The Banana Split Affair (10 page)

“Well, you know
us
now!” giggled Shelley, Slade’s girl friend.

“Yeah, but you’re not in school anymore,” Slade commented with disdain before disappearing back into the garage. Susan was surprised by his attitude toward her, but Shelley seemed not to notice. She continued stacking glasses, humming a tuneless melody.

This is going to be a long night, Susan thought with a sigh. I have a feeling that no matter how hard I try to mix with these people, I really have very little in common with them. I guess being liked by a lot of people simply isn’t as important to me as it is to Chris. Hanging around with a bunch of people you don’t even like seems like an awful waste of time to me, even if the payoff is having every important kid at school wave at you in the corridors.

Susan was relieved when the other party guests started to arrive. Once the living room was full of people, it would be that much easier for her to hide. She recognized more faces than she had expected, simply because these were the juniors and seniors whom
everyone
knew. Team captains, club presidents, student officers, class clowns. One thing was certain: Whether she was able to recognize them or not, they all knew who she was. Chris Pratt was better known around school than Susan had ever expected. But instead of feeling flattered or important when everyone greeted her by her name and a few words of small talk, she felt as if she were living in a small town where everyone knew everything about her mat there was to know. Not only were there no
new
people for Chris to meet at these parties; there was little room for privacy.

Or individuality. One of the first things Susan noticed as flocks of kids came into Slade’s living room laughing and chattering and ready to have a good time was that everyone dressed the same, wore their hair the same, and used the same expressions as everybody else. It was as if some unacknowledged standard existed and to stray very far away from it was unthinkable. Fortunately, Chris had taken extra care in advising her on what to wear that night. Otherwise Susan would have felt extremely out of place.

Once people started arriving regularly, someone turned on a stereo. The sound was so loud that it was impossible to talk to anyone. That was just fine with Susan. She grabbed a handful of pretzels and leaned against a chair, hoping no one would notice her

“Hey, Chris, how ‘bout a dance?” Richard came in from the kitchen. His crooked grin and flushed cheeks gave away the fact that he had already started drinking. As he leaned close to her and grabbed her hands, there was no doubt in Susan’s mind. Richard’s breath reeked of alcohol.

“Not right now, thanks,” she yelled over the noise. “I think I’ll just watch everybody else for a while.”

“Aw, don’t be such a wet blanket.” Refusing to take no for an answer, Richard pulled her away from the safety of her chair and dragged her out to the center of the dance floor. Then she had no choice but to start moving to the music, copying what all the others were doing.

It wasn’t long before Richard leaned over and said, “Hey, hey, little girl! Ready for a drink yet?”

Susan’s immediate reaction was to say, “No, thanks.” But she remembered her sister’s technique of pretending to get drunk along with all the other kids. She felt stupid, but there was no other way out. Not unless she wanted to start an argument with Richard. And Chris would never forgive her if she started giving her friends a hard time while she was playing the Chris role.

So she smiled at Richard flirtatiously and said, “Sure. I thought you’d never ask!”

“I like your style.” He grinned back at her. “What would you like me to get you?”

“Oh, uh ...” Susan stopped dancing for a few seconds until she could think of an answer. “Don’t you bother now. Why don’t you find some cute girl to dance with and I’ll go browse around the kitchen on my own and see what I can find.”

“Okay. If you insist.” Before she had a chance to say another word, Richard had run off the dance floor to retrieve one of the other girls in their class.

Nothing like loyalty, thought Susan as she made her way through the crowd of gyrating dancers. But it’s just as well. Maybe I’ve even managed to dump Richard for the rest of the evening.

She ran into Shelley in the kitchen once again. This time she was rinsing out glasses in the sink. Susan was relieved to see a friendly face. While Slade’s girl friend was not the kind of girl whose company she would ordinarily seek out, she seemed much kinder than many of the other kids at the party. Or maybe she was just working too hard to have time to act stuck-up.

“Hi, Shelley.”

“Oh, hi, Chris. Would you like something to drink? I’ve sort of been made unofficial bartender”

“Just a Coke, please.” Susan was afraid that Shelley would give her a hard time about not drinking liquor, but she simply nodded and got a bottle out of the refrigerator

“Thanks, Shelley.” Susan accepted the glass from her “Gee, aren’t you even going to get a chance to go out to the party and have a good time?”

Shelley laughed softly and went back to washing dishes. “I’m afraid I’m not much for parties. Not this kind, anyway. Oh, Slade likes to get drunk in front of all his friends and show off. But I don’t even know these people. I’m just as happy to hide here in the kitchen and get some of the work done.”

Susan was surprised at how gentle and sweet Shelley was. She even looked soft and vulnerable, with her plump arms and pale wavy hair.

“Shelley,” Susan asked cautiously, leaning against the kitchen counter and staring into her glass of Coke, “please don’t take this the wrong way, but doesn’t it bother you to hang out with a bunch of kids you have nothing in common with?”

Shelley laughed again and shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s what Slade wants. I just go along.”

For a minute Susan felt sorry for the fair baby-faced girl up to her elbows in duty dishwater. But then she realized that what she was doing—and what Chris was doing—was the exact same thing. Just going along rather than making waves to please somebody else. In Shelley’s case, it was her boyfriend. In Chris’s case, it was a bunch of kids whom she called her friends. Some of them were nice enough, but some of them, like Richard Collier and some of the others who said hello to her in the hall at school but seemed to have no time for her at a party like this, were not even worth talking to.

But Chris had managed to accept that that was just a part of life. And now it turned out that this girl, Shelley, felt the same way.

Maybe it’s me, thought Susan with a frown. Maybe I’m the one who’s so hard to get along with. Maybe I really am some kind of misfit. She decided to give Richard Collier another chance. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. It was possible that no one had ever taken the time to talk to him, to find out what he was really thinking about. She said good-bye to Shelley, then went back into the living room, determined to make a real effort getting to know Richard better

Susan found him dancing with one of the sophomore girls on the school’s drill team, an exceptionally pretty girl with a perky nose and waist-length blond hair. He was acting as if he had had a few more drinks. Undaunted, Susan went over to him and tapped him on the shoulder

“Oh, hiya, Babes. Want to cut in?” he leered at her. The blond girl ignored her and just went on dancing.

“Not exactly.” She smiled at him pleasantly. “I was wondering if you and I could go someplace a little quieter and talk.”

“Talk? What about? There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“Oh, no. Of course not. To tell you the truth, I was just thinking how little we really know about each other. I decided it would be nice if you and I spent some time getting to know each other better”

“Sure!” Richard’s face lit up. “Anything you say, Babes!”

As Richard followed her off the dance floor, leaving behind an indignant girl standing with her hands on her hips, Susan called over her shoulder, “Why don’t we find a place to sit down in the dining room? It’s much quieter there.”

“I have a better idea. How about my car?”

“Your car?” she asked, uncertain.

“Sure. It’s quiet and pretty warm and it’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better without a bunch of nosy kids bothering us.” He grinned at her in a funny way, draping his arm around her shoulders the way he had in school that first day of the switch.

“Oh. I guess you’re right. Okay.”

A few minutes later Susan found herself in the backseat of Richard’s car. Her hands were thrust in her pockets to keep them from getting cold. Richard kept looking at her expectantly, as if he were waiting for her to say something.

“So, Richard, tell me: What kinds of things do you like to do when you’re not in school?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just hang around, I guess. Hey, are your hands cold?”

“A little. I’m okay. I mean do you like to read or watch TV or play sports? ...”

“It’s silly to keep them in your pockets when I’ve got two hands that are perfectly warm. And a lot bigger than yours.”

He reached for her hands and pulled them out of her pockets. He then held them in his. Susan felt funny, but she supposed she was being silly, just making a big deal about nothing. After all, she had made it obvious her hands were cold. Richard was only trying to be helpful. Wasn’t he?

“So, anyway, Richard, what do you like? ...”

“You know, Chris, I sure don’t know why you’re being so friendly all of a sudden. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve hardly bothered to give me the time of day. And you’ve always known how special I think you are. Boy, I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever helped you decide that you want to know me better sure is a good deal for me!”

Before Susan was even aware of what was going to happen, Richard wrapped his arms around her and started kissing her. It took her a few seconds to regain her composure.

“Richard! Stop it! What do you think you’re doing?” Susan pushed him away as hard as she could.

Richard’s expression was a combination of surprise and anger “Hey, what’s going on here, Chris? Are you playing games with me? Here you give me this big come-on about how you want to get to know me better ...”

“But I
did
! I mean, I
do
!”

“So what did you think we were going to do?”

Susan became so flustered she could hardly speak. “I thought we were going to
talk
to each other! You know, spend some time finding out what kinds of things we like and don’t like ... things like that.”

“Boy, Chris, did you ever miss the boat.” Richard shook his head, looking over at her as if she were some kind of silly child who had just made a mistake.

Susan was tempted to tell him off, to say what kind of person he was. She didn’t often do that kind of thing, but then again, she didn’t often get as furious as she was at that particular moment. But just in time, she remembered that she was supposed to be Chris, not Susan. As angry as she was, she had no right to get mad at one of Chris’s friends. So instead, she gritted her teeth and said, “Richard, since we’re already in your car, why don’t you drive me home?”

“What? And miss some of the party?”

Susan glared at him and sighed. “Good gosh, Richard! It’s the very least you could do! After all, you
did
bring me here!”

“All right, all right.” He scowled. He got the keys out of his pocket and turned on the ignition.

They both remained silent for the entire ride home. It was all Susan could do to mutter a polite “Good-night, Richard. And thanks for the ride!” before jumping out of his car when it pulled up in front of her house.

Susan immediately ran upstairs to Chris’s room. Her twin was lying on her bed daydreaming and listening to the radio. As she heard her sister bounding up the stairs, she called, “Susan! How’d it go? Aren’t you home a little early?”

“Not early enough! Chris, how could you
do
that to me? How could you send me out to a crazy party like that with that horrible Richard?”

“Susan! What happened? You look as if you’re about to start crying! Here, sit down and tell me everything. And calm down! I’ll never be able to understand if you don’t relax.”

Susan sat down on the edge of her sister’s bed and told her the whole story. All about how uncomfortable she had felt at the party, how she had felt that what she was doing was no different from what poor Shelley was doing, hiding in the kitchen and doing all the work for the party, how Richard had purposely “misunderstood” what she had said to him about getting to know him better

“It was a terrible experience!” she moaned when she had finished. “The whole thing was horrible, from start to finish. How could you let that happen to me?”

Chris put her arm around her twin sympathetically. “I’m sorry you had such a rough time,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. “I told you those parties were dreadful. And what happened with Richard ... Well, you can be sure I’ll take care of him, all right, just as soon as I go back to being Chris!” She hugged her sister “Why didn’t you just slug him, Sooz? And you could have given him one for me, too!”

Susan laughed in spite of herself. Somehow she couldn’t imagine hitting Richard Collier. Although the more she thought about it, the more she regretted not having thought of it sooner

“Oh, Chris, I didn’t want to do anything to get your friends mad at you. I didn’t think I had the right.”

“I know. And I appreciate your being so honorable. But next time—if there ever is a next time—feel free to act on what you really feel. Oooh, I can’t wait until I’m Chris again!”

The two girls leaned back against the wall, relaxed and in much better humor “Boy, Chris, I don’t know how you do it. There’s something to be said for being a wallflower.”

“You’re no wallflower,” Chris assured her. “Let’s just say you’re a bit more discriminating than I am. Maybe a bit smarter, too.”

“Well,” Susan sighed. “What’s done is done. All I can do is hope that nothing like that ever happens to me again.”

“And all I can do is hope that I’m open enough to learn something from all this. But right now, why don’t you and I go downstairs and stuff ourselves? I’m pretty sure I noticed a half gallon of chocolate almond chip ice cream in the freezer.”