“Do you want to take it off?” he asked softly.
She stared at him curiously, her green eyes wide, as if she wanted to memorize his face. She touched his cheekbone with one hand, and then turned and reached for her purse. He watched her in the semidarkness of the Chewy, and there was something so sadly feminine in the gesture, something of such completely wonderful girlish surrender in it that he wanted to pull her to him and hold her close, protected in the circle of his arms, unmolested. He watched her solemnly, thinking. She is such a girl, she is only a girl, she could be only a girl, nothing else, only a girl. She dabbed at her lips with a tissue, and he watched the motion of her hand, loving the motion of her hand, feeling closer to her in that moment because the act was an intimate one, loving the girl-business of removing lipstick, feeling more manly because of the feminine way in which she moved, loving everything so delicately female about her, the softness of her hair framing her face, the slope of her eyes, the small tilted breasts beneath the suit jacket, her delicately crossed feet.
She turned then and faced him, waiting, her head raised slightly, her eyes calmly studying his face. He wanted to touch her tenderly. Her knees brushed his, and he was conscious of the touch of nylon and he looked into her eyes, and in that moment he knew that he loved her.
He kissed her gently, and the tenderness of the kiss reached her, and she pulled back her face slowly, wonderingly, looking up at him, her eyes puzzled. He kissed her again, brushing his lips against hers, feeling her full upper lip where her teeth gently nudged it, thinking, I love you, Helen, I love you, Helen, loving her in that moment with a fierce, painfully sweet love.
“Bud,” she said, “Buddy, Buddy, what’s—”
“No,” he said softly, covering her lips with his fingers.
She shook her head, and a frown clouded her brow. She moved closer in the circle of his arms, wanting to be very close to him, and the tenderness enveloped her until she wanted to kiss his hands, kiss his throat, suffocate him with her kisses, possess him with her kisses. She reached for his hand, and she moved it to her breast, wanting the tenderness to stay with them, wanting his hand close to her, the way his mouth was close to her.
He did not misunderstand. He kept his hand lightly on her breast, her own hand covering it, and they sat silently in the automobile, and he wanted nothing more from her in that moment, nothing more than her proximity. If she had offered herself to him, he thought in his mind that he would refuse, now he would refuse, now was not the time for it, now was a time for a different intimacy, the intimacy of discovery, the long-awaited discovery. He felt a soothing peace spread within him, as if he had come down a long dark tunnel and found a warm, quietly pulsating brightness at the end of it. And suddenly he wanted to tell her what he thought, wanted to share it with her, and he said, “You know...” meaning to say more, puzzled when the sentence ended as a stark declaration of fact, and somehow not surprised when she answered simply, “I know.”
Andy kept his right hand in the small of her back, the way Bud had taught him, and he held his left hand extended, cupping hers, not out stiffly, but slightly bent at the elbow, so that he wouldn’t seem to be drilling for oil. He saw Bud helping the girl with the dark hair into her coat, and the girl smiled up at Bud, and her buck teeth showed when she smiled. She was not really a pretty enough girl for Bud, and he was surprised that Bud would bother. Well, maybe her teeth weren’t very bucked, but certainly enough so to push her upper lip out a little. Bud deserved a girl like the one he was dancing with, a really pretty girl.
“...Andrew?” she said.
“What?” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I said is Andy short for Andrew?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
“I wondered. I know some boys named Angelo who call themselves Andy.”
“No, my name is Andrew.”
“Andrew is much nicer than Angelo, anyway.”
She had a very soft voice, and she lifted her head when she spoke, so that her eyes met his, so that all her attention seemed to be focused upon what she was saying. Her eyes were very brown, and her skin was very fair, and her hair was a golden blond, not like the brass of a trumpet, a soft gold, maybe the way a trumpet begins to look when the acid of your hand eats at the finish. But not tarnished, not that at all, just paled sort of, a very pale sort of blond with warm alive brown eyes.
“You have a nice name,” he said.
“Carol?” She laughed somewhere deep in her throat. “Do you really like it? I think it’s a silly name.”
“No, it’s not silly at all. I mean, it’s very pleasant. The sound of it. Carol.”
“Carol Ciardi,” she said, pulling a face. “The last name spoils it. You should put a name like Manning or Winston or Danville with it. Carol Manning.” She paused and got in step with him. “What’s your last name?”
“Silvera,” he said.
“That’s as bad as mine.”
“Well, it’s Italian-sounding. But it could be worse, you know. Ox’s last name is Castagliano.”
“Who’s Ox?”
“Oh, one of the boys in the band.”
“Do you play in a band?”
“Yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? I thought Tony mentioned it.”
“No. At least, I didn’t hear him. What do you play?”
“Trumpet,” he said.
“Oh, not really. Do you really?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Is that bad?”
“No, it’s good. I love the trumpet. Do you really play it?”
“Sure I do.”
“Are you good?”
“I’m pretty good,” he said modestly.
“I mean, are you as good as, you know, the big trumpet players?”
Andy smiled. “You’ll have to judge for yourself, I guess.”
“Can you play ‘You Made Me Love You’?”
“I guess so,” he said. “If I had the music, I could play it.”
“The way Harry James does?”
“Well, maybe not exactly the way he does. But I could play it.”
“I love that record,” she said.
“I like it, too. I like James a lot.”
“I used to listen for all his new releases,” she said. “And almost every week Martin Block would pick one of his records as the best. Do you remember when he did ‘Music Makers’? And ‘Sleepy Lagoon’?”
“Those are old ones,” Andy said.
“Yes, but I mean I was a fan of his even then. Can you really play ‘You Made Me Love You’?”
“Sure, if I had the music.”