by Jean Stone
“It’s Saturday night,” Jess spoke up. “I think we should go to a movie. Anyone interested?” More than anything, she hated the nights at Larchwood. She hated being alone in the darkness.
“Sounds good to me,” P.J. said.
“I have some reading to do,” Susan said. “And I think I’ll skip dessert.” She got up from the table.
“You always have reading to do!” Jess called after her.
“It’s part of being educated,” she retorted, and left the room.
“I’ll go,” Ginny said.
“What?” Jess glanced over at the hard-looking new girl.
“I’ll go. I haven’t even been here twenty-four hours, and I already feel the need to get the hell out.”
Pop Hines dropped them off in front of the Majestic Theatre.
“The show’s over at nine. Could you pick us up at ten at Patsy’s?” Jess asked. Patsy’s was the soda shop next door to the movie house.
“Sure thing. Have a good time!” The old man chuckled and drove off.
The girls got in line behind two young, giggling, hand-holding couples. Jess watched as one of the girls turned and kissed her boyfriend, openmouthed. The girl moaned softly, and the boy slid his hand to her backside. Lovers, Jess thought. Hands holding, lips touching, eyes locking. The way she and Richard had been. Richard. The son of a middle-class car salesman and his schoolteacher wife. Richard. The boy who was simply not good enough for Warren Bates’s daughter. Jess looked at P.J. and Ginny. They, too, watched the young couple.
“I don’t know if I can take this,” Ginny snarled. “Besides, I’ve seen The Graduate three times.”
“We could just go to Patsy’s for coffee,” Jess suggested. “Skip the movie.”
“Great,” P.J. said. “Let’s do it.”
Inside the soda shop a dozen padded metal stools stood at attention in front of a long counter. A man and a little boy sat on two of them: The man sipped coffee; the boy gorged a banana split, slopping more of it onto his shirt than into his mouth. The only other person in the place was a woman behind the counter in a tight pink uniform.
“Evening, ladies,” she said. “What’ll it be?”
Jess noticed the reflection of the woman in the long wall mirror. The back of her uniform pulled away from the zipper; her strawlike hair was encased in a torn hair net.
“I’ll have coffee, regular. And I think we’ll sit at a table,” Jess said.
“Same for me,” P.J. added.
“Coke,” Ginny said. “No ice.”
Jess led them to a round wrought-iron table, and they sat on the old-fashioned soda-parlor chairs. Once the woman delivered their drinks, Ginny started jiggling her leg again. Jess steadied the small table.
“So what’s with the bitch?” Ginny pried.
“Miss Taylor?” Jess asked. In the harsh light of the shop Jess noticed a severe case of acne concealed beneath Ginny’s heavy makeup.
“No. The tall broad. The hippie freak with the long hair.”
“Oh. Susan.” Jess hadn’t really figured Susan out. It didn’t make sense. Susan wore love beads and talked—when she did talk—about peace and making the world a better place. But she certainly didn’t share any feelings of “brotherly love” around Larchwood. Susan remained distant and disassociated, almost as though she resented being there. “Well,” Jess continued, “she studies a lot. She just graduated from Barnard, and I guess she’s going to go to graduate school or something. I get the impression she’s real smart.”
“I get the impression she doesn’t want much to do with anyone,” P.J. said.
“Well, she’s old, you know?” Jess said. “Older than the rest of us. She probably thinks she doesn’t have much in common with us.” Jess didn’t tell them that last week Susan had reprimanded her for eating grapes. Something about supporting a new national boycott on behalf of the farmworkers, whatever that meant. Even though she loved grapes, Jess stopped snacking on them. It didn’t seem as though the few pieces of fruit she consumed could make a difference in someone’s life, but Jess didn’t want to give Susan a reason not to like her. And maybe there was really something important in what Susan said. Who was Jess to say Susan was wrong? She thought about that now and sipped her coffee. “She’s really okay,” Jess said.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.” Ginny frowned, tossed the straw from her glass, and lit a Newport.
“Can I bum one?” P.J. asked. “I left mine in my room.”
“What color is yours, anyway? Christ, I can’t believe I’m in a pink-and-white bedroom.”
“Actually mine’s not bad.” P.J. scowled, taking a cigarette from Ginny’s crushed pack. “I wish it was closer to the bathroom though. Morning sickness. Yuck.”
“I wouldn’t know. Hey, where’s the bitch’s room anyway?”
Jess thought back to the day Susan arrived. She’d overheard Susan tell Miss Taylor she’d prefer to be as far away from the other girls as possible. She’d said she’d need peace and quiet. But something had told Jess not to mention this either; it might only make matters worse. Obviously Ginny wasn’t too crazy about Susan, and they were going to have to live with one another for some time. “Susan’s on the third floor. There’s one room up there.”
“A good place for a queen,” Ginny said. “It kills me though. What makes her think she’s better than the rest of us?”
“She really is okay,” Jess repeated. “She keeps to herself, and that’s okay.”
“Yeah. Fine with me.”
“Well, I’m sure she has problems.” Jess half wondered why on earth she was defending Susan.
Ginny laughed coarsely. “Seems to me we all have problems. The same one.”
Jess scooped a heaping teaspoon of sugar and slowly set it on the surface of her coffee, letting the milky brown liquid seep across the bowl of the spoon. “Look,” she said thoughtfully, “it’s like the buffalo stampeding across the plains.” She studied her spoon until the white granules were totally immersed in coffee. “My mother used to say that when I was a little girl. She’d give me tea-milk, you know, half tea, half milk, and she showed me how to add the sugar slowly, so it looked like buffalo stampeding across the plains.”
Neither Ginny nor P.J. said anything.
Jess dropped her spoon into the cup and quickly stirred. Why had she said that? These two new girls were going to think she was some kind of idiot. She felt a hot rush in her cheeks. “Anyway,” she cleared her throat and continued, “my problem won’t last forever. Richard and I are going to run away and get married.” As soon as she’d said it, Jess was sorry. She hadn’t meant for anyone to know of their plan.
“Aren’t you a little young?” P.J. asked.
“I’ll be sixteen this summer.”
“What about the kid?” Ginny asked.
Jess studied her mug. “We’re going to be together. We’re going to be a family. Richard is working on a plan right now.”
There was silence for a moment.
“But, please,” she added, “don’t tell anyone else.”
“Married.” P.J. sighed. She took a long drag off her cigarette and exhaled forcefully. “Yeah, I thought I might be too.” Through the smoke that swirled before her face, Jess could see a faraway look in P.J.’s eyes.
“Who needs it?” Ginny said.
As Ginny nonchalantly took a big gulp of Coke, Jess wondered if Ginny had concrete walls around her emotions.
“So what’s the doctor like?” P.J. asked, changing the subject.
Jess turned from Ginny. “He’s okay. An old guy. He’ll be coming once a month, I guess.”
“Gross,” Ginny said.
“No, he’s okay, really.”
“Christ, is everything and everyone ‘okay’ to you?” Ginny snapped. “I hate to tell you, honey, but everything is not ‘okay.’ We’re all pregnant. And personally I don’t give a shit if everything is okay.”
“Ssh, Ginny, not so loud,” Jess whispered, mortified. She glanced around the r
estaurant. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them.
“Fuck,” Ginny said. “What do I care who hears me? In a hick town like this, they’re all going to know sooner or later. The ‘bad girls.’ The ones who live at that home.” She stressed “home” as though it were a mysterious, evil place. “As for me, I just want to get this over with. One way or another. I’ve got big plans myself. I’m going to be a star.” She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “I’ve got to take a leak.” She stormed off toward the back of the soda shop, her miniskirt hiked high enough to attract a stare from the man at the counter.
Jess looked at P.J. “Wow. She sure is angry.”
“You know it,” P.J. said. “And don’t ask her anything about the father of her baby. She gets really hostile. Like she’s got something to hide.” P.J. reached over and took another cigarette from Ginny’s pack. “You don’t smoke?”
“No.”
“You’re lucky. I started when I went to college, and now I can’t stop. I’ll probably get lung cancer, if I don’t give it to the baby first.”
“Is it going to be hard for you?”
“What?”
“You know, giving up the baby. It sounds like you loved the father.”
P.J. played with the cigarette. “Yeah. I did love him. I still do, I guess. I can’t believe he dumped me. He said he couldn’t be sure it was his. What a creep.”
Jess saw P.J.’s green eyes turn liquid. It was hard for her to believe any guy would walk away from such beauty. “But what about the baby?”
“To tell you the truth, Jess, I haven’t let myself think much about the baby,” P.J. said, her voice quivering. “Maybe you’re too young to understand that.” She brushed back a lock of hair. “Actually this will all be over with before we know it.” Jess wasn’t sure which one of them P.J. was trying to convince.
Ginny reappeared, surrounded by an invisible cloud of Evening in Paris cologne. “Cheap-shit bathroom. The fucking toilet wouldn’t flush. What time is the old man coming back?”
“Ten,” Jess said.
“Christ, then let’s split this ratbox joint and go find some action.” Ginny slung her huge purse over her shoulder. “I saw a bar on the ride in. A couple of blocks down the street. You two coming?” She tromped off toward the door.
Jess and P.J. exchanged glances. P.J. wiped the mist from her eyes, and Jess saw her take a deep breath. “What do you say?” P.J. asked. “Are you game?”
Jess wanted to say no, that she’d never been in a bar and surely didn’t want to start now. Not here, in this town. Besides, in Connecticut they were all underage. But Jess sensed that P.J. wanted to go, and she liked P.J. She wanted to be her friend. She swallowed a last sip of coffee and heard herself say, “Sure. Why not?”
The Dew-Drop-Inn was small, dark, and noisy. And the smell. Oh, God. Jess clutched her stomach. Sickish odors of stale beer and cheap whiskey clung to the thick cloud of cigarette smoke like Dippity-Do to hair. The girls wove their way through the maze of people toward the bar. Ginny was in the lead, followed by P.J. Jess noticed almost every man turned to check out Ginny’s miniskirt, then shifted to P.J. Good, Jess thought. They won’t even notice me. She stared into the back of P.J.’s auburn mane and kept walking.
“Seats!” Jess heard Ginny shout.
There were two vacant stools at the bar. P.J. slid onto one. Please, God, Jess thought, don’t make me stand. Then Ginny saved her.
“Take a seat, Jess,” Ginny shouted above the noise of the people and the electric piano in the corner. “I’d rather stand.”
Jess sat down.
A portly bartender with slicked-back hair approached them. “What’ll it be?”
“VO. Splash of water,” Ginny announced.
“I’ll need to see some ID,” the bartender said.
Ginny fished in her huge bag and pulled out a small square paper. Oh, God, Jess thought, Ginny must have a fake ID. What if they got caught? Her heart raced. She looked at Ginny, whose heart, Jess determined by the calm, slow smile, was not racing. The bartender looked at the paper quickly, then handed it back. He turned to P.J. “How ’bout you? What’ll it be?”
“Scotch and soda,” P.J. said confidently. The man didn’t ask to see her ID.
He turned to Jess. “And you? You’re too little to be twenty-one!” He laughed. Jess’s stomach churned.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll just have ginger ale.”
Ginny and P.J. were watching the crowd on the dance floor while they waited for their drinks. Jess wanted to watch as well, but when she twisted in her chair, she felt uncomfortably on display. Instead, she studied the top of the bar, which was black Formica, covered with knotted plastic swizzle sticks and little pools of moisture where drunks had missed their mouths. Behind the bar were rows and rows of bottles, capped with silver pouring spouts that reflected the neon beer signs. One of the beer signs was a clock. Five minutes after eight. Great, Jess thought. I have to sit here for two hours before Pop comes back to get us.
The bartender returned with their drinks. P.J. opened her wallet. “My treat,” she said. But the bartender waved her money away. “It’s taken care of,” he shouted above the loud rendition of “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” “Fella over there in the blue plaid shirt.”
P.J. nodded and looked in the direction the bartender had pointed. Jess followed her gaze. A big dark-haired guy in jeans held up his beer glass and smiled directly at P.J. “What a hunk,” P.J. said.
“Yeah, well, fuck the guys,” Ginny said. “There’s a pinball machine over there, and I’m gonna get some action.” She grabbed her drink off the bar and headed toward the sound of the buzzers and bells.
Jess was about to ask P.J. if she really wanted to stay, when she saw that P.J. was smiling across the room. The “hunk” was walking toward them. Jess turned back and stared at the bottles across the bar.
“Hi.” She heard the masculine voice behind her.
“Hi yourself,” P.J. said. “Thanks for the drink.”
Jess watched the bartender turn two bottles upside down and, without measuring, pour a little of each into a blender container. He popped the container onto the blender base; the whir of the mix wasn’t even discernible over the noise.
Jess felt a hand on her arm. It was, thank God, P.J. P.J. leaned close to her ear. “I’m going to dance. Will you be okay here alone?”
Jess nodded and clutched her glass of ginger ale. “Sure. Have fun.” She watched as P.J. strode toward the dance floor with the hunk. Her head was starting to throb. She looked back to the beer sign/clock. Fifteen minutes past eight. She decided to try to read the labels on the bottles behind the bar. Anything would be better than making eye contact with any of the people here. She held firmly onto her glass, as though it were a talisman that would keep strangers away.
Just then she caught sight of P.J.’s drink, nearly full, still sitting on the bar. On the dance floor P.J. was slow-dancing with the hunk to the tune “Teach Me Tonight.” The bartender was at the other end of the bar, his back toward Jess. She glanced around the room. No one seemed to be watching her. The only time Jess had touched alcohol—not counting an occasional glass of Beaujolais when she was included in one of her parents’ special dinners—was the day of her mother’s funeral. The day she’d finally let down her guard and proved to Richard how much she loved him.
She looked back at P.J.’s glass, then picked it up and took a long, slow sip. She didn’t like the taste of the scotch, but she liked the way it warmed her insides.
Later that night Jess lay in her bed, trying to shut out the loneliness. She had showered the smoke and alcohol odors from her body. She’d only had half of P.J.’s drink, but her head was fuzzy and dull, and her shoulders ached from the tension of rigidly sitting for two hours on that godawful barstool.
Jess stared at the calendar spread out on her bed. It was June 22. She slowly flipped the pages. July. August. September. October. November. December. December 14. She rolled o
nto her side, the curve of her stomach now visible, filled as though she’d just eaten an enorous Thanksgiving dinner with her nanny. Slowly Jess felt a flutter from within. Then another flutter. And another. It stopped.
What was that? Was it the baby moving?
Suddenly there was a strong cramp. Jess curled her legs toward her stomach. The cramp lessened.
Must be part of it, she reasoned. The doctor had told her she’d start to feel movement soon. This must be it.
The flutter returned, followed by another cramp. This time the cramp didn’t subside as quickly. It hurt. It made her feel sick.
Is this what my mother went through? she wondered. No wonder I was an only child.
Jess closed her eyes and thought about her mother. She had been so fragile, so sensitive. When Jess was young, her mother was so full of fun, always making ordinary things into little games, like stirring sugar into tea-milk. Nothing was ever ordinary or mundane; her mother had a way of putting sweetness and life into everything she did and into eveyrthing around her. Like the first time they had gone to FAO Schwarz.
Inside the huge toy store on Fifth Avenue a toy soldier stood guard, welcoming all who passed through the doors. He stood tall and straight, dressed in a red jacket with brass buttons and chains, white pants, and a high black fuzzy hat. On his cheeks were perfect polished red circles.
“Mommy, Mommy!” Jess had exclaimed, wriggling her tiny fingers free from her mother’s delicate white-gloved hand.
“Yes, darling!” her mother had cried. “It’s the soldier from the Nutcracker!” They had been to see the performance the week before, and now, in full view of Fifth Avenue, her mother began a slow pirouette around the soldier, humming the theme from the ballet, then embraced him and made him sway and twirl with the music. Jess giggled and clapped her hands with glee, as several other customers passed by and smiled.
It had been a joyous day, one that Jess would always remember, especially when she tried to figure out what had happened: What had happened to snuff the spirit from her mother’s life, to make the fantasy fade. Had her father really had a mistress? Or was it something else? Something more? Jess simply didn’t know. She knew only that she had loved her mother, and that her mother had loved her. And Mother had liked Richard. She would have let them get married. She would have figured out a way.…
