirror. He couldn't let such a thing happen again. It must never happen again. What did a man want out of life more than Janice gave. All right, she had moods. All right, she had a mind of her own--and could raise utter hell with it, too. But he and Janice were two parts of the same whole--perfectly matched, perfectly mated. He wished she were not leaving tomorrow to be gone for the whole summer.

She was wearing a pale, transparent gown of green nylon or silk, or something, and the soft light of the small lamp on her vanity outlined the lovely shape of her legs. He thought, how can you get excited over any woman but her, lovely Janice, his Janice.

"Janice," he said softly. "Honey." She did not turn and he could not see her face. What was she thinking? Did she know? "Baby," he said. "Turn out the light and come here."

There was a click, and he saw her pale figure coming to him across the room in the faint, leaf-spotted moonlight seeping through the window.

Then she was in his arms, her lips parted and pressed to his, and he tasted the salt of her tears.

Joyce undressed slowly, her whole body aching with exhaustion. Her dress she let fall to the floor. Her arms hurt. She looked in the mirror. Her shoulders and neck and upper arms felt bruised, but they showed no marks. She stretched the rubber waistband of her panties, let them drop to her feet, stepped out with one foot and with the other kicked them onto a chair. Her hair was wild with the slip stream of the convertible and she had no energy left to brush it. She went to the bathroom and washed away the lipstick smears around her mouth--but nothing could wash away the smear inside her. She started to the closet for her nightgown, thought of the vast energy that would require, and turned back to the bed, pulled down the sheet and single blanket and slipped in.

What's the matter with me?

She pressed the convenient switch that turned off the light over the bed and tried to settle herself for sleep.

Why did I do it?

She fluffed up the pillows and shifted her head, then turned and tried the other way, but there was no rest in her.

She thought, how could you do such a thing? How could anybody let themselves get like that? What was wrong with a person who behaved like that? What was it old Iris had said, "... you need psychiatric help ..." Was that it? Was she crazy?

She remembered things in school. Defiance. That had been the thing. Why did she have to write a shocking paper when everyone else was satisfied with things like measles and virus pneumonia? Why had she insisted on smoking in the school corridors between classes? After all, she hadn't actually needed a smoke. Why had she tried that idiotic dance during the auditorium study period? That was so stupid, so meaningless, so ridiculous except as defiance. Or was defiance the whole story? Wasn't it also something else, almost as if you were courting disaster, searching for trouble, demanding punishment?

And the afternoon, just one day over a week ago, right after Dean Shay had kicked you out of school--what had happened that you had to tempt Tony so disgracefully? Supposing you got--got yourself with child? Was that it? Was that the trouble you were courting this time? Or was there still something else?

She remembered it another way, then. There had to be someone. You had to belong to someone, be someone's property, so they would take care of you and keep you safe, because people did take care of the things that belonged to them, didn't they?

And then, when Tony was so angry, why shouldn't you have gone out with Mr.--with Frank. And everything had been so wonderful--the fine, safe feeling, the protected feeling of being with a grown man.

But tonight--first one and then the other. Betrayer. Delilah. First betraying Tony with Frank, and then Frank with Tony. Awful--but just wonderful, wonderful, the feeling of being loved. And two loves were better than one.

Now she belonged to two men, but it was horrible. No, wonderful. No ...

Tony drove his car into the garage, switched off the lights and climbed out closing the garage doors behind him. The moonlight cast long shadows over the lawn, making it look vast and deep and mysterious, and the huge darkened house where his father and mother lay sleeping loomed like a castle out of a fairy tale. He walked over to the grape arbor and seated himself on the long bench that ran the length of it.

There was something wrong with Joyce--something he would have to figure out. Maybe, if he were to write to her parents--but no, you couldn't do that. There was honor among kids. You couldn't betray that.

And for a while--he took out a cigarette and lit it--he had thought she was getting herself into trouble with that Frank Burdette. No. Nothing like that could happen. Frank was too nice a guy. And he had a wife and kid, and that kind of thing just didn't happen. Besides, he knew better now--after the way she had demonstrated, in the car, her ardent regard for him.

Still, it was too bad Joyce couldn't graduate. After all, what could her aunt do to her? Nothing. She'd just yell a little and then go to the school, and yell some more, and then Joyce would be back in and she'd graduate. Why couldn't she face the consequence of what she'd done? But then, there was always something a little funny about Joyce. Not that it made any difference with him, Tony.

You had to take the bad with the good in another person, and things couldn't always be your way.

Then he indulged himself in a moment of tender dreaming about Joyce--about the fact that she was his girl and everything was going to be all right.

He tossed away his cigarette, then, seeing the spark still glowing on the lawn, got up from the bench and stepped on the butt. Then he went into the house.

9 ~ Flight

Even the single crisis Joyce had feared she easily managed to evade by a quick fabrication. She had been terrified that her aunt would insist on attending the graduation exercises. But her aunt's interest was not really that deep. When Joyce told Priscilla that she had decided not to participate in the commencement exercises, the older woman had been more than pleased at the assurance she would not have to cope with that additional burden.

Priscilla Taylor was not a lazy woman, but a tired one. The comfortable income her brother provided in return for her care of Joyce was not enough to make up for the life which had somehow slipped by her, but it did ease the struggle to maintain the struggle. Once Priscilla Taylor had harbored a desire to have a life of her own, a husband of her own, a home of her own. Now, the money provided by her brother was an excuse for abandoning the desire, and she had reached the age where she had convinced, herself that she preferred things as they were.

Joyce never understood this mechanism--but she regarded its effects as all to the good.

At the Courier she had progressed. At first tentatively, and later because it had proved practical, Frank had given her minor assignments to fulfill. Once, when Lew Myron had 'phoned in sick, he had sent her in Lew's stead to cover a meeting of the Community Welfare Society, and her tense anxiety to satisfy had resulted in a more than routine story on the normally tedious.