But when his mouth was on her mouth there had been a rightness about it, a rightness when his body had entered hers … and then there had come a time when she had felt herself becoming flooded with light, and she had floated up, up—toward something she had almost reached.
Slowly, she slid her hand from Peter’s.
“Is it getting late?” he said.
“I’ll have to get dressed.”
They lay beside each other for a moment longer. Suddenly he sat up. Turning away from her, he put out his cigarette. “I’ll walk you back to the dorms,” he said. There was a hollow, remote sound about his voice.
“Peter, why don’t you stay here?” she said gently. “Maybe you’ll go to sleep.”
His eyes were ice-colored when he looked at her. “Maybe that is what I want.”
Letting the sheet slip away from her, she sat up.
“Susan.” Peter said her name half to himself, as if there were something he was trying to remember. Then he touched her hair. “Your hair is quite long,” he said, “after all.”
But who do you think I am? she thought. “Goodbye,” she whispered, because that was the only thing left to say now.
She got out of bed and put on her clothes—the white bra, the white slip, the white pants, the white dress. It didn’t take very long. She went to the mirror that hung above the bureau and began to pull a comb through her hair. There was a girl in the mirror with a clear-eyed, still look, who didn’t smile this time. She could see Peter in the mirror too—sitting up alone in the bed, watching her. It was he who had tangled her hair, given her a different face. She felt an aching sadness for him, but none, none at all, for herself. It was hard for her to think the word “love” without shyness, but maybe there were other names for love. Maybe even “good-bye” was a name for it.
“I’m ready,” she said at last, putting the comb down.
He had gotten up for another cigarette—was he afraid his face would be naked without one? Now he walked over to her and took her hand. “You’re in such a hurry,” he said. “Shall I say bon voyage? Is that appropriate?” His hand tightened on hers. “I suppose you’d hate me if I said thank you.”
“Yes,” she said, “I think I would.”
He laughed a little painfully. “I didn’t even take you to a beach,” he said, “though it wouldn’t have been much fun in the rain.” For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “I didn’t even make you come—I wanted to do that.”
“It was good anyway,” she said. But his face had gone blank and she knew he didn’t believe her. “It was what it meant,” she said. “I knew what it meant.”
“Let me at least walk you to the door,” he said.
They walked out of the bedroom and down the hall and neither of them tried to say anything. He was still holding her hand. At the door, she turned and faced him and he kissed her. “Good-bye, Peter,” she said.
He let her go, opened the door for her. But just as she was leaving, he cried out, “Susan! You don’t regret it, do you?”
She looked at Peter for the last time and didn’t answer.
“You know,” he said, “you must never regret any thing.”
“I know,” she said.
And then she went.
About the Author
Joyce Johnson was born in 1935 in New York City, the setting for all her fiction: Come and Join the Dance, recognized as the first Beat novel by a woman writer, Bad Connections, and In the Night Café. She is best known for her memoir Minor Characters, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1983 and dealt with coming of age in the 1950s and with her involvement with Jack Kerouac. She has published two other Beat-related books: Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, and The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac. She has also written a second memoir, Missing Men, and the nonfiction title What Lisa Knew: The Truths and Lies of the Steinberg Case.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1961 by Joyce Glassman
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN 978-1-4804-8119-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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