Contrary Pleasure (20 page)

“The odds are they won’t. Even if they do, we can think of something
afterward,” Bob said.

Norma was looking at Bob. She took his hand, lacing her fingers in his.
“I’m game, darling.”

“I’ll tell my people I’m going up there with you,” Clyde said. “To help.”

“And my folks will be glad I’m getting energetic,” Bob said.

They all looked at Ellen. She felt their excitement. “I don’t think I
want to do that,” she said primly.

“Don’t
you
go chicken,” Norma said sharply.

Ellen looked down and she knew she was blushing. It made her feel young
and stupid. “But I just don’t want to.”

“Good God, you’ll be chaperoned,” Norma said. “Robert and Norma,
professional chaperones. Protect your loved ones. Come on, kid. Don’t be like
that. It’s a wonderful idea.”

“Don’t go chicken on us, Ellen,” Bob said.

Ellen fiddled with her watch strap. She knew they were all looking at
her. She didn’t want to look back at them. Her knees felt weak. She let out a
long sigh. “Well… okay, then.”

Clyde patted her back and said, “Good gal.” Norma reached across the
table and shook hands ceremoniously with her.

Bob grinned and got up. “I’ll phone first,” he said. He was gone about
three minutes and came back and made a circle of thumb and middle finger,
beaming. Clyde left and came back in about the same length of time, making the
same gesture. Norma did the same, but her call took longer. They all looked at
Ellen, and Clyde got out so that she could get out from her position against
the wall.

“Well, here goes so much nothing,” she said. She smiled but it felt
stiff. She went back and dug a dime out of her purse and used the wall phone. “Mother.
This is Ellen. Mother, can I stay overnight please with Norma
Franchard
? Yes. Norma. On Poplar Crescent. No, I don’t have
to because I’ve got nearly everything I need with me and I can borrow pajamas
from Norma. What do you mean, Mother? I certainly wasn’t aware that I was
sounding funny, I assure you. Of course not, Mother. No, Mother. All right.
Thanks. Yes, I will. What? Oh, no, I’ve eaten already. I was hungry. Yes, I
will. All right. Goodbye, Mother.” She hung up. It would have been so easy if her
mother had said no. That would have ended it right there. And it was certainly
almost inevitable that her mother would think of some other instructions or
advice or something and call the
Franchards
and then
things would really be messy. She went slowly back to the table. If her mother
had said no, then it wouldn’t be her fault. And then nothing could be done
about it.

She was at the booth and Clyde, standing there, waiting to let her in,
said, “Well?”

“Gee, I’m awful sorry but she said I couldn’t.”

“I thought I heard you thanking her,” Clyde said suspiciously. “What were
you thanking her for.”

“That was sort of sarcasm, I guess.”

They were all looking at her oddly as she slid in to sit by the wall.
“What was the reason you can’t?” Norma asked.

“She just said I couldn’t. You know how they are. You don’t have to look
at me like that. I tried, didn’t I?”

Bob Rawls sighed. “Okay, my lamb. You tried. Anyway, it was a thought.
Where does that leave us?”

Norma’s expression was unpleasant as she looked across at Ellen. “It
leaves us minus one gal. Who else do you know, Clyde?”

“If Ellen can’t go, then it’s out,” Clyde said.

“I think that was kind of stinking,” Ellen said to Norma.

All the good feeling of the day was gone. The excitement and daring of
the idea had quickened them, and it had all gone flat, and Norma was being
bitchy. Ellen felt as if the gulf between her and the three of them had
widened. She was going away to school in the fall. Clyde, Bobby, and Norma had
had one year away at school. She felt that Clyde, too, was annoyed with her,
even though he had voiced his loyalty.

Ellen looked at her wristwatch. “There’s one thing we could do,” she
said, lowering her voice.

“A fast hot game of scrabble?” Norma asked icily.

“It’s early. And it’s only twenty-five miles. We could all drive up and
then Clyde could bring me back and then we could drive out in the morning. And…
well, leave you and Bobby there, Norma.”

Bobby looked a bit uncomfortable but Norma’s expression changed. She
leaned over and patted Ellen’s hand. “
Dahling
, you
make delightful sense. And then you’ll be at your house to cover for me in case
she who
brung
me up should phone.”

“If she phones before I get home, you’re on your own, gal,” Ellen said.

“A calculated risk.”

“I don’t much like it,” Bobby said. “Suppose the four of us got caught.
Okay, we could bluff. You know. Just having a happy young time. But if it’s
just you and me up there, Norma, and we get caught, all kinds of hell are going
to break loose.”

“And you’ll have to marry me, won’t you?” The ice was back in Norma’s
voice. “Does that distress you, dear? Or are you reminded of that old yuk about
catching a streetcar.”

“I didn’t mean anything like that,” Bobby said defensively.

“Then show a little more enthusiasm, dear. You’re not exactly
flattering.”

“Knock it off, you two,” Clyde said.

Ellen, conscious of the tension, was glad to be able to change the mood.
She saw two high-school boys come in the door of the place. “Dig those cool
threads,” she said, in a parody of a local disc jockey who had a massive
teen-age following. The boys were about sixteen, slight, sallow, dark-haired
boys. They were dressed in their best. Pants cuffs so narrow they were fitted
with zippers, pale jackets with lapels that rolled all the way down to the
first button below the natural waistline, jackets that were tailored snugly
across lean hips, shirts with tremendous collars dwarfing the black string
ties. Their hair was long above the ears, brushed back. They went to the
counter, moving with ultimate casualness, slow sophistication, and, before
sitting on the stools, looked around the place with slow, complete disdain.
Norma half stood up to see them over the back of the booth and then sat back
down with an immediate attack of giggles. Ellen caught the infection. Bobby and
Clyde started laughing. Ellen saw one of the boys look around at them, his face
reddening. She tried not to look at them. She hoped they would think they were
laughing at something else.

And Ellen was aware, even as she laughed, that had Clyde and Bobby been
younger, were they still in high school, it was entirely possible that they
would dress in a way that, though not as extreme, would show the influence of
this latest fad, this rebirth of the prehistoric
zoot
suit, this sartorial derivative of what they now all seemed to call healthy
music. But Clyde and Bobby were lost and gone into the Cornell costume,
moccasins and white socks and flannels and
padless
shoulders, a uniform that seemed derived in equal parts from Dartmouth and Princeton.
She recognized one of the boys and knew she had seen the other one around. The
one she knew was Jack
Sheddler
, and she remembered
that his father worked at the mill, had some sort of job in the office.

There was a derisive unpleasant note in Clyde’s braying laughter, and
Ellen put her hand on his arm to silence him. The young boys looked very
uncomfortable, and Ellen was no longer amused.

“Please,” Ellen said to Clyde.

He pulled his arm away and leaned across the table and said to Bobby, “A
rolling stone gathers no moss.”

“A stitch in time saves nine,” Norma added. The two boys got up from the
booth, Clyde carrying a half glass of coke.

“What were you saying?” Ellen asked Norma.

“Oh, it’s a kind of a code. Coining phrases. Just watch. This will kill you.”

As they walked behind the two boys on the stools, Bobby pretended to trip
Clyde. Clyde stumbled awkwardly and the half glass of coke jetted onto the back
of the brightest of the two jackets, the salmon-colored one the
Sheddler
boy wore.

Clyde turned around and roared at Bobby, “What the hell you tripping me
for?”

“I didn’t trip you. You fell over your own big feet.”

Clyde turned to the two boys. They had turned around. The
Sheddler
boy looked as if he were close to tears. Clyde
said, “All right, you wise guys. Which one of you tripped me?”

Ellen got quickly out of the booth and walked to the door and went out.
She turned instinctively toward the jeep and then turned away from it and began
walking down the shoulder of the highway, remembering after she had gone fifty
yards that her racket and case were still in the jeep, but not wanting to go
back after it. She kept thinking of the way the
Sheddler
boy had looked. It was funny the way they had come in and looked around, but
maybe they had had that
sneery
look because they were
maybe shy about the new clothes. Like the time her mother had taken those
stitches in the front of her formal and she had gone into the girl’s room and
cut the stitches and pulled the thread out and then gone back out onto the floor,
walking more boldly because she felt shy. This day had certainly dropped dead.
This day was a mess. The
Sheddler
boy would have
recognized her. Big deal. That Delevan girl with her college friends. Big older
guys who threw coke on your new threads just for kicks. She felt ashamed. And
she felt as if, all of a sudden, she didn’t like Clyde anymore. Or Norma or
Bobby. Or anybody she could think of.

She heard the feet, the sound of running coming behind her, and she
walked on, not looking around, neither quickening nor slowing her pace. Clyde
took her arm roughly and pulled her around. His face looked heavier and
thicker, the way it always did when he got angry.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“As soon as you let go of my arm, I’m going home.”

“What’s the matter with you anyway?”

“You know what the matter is.”

“That gag? You’ve got no sense of humor. You should have heard Norma
laugh.”

“Norma likes a lot of things I don’t like.”

“What do those punk kids mean to you? Are they your high-school
boyfriends or something?”

“I just don’t think it was funny.”

He began to look uncertain. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly a riot. So
what?”

“So it was cruel.”

“Cruel! My God, I was doing the human race a favor. Those punks, they’re…
unnatural.” The jeep swung off the road onto the shoulder close to them, Bobby
at the wheel.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“She didn’t like the gag,” Clyde said.

“Get in, honey,” Norma said.

“I’m going home,” Ellen said.

Clyde sighed heavily. He said, “I give up, Ellen. You win. It wasn’t a
good thing to do and I’m sorry about it.”

She looked at him searchingly. “Do you mean that?”

“Of course I mean it. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. I shouldn’t
have done it. We shouldn’t have done it. Right, Bobby?”

“Right!”

“Well… okay,” Ellen said dubiously. Bobby and Norma stood up and got over
into the back. Clyde got behind the wheel. Ellen went around and got in beside
him. Clyde found a hole in traffic and wrenched the jeep out onto the highway
again.

“We’ve got to make a grocery stop, old pal, old buddy,” Bobby said.

“Are you going to stay up there?” Ellen asked.

“She talked me into it,” Bobby said. “She plain old ordinary talked me
into it. I’ve got no sales resistance at all.”

After they picked up the bag of food, Ellen found that she was in a
better mood again. They sang on the way up to the camp. Dusk was on the way.
The hills were blue. Clyde had a good, steady baritone.

When Brock was on his way back to the cottage to pick up Betty, he found
himself hoping that Mrs. Yost would not be there, and that Betty would be the
Betty of tennis court and pool. He had rechecked with Bess on the use of the
car, told his mother he would be out for the evening, changed to good slacks
and jacket. The sun had burned him just enough so that he was conscious of the
scratch of his clothes against his body. There was a good soreness in his
muscles, and the skin of his face felt tight.

The sun was nearly gone when he walked across the grass to the cottage.
He could see a foursome holing out on the eighteenth, standing in the
long-shadowed, grass-
odored
quiet, standing in an
almost devotional patience for the cramped and measured click, the long, white
run of the ball toward the hole while putter swayed in anguished guidance and far
out on the rolling fairway the next group waited and swung the impatient
flashing clubs at the inevitable dandelions. On the club terrace the clinked
and
chittered
cocktail throng made insect sounds
while waiters moved among them. And a woman’s laugh was like something silvery
and wild that flashed quickly through the long tree shadows.

She was sitting where her mother had been and she got up as he came
toward her. She wore a white, fleecy skirt and a black sweater and green beads.
In tennis clothes and in her swim suit there had been a suggestion of ranginess
about her body, an illusively rawboned look. But dressed she looked softer,
more feminine. She looked older and more poised. She looked very special.

“Mother left a few minutes ago,” she said, as though she had been able to
read his mind.

He felt awkward with her. “Got any suggestions?”

“This is your town.”

“Well, it used to be. I’ve been away.”

“Do you want a coke or a beer or something while we decide?”

“A beer would go fine,” he said too heartily. “Can I help?”

“No thanks. You sit down. I’ll bring them right out.” Another chair had
been brought out. He sat and waited, heard the chunk of the refrigerator door.
She came out with a tall glass in each hand and he stood up and took one and
lighted her cigarette and his own and they sat down and sipped, and smiled at
each other.