He separated the garage key from the others and went down and unlocked the side door of the garage. He climbed in behind the wheel of the Cadillac. He would have liked to take it out on the highway and test its speed. He started the motor. It had a nice steady hum that rose to a roar when he stepped on the gas. He let it roar for a minute, enjoying the feeling of being behind the wheel of a car again, instead of a plane or a jeep.
Idling the motor he looked at the dashboard. It had been carefully dusted and polished, the gas tank was full, and even the clock was still running. Illuminated by a shaft of sun that streamed in from the open door of the garage, its hands pointed to 4:20. He checked it with his watch and found it was exactly right. He pictured Forbes coming down here just before he left, to give the car a last once-over and say goodbye to it like an affectionate mother. And then, as a final touch, winding the clock, as if to make sure of leaving behind him for a time some trace of his existence in the mechanical moving hands.
4:22. He could see the clock all right, but the shaft of sunlight had disappeared. Someone had closed the garage door.
So quickly that the action was almost a reflex, he leaned forward and shut off the ignition. Then he opened the car door and got out.
He said, “This is a pretty big garage. It would probably take quite a while to fill it with carbon monoxide, but you’d better open that door anyway.”
The girl put one hand up to her mouth. “Oh. Oh, I never thought of that. I just didn’t want people to — well, you know how people spy on people.” She kicked the door open with her foot, keeping close to the wall. It was clear that she thought of herself as keeping a rendezvous and intended to squeeze the last ounce of drama from the occasion.
“You don’t remember me,” she said.
“Certainly I do. You’re Laura.” He would never have recognized her in a crowd, though. She was at least six inches taller. Her black bangs were gone, and her hair hung straight and smooth down to her shoulders.
“Come on, let’s sit in the car,” Laura said.
He didn’t budge. “Why?”
“Well, I haven’t seen you for years. I want to hear all about everything. I heard Brown telling Martha you were coming, so I skipped a psychology lab. They’re not very interesting anyway, just finding out your hot and cold spots, et cetera.”
“It sounds fascinating.”
“Well, it would be if you didn’t have to remember it.” Her voice trailed away and she moved her hands in a fluttery, embarrassed way. “Are you... aren’t you surprised to see how grown-up I am?”
“Yes, I am,” Steve said. “Very.”
She seemed satisfied with that, and became more at ease. “Are you going to live here?”
“For a while.”
“That will be fun.”
“For whom?”
“I only meant, it will be fun to have someone to talk to sometimes. I get so bored.”
He noticed that she had put on a thick layer of lipstick. When she talked she barely moved her mouth, as if she were afraid of smearing the lipstick or getting some on her teeth.
“I’m sorry you get so bored,” Steve said wryly.
“Have you got a cigarette?”
“I have, yes.” He raised the engine hood of the car and looked inside, hoping she would take the hint and leave.
“I’d like one.”
“Look,” he said. “Aren’t we starting off on the wrong track? You can’t hang around garages smoking cigarettes. You’re getting to be a big girl now. People might get the wrong impression. You know how people spy on people, don’t you?”
She flushed and backed away. “You don’t have to be so mean about it. And you don’t have to say it’s for my own good, either. If you knew how dull things are around here, how damned bloody dull!” She started to emote, but remembered the lipstick in time and changed her expression to one of boredom. “Now that Charley’s gone, it’s worse. We don’t even talk anymore, nobody has anything to say. I might just as well crawl into a corner and die. And no one would care, no one! Why can’t I have a cigarette?”
“It will stunt your growth.”
“I haven’t grown for a whole year.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” He banged down the hood of the engine. He took out a package of cigarettes and tossed them at her. “I hope you turn into a pygmy.”
“I haven’t any matches either.”
“Okay.” He flung a packet of matches in her direction. “You’re sure there isn’t anything else I could offer you? A martini? A Scotch and soda?”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic. A lot of girls my age smoke and drink. You’re behind the times.”
“Apparently.”
She lit the cigarette expertly. “As soon as people get to be twenty-five they start to get stuffy. No matter how nice they were to begin with. They don’t want other people to have a good time because they can’t anymore. Old age is a terrible thing. It makes everyone so sour.”
“Am I sour?”
“More than you used to be. You haven’t even smiled, for instance.”
“Haven’t I? Well, watch this one.” He smiled at her, very broadly.
She flung the cigarette on the floor and stamped on it, grinding it to shreds with the toe of her shoe.
“I guess I’ll go back now,” she said without raising her head.
“It would be better.”
“Do you ever get so... so discontented and — sad...?”
“Everyone does.”
She walked out slowly, as if she half-hoped he might call her back and explain everything to her.
He returned to the apartment, a little disturbed by the meeting. He had never been particularly fond of Laura. He had tolerated her because she happened to be Martha’s younger sister and because, at eleven, she wasn’t any more obnoxious than other eleven-year-olds.
But he found the new Laura rather pathetic. Sixteen, and suffering from growing pains, and passionate and conflicting desires. She wanted to live intensely or to die, to have a wonderful time or be a martyr; she wanted the excitement of a grand passion or the austerity of a nun’s cell. All extremes were possible, were even necessary to her in order that she might convince the world, which was gradually encroaching on her, that she was not an ordinary girl, but Laura, set apart and destined for extraordinary things.
Steve felt great sympathy for her, because he remembered his own adolescence. He’d been all appetite and acne, diffidence and conceit. His wrists grew overnight while his coat sleeves insidiously shrank. He blushed when any girl spoke to him, but with the utmost confidence he related all kinds of improbable sex experiences to his friends and listened with complete gullibility to theirs.
He had met Martha when he was seventeen and in high school. She was two years younger than he was, but with the worldly precocity of certain females she seemed already grown up and ready for the responsibilities of marriage and children. Their first date together was a dance at the school. Neither of them could dance very well, so they sat most of the evening on one of the benches lined up along the gymnasium wall and studied the other dancers with desperate intensity.
They danced the last number together, “I Love You Truly.” She was as tall as he was and their knees bumped every now and then as they waltzed the length of the floor. The gymnasium had, as it always did at the dances, a strong odor of sweat and unwashed feet, but Steve didn’t notice.
He leaned close to Martha. “You smell swell,” he told her.
“It’s only perfume,” Martha said.
She was very direct like that, when he first knew her. She was never coy, she didn’t feign interest in anything merely to please him. Later on, when he was in the university and she was a stenographer with a contracting firm he took her to a few football games. She didn’t like or understand football and so she didn’t watch the game. But afterwards she would describe all the people who’d been sitting near them, particularly the girls. She thought that since they were college girls they were worth noticing, and, occasionally, copying.