The Obstacle Course (18 page)

The man who’d asked the question looked put off by that. Admiral Wells saw he’d embarrassed the guy and quickly changed the subject.

“Let me get you one of my Manhattans,” he said. “I know you love them.”

He led me back into the kitchen, where he pulled a gallon jug out from under the sink. It was filled to the brim with whiskey.

“Saves me from having to fix up a fresh batch every ten minutes,” he explained. “This crowd loves their bourbon.”

He lined up a bunch of cocktail glasses on the sink, filled a cocktail shaker with ice, and stirred a bunch of the whiskey and sweet vermouth up in it. He poured the drinks into the glasses, and dropped a cherry in each one.

“Juanita,” he called to the other uniformed colored maid in the kitchen, who was helping Mary with the cooking, “would you put these on a tray and serve them? We have a bunch of thirsty guests out there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A southern military crowd,” the admiral informed me. “Best drinkers in the world—to hear them tell it.”

I went back into the living room—and saw why the admiral and Mrs. Wells had wanted me to be at their dinner tonight. This old guy and his wife were coming in the door. They were a lot older than the others, from the looks of them, both all gussied up, the woman in a dress that came down to the floor, dripping with jewelry around her arms and neck, the man in an admiral’s uniform. I almost shit a brick when I saw the epaulets on his shoulders—the guy was a bona fide four-star admiral. He was obviously too old to still be on active duty, but he was a heavyweight, no question, heavier even than Admiral Wells.

Meeting up with some four-star admiral wasn’t why I was there, though. They had a girl with them about my age, dressed up like a teenage version of the older woman, long fancy dress and all.

That’s why Mrs. Wells had asked me to dinner, I realized; not because she was dying for my company, but so this girl wouldn’t be the only kid there.

I watched the girl from across the room as she hung onto the old woman’s arm. I don’t know who was leaning on the other more, her or the old woman, but I could tell she was feeling pretty uncomfortable, being the only kid in a group of old folks. So she thought, anyway.

Then she saw me. Her face changed real fast: from surprise, to not knowing what was going on, to being shy; all in about three seconds. Even though I’d been the only kid there until then I hadn’t been feeling all that weird, because the admiral always made me feel comfortable, like a regular person, not a dumb kid.

For a second, though, I did feel kind of shy, seeing her seeing me, but I got over that fast. For one thing, I’m not very shy, not usually. For another, I could tell by looking at her that I was cooler than her. She might have more money than me—if she was with these people she had to—but I knew more things, I’d been around a lot more.

She turned away. I kept looking at her. For one thing, she was kind of cute, in the face anyway. She wasn’t some raving beauty or anything, but she was definitely okay in the face. She didn’t have any makeup on, and all the girls in my school, all the cute ones anyway, wear makeup. This girl wore her hair in long ringlets like out of
Little Women
or something, and she was a bit of a porker, to tell the truth. I don’t mean she was a sow or anything gross like that, but she definitely had packed away her share of groceries. Kind of like a big farm girl who happened to be rich.

What she had that kept my eyes glued on her, though, was not her face or her old-fashioned hair or any of that other stuff. This girl had big tits—really big. Darlene’s were great, but these titties were definitely bigger, monsters practically, even bigger than my sister’s.

“Here’s someone I’m sure you will enjoy meeting.” Admiral Wells was suddenly next to me, his hand on my elbow guiding me across the room towards the old four-star admiral and his wife and the girl.

“Sherman and Helene, let me introduce Roy Poole, the young man I’ve mentioned to you. Roy, this is Admiral Sherman Prescott and Mrs. Prescott.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” I said, “it’s a real honor. You, too, ma’am,” I added hastily, shaking in my boots.

Admiral Sherman Prescott was famous, I’d read about him in lots of history books about the Navy, he was one of the most important admirals in the entire Atlantic fleet, almost as important as Nimitz or Halsey.

“It’s a pleasure to meet
you,
Roy,” Mrs. Prescott said, holding on to my hand for dear life. Her hand was bony and dry, the way old people’s hands get. My grandma’s hand is like that. You can practically feel all the individual bones in these old ladies’ hands. “Your mentor has told us
so
many lovely things about you, I feel like we already know you,” she added. She sounded like a little bird, she practically sang when she talked.

By “mentor” I knew she meant the admiral. I glanced back at him. He was smiling like the cat who ate the canary. It was kind of strange-feeling, that he’d been talking about me to people. I didn’t know how to take that, even though it was a compliment. Still, it gave me a funny feeling.

“Yes, a pleasure,” old Admiral Prescott kicked in. He had a deep voice, the kind that makes you sit up and listen. A good voice for an admiral.

“And this is Melanie Prescott,” Mrs. Prescott said, pulling the girl forward, towards me. “Our granddaughter.”

“Hi,” she said. She blushed a little.

“Hi,” I said back to her, forcing myself to look at her face, because if I looked at her tits she’d probably blush so hard she’d break a blood vessel, and besides I was already getting a boner. That was all I needed, a boner in front of this girl and the admiral and all his guests.

“Melanie is in the ninth grade,” her grandmother told me. She said it like she was trying to fix us up or something. I had the distinct impression, in fact, that Admiral Wells and her had talked about this girl and me. Not fixing us up directly or anything, but getting us together and seeing what happened.

“What grade are you in, Roy?” Mrs. Prescott jumped in right away. She wasn’t shy about sticking her nose into other people’s business, that was obvious.

“I’m in the ninth, too.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” she said, with a tone in her voice like I’d said something real clever and witty.

As she prattled on I couldn’t help but take a peek at Melanie’s tits pushing against her dress. Man, was that a mistake! My cock immediately sprung to life. I put my hand in my pants pocket to try and cover it up. If anybody looked down, I was dead meat.

Strictly by accident, Mrs. Wells saved me.

“Ah, here’s Beatrice at last, making the grand entrance,” Mrs. Prescott exclaimed, looking towards the staircase. “As usual, the belle of the ball.”

Everybody turned and looked as Mrs. Wells walked down the staircase. Unlike the other women, who were all dressed like they were going to a big formal affair, she was wearing a simple black dress that came just below her knees. She had hardly any makeup on, and the only jewelry she wore was one string of pearls. But she was the prettiest woman there, by far. My throat got dry just looking at her.

Mrs. Wells moved around the room, kissing everybody, getting kissed back in return; just on the cheek, not on the mouth, men and women both. I’d seen that kind of stuff in the movies but I didn’t know people actually did it in real life. There were a lot of things about people like this I didn’t know anything about. It made me feel sort of clumsy, knowing I wasn’t like them. Actually, it scared the shit out of me, if I thought about it. What was I doing here, really? I was a fish out of water, a dumb hick from Ravensburg, and I knew it showed. I figured the best thing to do was keep my mouth shut as much as possible and watch how these people acted.

“Hello, darling,” Mrs. Wells said to her husband as she finally got around to where we were standing. The kiss she gave him was different from the ones she gave everyone else, more like a nuzzle on his neck. “Sorry I’m late, it takes me longer to get ready than it used to,” she said with a smile. She turned to Admiral Prescott and Mrs. Prescott and gave them each kisses. “Helene. Sherman.” Mrs. Prescott kissed her back. The admiral shook her hand.

“I see you two have met,” Mrs. Wells said to me then, looking from me to Melanie.

“Yes, ma’am,” I told her. “Just now.”

“Melanie’s a special favorite of ours,” Mrs. Wells told me, as if Melanie was invisible, instead of standing right next to her.

I looked over at Melanie. She was blushing up a storm.

“I’m sure you two young people will have a lot in common,” Mrs. Wells went on. “You’re both so … creative.”

I looked at her like she was a Martian or something. Where the hell’d she come up with that? She hardly ever gave me the time of day, normally, she didn’t know jack-shit about me, unless she meant the model building. For some reason, though, she was trying to make me look good to Melanie and her grandparents.

“How charming,” Mrs. Prescott said, in her singing tone of voice.

Admiral Wells had his hand on my back, like a father does when he’s proud of a son—not that my old man’s ever done it with me, but I know how it would feel. He looked at me, and although he didn’t actually wink like he’d done earlier—he couldn’t with all these other people around—I felt like we were sharing a secret. It was a good feeling.

“Let’s get you good people a drink,” the admiral said to the Prescotts. “I’m sure the youth contingent will find things to talk about,” he added, giving me a good hard look. Then he and Mrs. Wells led the Prescotts to another part of the house, and suddenly there I was, standing alone with Melanie.

I looked at her. She looked away, blushing again. I kept on looking at her. There wasn’t anything else I could do to help her out except walk away, and I couldn’t do that.

She forced herself to turn back to look at me. As I watched her I started feeling sorry for her. I mean, okay, her grandfather was a famous war hero, and she was probably rich as hell and all that good shit, but I knew as sure as God made little green apples that this girl had never had a date in her life—not with a boy who really liked her for herself, instead of having to because his parents knew her parents. She was standing here in front of this strange boy, who I’m sure didn’t look like any boy she knew, not with my hair, which is cut modified Elvis-style, its shape held firmly in place with a healthy dollop of Brylcreem (“a little dab’ll do you”), my Flagg Brothers bombers, and all the rest. I was dressed in nice clothes and everything, but she had to know I was not her style, like I knew she wasn’t like the girls in my school.

It took some of the edge off my inner worry, knowing that she was as nervous as I was, as out of place and scared.

“That’s a pretty dress,” I told her, giving her a smile. One of us had to say something, and I knew she’d never be the one to talk first.

She blushed again. “Thank you.”

“Pretty fancy,” I said.

“It was my grandmother’s choice.” She wet her lips. She had nice, full lips. “I don’t usually dress like this,” she added, like she was apologizing for it.

“Me neither.” My eyes drifted back down again—I couldn’t help it. This time she caught me, and did she ever blush then! I forced my look back up. “I mean I’d look pretty silly in a dress, don’t you think?”

She giggled out loud, covering her mouth so nobody would hear. “That’s funny,” she said, giggling again.

“Yeah, I’m a regular Jackie Gleason,” I told her. “Hey, Ralphie babe,” I said, imitating my dad’s buddy Fred Gash imitating Ed Norton.

Man, that about cracked her up. She started giggling like crazy, burying her face in her hands so she wouldn’t be embarrassed. She embarrassed easily, that was obvious, with all the blushing she’d been doing.

“That is
funny,
” she said, when she’d finally gotten the giggles under control. “
Really
funny.”

“Ralphie babe,” I said again, in my Norton voice.

She grabbed hold of my wrist as she laughed again.

“Don’t,” she begged, “people are watching.”

I glanced around. No one was paying us any attention at all.

“No, they’re not,” I assured her. “Anyway, what if they were? What’s wrong with laughing?”

“I don’t like people looking at me,” she said. “It makes me self-conscious.”

“Okay, then. I’ll quit.” I liked that, that she admitted she didn’t like being looked at. One thing that was nice about this girl, she didn’t know it was uncool not to be cool.

She looked up at me without blushing this time.

“Are you from around here?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“No, I’m not from around here.”

“Oh.” She paused, like she didn’t know what to say next. “How do you know the Wellses?”

“Me and the admiral …” I corrected myself: “the admiral and me … and I … we build models together. Ship models. I met him in a model shop.”

That threw her. She wouldn’t know anything about models, so she didn’t know what else to say.

“What about you?” I asked, keeping it going. “Do you live near here?”

“Around the corner. On California Street.”

I was right—she was rich. California Street was one block over, with houses as big and fancy as the Wellses’.

“Pretty fancy,” I said.

She blushed again and stared down at her feet, which gave me another chance to steal a quick look at her tits.

“It’s just a house,” she said. She had this habit of apologizing for everything. Maybe it was because of me—she had to know I didn’t come from any place like California Street, not even close. “Where
do
you live?” she asked. The way she asked, it was like she didn’t want to because it wasn’t polite, but she was too curious not to.

“Ravensburg,” I said, fast and low.

“Oh.” Like, where the hell is that?

“It’s in Prince Georges County.”

“I know where Ravensburg is. Do you have a farm?”

I’d have bet a million dollars she’d say that. That’s what people think when they think about Ravensburg, if they ever do think about it. Years ago it was farms, before World War Two, but there aren’t hardly any farms around anymore; the ones that’re left are pretty small places, not big enough to make a living from. If you want to farm now you have to move farther out, Bowie and Largo and places like that. But she wouldn’t know that, all she knows about Ravensburg is if you’re from there you’re a farmer. This girl has probably never even been in Prince Georges County in her life, except to drive through it on the way to Annapolis or the Eastern Shore.