“What three instruments do you play?” Tony asked.
“The piano, the trombone and the cello.”
Impressed despite himself and determined not to show it, Tony competed with her by picking up the telescope and staring up with an expert air at the sky. “The sky,” he said, “is full of cirrus cumulus clouds. The ceiling is about a thousand feet and visibility is less than a mile.”
Susan shrugged. “Who wants to know stuff like that?”
“And at Mount Wilson, that’s in California, they got a telescope so strong they can see the stars in the daytime. I bet you didn’t know that either.”
“Who wants to know about that?”
Gently, triumphantly, Tony closed the trap. “Who wants to know how to play the cello?” he asked.
“I do,” said Susan. “I show a lot of promise.”
“Who told you?” Tony asked skeptically. He had discovered that a mixture of skepticism and hostility served to bridge the gap in age and sex between them and put him, at least for the moment, on a footing of approximate equality with her.
“Mr. Bradley told me,” Susan said. “He’s the music teacher at school. He conducts the orchestra and the band. I play the trombone in the band at football games because you can’t carry a cello around with you. Mr. Bradley says I have great natural ability. He tried to kiss me in the auditorium last winter. He tries to kiss all the girls. He kissed three of the first violinists last year.”
“What did he want to do that for?” Tony asked, trying not to show how fascinating he found the conversation.
Susan shrugged. “He likes it.”
“What did you do when he tried to kiss you?”
“I let him,” Susan said flatly.
“Why?”
“Why not?” Susan said. “But when he tried to rub me I told him I would go to the principal and he stopped. He’s very artistic, Mr. Bradley. When he plays the violin he closes his eyes. In the movies when they kiss they always close their eyes too. Your mother,” she said, “she’s at the movies now?”
“I told you.”
“I just wanted to make sure,” Susan said. She took a slow deliberate turn around the porch, going up on her toes like a ballet dancer on each step. “Did you ever kiss a girl?” she asked.
“I … I … sure,” Tony said.
“How many?”
Tony hesitated, searching for a reasonable number. “Seventeen,” he said finally.
Susan came up to him and stood in front of him. He noticed uncomfortably that she was at least two inches taller than he was. “Let me see,” she said coldly.
“What do you mean?” Tony, said, stalling for time and trying to make his voice low and gruff.
“Let me see.” A weary flicker of a smile twitched across Susan’s face without making a change in her cold, coinlike, mistrustful blue eyes. “I bet,” she said, “you never kissed a girl in your whole life.”
“I did so,” Tony said, feeling cornered and wishing he was at least two inches taller.
“I dare you,” said Susan.
“Okay,” Tony said. He felt as if he had a fever and he wished that somebody would come in quickly and interrupt them. But nobody came. He advanced warily and kissed Susan. His aim was off for the first kiss and he landed more or less on her chin. She bent her knees a little and this time he found her mouth. He kissed her quickly, just long enough to show that he wasn’t afraid to do it. “There,” he said, his arm still around her.
“Take your glasses off,” Susan said.
Tony took off his glasses and put them carefully on the phonograph. Then he kissed her again. She tasted pleasantly of spearmint chewing gum and he began to enjoy it.
Satisfied in her experiment, Susan stepped back. “This place is dead,” she said. She took a pocket mirror and a lipstick out of her blue jeans and fixed her mouth, making Tony wish that he didn’t feel so feverish and that he was at least five years older. “If there were any boys of my age group around,” said Susan, “I wouldn’t even be here.”
Tony stared at her, puzzled. He knew that he was hurt but he didn’t know why he should feel that way. Distractedly he picked up his telescope and stared at the sky. “The ceiling is lifting,” he said.
Susan studied him bleakly, the animal trainer deciding to try one last turn before closing the cage for the night. “Do you know what grownups do when they go to sleep together?” Susan asked.
“Sure,” Tony said falsely.
“What do they do?” Susan asked.
Tony remembered what young Barker had told him on this subject. But it was all so confused in his mind and Barker had been so vague about actual details that he was afraid that to try to repeat what he had heard to Susan would only show her how hopelessly ignorant he was. “Well,” he said uncomfortably, “I only know kind of …”
“Do you or don’t you?” Susan asked implacably.
Tony reached down and got his glasses and put them on again, fighting for time. “Jeff started to tell me something the other day,” he mumbled. “He said my father wanted him to. Something about … about seeds.”
“Seeds,” Susan snorted disdainfully. “That shows how much you know.”
“How do you know so much?” Tony asked, hoping to save himself by attack.
“I watched my mother and father one night,” said Susan. “My second father. They came home late and they thought I was sleeping and they forgot to close the door. Didn’t you ever watch your father and mother?”
“No,” said Tony. “They never do anything.”
“Sure they do,” said Susan.
“They do not.”
“Don’t be a kid,” Susan said wearily. “Everybody does.”
“Not my mother and father.” His voice was very high now. He didn’t know why he felt he had to deny it so hotly, but it had something to do with the grunting piglike noise Albert Barker had made.
“Stop saying that,” said Susan.
He felt himself on the verge of tears and he hated her for being there and talking like that. “You’re dirty,” he said. “You’re a dirty girl.”
“Don’t call me names,” Susan said warningly.
“You’re a dirty girl,” Tony repeated.
“Go see for yourself,” said Susan. “And not with your father either.”
“You’re a liar,” Tony said.
“The movies!” Susan made a contemptuous gesture with her hand. “There are no movies except on Saturday and Sunday. They can tell you anything, can’t they, and you’ll believe it? What a kid!” She made a savage, pointing gesture behind her. “You go down to his sister’s house and look through the window the way I did and you’ll see whether I’m a liar or not.”
Tony swung at her with the telescope, clumsily, but she was very quick and stronger than he was. They wrestled for the telescope for a moment and she tore it from his hands and tossed it onto the floor. They stood there facing each other, panting. “Don’t you hit me,” Susan said. She pushed him away disdainfully. “Baby,” she said. “Stupid little baby. And don’t forget to take your glasses.” She turned on her heel and went off, her hips swinging under the tight blue jeans.
Tony stared after her, biting back tears. Then, without knowing why he did it, he went into the house, into his mother’s room and sat down on his mother’s bed. The room smelled of his mother’s perfume and the special soap she used that she had sent up from New York. Then he jumped up and went out on the porch again. It was quiet and the clouds had come even lower and the lake looked meaner and grayer than before. He stood there in the silence for a moment, then jumped off the porch and began to run through the woods, along the lakeshore, in the direction of Jeff’s sister’s house.