Trouble With the Truth (9781476793498) (17 page)

“Nobody to watch us.”

“It's a funny feeling.”

“I don't feel funny,” I said. “I feel good.”

“Let's go for a swim,” he suggested. He offered me a hand, I grabbed it, letting him pull me to my feet, and we ran into the water, exchanging lilting laughs about how cold it felt.

“You have to move around.” He swam a small, clumsy circle around me. I wished I liked him more. Even the way he swam was uninteresting. But he was sixteen and a boy. And he had to have noticed that I was a girl by now.

“I'm really cold,” I called. “Let's get out.”

Slowly, he followed me back to our towels on the sand. I hugged one around my shoulders, shivering perceptibly. “Sit down,” I invited. “We can warm up together.”

He dropped beside me, his bent left leg touching my right one. I moved my toweled shoulder under his armpit. He put his arm around me.

“You know, I think you're flirting with me,” I said.

“Kind of, I guess.” He moved his face to face mine. Then he moved it closer, until his two eyes, shining in the dim air, merged into one round hollow as I went cross-eyed. His arm on my shoulders tightened.

“Let's talk some more,” I said, jerking my head to the other side.

He loosened his grip. “I sure had you all wrong.”

“Why?” I was suddenly afraid that something had gone awry, and I had reverted to the status of the type of girl one doesn't flirt with.

“'Cause all along, at the place, you were so quiet and everything—I thought you were just Ben Briard's kid sister. I didn't think of you like
this
.”

Relieved, I stretched out my legs straight in front of us, and crossed them at the ankles. “That was the impression I wanted to make. On purpose. After what I'd been through.”

“How do you mean?”

“At the last place we lived, it was so sad…” I kept talking, while I tried to think of what I had been through. “You know, it's like most kids that haven't been through anything always try to look as if they have. People who've really been through things want to look as if they haven't.”

“I guess I see what you mean,” said Arthur. “What was the sad thing that happened where you lived before?”

“I don't really like to talk about it. It was an unhappy love affair. Several of them.” I swallowed hard, as if to contain the pain.

“Gosh.”

“Yes, one boy tried to commit suicide. He was a senior.”

“You mean, because you didn't love him?”

“Well, I thought I did, for a while. But there were so many others. Of course, I'm over it all now. But I've made up my mind not to fall in love so quick again.”

“I don't blame you.”

“No matter how attractive a boy is.”

“But you
are
over it. You sure?”

“Oh, positive.”

He put his arm around me again. “Now you just want to have fun,” he said throatily.

I stood abruptly, accidentally banging my elbow into his chest. “That's it. Now I just want to have fun!” I started running back into the water. “Last one in's a rotten egg!”

He galloped after me, and lunged at me, as I belly-whopped away from his outstretched hands, beneath the surface. I breathed in and swallowed at least a pint, and came up to see the shimmering outline of him, like a white walrus, zigzagging toward me fast.

I splattered to shore again, yelling, “I forgot how cold it was!”

He followed me out; his arms drooped despairingly at his sides. “It's not
that
cold.”

“No?” I said between clenched teeth. “I must have caught a chill. Or maybe some disease. I hope it's not catching.”

He stopped a yard away from me, his feet churning into the sand. “Gosh, I hope not, Lucresse. I really like you.”

I picked up my towel and huddled in it again. “And I thought we'd have so much fun tonight.”

“So did I,” he said, despondent.

Felicity's expression, “
Oy gevalt
,” went through my mind. If only he could say something less affable and dull than “so did I.” I was convinced that he didn't understand the rules of the game I had invented especially for him—even though I myself was making them up as I went along. Had he been more perceptive, and experienced, at least in his imagination—which, after all, even Ben said I excelled at—we'd have been transported partners in lovemaking by now. Had it rained, drenching us in our closeness, had a police car's spotlight then exposed us with elongated shadows across the beach, there would be an excuse for his acquiescence to the idea of a disease. As it was, he had failed me.

“The best laid plans…” I said philosophically, misquoting one of my father's favorite poets. “I'd better go home now.”

When we got to my house, all the lights were on in the living room, and I stopped Arthur at the driveway. “I feel better now,” I said brightly. “And it's still early. Let's take a walk around the block and let our swimsuits dry more.”

“If you want…if you're sure you're all right.”

“Some people say the best thing for a chilly dizzy spell is to keep moving,” I took him by the arm and walked briskly away from the house.

“Were you dizzy, too?”

“Just for a minute. I'm fine now. Really.”

“But maybe…”

“It's just that I'm more sensitive than most people,” I said quickly.

“To what?”

“To everything.” I pulled his arm around my waist and kept in step with his jerky stride. “To night air, and everything.”

I walked him around the block once, and then around the one in the opposite direction, making a figure-eight hike. I told him he walked very well and that most boys as young as he didn't appreciate the
appeal of walking well. And I figured another half hour had gone by.

At our driveway, for the third time, he put his free hand at the other side of my waist and said, “I really like you, Lucresse.”

“Then you'll call me tomorrow, to see how I feel.”

“But you said you were all right.”

“You'll call anyway,” I said, determined.

“If you want me to.”

I left him and went in. The lights, still shining, were illuminating a game of two-handed solitaire with one kibitzer. My father and Ben were the players; Fred was watching. None of them knew who was winning. I knew they were waiting for me. Ben stared at me angrily.

“Did you have a nice time?” my father and Fred asked in one voice.

“Oh, very nice. I hope you weren't waiting up for me. I might have been much later.”

“Where did you and the deep Arthur go?” Ben demanded.

“Swimming, of course. He's a wonderful swimmer,” I said with a mysterious smile.

“I took a walk down by the beach not more than a half hour ago, and you weren't there,” Ben said.

“
We
took a walk, too, after we were through swimming. Daddy, how could you let him try to spy on me that way?”

“I wouldn't order either one of you
not
to take a walk,” my father said innocently. “I'm glad you had a nice time, Lucresse.”

“It's not fair. And he better not do it again!”

“Oh, do you have another date with deep Arthur?” said Ben sarcastically.

“Naturally. He'll be calling me tomorrow. You'll see.”

“Oh, dear,” Fred said to my father, who said nothing.

“And I have no idea where we'll be going or what we'll be doing,” I continued. “So nobody needs to follow me or wait up for me.” I turned on my heel to go to my room.

“Lucresse!” snapped my father.

I stopped—stricken with the thought that my new woman-of-the-world career was about to be cut short long before its prime.

“Nobody needs to follow you or wait up for you, if you remember one thing.”

“What?”

“What I told you before. That you're a
very
attractive young lady.”

“Oh, that,” I quipped. “Sure.” And suddenly I resented him more than I did Ben. Ben didn't think I was attractive and was only attempting to interfere in my life and dominate me. If my father
did
think I was attractive, why wasn't he trying to protect me from the ravishing impulses of the Arthurs and Georges and God-knows-who-elses he believed would be pursuing me? Why wasn't he
there
for me, supporting me and giving me rules and…

I went to my room, determining that it would take several more dates, and much more adultlike serenity about them on my part, to gain my objective. A family of males—dominating or unprotective as they may be—was no blessing to a female intent on magnetizing the attention of other males—males who would value her for who she really was.

Sometimes, when chasing, the chaser gets carried away with his own momentum and doesn't notice when the chased stops running. The chaser passes, the chased starts up again, and the chaser finds that he is the chased. Usually, the original chaser is not aware of the exchange—any more than I realized the exchange of initiative when Arthur called me the next day. I thought he was simply following my suggestion to the letter.

That afternoon, and for several subsequent evenings, we talked a mutually exciting romance during aimless walks, over Cokes, in the emptied playhouse. I drew as near as possible to him as often as possible, but became bored and petulant when his arm would tighten
about my waist. Twice he became breathless and inarticulate, both times stammering, “But I really like you, Lucresse.” “Yes,” I would agree, tenderly pushing him away, and answering, with no explanation for the push, “and I like you too, Arthur.”

Though I came home early each of the evenings, my father, Fred, and Ben took care not to be caught waiting for me. Never had they regularly retired so early. A light was left on for me in the living room, and no one asked me any questions other than the familiar “Did-you-have-a-good-time?” In the morning, Ben even ceased referring to Arthur, who called daily, as “the deep.” I had arrived; my private image of myself had become a reality to them so fast. Would Jen have been so trusting of, or indifferent to, my continence?

The manager of the neighborhood movie house had devised a weekly Saturday night event that had met with wide acceptance among the high school population, not including Ben—a midnight showing of the current film. I had never attended one; it was strictly and especially an attraction for dating pairs. Ben had gone a couple of times and didn't see that the late hour of the showing made the movie shown any more absorbing. Nevertheless, because Toby wanted to, he was going again this Saturday midnight.

“I want to too,” I said. “I'll speak to Arthur about it.”

“I don't know if they let fourteen-year-olds in,” Ben said.

“They'll let me in, if I'm with Arthur.”

“She wouldn't be home until two thirty,” Ben explained to my father, totally demolishing the wall of reserve he'd retired behind concerning my recent activities.

“That
is
late,” my father said.

“But if it doesn't make the picture any different, why should it make my going out any different?” I reasoned.

My father gave his approval, with a suggestion that bordered on an order. “But I suggest that you come home immediately after the show.”

Ben left to get Toby before Arthur came to get me, and at the theater, I made certain that our seats were as far away from theirs as choice permitted. I didn't see Ben again until the show was over and we were all emerging. Then he approached us, with Toby tagging along, holding his hand. Quickly, I took Arthur's hand and riveted my attention to the framed stills in the lobby.

I heard Ben and Arthur exchange hellos, and Ben tapped me between the shoulder blades, hard.

“Oh, hello!” I said in surprise.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

The picture had been about a very poor, beautiful maid (Loretta Young—uniforms by Adrian) who falls in love with the very rich, handsome son of her employers (Robert Taylor—referred to three times by other characters as “the scion of a wealthy industrialist”) and the difficulties (there were four of them) they have in readjusting their social inequality. The theme of the vehicle was that Robert Taylor photographed very well smiling, but that Loretta Young looked best smiling through tears.

“Oh, I thought it was great,” I said.

“You would.”

“Let's go get something to eat,” Toby said.

“Lucresse has to get home.”

“Arthur and I have to meet somebody first,” I said.

Toby yanked Ben's hand. “I want some chili.”

“Who do you have to meet?” Ben probed.

“Nobody you know.” I pulled Arthur into a fast walk. “See you later,” I called from the sidewalk.

“G'bye,” Arthur called weakly as I hurried him on. “Where are we going?”

“I don't know. But I am not going home right now just because he says so. After all, he's only my brother and we're practically twins.”

“He sure does get snotty sometimes. I've noticed that at rehearsals. He's pretty good at acting though.”

“Snotty, that's what he is.”

Arthur put his arm around me. “You're nice.”

“Thank you.”

“I only have four cents left. The tickets got my last buck for this week.”

“So?”

“So the old lady's letter, with dough, won't come till Monday—if she remembers. She's so old she keeps forgetting things. Especially about money that's coming to me. She says she's saving it for me by saving it
from
me.”

“What for?”

“Oh, college, I guess. And so's I'll have dough in my old age, like her and her mother.”

“That's a long time. I can have all the money I want. All I have to do is ask Fred. He works for us, and he and my father are real old too. But not like your grandmother and her mother. They let me do practically anything I want. Which is swell.”