Alex Dailey was dancing closely with Lila Belkamp in the middle of the room. They told everybody they were going to get married when they got out of school in June. Alex was nineteen and a little slow in school. Lila was all right, a little gushy and silly, but all right. Rudolph wondered if his mother had looked anything like Lila when she was nineteen. Rudolph wished he had a recording of his mother’s speech the night his father came home from Elysium, to play to Alex. It should be required listening for all prospective bridegrooms. Maybe there wouldn’t be such a rush to the church.
Julie was sitting on Rudolph’s lap in a broken-down old easy chair in a corner of the den. There were other girls sitting on boys’ laps around the room, but Rudolph wished she wouldn’t do it. He didn’t like the idea of people seeing him like that and guessing how he was feeling. There were some things that ought to be kept private. He couldn’t imagine Teddy Boylan letting any girl sit in his lap in public, at any age. But if he even hinted about it to Julie, she’d blow up.
Julie nuzzled her head around and kissed him. He kissed her back, of course, and enjoyed it, but wished she’d quit.
She had applied to Barnard for the fall and was pretty sure of getting in. She was smart in school. She wanted Rudolph to try to get into Columbia, so they would be right next to each other in New York. Rudolph pretended he was considering Harvard or Yale. He never could get himself to tell Julie that he wasn’t going to college.
Julie snuggled closer, her head under his chin. She made a purring sound that at other times made him chuckle. He looked over her head at the other people at the party. He was probably the only virgin among the boys in the room. He was sure about Buddy Westerman and Dailey and Kessler and most of the others, although maybe there were one or two who probably lied when the question came up. That wasn’t the only way he was different from the others. He wondered if they’d have invited him if they knew that his father had killed two men, that his brother had been in jail for rape, that his sister was pregnant (she had written him to tell him, so that it wouldn’t come as a horrid surprise, she said) and living with a married man, that his mother had demanded thirty thousand dollars from his father if he wanted to go to bed with her.
The Jordaches were special, there was no doubt about that.
Buddy Westerman came over and said, “Listen, kids, there’s punch upstairs and sandwiches and cake.”
“Thanks, Buddy,” Rudolph said. He wished Julie would get the hell off his lap.
Buddy went around passing the word along to the other couples. There was nothing wrong with Buddy. He was going to Cornell, and then to law school, because his father had a solid law practice in town. Buddy had been approached by the new group to play bass for them, but out of loyalty to the River Five had said no. Rudolph gave Buddy’s loyalty just about three weeks to wear out. Buddy was a born musician and as he said, “Those guys really make music,” and you couldn’t expect Buddy to hold out forever, especially as they didn’t get more than one date a month any more.
As he looked at the boys in the room, Rudolph realized that almost every one of them knew where he was going. Kessler’s father had a pharmacy and Kessler was going to go to pharmaceutical school after college and take over the old man’s business. Starrett’s father dealt in real estate and Starrett was going to Harvard and to the school of business there, to make sure he could tell his father how to use his money. Lawson’s family had an engineering concern and Lawson was going to study engineering. Even Dailey, who probably was too slow to get into college, was going into his father’s plumbing supply business.
There was a great opening for Rudolph in the ancestral oven. “I am going into grains.” Or perhaps, “I intend to join the German army. My father is an alumnus.”
Rudolph felt a sick surge of envy for all his friends. Benny Goodman was playing the clarinet like silver lace on the phonograph and Rudolph envied him. Maybe most of all.
On a night like this you could understand why people robbed banks.
He wasn’t going to come to any more parties. He didn’t belong there, even if he was the only one who knew it.
He wanted to go home. He was tired. He was always tired these days, somehow. Aside from the bicycle route in the morning, he had to tend the store every day from four to seven, after school closed. The widow had decided she couldn’t work the whole day, she had children at home to take care of. It had meant giving up the track and the debating teams and his marks were slipping, too, as he never seemed to find the energy to study. He’d been sick, too, with a cold that started after Christmas and seemed to be hanging on all winter.
“Julie,” he said, “let’s go home.”
She sat up straight on his lap, surprised.
“It’s early,” she said, “it’s a nice party.”
“I know, I know,” he said, sounding more impatient than he intended. “I just want to get out of here.”
“We can’t do anything in my house,” she said. “My folks have people over for bridge. It’s Friday.”
“I just want to go home,” he said.
“You go.” She got off his lap and stood over him angrily. “I’ll find somebody else to take me home.”
He was tempted to spill out everything he had been thinking. Maybe she’d understand then.
“Boy, oh boy,” Julie said. There were tears in her eyes. “This is the first party we’ve been to in months and you want to go home practically before we get here.”
“I just feel lousy,” he said. He stood up.
“It’s peculiar,” she said. “Just the nights you’re with me you feel lousy. I bet you feel just fine the nights you go out with Teddy Boylan.”
“Oh, lay off Boylan, will you, Julie?” Rudolph said, “I haven’t seen him for weeks.”
“What’s the matter—he run out of peroxide?”
“Joke,” Rudolph said wearily.
She turned on her heel, her pony tail swinging, and went over to the group around the phonograph. She was the prettiest girl in the room, snub-nosed, scrubbed, smart, slender, dear, and Rudolph wished she would go away someplace for six months, a year, and then come back, after he had gotten over being tired, and had a chance to figure everything out in peace and they could start all over again.
He went upstairs and put on his coat and left the house without saying good night to anyone. Judy Garland was on the phonograph now, singing “The Trolley Song.”
It was raining outside, a cold, drifting, February misty river rain, blowing at him in the wind. He coughed inside his coat, with the wet trickling down inside his turned-up collar. He walked slowly toward home, feeling like crying. He hated these spats with Julie, and they were becoming more and more frequent. If they made love to each other, really made love, not that frustrating, foolish necking that made them both ashamed after it, he was sure they wouldn’t be scratching at each other all the time. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It would have to be hidden, they’d have to lie, they’d have to sneak off somewhere like criminals. He had long ago made up his mind. It was going to be perfect or it wasn’t going to happen.
The hotel manager threw open the door of the suite. There was a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean. There was a smell of jasmine and thyme in the air. The two bronzed young people looked around the room coolly, glanced at the Mediterranean. Uniformed bellboys brought in many pieces of leather luggage and distributed them around the rooms.