The Orphan (18 page)

But the nights are getting colder. Soon it will be snowing, and I will be restricted in my movements, perhaps even feel like hibernating. These frustrating feelings are part of the growth process, and they will be dealt with in time. Meanwhile, I must try to get closer to Charles’s life and partake more of his experiences. Perhaps in this way I can assuage the irritation that runs in my veins. I notice, in a more objective mood now, that the power to control creatures does not yet extend to people, at least not for me. I extended a feeling of attraction one night to a late walker along the highway, but it seems to have little effect other than to make him nervous. He hurries faster, but does not otherwise react. The power does work on all beasts and is a convenience and some consolation in an otherwise frustrating time.

In honor of the Baileys’ party, Charles had bought a pair of black wool pants, a belt, and a white shirt and clip-on bow tie. He had to be content to put blacking on his work shoes, running out of money short of a new pair of shoes. But, looking at himself in the old-gold rimmed mirror in his bedroom, he thought he looked not half bad. At least everything fit. He had not thought that it might be cold, and that he would have to walk more than a mile to the Bailey’s farm with nothing to wear over his white shirt except an old jacket he had been given by Douglas to work in. The evening was cold, but he could not bear to put the old dirty brown jacket over his clean clothes, as it smelled of sweat and manure. He decided to run most of the way there and back, trying to preserve a balance between getting all sweaty and getting frozen. Mrs. Stumway was sitting in her rocker in the parlor as she usually did, reading by lamplight with her little elliptical spectacles on. She looked over them at Charles as he sauntered through the dining room on his way out.

“Charles,” she said loudly. “How old are you?”

“Twelve, I think,” Charles said rather self-consciously.

“You’re a big twelve, then,” she said. “Fact, you look bigger than when you first came here.” She looked back again. “Young kids. Never saw one grow
that
fast.” And her voice subsided into an unintelligible mumble.

Charles continued to stand just outside the circle of lamplight.

“Well, go on,” Mrs. Stumway said, shaking her white curls that stuck out under the aviator’s helmet. “You’re pretty in your new clothes.”

Charles grinned. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said and dashed out into the frosty night.

Although he lost his bow tie twice, he eventually arrived at the Bailey farm, panting and straightening himself out while he stood outside the white gate and looked at the big house with electric lights shining like a city hotel. He stood for a minute getting his breath and thinking about what might happen this evening, and then with a final look and a deep breath he strode up the front walk and knocked on the big white door with the window panels on both sides of it.

He stood in the glare of the porch light, feeling like an actor on a stage when the door opened and Mrs. Bailey, plump and beautiful, smiled at him in a bright and welcoming way.

“Come in, Charles,” she said, putting one hand on his back and guiding him into the hallway. “May I,” she said, and then noticing he had no coat, passed over it. “It is rather brisk out tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Charles said, walking ahead slowly as she lightly pushed him toward the sound of conversation he heard in the living room. “It’s an invigorating night for a run, I mean a walk,” Charles said, grinning.

“Here is our young hero,” Mrs. Bailey said to the room full of people who seemed suddenly to Charles to all be strangers. They all turned to look at him while conversation stopped for a moment.

“Happy Halloween,” Charles said brightly, smiling.

And then they came unfrozen and began to take on familiar proportions and faces. Here was Betty coming forward to welcome him, her beautiful oval face more perfect than usual, her hair absolutely gleaming like polished mahogany in the electric light, her eyes darkened with something, and looking in all at least twenty years old in a party dress that was low cut to emphasize her bust. There were the Portola twins with identical scarlet mouths, semi-formal dresses with flounces around the bottom and daringly open bosoms; there was Carl, Douglas’s brother, and Kick and Carol Jones, and Brenda Gustafson and Paul Holton and even the big, aloof Waldo Wickham. There were others Charles knew less well. Alfred was there in an open shirt with a silk scarf at the throat that Waldo whispered was called an Ascot, and Mr. Bailey in a dark gray pinstripe suit and a silk tie that made him look like a blue jawed gangster, and some other older people Charles did not know at all. He soon felt at home among the school friends and with the comforting ministrations of Mrs. Bailey who saw that he got a Coca-Cola with ice cubes in it and was shown where a table full of strange delicacies awaited his pleasure in the dining room. Charles held down the awe he felt at the dangling crystals of the chandelier in the dining room, the huge fireplace with brass fire dogs and a lively log fire in the living room, and at the grandeur, glimpsed through the swinging door, of a real electric refrigerator in the kitchen that kept food cold without ice and made ice cubes such as the ones in his Coke. He talked with his friends and moved with mock assurance among this glitter and opulence as if he had been born in a palace and attended school in the Taj Mahal at least. Betty was laughing at his airs, which he was exaggerating for her benefit, and he was not at all displeased to see Alfred turn away from that sight to talk with Waldo who was standing like a curly topped ornamental urn next to the fireplace.

“Now you take these, for instance,” Charles said, a milk bottle lid in his eye for a monocle, “these little devils are fiendish hard to capture.” He held up an hors d’oeuvre shaped like a tiny black cat arched on a cracker.

Betty Bailey laughed delightedly, putting her white, delicate hand on Charles’s shoulder for support, and Charles felt that heaven was not far away.

“Betty,” Alfred Kearny said, suddenly very close and tall. “Hadn’t you better put on some music now? I think some of our guests would like to dance.”

Charles looked narrowly at Alfred’s red silk Ascot which was about at his eye level. “Now here’s something you don’t find every day,” he began, but Alfred turned away abruptly with his hand on Betty’s arm, turning her also from the scene.

Charles had not thought they would dance. It was something he had never seen done in his life except in magazine pictures, and had not the least idea how it might be done. An electric gramophone was started, a large black record put into it, and the music of Glen Gray’s Casa Loma orchestra filled the living room where the rugs had been removed so people could dance if they wished. Charles sat in a large overstuffed chair with Paul Holton on one side and Carl Bent on the other watching as Betty and Alfred did graceful steps across the polished oak floor. The Portola twins were dancing, one with Waldo in a very stiff manner, the other with an older man of about twenty who might be Alfred’s brother from the bigness of his ears. The dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, talking brightly, except for Waldo who walked ponderously and silently around the room while the Portola twin smiled up at his double chin as if she were receiving secretly some delightful message.

For the second record, only Alfred and Betty and Fern Portola and Alfred’s brother danced. It was fast, something with a lot of drums in it that the dancers did a lot of gyrating to. Charles felt he might be able to do the slow kind, but he knew he would trample on his partner in a dance like that one.

Then Mrs. Bailey came sailing into the room, smiling with a frown, as Charles thought of it, looking at her expression. She stopped in front of the three boys sitting in a row and looked mock forlorn.

“Wouldn’t one of you handsome men like to dance with me?”

Charles looked up at her, the glittery dress with the deep bosom open, the pearls in a triple string, the smooth rouged cheeks and hair piled up on her head, the eyes so much like Betty’s, and he thought, well, this has got to be done.

“Yes, Mrs. Bailey, I would,” he said, getting up and making sure his tie was still on. “But I don’t know much about it.”

“Nothing to it, darling,” Mrs. Bailey said, taking his right hand and putting it around her waist. “I’m sure such a courageous and gallant young man as you will learn it in no time.”

Charles moved stiffly at first, his left hand holding Mrs. Bailey’s arm out straight while he looked down between their bodies at his feet. As they moved away into the middle of the room, he looked up and caught sight of the large breasts in front of him and realized that he might have been looking down the woman’s dress as well as at his feet. He smiled into Mrs. Bailey’s eyes and determined not to look down again. She guided him quite as a dance teacher would, leading him, forcing him to move more loosely, catching him gently when he got off balance, and not once getting her feet under his, so that at the end of the record, Charles felt he had done very well.

When the music stopped, Mrs. Bailey gently disengaged herself, walked back with Charles to his former seat where the two other boys were glowering at him, and thanked him for the dance. She murmured that he was really very good and certainly should ask Betty or one of the other girls to dance. Then she excused herself back to the kitchen where, she said, Millie was getting some special snacks ready.

Charles was about to ask Betty to dance the next slow record when Flossie Portola dashed over to stand in front of him, looking expectant. Charles could not be less than a gentleman and asked Flossie for that dance while he heard Carl’s faint “Geezus H. Crise,” behind him.

Dancing with Flossie was considerably different from dancing with the older woman. Flossie was more Charles’s size, supple and slender and full of bounce. Charles found himself stumbling and said apologetically, “I’m just a beginning dancer, Flossie,” after mashing the end of her shoe under his foot.

“But you’re learning so fast,” Flossie said, moving her body in its flame red dress close up to his. “The best way to learn moving together is to get the hip-lead,” she said, pressing her abdomen against Charles.

In alarm, Charles tried to back away as his face began to flush, but Flossie held on, gently but firmly.

“Now you move from the hips down,” she was saying, but Charles was feeling very hot and choking as he tried to keep stumbling around the room while Flossie Portola moved her body against his trying to guide him. She moved away after a minute, laughing softly and extending her arm again in the usual style.

“You’ll get it, Charles,” she said. “You just need practice.”

“Thanks a lot, Flossie,” Charles said, feeling sweaty and suddenly as if his clothes were too tight. “But I think I’d like to try the hip-lead after my feet know what they’re doing.”

That record was the end of the dancing, since the “snack” was ready. Charles thanked Flossie for the dance and retired behind the slouching Carl Bent to stand in line in the dining room. They ate tiny sandwiches with some sort of fish in them, strips of carrot and celery with cheese on them, and finally each had a piece of pumpkin pie which Mrs. Bailey apologized for, remarking that her husband had insisted on something substantial in all the froth. They laughed politely and ate their pie, and then it was time for games. Charles was surprised at the changed atmosphere as they got in a circle on the floor to play spin the bottle.

Mr. and Mrs. Bailey excused themselves and the circle of guests in the flickering light of the fire seemed to change back into school kids again. Even Alfred took on a younger look as they laughed and did the funny forfeits and penalties. Paul Holton spun the Coke bottle, and it pointed at Charles. Paul looked up, a fiendish grin on his face.

“Charles is the victim and must pay the penalty,” Paul said. “And the penalty is,” and he paused for effect, looking around and rubbing his hands together, “that he must kiss Betty’s bare foot.”

There was giggling and snorting around the circle as Betty took off her dancing slipper and the knee-length silk stocking. Charles crawled forward in the firelight until he was at Betty’s foot, held out with its painted toenails to his face. He took it in his right hand, feeling it warm and a bit damp in his palm, and he looked up the smooth leg to where it disappeared beneath her white party dress, and on up to her smimg face, her head inclined to one side as if she were listening while her dark auburn hair fell in a wave to her shoulders, and he lowered his head to plant the kiss on the top of her foot as the other players leaned over to watch, and as his lips touched her instep, he quickly drew a fingernail along the sole of her bare foot. She leaped, squealing, something wet hit Charles a drop on his ear and he heard Alfred curse.

“Look at what you did, you damned idiot,” Alfred was saying, hacking away from the circle with his rear stuck out.

“Alfred,” Betty said, shocked. “It was an accident. Don’t talk like that.”

But Alfred was more than a little angry. He had been leaning over Betty’s shoulder, not being a game player at that point, holding a Tom Collins that Mr. Bailey had mixed for him. When Betty had leaped up from the foot tickling, her shoulder struck the Tom Collins, firing it directly back at its holder and wetting him from chest to knees. The stain was particularly embarrassing, as it was mostly concentrated on his light blue trousers at crotch level. He went on cursing and dabbing at himself until Betty insisted in stern tones that he leave the room because he was spoiling the game, and he shouldn’t have been drinking that stuff anyway. Alfred left, stamping up the stairs, looking back meaningfully at Charles who still sat in the middle of the circle smiling.

After the bottle game came Post Office, a game suggested by Fern Portola with much giggling and whispering to her twin. Brenda Gustafson said she thought it was silly, but she was overruled and a post office was set up in the darkened stairway alcove with the sliding doors to the parlor partly closed. Charles had never played this game either and was mystified to see Carl go back of the doors in the dark and call out, “Letter for Carol Jones.”