“And remember that wonderful house?” Mother said. “Oh, I guess it was still in Virginia—the one full of gables and painted every color of the rainbow.”
“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet,” Suzy counted.
So we got to talking about the things we’d seen that day and began to forget the black leather jacketed hoods. Then we heard a car coming up the road, and Suzy called out happily, “There’s Daddy and Rob.”
John can identify all kinds of engines. “That’s not our car. And it’s going much too fast.”
Five
I felt my skin raise up into goose pimples. If the hoods came back and Daddy wasn’t there I wasn’t at all sure of John’s ability to take care of us, no matter how much Judo Daddy had taught him. But of course I didn’t say this to John.
The car swished up the hill and into view, a shiny black gorgeously new station wagon with a tent trailer behind it, and a California license. It was obviously not the hoods’ car, but there was a black jacketed boy at the wheel, and all I could think of was that he was one of the gang and they’d stolen the car.
It swooped all the way around the campgrounds, then returned and swooshed into the campsite next to ours. I started to get up, but Mother put a restraining hand on my arm. Then we saw that the only other people in the car besides the boy at the wheel were a man and woman, both quite a bit older than Mother and Daddy, I’d say, and sort of plump, wearing the kind of camping clothes you see in ads and not usually on people.
The sun was breaking through the clouds, now, and, though it was low on the horizon and the sky was turning pink, there was more light than there had been during dinner and when the hoods threw the Coke bottle.
The boy was about John’s age, very thin and not a bit suntanned, so that he looked white in comparison to everybody else. Even his parents looked a lot browner than he, but maybe they’d been sitting around under sun lamps. They were the type. He had this velvety black hair that made him look even whiter, and he wore brand new blue jeans and a pink Ivy League–type shirt under the jacket. He was really pretty spectacular.
They began setting up camp and you’ve never seen such stuff; it would have filled a store. I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. I kept wanting to see what they’d pull out next.
“They’re had; they don’t have,” Mother murmured.
They went about unpacking without glancing our way or saying a word to us. With the entire campgrounds to choose from I don’t know why they had to pick the site next to ours if they weren’t going to be friendly.
The tent trailer when they unfolded it was easily large enough for all of us. It was filled with built-in gadgets and they’d added a lot of extra ones. There was a plywood base they’d obviously had made for it. Then the mother saw to it that the boy and the father laid down a linoleum carpet, clucking over them the whole time.
“I guess he’s not one of those other kids after all,” I murmured.
“Him,” John grunted. “The poor sap’d probably faint if he ever saw that gang.”
We heard the sound of another car, and John stated categorically, “That’s Daddy,” and our station wagon came up, looking very shabby in comparison with the shiny black new one, and backed in to our parking space and up to the tent so that we’d be able to fit the back flaps over the tail gate.
Daddy told us that he and Rob had met the ranger just about to come up and check on us. The kids who’d thrown the Coke bottle were a gang that had been causing trouble, and they’d slipped into the park while the ranger was out getting supplies. His wife hadn’t dared stop them, but she’d called him in town to come right home. He was very apologetic, Daddy said, and he was going to keep the park gates locked from now on. The people in the next campsite had arrived to get their camping permit just as the ranger was telling Daddy all this; the mother was very upset and wanted to go to a hotel, but the boy insisted on coming up to the camp anyhow.
I realized that they were probably camping next to us because the mother was scared, but you’d still think they could have said hello.
Now the boy and the father were struggling to tie a plastic top over the entire tent. Daddy and John called over and asked if they could help.
“Thanks, it’s very simple, we don’t need any help,” the father said, rather ungraciously.
Mother asked, “Just what is the plastic for?”
The plump mother replied, “So the top of our tent won’t get dirty.”
Mother smiled and said, “I think we’re going to enjoy the battle scars on our tent. It’ll make us feel that we’ve really traveled.”
(Daddy said afterwards that that was not nice of Mother at all.)
The father paused in tying plastic and looked down his nose at our tent. “We had an outfit like yours last year. But we like to have the very best so we threw it out and got this. It only takes seven minutes to put up.”
I didn’t know which seven minutes he was referring to, because we saw them working at it for over half an hour. Daddy and John had already got our tent time down to eleven minutes, and figured that in a couple more weeks they could cut that.
Mother said in a low voice to Daddy, “What on earth are they doing on a camping trip? She’d look more at home at a bridge table than in a state park.”
“She ought to know better than to wear plaid pants,” Daddy said.
Right after Mother’s remark about the bridge table we almost burst when the father pulled out a huge flat cardboard box, struggled with it, and extricated a brand new folding bridge table! Then came new folding chairs. A new and shiny cooler. Another big plastic cloth over their cooking equipment. Their own garbage can.
“Why are we being so snide about them?” Mother asked Daddy.
“Because they don’t belong in a state park,” Daddy said. “Come on, Robin, time you got ready for bed.”
Rob collected his towel and toothbrush and started up the path to the lavs. When you’re camping if you have lots of choice of campsites you try to set up not too close to the lavs, but not too far away in case it rains or you want to go in the middle of the night.
The rich family was getting dinner ready. Or, rather, the mother was. The father sat in a folding chair with a newspaper. Must’ve been the Wall Street Journal. The boy stood around with his hands in his pockets, whistling, a kind of pretty melody, and after a while he sauntered across the path and stood looking at John and me. When he spoke his voice was quite normal and friendly.
“Hi, I’m Zach. Zachary Grey. Who are you and where are you from?”
“John and Vicky Austin,” John said. “Connecticut.” He spoke rather shortly, and I could tell he didn’t like the boy much.
“L.A.,” the boy said, “but I just got kicked out of Hotchkiss so we decided to camp out on the way home.” He spoke very gayly, as though being kicked out of school was what everybody did, but I had a feeling he didn’t like it at all. He looked at Rob coming down from the lavs, and at Suzy emerging from the tent with her towel. “You’re kind of a big family, aren’t you?”
“We like it,” John said. “You an only?”
“What else?” Zachary said. He turned towards me. “How about a spin down into town for a soda or something?”
“Now?” I asked. I guess I must have sounded foolish.
“Why not? I have my license and I do most of the driving.”
“Well—I’d have to ask my parents.”
“Still back in the Victorian age, are you?” Zachary said. “Okay. Go ahead and ask them.” He started to whistle.
John hitched his thumbs into the belt of his jeans. “I can tell you right now they’ll say no.”
Zachary stopped whistling. “Give them a chance to say no for themselves, Daddy-O.”
Mother and Daddy came out of the tent just then, so I asked them.
“No,” Daddy said. “I think not, Vicky.”
Zachary sounded very deferential. “But why, sir? I have my license and I’m a very good driver. O
h, I’m Zachary Grey, by the way.”
“Sorry to say no, Zachary, but we’re getting an early start in the morning, and we’re all about ready to go to bed.”
“Well, could she take a walk around the campgrounds with me, then?”
Daddy looked at Zachary sharply before replying, “As long as it’s a short walk within the campgrounds, yes.”
Zachary shrugged. “I’ll have to settle for that, then. The old lady will want me to eat, anyhow. Come on, Vicky-O.” He put his hand on my elbow and we started off. “The old man rules you with a rod of iron, doesn’t he?”
“No, not really. He’s pretty reasonable, as fathers go.” Somehow I wasn’t happy about the way Zachary was referring to Daddy.
“How old are you?”
“ … Sixteen.”
“Gad! A mere infant! I’d have thought you were at least seventeen.”
I was glad I hadn’t told him the exact truth. He’d probably have dropped me like a hot coal if I’d admitted I was fourteen.
“How come you’re on a camping trip?”
“We’re moving to New York, so my father’s taking the time off. How about you?”
“I told you. I got kicked out of Hotchkiss, so I told my parents I wanted to camp on the way home.”
“They do anything you ask?”
“I have them pretty well under my thumb.”
“Did they mind your getting kicked out of school?” That wasn’t a polite question, but I’d asked it before I realized it.
“Wasn’t much they could do about it after it’d happened,” Zachary said. “Let’s go this way.”
“It’s out of the campgrounds.”
“So what?”
Now this may sound funny, but going for a walk with Zachary Grey was really what you might call my first date. I mean, I don’t count school dances and stuff. I’ve known all those kids since they were in diapers, practically. Anyhow, going to dances in a station wagon full of other kids isn’t a date. And I didn’t want to foul this one up. Zachary had said he thought I was seventeen. I didn’t want to act like a kid Suzy’s age. But one reason Daddy and Mother say yes to most things, is that when they give a limitation, like staying within the campgrounds, they know I’ll stick to it. But somehow I didn’t want to explain all this to Zachary. It wasn’t just that I thought he’d think me parent-ridden; I didn’t think he’d even understand what I was talking about. So I said, “I don’t want to go that way. I want to go this way.”
“Scared?”
“Of what?”
“The old man.”
Then I had an inspiration. “No,” I said. “Of you.”
That seemed to please him, and we kept on walking within the campgrounds. We could see down to the two campfires, ours and the Greys, ours down to nothing but a glow, theirs still burning brightly. I tried surreptitiously to look at Zachary so he wouldn’t know I was looking. He was really very handsome, not in the least like John, but in a narrow, hawk-like sort of way. His brows and eyes were very dark, like his hair; his lashes were almost as long as Suzy’s, which is spectacular on a boy, his face very pale. And yet he wasn’t a bit sissy. I mean he was strictly terrific as far as looks went.
He led me to the picnic table at an empty campsite. “Let’s sit.” I noticed that he seemed a little out of breath. We sat with our backs to the table, and he leaned back, his elbows on the table, his legs stretched out, while dark fell quickly, coming much faster than it does at home. “Tell me about yourself,” he demanded.
“I’d rather hear about you. Why did you want to go on a camping trip?”
He grinned. “I don’t look the type, do I?”
“Not exactly.”
“That’s one reason. I like to play against type.”
“Why else?”
“The old man thinks it’s wholesome, though he’d rather do it up brown with a guide and stuff. Also my old lady hates it.”
“What about you?”
“For a few weeks it’s kind of fun. It’s as interesting a way to get home as any.”
“All this equipment just to get home?”
“Why not? We might use it again next summer. Unless Pop sees something new in an ad. Then he’ll junk this and buy that. Next month I think we’ll fly up to Alaska, but we’ll stay at hotels there and charter a small plane to sightsee with.”
“Money,” I asked dryly, “is not a problem?”
“The old man’s loaded. Spend it now, is my motto. You don’t have a pocket in your shroud.” He began to whistle, the same gay, pretty tune I’d heard him whistling before.
“What’s that?”
He sang,
“They’re rioting in Africa,
They’re starving in Spain,
There’s hurricanes in Florida,
And Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch,
And I don’t like anybody
Very much.”
He whistled the melody through, and I reacted as I might if it had been John, or one of the kids at school. “I think that’s awful. It’s ghoulish.”
“Don’t be naive, Vicky,” he said, and sang:
“But we can be tranquil
And thankful and proud,
For man’s been endowed
With the mushroom-shaped cloud.
And we know for certain
That some lovely day
Some one’ll set the spark off
And we’ll all be blown away.
They’re rioting in Africa,
They’re striking in Iran.
What nature doesn’t do to us
Will be done by our fellow man.”
He laughed gayly, the first real laugh I’d heard him give. “Cute, isn’t it?”
I laughed, too, at the same time that I shuddered, the way you do when someone’s supposed to have walked over where your grave’s going to be. The melody was so pretty and gay and the words in such black contrast that I couldn’t help thinking it funny at the same time that it scared me stiff. Sure, I was worried about war. We all were, even Rob, to the point of worrying about it in his God-bless. Who could help it, with parents listening to news reports, and current events and air raid drills at school, where you’re taught how to hide under your desk to shield you from the worst effects of a nuclear blast? And all this stuff about building shelters or not building shelters. And do you stick a gun in your neighbor’s face if he doesn’t have a shelter and keep him out of yours? All that kind of business over and over until it runs out of your ears like mashed potatoes.
“So why not spend Pop’s money now, eh, Vicky?” Zachary asked. “What’re we waiting for? I have other reasons, too.”
“What reasons?”
“Tell you some other time. So you’re moving to New York? Stinking city. Can’t stand it. What’re you going to do there?”
“Oh, the usual, school and stuff,” I said.
“What’s your father?”
“He’s a doctor.”
“Specialist?”
“Internal medicine and research. But he was pretty much a G.P. in Thornhill. What does your father do?”
“Real estate. As for me, I’m studying law.”
“You want to be a lawyer?”
“No, I don’t want to be a lawyer, as you so naively put it, but I intend to be one. Therefore I suppose I’ll have to pick up my high school diploma somewhere next year. It’s a real bore having been booted, puts me back a stinking year. We live in a lousy world, Vicky-O, and the only way to get the better of the phonies who boss it is to outwit them, and law will help me do that. My old man’s smart, but I’m going to be even smarter. If I know law I can protect myself. I can do pretty much anything I want and get away with it.”
“What do you mean? Get away with what?” Zacha
ry excited me, and he disturbed me. I kept wanting to let my fingers touch that velvety black hair.
“My dear child, if you have money and you know law, there are legal gimmicks for every situation. How do you think my old man’s done so well? He’s a smart cookie and he’s got good lawyers. I intend to skip the middle man and be my own lawyer. Then I don’t have to pay out huge lawyers’ fees like my old man does and I can get away with anything I want.”
“But what do you want to do that you’d have to get away with?”
“My poor, innocent child. No wonder you’re traveling in a cheap tent with practically no equipment.” My skin bristled at that, but he went gaily on. “I suppose you’re taught the golden rule. Can’t get along that way any more, Vicky-O. That’s outmoded. Got to be smart today. And that’s what I’m going to be. Have what I want, do what I want, go where I want, get what I want. Don’t let anybody kid you that money isn’t everything. I’ve seen plenty and I’ve learned that if you have enough money you can buy all the things that money isn’t.”
“What about staying at Hotchkiss?” I asked. I knew it wasn’t tactful, but I really wanted to know what he’d answer.
It didn’t seem to bother him. “That was just a fluke. If I knew more about law I’d probably still be there. And money’ll get me into another school next autumn I’d never make otherwise.” He looked at his watch. “Your old man said you had to be right back. I suppose I’d better return you if I want to see you again. Where are you heading?”
“Out west.”
“California?”
“Yes. We’re going to stay with our uncle and aunt in Laguna Beach.”
He raised his eyebrows, but all he said was, “Same trail. I’ll be seeing you then. Where’re you going to stop on the way?”
“I don’t know. That’s the fun of this trip. We just go.”
“Haven’t you any idea?”
“Well, Daddy said something about going to Mesa Verde and seeing the Pueblo remains.”
“Culture vulture, eh? Maybe I’ll see you there. I don’t object to anthropology.” He stood up. “Come on, Vicky-O. You’re very refreshing for a change.”
The Moon by Night Page 5
