"You ever wondered if… what happened… is what this is really all about?"
"You mean," she said, aware that she was frightened, that she was close to tears, "because we fucked? Because you copped my cherry?"
"Goddamn it, I hate it when you talk dirty," he said furiously.
Her mouth ran away with her. "Not always," she said.
He jammed his foot on the brakes, and the LaSalle slid to the curb.
"Sorry," Ernie said, very softly.
There was something in his eyes that at first she thought was anger, but after a moment she knew it was pain.
"I love you," Ernie said. "I can't help that."
He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running hard.
Then he put the LaSalle in gear and pulled away from the curb.
"I was afraid you were going to put me out," Ernie said.
"Do me a favor," McCoy said. "Just shut up."
When she saw a U.S. 422 highway sign, Ernie thought that maybe she had won, maybe that he even would reach across the seat for her and take her hand, or put his arm around her shoulder. U.S. 422 was the Harrisburg highway. If she got that far, if they spent the night together…
In Norristown, ten miles or so past the western outskirts of Philadelphia, he turned off the highway and pulled into an Amoco station.
A tall, skinny, pimply-faced young man in a mackinaw and galoshes came out to the pump. McCoy opened the door and got out.
"Fill it up with high test," McCoy ordered. "Check the oil. And can you get the crap off the headlights?"
"Yes, sir," the attendant said.
"Dutch around?" McCoy asked.
"Inna station," the attendant said.
McCoy turned and looked through the windshield at Ernie, and then gestured for her to come out.
By the time she had put her feet back in her galoshes, McCoy was at the door of the service station. Ernie ran after him.
There was no one in the room where they had the cash register and displays of oil and Simoniz, but there was a man in the service bay, putting tire chains on a Buick on the lift.
"Whaddasay, Dutch?" McCoy greeted him. "What's up?"
The man looked up, first in impatience, and then with surprised recognition. He smiled, dropped the tire chains on the floor, and walked to McCoy.
"How're ya?" he asked. "Ain't that an officer's uniform?"
"Yeah," McCoy said. "Dutch, say hello to Ernie Sage."
"Hi ya, honey," Dutch said. "Pleased to meetcha."
"Hello," Ernie said.
"How's business?" McCoy asked.
"Jesus! So long as we got gas, it's fine," Dutch said. "But there's already talk about rationing. If that happens, I'll be out on my ass."
"Maybe you could get on with Budd in Philly," McCoy said. "I guess they're hiring."
"Yeah, maybe," Dutch said doubtfully. "Well, I'll think of something. What brings you to town? When'd you get to be an officer?"
"Month or so ago," McCoy said.
"Better dough, I guess?" Dutch asked.
"Yeah, but they make you buy your own meals," McCoy said.
"You didn't say what you're doing in town?"
"Just passing through," McCoy said.
"But you will come by the house? Anne-Marie would be real disappointed if you didn't."
"Just for a minute," McCoy said. "She there?"
"Where else would she be on a miserable fucking night like this?" Dutch asked. Then he remembered his manners. "Sorry, honey," he said to Ernie. "My old lady says I got mouth like a sewer."
Ernie smiled and shook her head, accepting the apology.
She had placed Dutch. His old lady, Anne-Marie, was Ken McCoy's sister. Dutch was Ken's brother-in-law.
"Gimme a minute," Dutch said, "to lock up the cash, and then you can follow me to the house."
Anne- Marie and Dutch Schulter and their two small children lived in a row house on North Elm Street, not far from the service station. There were seven brick houses in the row, each fronted with a wooden porch. The one in front of Dutch's house sagged under his and McCoy's and Ernie's weight as they stood there while Anne-Marie came to the door.
She had one child in her arms when she opened the door, and another-with soiled diapers-was hanging on to her skirt. It looked at them with wide and somehow frightened eyes. Anne-Marie was fat, and she had lost some teeth, and she was wearing a dirty man's sweater over her dress, and her feet were in house slippers.
She was not being taken home by Ken McCoy to be shown off, Ernie Sage realized sadly, in the hope that his family would be pleased with his girl. Ken had brought her here to show her his family, sure that she would be shocked and disgusted.
Dutch went quickly into the kitchen and returned with a quart of beer.
Ernie reached for McCoy's hand, but he jerked it away.
To Dutch's embarrassment, Anne-Marie began a litany of complaints about how hard it was to make ends meet with what he could bring home from the service station. And her reaction to Ken's promotion to officer status, Ernie saw, was that it meant for her a possible source of further revenue.
In due course, Anne-Marie invited them to have something to eat-coupled with the caveat that she didn't know what was in the icebox and the implied suggestion that Ken should take them all out for dinner.
"Maybe you'd get to see Pop, if we went out to the Inn," Anne-Marie said.
"What makes you think I'd want to see Pop?" McCoy replied. "No, we gotta go. It's still snowing; they may close the roads."
"Where are you going?" Anne-Marie asked.
"Harrisburg," McCoy said. "Ernie's got to catch a train in Harrisburg."
"Going back to Philly'd be closer," Dutch said.
"Yeah, but I got to go to Harrisburg," McCoy said. He looked at Ernie, for the first time meeting her eyes. "You about ready?"
She smiled and nodded.
When they were back in the LaSalle and headed for Harrisburg, McCoy said, "A long way from Rocky Fields Farm, isn't it?"
A mental image of herself with McCoy in the bed in what her mother called the "Blue Guest Room" of Rocky Fields Farm came into Ernie's mind. The Blue Guest Room was actually an apartment, with a bedroom and sitting room about as large as Anne-Marie and Dutch Schulter's entire house.
And it didn't smell of soiled diapers and cabbage and stale beer.
"When you're trying to sell something, you should use all your arguments," Ernie said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" McCoy asked, confused.
"You asked your sister why she thought you would want to see Pop," Ernie said. "What did that mean?"
"We don't get along," McCoy said, after hesitating.
"Why not?" Ernie asked.
"Does it matter?" McCoy asked.
"Everything you do matters to me," Ernie said.
"My father is a mean sonofabitch," McCoy said. "Leave it at that."
"What about your mother?" Ernie asked.
"She's dead," McCoy said. "I thought I told you that."
"You didn't tell me what she was like," Ernie said.
"She was all right," McCoy said. "Browbeat by the Old Man is all."
"And I know about Brother Tom," Ernie said. "After he was fired by Bethlehem Steel for beating up his foreman, he joined the Marines. Is that all of the skeletons in your closet, or are we on our way to another horror show?"
There was a moment's silence, and then he chuckled. "Anyone ever tell you you're one tough lady?"
"You didn't really think I was going to say how much I liked your sister, did you?"
"I don't know," he said.
"I didn't like her," Ernie said. "There's no excuse for being dirty or having dirty children."
"That the only reason you didn't like her?"
"She was hinting that you should give her money," Ernie said. "She doesn't really like you. She just would like to use you."
"Yeah, she's always been that way," McCoy said. "I guess she gets it from Pop."
"Daughters take after their fathers," Ernie said. "I take after mine. And I think you should know that my father always gets what he goes after."
"Meaning?"
"That we're in luck. Our daughter will take after you."
There was a long moment before McCoy replied. "Ernie, I can't marry you," he said.