Constance opened her front door and saw Tomas Makris standing on the steps. For a moment she was unable to move or speak, overcome not so much by surprise, as by a feeling of unreality.
“Good evening,” said Tom into the silence. “Since you always manage to avoid me on the street and even in your store, I thought I'd come to call formally.”
When Constance did not answer but continued to stand with one hand on the inside doorknob and the other leaning against the jamb, Tom went on in the same conversational tone.
“I realize,” he said, “that it is not the conventional thing to do. I should have waited to call until after you had called on me, but I was afraid that you would never get around to performing your neighborly duty. Mrs. MacKenzie,” he went on, pushing gently at the outside of the door, “I have been standing on the street corner for over half an hour waiting for your daughter to be off with her date, and my feet are damned tired. May I come in?”
“Oh, yes. Please do,” said Constance at last, and her voice sounded breathy to her own ears. “Yes, do. Please come in.”
She stood with her back against the panels of the closed door while Tom walked past her and into the hall.
“Let me take your coat, Mr. Makris,” she said.
Tom took off his coat and folded it over his arm, then he walked to where Constance was standing. He stood close enough to her so that she had to raise her head to look up at him, and when she had done so, he smiled down at her gently.
“Don't be afraid,” he said. “I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to be around for a long time. There's no hurry.”
♦ 26 ♦
The gymnasium of the Peyton Place High School was decorated with pink and green crepe paper. The paper hung in twisted festoons from the ceiling and walls. It was wrapped carefully around the basketball hoops and backboards in a hopeful effort at disguise. Some imaginative senior, discouraged with the limp look of the basketball nets, had cleverly stuffed them with multicolored spring blossoms and someone else had fastened a balloon to every spot that provided a place to tie a string. On the wall, behind where the orchestra sat, huge letters cut of aluminum foil had been pasted.
PEYTON PLACE HIGH SCHOOL WELCOMES YOU
TO ITS ANNUAL SPRING HOP
The seniors who had been on the decorating committee drew sighs of relief and looked at their work with well-earned satisfaction. The gym, they assured one another, had never looked better for a spring dance than it did this year. The annual spring dance, which had become a custom in Peyton Place since the building of the new high school, was an affair given by the graduating seniors as a premature welcome to the grade school children who would be entering high school in the fall, and it had come to represent a number of things to different people. To most eighth grade girls it meant the time of their first formal and their first real date with a boy, while to most boys it meant the official lifting of the nine o'clock curfew which their parents had imposed on them. To Elsie Thornton, dressed in black silk and acting as a chaperon, it seemed to be a time of new awareness in the youngsters whom she had taught that year. She could discern in them the first stirrings of interest toward one another and knew that this interest was the forerunner of the searching and finding that would come later.
Not, thought Miss Thornton, that a few of them hadn't done their searching and finding already.
She watched Selena Cross and Ted Carter circling the floor slowly, their heads close together, and although she was not a believer in the myth of childhood sweethearts who grew up, married and lived happily ever after, she found herself hoping that it could be so in the case of Selena and Ted. Her feelings when she watched Allison MacKenzie and Rodney Harrington were very different. It had been like a blow to her heart to see Allison come in with Rodney. Miss Thornton had put up an involuntary hand, and lowered it quickly, hoping that no one had noticed.
Oh, be careful, my dear, she had thought. You must be very careful, or you'll get hurt.
Miss Thornton saw Betty Anderson, dressed in a red dress that was much too old for her, watching Allison and Rodney. Betty had come to the dance with a boy who was a senior in the high school and who already had a reputation as a fast driver and a hard drinker. But Betty had not taken her eyes off Rodney all evening. It was ten o'clock before Rodney got up the courage to approach Betty. He walked over to her the moment that Allison left him to go to the rest room, and when Allison returned to the gymnasium he was dancing with Betty. Allison went over to the line of straight chairs where the chaperons were sitting and sat down next to Elsie Thornton, but her eyes were fixed on Rodney and Betty.
Don't you care, darling, Miss Thornton wanted to say. Don't pin your dreams on that boy, for he will only shatter them and you.
“You look lovely, Allison,” she said.
“Thank you, Miss Thornton,” replied Allison, wondering if it would be proper to say, So do you, Miss Thornton. It would be a lie if she said it, because Miss Thornton had never looked uglier. Black was definitely not her color. And why was Rodney staying so long with Betty?
Allison kept her head up and her smile on, even when one set of dances ended and another began, and Rodney did not come to claim her. She smiled and waved at Selena, and at Kathy Ellsworth who had come with a boy who was in high school and kissed with his mouth open. She felt a small pang of compassion for little Norman Page who stood leaning against the wall, alone, and stared down at his feet. Norman, Allison knew, had been brought to the dance by his mother, who was going to leave him there until eleven o'clock while she attended a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid at the Congregational church. Allison smiled at Norman when he raised his head, and wiggled her fingers at him, but her stomach had begun to churn and she did not know how much longer she could keep from being sick. Betty's finger tips rested on the back of Rodney's neck, and he was looking down at her with his eyes half closed.
Why is he doing this to me? she wondered sickly. I look nicer than Betty. She looks cheap in that sleazy red dress, and she's wearing gunk on her eyelashes. She's got awfully big breasts for a girl her age, and Kathy said they were real. I don't believe it. I wish Miss Thornton would stop fidgeting in her chair—and there's only one more dance left in this set and I'd better get ready to stand up because Rodney will be coming for me in a few minutes. I'll bet that dress belonged to Betty's big sister, the one who got in Dutch with that man from White River. Selena looks beautiful in that white dress. She looks so old. She looks twenty at least, and Ted does, too. They're in love, you can tell by looking at them. Everybody's looking at me. I'm the only girl sitting down. Rodney's gone!
Allison's heart began to beat in hot, heavy thuds as her eyes circled the dance floor wildly. She glanced at the door just in time to see a flash of red, and she knew then that Rodney had left her here alone while he went somewhere with Betty.
What if he doesn't come back? she thought. What if I have to go home alone? Everyone knows I came with him. EVERYONE IS LAUGHING AT ME!
Miss Thornton's hand was cold and hurtful on her elbow.
“My goodness, Allison,” laughed Miss Thornton. “You are off in a dream world. Norman's asked you to dance with him twice, and you haven't even answered him.”
Allison's eyes were so full of tears that she could not see Norman, and her face hurt. It was only when she stood up to dance with him that she realized that she was still smiling. Norman held her awkwardly while the orchestra imported from White River for the occasion played a waltz.
If he says one thing—thought Allison desperately. If he says one word I shall be sick right here in front of everyone.
“I saw Rodney go outside with Betty,” said Norman, “so I thought I'd ask you to dance. You were sitting next to Miss Thornton for an awfully long time.”
Allison was not sick in front of everyone. “Thank you, Norman,” she said. “It was nice of you to ask me.”
“I don't know what's the matter with Rodney,” continued Norman. “You're much prettier than that fat old B
etty Anderson.”
Oh, God, prayed Allison, make him shut up.
“Betty came with John Pillsbury.” Norman pronounced it Pillsbree. “He drinks and takes girls riding in his car. He got stopped by the state police once, for speeding and drunken driving, and the police told his father. Do you like Rodney?”
I love him! screamed Allison silently. I love him and he is breaking my heart!
“No,” she said, “not particularly. He was just someone to come with.”
Norman whirled her around inexpertly. “Just the same,” he said, “it's a dirty trick for him to leave you sitting with Miss Thornton and go off with Betty like that.”
Please, God. Please, God, thought Allison.
But the orchestra continued to play, and Norman's hand was sticky in hers, and Allison thought of the girl in the fairy tale about the red shoes, and the electric lights glared down at her until her temples began to pound.
Outside, Betty Anderson was leading Rodney by the hand across the dark field that served as a parking lot for the high school. John Pillsbury's car was parked a short distance away from the others, under a tree, and when Betty and Rodney reached it, she opened the back door and got in.
“Hurry up,” she whispered, and Rodney climbed in behind her.
Swiftly, she pressed down the buttons on the four doors that locked them, and then she collapsed into the back seat, laughing.
“Here we are,” she said. “Snug as peas in a pod.”
“Come on, Betty,” whispered Rodney. “Come on.”
“No,” she said petulantly, “I won't. I'm mad at you.”
“Aw, come on, Betty. Don't be like that. Kiss me.”
“No,” said Betty, tossing her head. “Go get skinny Allison MacKenzie to kiss you. She's the one you brought to the dance.”
“Don't be mad, Betty,” pleaded Rodney. “I couldn't help it. I didn't want to. My father made me do it.”
“Would you rather be with me?” asked Betty in a slightly mollified tone.
“Would I?” breathed Rodney, and it was not a question.
Betty leaned her head against his shoulder and ran one finger up and down on his coat lapel.
“Just the same,” she said, “I think it was mean of you to ask Allison to the dance.”
“Aw, come on, Betty. Don't be like that. Kiss me a little.”
Betty lifted her head and Rodney quickly covered her mouth with his. She could kiss, thought Rodney, like no one else in the world. She didn't kiss with just her lips, but with her teeth and her tongue, and all the while she made noises deep in her throat, and her fingernails dug into his shoulders.
“Oh, honey, honey,” whispered Rodney, and that was all he could say before Betty's tongue went between his teeth again.
Her whole body twisted and moved when he kissed her, and when his hands found their way to her breasts, she moaned as if she were hurt. She writhed on the seat until she was lying down, with only her legs and feet not touching him, and Rodney fitted his body to her without taking his mouth from hers.
“Is it up, Rod?” she panted, undulating her body under his. “Is it up good and hard?”
“Oh, yes,” he whispered, almost unable to speak. “Oh, yes.”
Without another word, Betty jacknifed her knees, pushed Rodney away from her, clicked the lock on the door and was outside of the car.
“Now go shove it into Allison MacKenzie,” she screamed at him. “Go get the girl you brought to the dance and get rid of it with her!”
Before Rodney could catch his breath to utter one word, she had whirled and was on her way back to the gymnasium. He tried to get out of the car to run after her, but his legs were like sawdust under him, and he could only cling to the open door and curse under his breath.
“Bitch,” he said hoarsely, using one of his father's favorite words. “Goddamned bitch!”
He hung onto the open car door and retched helplessly, and the sweat poured down his face.
“Bitch!” he said, but it did not help.
At last, he straightened up and wiped his face with his handkerchief, and fumbled in his pockets for a comb. He still had to go back into the gymnasium to get that goddamned Allison MacKenzie. His father would drive up at eleven-thirty and expect to find him waiting with her.
“Oh, you rotten bitch,” he said under his breath to the absent Betty. “Oh, you stinking, rotten, goddamned bitchy sonofabitch!”
He racked his brain to think of new swear words to direct at her, but he could think of nothing. He began to comb his hair, almost in tears.
Over Norman's shoulder, Allison saw Betty Anderson come back into the gymnasium, alone.
Dear God, she thought, maybe he's gone home alone! What shall I do?
“There's Betty,” said Norman. “I wonder what happened to Rodney?”
“He's probably in the Men's,” said Allison who could not seem to keep her voice steady. “Please, Norman. Couldn't we sit down. My feet hurt.”
And my head, she thought. And my stomach. And my arms, and hands, and legs, and the back of my neck.
It was eleven-fifteen when she saw Rodney walk through the door. She was so overwhelmed with relief that she could not be angry. He had saved her face by returning to her and not leaving her to go home alone. He looked sick. His face was red and swollen looking.
“You almost ready to go?” he asked Allison.
“Any time you are,” she said nonchalantly.
“My father's outside, so we might as well go.”
“We might just as well.”
“I'll get your coat.”
“All right.”
“Do you want to dance one more first?”
“No. No, thank you. I've been dancing so much all evening that my feet are ready to fall off.”
“Well, I'll get your coat”
And that, thought Miss Elsie Thornton, is that. Valiant is the word for Allison.
“Good night, Miss Thornton. I had a lovely time.”
“Good night, dear,” said Miss Thornton.
♦ 27 ♦
To Miss Elsie Thornton, the twentieth of June was the most trying day of the year. It was graduation day, and it always left her with an uncomfortable mixture of feelings comprised of happiness, regret and the peculiar weariness that comes with the relaxation of effort. She sat alone in the empty auditorium after the exercises, enjoying these few minutes by herself now that the crowd had gone. In a little while, Kenny Stearns would come in, with his mops and pails, to begin the work of cleaning up, but for these few moments everything was still, and Miss Thornton looked around tiredly.
The hastily constructed wooden benches, built in graduated rows like bleachers at a football stadium, still stood on the empty stage. A short while before, their nakedness had been hidden by the white skirts of thirty-two girls and the dark trousers of forty boys who comprised the graduating classes of the grade and high schools, but all that was left now to show that the youngsters had been there at all was one lost white glove and three crumpled programs. There were tall letters, made of gilt cardboard, pinned to the black velvet curtain behind the benches: ONWARD!— CLASSES OF 1937. Sometime during the evening, the nine in 1937 had been pulled loose so that it hung now at a tipsy angle, giving a comic look to something that had been arranged with utmost seriousness.
Perhaps, thought Miss Thornton defensively, the entire evening's performance would be comical to an outsider. Certainly, the scratchiness of the Peyton Place High School band attempting to play a composition as pretentious as “Pomp and Circumstance” had its comical aspects. And Jared Clarke, while he had not actually remarked that the graduates were “standing with reluctant feet” had most certainly implied it.
Yes, Miss Thornton imagined, there were many people, especially the dean of Smith College, who would find these things laughable.
But Miss Thornton had not been amused. When seventy-two children, among them the forty-odd whom she had taught all year, rose in a body to sing, “Hail, Alma M
ater fair, our song to thee we raise,” Miss Thornton had been filled with emotion which some might have called “sentimentality” and others, of a younger, more tactless generation, perhaps would label as “corny.” Graduation, to Miss Thornton, was a time of sadness and a time of joy, but most of all it was a time of change. On graduation night, the change meant more to Miss Thornton than a simple transition from one school to another. She regarded it as the end of an era. Too many of her boys and girls had ceased to be children this night. They had all looked so grown up and different from where she sat in her front-row seat in the auditorium. Many of them had only the summer ahead in which to enjoy the last days of childhood. In the fall they would be “high schoolers,” and already they regarded themselves as adults. She had heard Rodney Harrington speak of “going down to New Hampton” as if he were going off to Dartmouth rather than to a prep school, and she had heard several girls complain of parents who would not allow them to go to “coed” summer camps.
It's all too fast, thought Miss Thornton, realizing that she was not thinking a new thought. She seemed to be full of clichés this evening, the way she was after every graduation, and her mind persisted in framing phrases like, The best years of their lives, and, What a pity that youth is wasted on the young.
Peyton Place Page 19
