89. Paquita de las Torres
Douglas liked it, though, and he had no more than gotten his first driver’s license when he began asking to borrow the car. She was glad enough to let him have it, only cau-tioning him to drive carefully; if she had to run an errand while he was using the Lincoln she did not mind catching a bus, and if the weather was bad she could telephone one of her friends. She often wondered where he went and what he was doing, but she did not worry much about him because he was growing to be rather conservative, which gratified her, and furthermore he seemed to be using his head more effectively than he did as a child. He was even taking a reasonable amount of interest in schoolwork. In short he was becoming a sober, self-reliant young man, a bit too mysterious, perhaps, but otherwise agreeably normal. She was, therefore, almost startled out of her wits to encounter him on the Plaza with the wildest-looking girl in the world. He had borrowed the car to go bowling and Mrs. Bridge had later decided to go shopping for some cocktail napkins and so, quite unexpectedly, they met. The girl was a gypsy-looking business with stringy black uncombed hair, hairy brown arms jingling with bracelets, and glittering mascaraed eyes in which there was a look of deadly experience. She was wearing a sheer blouse of burnt orange silk and a tight white skirt, and Mrs. Bridge did not need a second glance to realize that was practically all.
“How do you do, Paquita?” she said, smiling neutrally, after Douglas had sullenly mumbled an introduction. The girl did not speak and Mrs. Bridge wondered if she understood English. The hairy arms and the rancid odor were almost too much for Mrs. Bridge to bear. “I hope you two are having a nice time,” she said, and heard a bracelet jingle and saw Douglas and Paquita exchange a deep, knowing look.
“Dad will be home early this evening for a change, so Harriet is planning on dinner at six sharp. I hope you won’t be late. It’s nice to have met you, Paquita/ 5 And she could not be sure, but it seemed to her that a moment after she turned away the girl spat on the sidewalk.
On the bus going home with the cocktail napkins she tried to make sense of it. She tried to be fair. Why would he want to go bowling with someone obviously from a different high school when there were so many nice girls at Southwest? Why would he want to see this girl at all? What could they possibly have in common? Where could he have met her?
“You’d think I was poison/’ she said to him that evening, jokingly and very seriously, as they entered the dining room. “Why not tell us when you’re beau-ing someone new? Your Dad and I are interested in knowing your friends/
Douglas, having pushed her chair in as usual, went around the table and seated himself without a word.
“Paquita certainly jingles/’
“She likes bracelets,” he said trenchantly.
Mr. Bridge entered, and in passing behind Douglas’s chair gave him a solid, affectionate rap on the skull with his knuckles.
“Well,” said Douglas, grinning, “you must have had a good day today. You make another million bucks or something?”
Mr. Bridge laughed and picked up the carving knife, and while examining the roast he said, “I hear you’re turning into quite a basketball player/’
“Who told you that?”
“Never mind who told me.”
“Oh, I don’t know/’ Douglas said, blushing. He played forward on the church team and was trying to make the high-school squad but so far had been unsuccessful.
“Maybe you should butter up the coach’s daughter/’ said Mr. Bridge, busying himself with the roast.
Douglas groaned in elaborate agony. “Anyway, I don’t even know if he’s got a daughter. And besides, that’s no way to make the team/’
“Well, how else are you going to do it?”
“Oh, you have to play just the way the coach likes. I mean he likes real smooth dribbling and things like that that really aren’t important. I guess I told you about our church team skunking the Southwest second team, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. Pass your mother’s plate/’
“Well, doesn’t it stand to reason that if we can beat the second team we ought to be at least as good as the first team? I mean, this coach has got his favorites, see? And if you aren’t one of his favorites, well, you just don’t have a chance/’
Mr. Bridge glanced at him and said calmly, “You’re joking about that, so I don’t mind. But don’t let me catch you whining seriously. This million dollars you referred to if I had earned it I wouldn’t have earned it from being the judge’s favorite. This country operates on the principle that the more industry and intelligence a man applies to his job the more he is entitled to profit. I hope it never changes/’
“Yuh, okay/* Douglas muttered, trying to end the conversation before it turned into a lecture.
“Remember that.”
“I will. Okay. Okay.”
The telephone rang at that moment and Harriet came into the dining room to say it was for Mr. Bridge. No sooner was he out of the room when Mrs. Bridge remarked, “I saw Patty Duncan the other day. She asked how you were.”
“Tell her I’m still alive and kicking.”
“She’s such a lovely girl. And they say she’s becoming quite the pianist.”
“Okay,” said Douglas, who had found himself assaulted from both ends of the dinner table. “For the love of Mike, I mean can’t I live my own life?”
For the remainder of the meal she said no more about the encounter on the Plaza, but it had so disturbed her that she waited up until he got in late that night.
“Were you out with Paquita?” she asked, gazing at him earnestly.
In silence, face averted, Douglas took off his leather jacket.
“Does she live around here?” Mrs. Bridge asked, following him to the closet and picking a bit of lint from his sweater.
He hung up the jacket and walked into the living room, where he took a comb from his hip pocket, stooped a little in order to see himself in the mirror, for he was now almost six feet tall and still growing soon he would be taller than his father and began combing his long red hair straight back in the style he had recently adopted. His hair would not lie down, it grew stubbornly in various directions, and the more he combed it the more rebellious it looked, but he would not give in and the hair would not lie down.
“You’re just like your Dad,” she said, observing him, and there was not only love but vexation in her tone. Douglas, scowling, combed his hair and mashed it with his palms. As soon as he lifted his hands the hairs began to rise.
“Dear/* she said, having followed him from the closet. She now stood a little way in back of him, looking at his face in the mirror. He slipped the comb in his pocket and bent a look of deep hatred against the mirror.
“What is it?” he asked brutally.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Well, good night/’ he said and turned to go upstairs, but she reached out and caught his arm.
“Douglas, why do you want to go around with that sort of person?”
At this he jerked his arm free and went to the closet, where he got his jacket and left the house again. She remained with one hand resting on the banister and was sick with anxiety, not so much because of the girl, for she knew he would outgrow her, but because she did not want to lose his friendship. She had lost his love, she knew not why, as she had forfeited that of Ruth, and the thought of losing her son entirely was more than she could endure.