“What have you got on your face, dear?”
“Stuff. For my crow’s feet. Guaranteed.” She leaned forward and somberly examined in the mirror the skin around her eyes where, according to the manufacturers of the cream, she might reasonably expect to find the first hideous signs of old age.
“Laura?”
“What?”
“It’s just that Martha doesn’t understand about — goon-traps. I didn’t myself, I never even heard about them before. But I see now what you mean. And if you explain it to Martha, I’m sure she’ll see, too.”
“Oh, will she? Maybe she won’t want to. Maybe there’s nothing she’d like better than to make me out a goon because she’s jealous.”
“Martha has no reason to be jealous of you.”
“Oh, hasn’t she?” Laura began picking up the rest of the bobby pins, one by one. She looked sober and self-contained again. “Well, let her give the party, if she wants to. But I won’t come. I just won’t be here, that’s all.” She would run away. Driven from her home by her jealous sister, she would flee into Steve’s arms where she would find peace. She wished she had had a few more chances to entice Steve, in order to make her reception more certain. Still, it couldn’t be helped. She might never get another excuse for fleeing, so flee she must. It was too bad she had to leave before her $2.95 dimple-making machine, guaranteed, arrived from New York. But you can’t have everything.
“Now wait, Laura,” her mother said.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Well, what kind of party would you like? Martha tries her best, but she can’t be expected to read minds, you know.”
“It’s damn lucky she can’t.”
“Don’t swear, dear. What is your idea of a party?”
“Well,” Laura hesitated. “Just a coke sesh. You know, the gang coming in and some new records and maybe hot dogs to eat.”
“Then that’s the way you’ll have it.”
“Honestly? And no chaperones? Please, no chaperones?”
“No chaperones,” Mrs. Shaw said with a conviction she did not feel.
“When? When can I have it?”
“Any time. Tomorrow night, if you like.”
The fleeing would have to be postponed, which was perhaps just as well. It would give her time to try her new suit on Steve, and maybe dimples, too, if the machine arrived tomorrow.
She dashed across the room and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Honestly, you’re quite human!”
“I’ve always taken that for granted,” Mrs. Shaw said, but she was very pleased. She realized that Laura and her friends used old words in a new way, and to be called “human” was a high compliment. “Now go to bed. I’ll see Martha right away.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Will you be firm, really firm?”
“I’ll be extremely firm.”
“You’re terrif,” Laura said, and went serenely off to bed.
Her mother found Martha downstairs in the drawing room. All the lamps in the room were lit, and Martha was standing off in one corner, studying each piece of furniture, each light, like a stage manager.
Mrs. Shaw hesitated in the doorway. Some of her boldness had already deserted her. It was not that she was afraid of Martha but that she felt sorry for her. For Martha was planning, there was no doubt of it. She was planning not merely the details of the party itself, but who should be there and where each of them would sit, and what questions would be asked and what answers given. And in her plans, everything was perfect. The girls were well-dressed and pretty, with Laura the prettiest, of course; the boys were handsome and attentive. Everyone was gay and laughing, with Laura the gayest, the best dancer, wearing the most exquisite dress and capturing the best-looking boy. Everything was perfect, in Martha’s plans.
Her mother watched her with pity. Only someone who was bitterly unhappy and dissatisfied could spend all her time planning perfection. If she loved Charley, Mrs. Shaw thought, if she had a life of her own...
“I was just wondering,” Martha said abruptly, “about Laura’s dress. It should have a high neckline. Her collarbones stick out too much.”
She had to tell her then. She explained, very soberly, about the hot dogs, the goon-traps, the new dance records and no chaperones.
Martha didn’t argue. “Why, of course. If that’s what Laura wants.” She didn’t even appear surprised, as if she’d known all along that her plans would never work out. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?” she said.
“Nearly eleven.”
“I think I’ll go to bed.” She turned out the lamps, one by one. Her voice came again through the darkness.
“I wonder how many hot dogs.”
Chapter 14
He saw Laura walking up the driveway with her arms full of parcels and tried to duck into the garage before she saw him. But he was too late.
“Hi!” she yelled.
“Hi, Squirt.”
She took the words as encouragement and quickened her step. He waited for her, uneasy. Laura was all right, but he never knew what to expect of her. She was at the crazy age where imagination overrode fact. Everything was subjective, words, people, even the weather. So if he called her “Squirt,” she might take it as a compliment, and if he’d said “Beautiful” she might just as easily think he was being ironic.
“Why aren’t you at school?” he said.
“Martha said I could skip my classes on account of the party tonight.” She lowered her eyes and strummed the string of one of the parcels. “I’d like you to come.”
“That’s very nice of you, but I’m afraid your sister wouldn’t approve. Anyway, I’m having company.”
“Who?”
He laughed. “None of your business, Squirt. I didn’t ask you who was coming to your party, did I?”
“That’s different. You know I’m not interested in just boys.”
“You better run along.”
One of the parcels fell from her arm. Instead of picking it up, she gave it a little kick with her foot.
“Who’s the company?” she said.
He grinned at her without answering.
“Is she pretty?”
“Yeah.”
“Blonde or what?”
“What.” He picked up the parcel and handed it to her.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, and marched away to the house.
He didn’t think Beatrice could be described as “pretty,” but she was at least “company.”
When she arrived, a little after eight, she was looking very attractive. She had on a tight blue wool dress and her hair was piled up on her head. It made her look harder and more sophisticated than she was.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Bea.”
He held the door open for her and she walked past him, looking around the apartment with polite curiosity.
“It’s nice. No wonder you want to stay.” She stripped off her gloves and packed them neatly into her handbag. “Mother couldn’t come. She has a headache.”
“That’s too bad.”
“At least, that’s her story. Mother always manages to get a headache when she sees a chance of getting me alone with some unsuspecting male.”
She smiled, not in the least self-consciously, but frankly, inviting him to smile with her.
He did. “The description hardly applies to me. I’m very suspecting.”
“Besides, we got that part of it settled the first night, didn’t we?”
“Did we?”
“I hope it’s all right if I left my car in the driveway. There were a lot of others parked there.” She walked over to the window rapidly as if she could hardly wait to see the other cars again. “Is Mrs. Pearson giving a party?”
“No. It’s the kid sister. Laura.” He followed her to the window, wishing that she were gone and that he had the courage never to see her again. It was hopeless for two people to be together, when one of them wanted desperately what the other couldn’t give. No matter how smooth the surface talk, underneath it you could hear the whisperings of frustration, humiliation and even despair. Perhaps Beatrice felt like that right now, while she talked coolly about cars and watched the lighted doorway of the big house with bright benign eyes.