Ride a Cockhorse (3 page)

“I should think she would!” Mrs. Fitzgibbons belittled the girl in a scathing tone. “You're her best chance. Who would take her out if she didn't have you?”

“I don't know.”

“That's what I mean. She'd have to settle for some wimp who studies all night and couldn't get a girl if you set a pistol to his head.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons cut the air with her hand. “Maureen wouldn't get anybody. I know who she is. I can see her problems. You have to face up to things, Terry. You can't let Victorian sentiments fuck up your life.”

The sudden expletive from Mrs. Fitzgibbons's lips caused Terry to snap his head around. He was stunned.

“Use your skin,” she said. “You have your whole life in front of you. You only get one good shot at it. The wheel goes around once, and that's it. You'll only be twenty once. You'll never see these days again. Some decisions,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons stressed, electing to employ an impressive word, “are irrevocable. Where would you be five years from tonight with a girl like that?”

“Maureen is in college,” he objected feebly.

“What college?”

The boy was putty in her hands. Mrs. Fitzgibbons could feel it. Each time he glanced round, his eyes darted to her breasts.

“Our Lady of the Angels.”

“Your Lady of the Angels! What's she studying to be, a pope?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons laughed gaily. She was showing off her breasts now; he seemed to know it. He was just driving and steering. He wasn't paying any attention to the engine. He kept looking over at her.

“Why are you so dressed up?”

“Answer the question,” she insisted. “Where would you be? I don't mean to be coarse, Terry, but someone has to wake you up to what's what. The best young women of your generation deserve a shot at you. You can't tie yourself up.”

“I'm not tied up —” He hesitated at mouthing Mrs. Fitzgibbons's first name.

“Frankie.”

“Yes. We're only friends, Maureen and I.”

“What happens,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons explained, adopting an analytic view, “with a girl like that, you have sex a couple of times, and they become totally possessive. That's the greatest danger of all,” she added, as Terry's expression signified the correctness of her last thrust, not to mention her boldness. “They think it's everything. They think it's the purchase price of the rest of your life.
Is
she possessive?”

“Yes.”

“Does she get jealous?”

“Sure. Sometimes,” he said.

“I'll bet she's jealous out of her brainpan over those majorettes that march behind you in the band.”

A look of guilt invaded his face. “She imagines things,” he confessed.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons laughed mischievously. “Those girls are crazy about you. And I'll tell you something else. There isn't one of them that Maureen could keep up with. I know that for a fact. I see them going past my house. They're beautiful! Every one of them. They're arrogant! They're sure of themselves! They have beautiful bodies. Compared to your Maureen, they're like women from another planet.”

“Some of them are beautiful,” Terry conceded.

“They're all beautiful. They're tall, they're slender, they're vain, they know what they want. Can you imagine Maureen in that lineup?”

“She wouldn't look right.”

“
Look right?
” Mrs. Fitzgibbons loosed a peal of laughter and set her hand over his. “And you wonder why she's jealous?”

“I don't make her jealous.”

“Of course you do. How could you not? You would have to. Drive down Sergeant Street,” she instructed. “I'm going to show you what happens to people who get roped into unhappy relationships.”

By now, Terry was clearly enjoying the older woman's appreciation of his value and was not eager to suspend the pleasure. “Fine,” he replied.

“And step on the gas. It's the pedal under your foot. You're making me nervous. I like a little wind.”

Terry assumed a more mature tone. “You were right about the possessiveness,” he said after a short silence.

“I'm right about all of it.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons was sure of her intuitions about the young man and his girl. “Two or three sexual escapades with a college kid do not add up to a lifelong commitment. Some may say otherwise, but only because it's in their self-interest. Funny thing is, it's the stupid, inexperienced ones that hold onto an idea like that as though it were gospel. The less they know about something, the more scared and dogmatic they get. You must find it embarrassing.”

Terry appeared unsure of the nature of her query and said nothing, but did capitalize on the moment to look across again at Mrs. Fitzgibbons's bosom.

“I would,” she said. “It would make my skin crawl. I'm not saying that a twenty-year-old like yourself is supposed to have a hundred and fifty amorous entanglements, but the views of a little college girl, who is still wet behind the ears, add up to zero.” She fiddled with the radio dial. She changed the station. She liked the look of her hand; her nails were shapely and pink, and the bracelet on her wrist twinkled attractively.

“I'm not twenty, Frankie,” Terry reminded her.

She ignored him. “Maureen will find somebody else. Somebody of her own kind. You'll see. Tell me more about yourself. Let's talk about interesting people!”

“Well —”

“What do you do when you're not leading the band?”

Terry shrugged. “I don't know. I go to school. I wrestle at the Boys Club. I go to the movies with Maureen.”

“You wrestle?” That interested her.

“I play golf sometimes.”

“I play golf!” she said. “Larry belonged to the country club.”

“No fooling.”

“I still have his Wilson clubs. Do you have clubs of your own?”

“I have five or six old ones,” he answered. “A wood, a couple of putters, and three or four irons.”

“I'll show you Larry's. I'll bet you can hit the ball a mile. Are you on the golf team at school?”

“I haven't time for band and golf.”

“I forgot about the band,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “I think you're better off with the band. Any dummy can play golf, but leading the band the way you do it, darling, is an art. It's one of the most exciting things I've ever seen. They ought to pay you a salary.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons was smiling at him.

Terry flushed red. “I love leading the band.”

“Didn't I know that already? You look like a dream out there.”

“When did you see me?” The drum major couldn't conceal his feelings of pride.

“I told you. You go right by my house. I saw you last Saturday. With all those flags and drums, and your tall hat and that enormous baton. You looked like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, I swear to God.”

“You ought to go to the football games, Frankie.”

“I'm going Saturday,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons shot back.

“No kidding.” He looked at her.

“I wouldn't miss it for the world. Would you like that?”

“I'd love it.”

“Who are we playing?”

“Springfield Tech. I could get you tickets, Frankie.”

“Would you?”

“I'd love to.”

“I'd only need one.”

“You'd be going yourself?”

“I have a daughter, Barbara, but she's practically brain-damaged.”

He laughed gushingly at Mrs. Fitzgibbons's remark, appreciative of the profane streak in her.

“Barbara thinks football is a game for rednecks. She hates bands, she hates sports, she hates bars, she hates pop music, she hates television and movies. She hates everything that's fun.”

“I like all those things.”

“So do I.”

“What does she like?” said Terry.

“Causes,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “Barbara likes causes. Somebody over in Burma blows up the Burmese president in a plane, and that's a matter of great urgency to Barbara. She's never been to Burma. She's never going to go to Burma. She wouldn't know a Burmese from a Mongoloid idiot if she was lying in bed with him.

“I didn't spank her enough,” she went on. “I should have whaled the daylights out of her. She's very serious. You're much more interesting. I hope you don't like politics.”

“I hate politics.”

“She wants to run for office. She wants to be an
alderperson
! It's enough to convulse a cat.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen months.”

Terry Sugrue burst out laughing, as Mrs. Fitzgibbons, also laughing, set her left hand lightly on his shoulder. “It's true, darling. She wouldn't get twenty votes. She should be locked up someplace. With her frozen dinners and her little yellow and pink vitamin tablets. Every time she comes in the door, I fill up with feelings of discouragement. You can read the bad news in her face. She and Eddie, her husband, subsist on frozen broccoli. They sleep on the floor on a futon. She hasn't put on lipstick in a year. I love cosmetics! Look at my nails.” She set her hand illustratively on the dark satin of her lap. “Is that pretty, or is that pretty?”

“It's very pretty.”

“Of course, it is.”

When Terry stopped the car in front of her house and cut the engine, Mrs. Fitzgibbons was calculating rapidly what to do and say when she got him indoors. As she unlocked the door of her house, she blundered. “I haven't been with a man in three and a half years,” she said.

She saw the look of shock register in his face. She was going too fast.

“Don't worry, I'm not going to attack you, darling. I'll save that for some pretty afternoon up at the country club,” she said, “when you've hit the ball into the rough.” She smiled at him in the half darkness. “I hope you like athletic women.”

The youth colored pleasurably. “I don't know,” he said. “Maureen is not at all athletic.”

“I didn't think she would be.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons switched on the foyer lights. She led Terry into the kitchen. “I'd guess that the women in your future probably will be. Follow me. I'll show you Larry's clubs.”

While complying docilely, Terry returned the conversation to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's reason for his driving her home in the first place. “What were you saying,” he asked, “about someone whose life was wasted by a woman?”

“When we were talking about Maureen?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons deflected the question. She had opened the kitchen closet and produced a golf club. It was a wood. “Is this too short for you?” she asked.

Terry took the club in hand and set the head to the floor. “This is a beauty.”

“It's like new.”

“It's terrific.”

“When we play, you can use them. If you like them, and if you behave yourself, I'll give them to you.”

“I couldn't take your husband's clubs.”

“My husband is dead.”

Terry winced at Mrs. Fitzgibbons's brutal frankness. “That's what I mean,” he said.

“Besides,” she added, “you'll have earned them because you're going to help me with my game. We're going to play a week from Sunday.” She enjoyed being bossy with him. The youth liked it, too. She could tell. “Put away that club and come into the other room. I've got a task for you.” She led the way, conscious of the liquid shimmer of her dress. She smiled back at him. “I'm taking advantage of you.”

“That's okay.” Terry followed her obediently with a blank, expectant look on his face, as though the “task” would reveal itself as something visible to the eye.

“I'm going to a reception tomorrow night,” she went on, lying, “and I'm not sure what to wear. You're going to tell me.”

“I am?”

She put on the living room lights and the television. “It's a party for a friend at the Canoe Club. My daughter's not going to be there, so I can wear something decent. Sit over there.” She indicated the sofa. “I have a black satin party dress. I'll try it on.”

“You're wearing a pretty dress right now,” Terry pointed out.

“It's my favorite,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. She was standing in the doorway, evaluating the way the sandy-haired youth was looking up at her from the sofa. A shiver went through her as she anticipated what was coming.

“You could wear that one.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons called to him from the next room while changing. “You have refined taste. I like your sleeveless argyle. Do you ever wear white trousers?”

“I have a pair of white duck pants.”

“God, what you must look like in white pants! Wear them for me next Sunday. I like white on the golf course. And your argyle sweater. And a shirt and tie.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons tossed her violet dress onto her bed and went to the closet.

Terry called back from the parlor. “I've never worn a tie playing golf.”

“You will next week,” she said, and stepped into her black dress. “Am I too bossy?”

“It's okay,” he replied.

“You can call me Frankie.”

“Okay.”

“I'm almost ready.” She was speaking to her image in the mirror. “I'm not really bossy,” she explained. “I'm only like this when I'm paying compliments to someone who needs them.”

Returning to the living room, she paused in the doorway, leaning a hand against the doorjamb while bending to slip on her high heels. “How do you like it?”

“That's beautiful.” He was sitting on the sofa, his knees splayed, his hands on his knees. He was a trifle nervous.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons's dress had a sweetheart neckline and short, puffy sleeves. It was a cocktail dress that showed her figure to advantage. At intervals, she felt a nervous wave of excitement go coursing through her body. The drum major sat like an effigy, his face as blank as a dinner plate. Even his eyelashes were sandy.

“My greatest fear,” she said, as she stepped into the room and looked at herself in the mirror behind the sofa, “is that some of the men I work with, who are going to be there, will assault me on the spot.”