Nancy and Nick (12 page)

We glared at each other. I know if there had been anything handy to throw, I’d have heaved it at Nick. He broke the tension by shifting into first and leaving the intersection. “Where are you going?” I demanded.

“I have no idea.”

We barreled along for a mile or two and I recognized nothing. It began to strike me as very funny, in an enraging sort of way. “Stop at a gas station or something, Nick,” I said. “I’ll have to ask for directions. Wherever we are, I’ve never driven here before.”

Nick turned so fast into the parking lot of a Quik-Stop Store that I’d have fallen off the seat if it weren’t for the seat belt. He jerked to a stop and turned off the engine as if he wanted to snap the key. I looked at him for a minute but he didn’t look at me, and finally I got out of the jeep and went inside for directions. It turned out that we were only six blocks from an entrance to the interstate, so getting home would be easy after all.

Right next to the cash register was an ice cream freezer with a glass lid, so you could look inside at all the goodies and forget your budget and make a spur-of-the-moment buy. I have always found food to be a nice way to solve problems (one reason why I’m an inch larger at the waist than I ought to be) so I decided to buy each of us an ice cream sandwich. If nothing more, it would soothe my aching throat and keep my hands busy.

I climbed back into the jeep with Nick and told him how to get us home. “But there’s no rush. Here, have an ice cream sandwich. It’s so hot tonight they’re already melting.” I gave him a paper napkin the friendly clerk had handed me and began unwrapping mine. Nick took his reluctantly, as if it were a test paper, and let it melt into his napkin.

“Nick?” I said. “What is the matter with you? I thought we were going to have such a good time and I was looking forward to it. You were such fun the other times we got together.” I had more to say but Nick turned his head and looked out his window so I stopped and bit into the ice cream. The chocolate sides tasted like cardboard.

“Listen,” said Nick, irritating me all over again. What did he think I was going to do? Turn deaf? “I … I …” He let out his breath hard, not a sigh so much as a slug of air. “I guess it was cutting my hair. I’ve felt like somebody else since eleven o’clock this morning. I cut it for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. To make an impression on people. To be different from what I really am. To please some dumb college interviewer who probably only does the interviews because he’s not good enough to teach. To please friends of yours I’ve never met, don’t care about, won’t meet again. I felt … I don’t know … I felt sort of open at the back. My Achilles heel, or something.”

My anger felt like flour, sifting. One minute it was a big white lump and the next moment it was gone, drifting away. I tried to think of what to say to tell him I understood, but somehow I wanted to touch him more than speak to him. Only I couldn’t touch him—he was way over on the other side of the jeep, frozen in on himself, and I wasn’t sure how he would feel, being touched. I struggled to find words and none came.

Nick said, “You don’t know what I’ve been through over that hair, Nancy. Since I was thirteen years old, I’ve gotten hassled for not cutting my hair and I know it sounds silly, but that hair mattered.”

I could see how it mattered, but I couldn’t see how it made him rude to dozens of people and unable to dance and unable to be pleasant. I was torn between wanting to hug him and tell him even if he was a dumb turkey with a missing ponytail I was crazy about him, and wanting to lecture him about how rotten he was.

It’s odd how not having the right words can actually hurt. I felt as if I were having appendicitis. In a way I wished I
could
have an attack of it. Then I’d have a really good excuse for leaving the dance and for Nick being surly!

Although it could hardly be an excuse for Nick unless he were the one to have the appendicitis.

By the time I had written off that idea and told myself to lean over and kiss him for confiding in me, Nick had started the jeep and was heading for the interstate.

You couldn’t just go ahead and hug him, could you? I thought, as furious with myself now as I had been with Nick. You had to think about it, and weigh the pros and cons, and deliberate as if it were a presidential debate. When he opened up and said personal things you just sat there like a lump, and he had no way to know what you thought or whether you cared. Now you’ve blown it.

“I understand about your hair,” I said.

The sentence sounded remarkably stupid, five minutes after Nick had referred to his hair. He did not even look at me. I could imagine how much he regretted giving me any explanation at all.

“I mean, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s only hair. Turn left. No, not here, at the red light. The next red light, I’m sorry. Yes, here.”

“It’s
not
only hair,” said Nick.

“Turn again here. Right. Yes, right here, turn right. I know it isn’t only hair, Nick. I understood what you were saying—left here, around that traffic circle when you get to that arrow.”

In his tape-recorded voice, as if he’d flicked a switch to get to it, Nick said, “I’d rather not discuss it any further.”

“Oh, talk like a normal human being, will you?” I snapped.

He left that intersection so fast the tires screamed as if we were braking instead of accelerating. In a moment we were at the apartment and my date, my wonderful date, was over.

Final Fling, I thought. It certainly was.

I got out of the jeep. Nick went up the three flights of stairs as if he were going to prison. I was surprised he didn’t just get in the jeep and drive away. Probably didn’t have the money for a motel and didn’t want to ruin his precious three-piece suit by sleeping in it.

Any other date would have gone home, and I could have unwound by screaming in the closet, or weeping in my pillow, or dancing by myself to records. But this one had to be spending the night with us.

Mother could not have been more astonished to see us home at ten o’clock. She gave us a long look, as if we were a checkbook that she had to balance. “There’s a good movie on,” she said. “Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand. I’ll make some popcorn. We can watch that till bedtime.”

So we sat, silently, watching a very complex movie all of us had seen before. It was the sort of film that makes you sad and full of understanding for two people who will just never match except at the edges, and the edges will always be raw.

I thought about our evening. If I had just had more experience with boys—dated a lot, been popular—I’d have been able to handle Nick. He had been under a lot of pressure, and I shouldn’t have dragged him to a function where things could only get worse. I should have known enough to forget it and go home after that horrendous meal with Chuck and Holly. And the one chance to make things better, in the Quick-Stop parking lot (how unromantic could a place be?), I’d messed up by snapping at him.

The three of us sat chewing popcorn. When you really chew popcorn—instead of crunching it, laughing, reaching for another handful, passing the towel to mop your greasy fingers, laughing about that too—things are pretty bad.

Bedtime was horrible. Mother and I made up the couch and Nick stood there looking as if he were a non-somniac with no sleep requirements. When the lights were out and all the awkward good nights had been said, I quietly shut my bedroom door. I pulled the covers up in spite of the heat, put my head under my pillow, and cried.

W
HEN I WOKE UP
Saturday morning I heard the unfamiliar sounds of a third person in our apartment, shuffling around, and getting up. Everything looks better in the morning. That morning I felt more than able to have a waffle with Nick, smile at him, make friends again, and get rid of the bad taste of the evening before. I hopped out of bed, throwing the sheets back and making it quickly before I did anything else. I hate an unmade bed. It’s the only thing I’m always neat about.

Then I remembered that my hairbrush was in the bathroom. My bathrobe was in the bathroom. My toothbrush was in the bathroom. To get to them I’d have to go past Nick in the living room. I took a look at myself in the dressing table mirror. My hair was bumpy rather than wavy. My cheeks were wrinkled from the pillow and my eyes were puffy from last night’s crying. And my nightgown. My nightgown was a joke gift from mother last year. It was short and brilliant pink and in purple glittering letters astride a forked symbol, it said
KILLER WOMAN
!

I moaned softly, pulling open a bureau drawer to see what else I could throw on. There was a long undershirt style nightie with a profile of the Incredible Hulk on it. There was last year’s bathrobe with the sleeve torn out on the left side that I’d never mended because it didn’t fit me anymore and why mend something you can’t wear, right?

“Nancy?” called Mother. “Nick’s finishing up his breakfast. He’s leaving in a moment. Don’t you want to say good-bye?”

“No,” I said. “I mean—yes, I do want to say good-bye, but I’m not up yet.”

“Then get up,” she said reasonably enough.

“No, no,” said Nick hastily on the other side of the door. “It’s really early. And this is Saturday, you two would be sleeping late if it weren’t for me. I have to run. Thanks a lot for everything, Mrs. Nearing, I won’t impose on you again like this.”

Well, that settled that. I stopped trying to pull on my jeans and shirt to get out there in time to say good-bye. He wouldn’t impose on us again like this.

I wondered why he could talk so easily with Mother. “Good-bye, Nick,” I called. “Good luck on your interviews.”

“Thanks.” His feet were much noisier than Mother’s. He sounded like a thudding giant. Her soft patter followed him to the door. “Goodbye, Nick. Drive carefully. Come again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, though whether he meant to drive carefully or come again I couldn’t tell. And then the door closed behind him.

I got back in bed. Who wanted to face a day like today, filled with all the things I should have said and could have done and ought to have been?

I listened to Mother getting herself another cup of coffee. There was an abrupt end to the gurgle of the percolator. She’d unplugged it.

“Nannie?” she said, knocking on my door. “May I come in?”

She had never asked permission to come into my room before. It made me feel terribly sad, as if I had crossed some line into a bleak life where people had to tiptoe around each other, worrying about hurting each other.

Oh, good grief, Nelle Catherine, I told myself. So a spoiled seventeen-year-old boy ruins your evening by being stuffy and stupid about his dumb hair. So he explains it to you and you ruin your chance to show him you care and you understand. So that’s going to ruin your Saturday?

Yes, I told myself, yes, it’s going to ruin my Saturday. Not to mention all my daydreams about Nicholas Charles Nearing. “Sure, Mother, come on in.”

She sat on my bed looking at me as she sipped her coffee. Mother drinks it black. It makes me gag even to think of black coffee. She set her cup down on the night table. “Roll over, sweetheart. I’ll give you a backrub.”

I
love
backrubs. If I were being executed and they gave me one last request, it would probably be for a backrub. I flopped on my stomach and Mother began kneading my back. “So what happened?” she said softly. “Pretty bad?”

We had joked a lot about boys. Exchanged quips about looking at boys and thinking about boys and drawing boys in sketch pads. But we’d never actually talked about boys: what they thought, or wanted, or needed. Even with Holly and Ginger, I don’t think I had ever done more than gossip about boys: who was dating whom, and was he or she worth that attention.

But I found myself telling Mother everything. From the taped voice syndrome to the getting lost and the haircut bit and the insults exchanged.

Mother stopped massaging my back and started in on her coffee again. By that time it must have been cold. The only thing worse than black coffee would certainly be cold black coffee.

“He really was embarrassed, wasn’t he?” she said. “I thought of Nick as being a bit more smooth than that, but I suppose seventeen is really pretty young. He just got thrown a few more curve balls than he was ready for.”

“Embarrassed?” I said. “Curve balls? Like what, Mother?”

“Oh, Nancy, how much could go wrong for a boy?”

“How much could go wrong for a girl?” I countered.

She laughed and patted me. “Look. He was wearing the wrong clothes. Nobody likes wearing the wrong thing in public.”

“But he didn’t have to wear them. We could have come back to change.”

“He was feeling contrary, I guess. He probably didn’t realize just how obvious and foolish he’d feel in a vested suit when every other boy was in jeans. And he’d had that haircut. I’m amazed he confessed so much to you about his feelings about that. But obviously he felt silly and different from top to bottom.”

“Believe me, he acted it, too.”

“And then he got lost driving home. What red-blooded American boy enjoys confessing to his date that he’s lost?”

That I could see. I hadn’t at the time, it had just irritated me, but now I could see that he must have been humiliated by getting lost. “But, Mother,” I said, “what were these curve balls he got sent? I don’t understand what you meant by that. The college interviews? My friends at the dance? He must have been ready for that stuff.”

“You,” she said.

“What about me?”

“He told you twice, Nannie. A cousin is not like a regular girl. After all, honey, Nick has even less experience dating than you do.”

It was not possible for me to think of Nick as inexperienced and unsure. He was a boy and a year older. He had everything—looks, personality, brains, body … and that awful voice.

“Nan, when you two left this apartment Nick started to panic and wanted me along. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He expected some old girl cousin and a boring evening being polite with all her dumb old friends. Instead this beautiful slender girl with long blonde hair and an excited smile is there ready to go out with him. She’s dancing around in these tight jeans thinking about a dance, and all of a sudden it’s a date. He’s supposed to dance with her, squire her around, make interesting conversation with her, open doors for her, maybe even kiss her—and he panicked.”