Take my face (9 page)

A car pulled up behind her. The headlights nicked off, the motor died. A young man got out and started up the steps.

"Hi," Julie called.

He turned, came over to the convertible, picturing sudden wonderful impossible events. "Hi!"

Julie smelled beer on his breath. "Do me a favor," she said. "If Joe Treddick is up, would you tell him I want to see him?"

He peered waggishly in at Julie. "Won't / do?"

"Not tonight."

The young man turned sadly, went inside. Julie sat fidgeting, looking at her watch.

Joe came out, still dressed in gray slacks and dark sweater. He looked her over. "My, you look beautiful."

Julie was tremendously glad she had come. "I can only stay a minute. I had a wonderful idea— and I just couldn't wait to tell you."

He leaned forward, his arms on the door. "What kind of idea?"

"Next week—Saturday—I want you to come home with me, up to San Giorgio. We'll come back Sunday. Okay?"

Joe looked at her thoughtfully. "Okay. But why?"

"Summer job."

"For me?"

She nodded.

Joe straightened up a little. Julie reached out and took his hand. "Now, Joe, don't be proud!"

"Me, proud?" said Joe. "I don't have any pride."

"Of course you do. I've been worrying about you all evening."

Joe grinned. "Your date must have loved it."

"Oh, he didn't know. I'd hardly discuss it with him."

"I imagine not . . . What kind of job?"

"There's at least three possibilities . . . But we'll talk about it later; I've got to rush back. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good night, Joe."

"Good night."

Julie made a screeching U-turn, gunned the convertible back up the hill. She parked, ran up the walk, burst through the door with thirty seconds to spare. Cathy McDermott, on her way up the steps, looked over the bannister.

"Julie Hovard! I thought you were home ages ago."

Julie ran up the stairs. "I've got lots to tell you . . ."

Cathy was dubious about the whole idea; she vaguely disapproved of Joe. Her values were based on social acceptance, convention, good form. She tried to explain to Julie, and since she wasn't able to define her faint distrust, she invented reasons.

Julie scoffed at her.

Actually, Cathy could find nothing about Joe to criticize. His conduct was irreproachable. Julie revealed that he had never even tried to kiss her.

Cathy was surprised. "Why do you go out with him?"

"Oh, he'll get around to it sometime," said Julie. "Why don't you come home next weekend, too?"

"I've got a date," said Cathy. "Tom Shaw."

"Bring him along."

"I suppose I could . . ."

Cathy finally agreed; and next Saturday, the four drove north in Julie's convertible.

Thus, when Carr Pendry telephoned the Delta Rho Beta house after the conviction and sentencing of George Bavonette, he was notified that Cathy had gone home for the week-end.

He arrived in San Giorgio at three, parked the Jag, went to the McDermott house, where Mrs. McDermott told him that Cathy was swimming

at the Hovards'. Carr marched out on the Hovard terrace to find Julie, Joe, Cathy, and Tom Shaw lying beside the pool in the sun. Joe Treddick and Tom Shaw were elements he had not bargained for. Resentful and warm in his tweed suit, he dropped into a deck chair. "Well—they've convicted Bavonette. He goes to the gas chamber July seventh."

There was a silence. Presently Julie said, "Well, I guess he has it coming to him."

"Hah!" Carr snorted. He lit a cigarette, leaned back and blew smoke violently through his nose. "I still don't think he did it. That poor fool of a Bavonette's hypnotized himself."

"But surely, he'd never admit a murder!" Julie protested.

"My dear child," said Carr, "just read any good textbook of Freudian psychology. Read about guilt complexes, the will-to-death."

"But why, Carr? Why should he feel guilty?"

"I don't know," said Carr. "After all, we don't know a thing about Bavonette'* past."

"Go get your bathing trunks, Carr," said Julie. "You look all warm and flustered."

Carr sized up Tom Shaw, gauging his own physique against Shaw's. Deciding that it would hold up reasonably well, he jumped to his feet, cut through the garden to the Pendry home.

"Poor Carr," said Julie. "Talk about com-

plexes. He'll drive himself nuts trying to prove that Robert Struve killed Dean."

"Who's Robert Struve?" asked Tom Shaw.

"Oh, a poor, unfortunate kid we used to know."

"Carr thinks he killed Dean," said Cathy. "I suppose it's not impossible."

"My first love," said Julie, with a sly glance at Cathy, who looked embarrassed. Alone of all Julie's friends, Cathy knew the whole truth of what had happened; like Julie's mother, she had been much more upset than Julie.

Julie had all but forgotten the incident. When she thought of Robert Struve, two sharp images came to her mind. The first was a flash of blue shirt on a red motor-scooter, with Jamaica Arch ahead. Then the hateful thump, the muffled clatter of motor-scooter in the culvert . . . The second was the recollection of a football game during her freshman year at high school. The Paytonville team was big and tough. For three quarters the score had been tied at 6 to 6. In the last minutes of the fourth quarter, San Giorgio took the ball deep in its own territory.

Bob Goble handed off to Robert Struve, who, after an almost deliberate start, began to churn forward. Three men brought him down after six yards.

Third down; Goble to Struve. Again the slow

gathering of force, the almost insolent deliber-ateness. Another six yards.

Goble to Struve: the same play, with now the whole Paytonville team waiting. Struve might have avoided them, but lowered his head and plunged dead into the middle of them. Another six yards.

San Giorgio was yelling. "Six yards, Robert! Six yards!"

Seven yards. Six yards. Five yards.

This was Julie's second recollection of Robert Struve. Under the wire frame, his face had been grotesque, magnificent, like an Aztec war mask.

At dinner, Darrell Hovard was full of talk about the new country club. Ground was being broken for construction, bulldozers were already shaping the golf course.

Julie came directly to the point. "Father, Joe's looking for a summer job. Why can't he work up at Mountainview?"

Joe's jaw dropped. He had expected nothing like this.

"Why, dear," said Darrell Hovard, "that's something quite out of my hands. All the work is contracted."

"I know; but if you were to speak to one of the contractors . . ."

Joe made an uncomfortable protest, but Julie ignored him.

"You could, couldn't you, Father?"

Darrell Hovard turned Joe a glance of careful speculation. "Just what are you able to do, Joe?"

"Really, Mr. Hovard, I didn't—"

Margaret interceded. "Julie, dear, don't insist! Perhaps Joe doesn't want to be stuck all summer in a dull place like San Giorgio."

"It isn't that, Mrs. Hovard—"

"Joe," said Julie, "tell Father what, if anything, you can do."

"I've got a strong back," said Joe.

"Oh, Joe," said Julie. "He's studying to be an engineer, Father."

After a telephone call, it was arranged that Joe should go to work driving a dump truck immediately after finals.

CHAPTER IX

When Julie dropped Joe off in front of Barrington Hall late Sunday night, both knew their relationship had reached a critical stage. They had to go forward, or go back. If Joe had not risen to the occasion—well, Julie did not know what she would have done.

But Joe did not fail her. He put an arm around her, kissed her willing mouth, then the tip of her nose.

"The end of a perfect week-end," said Julie.

"It was nice," said Joe. After a minute, he said, "Too nice."

"Nothing's really too nice," said Julie. "It never can be."

Joe looked down at her, and she felt he was about to say something important. But he was silent.

"Tell me what you're thinking."

Joe sighed. "Julie—you couldn't understand unless you've had something wonderful that got

taken away from you ... I don't imagine you ever have."

"No." She squeezed his hand. "But I can imagine . . ."

"Well—think of it in terms of goals ..."

Julie drew away, looked at him searchingly. "Just what are these goals—or should I ask?"

Joe laughed. "The first and most important is named Julie Hovard."

"Would you deceive me, Joe?"

"No, Julie."

"You're sure? Absolutely, positively, definitely sure?"

"Yes."

"In that case—" She put her arms around his neck; and he held her tighter and longer and harder than she had ever let anyone hold her before.

Joe released her and got out of the car. She felt an undercurrent in him, and it puzzled her . . . Well, there was lots of time to find out. She waved, started the car and drove back to the Delta Rho Beta house.

Cathy surveyed her with raised eyebrows. "Your lipstick's smeared."

"Of course it is," said Julie. She suddenly felt like hugging Cathy, and did so.

"You're just gushing over with it, aren't you? Just like a little puppy-dog."

Julie yapped like a puppy and went chattering off to bed.

There were two weeks of final examinations, then freedom!

Julie had been home two days when Joe telephoned.

"Joe! Where are you?"

"In San Georgio ... I go to work in the morning."

"But where are you now? You're coming on out, aren't you?"

"I've got to find a place to stay and I need a working permit from the union."

"There's a place out on Second Street. The Fair Oaks Guest House. It's old-fashioned, but it's nice and quiet."

"I'll go there first thing."

Margaret Hovard came into the room as Julie hung up. She asked, "Who's that, dear?"

"It's Joe. He'll be out for dinner."

Margaret put on a faint frown of puzzlement. " 'Joe?"

"Joe Treddick."

Margaret pretended to search her mind. "You have so many young men. It's hard to keep abreast of them all."

Julie explained who Joe was.

"Oh," said Margaret. "That one." She and

Darrell had not particularly approved o£ Joe. "Don't you think he's just a little—dull?"

"Dull?" exclaimed Julie in amusement. "I certainly don't."

"He never has much to say," said Maragret. "Norman Baker, for instance—he's so bright and amusing."

"He works himself sick for laughs."

"Well, Carr ... I don't see why you don't take more of an interest in Carr."

Julie laughed in sheer enjoyment of her mother's naivete. "Carr means well, but he's really so narrow-minded."

"I think he's very sound. And I don't understand what you see in Joe."

"There's such a lot to him."

Darrell Hovard came home and joined the conversation. He didn't object to Joe personally, but he liked to know a little more about the young men Julie went out with.

Margaret asked Julie if she had ever met any of Joe's people. "No," said Julie. "They're back in Boston."

"But who are they?"

Julie supposed they were ordinary mortals like anyone else. Darrell changed the subject; he did not want to make an issue of Joe. In a month or two, Julie would be eighteen, when

she could marry whomever she wanted. Darrell didn't want to put any romantic ideas into her head.

He had a quiet word with Margaret before dinner. "Give her time," said Darrell. "She's growing up. All girls have their little affairs before settling down; Julie's no different from the others."

"I'm not so sure."

"You'll see," said Darrell.

"I just don't like to leave things to chance," said Margaret.

Darrell thought the situation over. "Well— there's rather a mean trick to play on the poor chap—but it'll be merciful in the long run."

"What's that?"

"Julie's no fool. If he's around the house, and she has the chance to compare him to us and our friends, she'll get things straight for herself."

Margaret was puzzled. "I still don't understand you, Darrell."

"Well, to put it with brutal bluntness, if we have him over night and day, day in, day out—if we rub Julie's nose in him, so to speak—the glamour's bound to wear thin."

"Well, perhaps . . . And if we have lots of other young people around, Julie's old friends, members of her own set . . ."

Whether by design or by accident, Joe refused

to fit into their plans. He politely declined to eat dinner with the Hovards more than once or twice a week.

Darrell made discreet inquiries to find out how Joe was handling his job; he was rather annoyed when the contractor told Darrell that if he had any more like Joe to send 'em out.

The crowds of young people Darrell and Margaret had envisioned also failed to materialize. It was a quiet summer. Julie saw a great deal of Cathy and also of Lucia Small, who in an offhand manner let it be known that she had no intention of returning to Radcliffe. Harvard men were dull; she wasn't sure that she wanted a degree in psychology after all.

Lucia was becoming less attractive every year. Her face seemed sallower, her hair more severe. And her disposition had deteriorated with her looks.

She had never been the sort to share confidences, but now she seemed almost secretive. Cathy, softhearted and loyal, worried about Lucia. "I can't understand what's come over her. She almost acts as if we're not her friends!"

"Funny how we change," Julie mused. "We were so different such a short time ago."

"You've never changed," said Cathy affectionately. "You've never been anything but the rattlebrained little twerp you are now."

"I'm wise," said Julie. "Wise with the age-old mystery of Woman."

They were silent a moment. Cathy said with a sigh, "The Masque Saturday night, and I've still got my costume to do."

"I've got two," said Julie.

"Two? . . . Oh, yours and Joe's."

Julie nodded.

"He said for sure he'd come?"

"Of course. He has better sense than to disobey me."