“Yes,” he said.
“You picked a good friend.”
“He’s a good guy,” Andy said. “You just misunderstood him, Hel—”
“No, I didn’t misunderstand him.”
“Helen, he probably—”
“I could kill him,” she said tightly. “I could kill him.” Fresh tears flowed, tears of self-sympathy washing over the hatred tears, mingling with them until she could not tell the self-sympathy from the hatred. She Sung herself at Andy, burying her head in his chest, the sobs wracking her body. He tried to comfort her, but she would not be comforted. The hatred rose, and with it the self-sympathy, stronger than the hatred, choking her until she felt desperately uncertain of herself and everything around her. She sobbed against his chest, and his hand moved to her back, and he could feel the taut muscles there, and his fingers somehow tingled with the touch. She turned sideways, and he felt the electric warmth of her breast, and he pulled his hand back as if he had been burned. She was looking up at him.
“Andy?” she said desperately, her eyes wet, “does he love me?”
He did not hear what she said. He saw only her mouth, and her mouth was pleading with him, pleading for something, and he reached down and kissed her.
He pulled back suddenly, staring at her in confusion, hesitating, remembering Carol, thinking in his heart this would be unfair to Carol. She was staring up at him, surprised, and her face was a little frightened now, as if she were faced with a situation she didn’t know how to handle. He kissed her again, and she drank assurance from his mouth, and he was surprised to feel the earlier excitement Hare into life under his skin. He felt the excitement guiltily, thinking of Carol, thinking of the soft warmth of Carol’s breasts, thinking this was unfair to Carol, but pressing against Helen anyway, losing himself in her mouth.
His excitement surprised her. When he’d kissed her, she had felt only uncanny disbelief at first. And then hatred lay gleaming like a naked skull on the desert, and she thought, This is his best friend, his best friend, his best friend, and when his lips had reached tor hers the second time, she’d given them willingly, nurturing the woman’s revenge, feeling a sweet pleasure from knowing she was striking back at Bud.
His arms tightened around her, and she felt a sudden panic.
“Andy,” she said, “don’t. Bud—”
He was forcing her back onto the grass, breathing heavily now. He put his lips against hers, forced open her mouth, and thrust his tongue against her teeth. He grasped her more tightly, pinning her shoulders to the ground, and she thought desperately, What’s he doing? I’m Bud’s. I’m Bud’s! and then she felt his fingers tight on her breast. She tried to free herself, but there was a wild strength in him. She turned, and his hand caught at the buttons of her blouse, and they came free, and she felt fingers catching at her breasts, felt the nipples come unbiddenly erect.
“Andy!” she said hoarsely. “Stop! Please, you’re—”
She felt her skirt go up, and she kicked out at him blindly, and then his legs covered hers, holding her pinned to the ground, and she started to scream, but his mouth was over hers, and then his hand was under her skirt, and she moved her head from side to side, trying to dislodge his mouth, and she kicked, and suddenly she froze with the realization of what was happening in that instant, and she threw her hips up, trying to free herself, trying to get away from him, horror-stricken when her efforts helped him instead of hindering him. She lay still as a stone then, hearing the rasp of his breath, feeling the hardness of his body against her, and feeling completely dead within herself, dead and cold, dead white until he was finished with her body, and then she still lay dead, his stone’s weight upon her, the dark secret of their tangled alliance between them, dead to the strangely cruel alliance they had forged.
Frank was the first to know.
Andy stammeringly told him the story, seeking advice, wanting to know how he could possibly explain it all to Bud. Frank was the first to know, and Frank told it all to Bud, leaving none of the details out, a curiously gleeful expression on his face as he spoke. And Bud listened while Frank skillfully twisted the knife, and he wanted to punch Frank’s face, wanted to see Frank bleeding and raw, wanted to rip apart the world with his bare hands. And when Frank said, “I’m telling you this because you’re my friend, Buddy,” he sobered slightly, and he thought, Yes, Frank is a friend, a true friend, not realizing that Frank’s sole motivation had been jealousy, and not realizing that even Frank didn’t clearly understand his own motivation.
And when Frank left him, he sat alone in the sun porch with his father’s assorted collections strewn over the bridge table, with the sunlight slashing through the windows, and he wondered what to do.
And he thought, She’s to blame.
And he thought, No, he’s to blame.
And he didn’t know whom to blame because he loved them both in different ways, and the two people who’d meant most to him had seized the haft of a dagger together and conspired to stick it between his shoulder blades. He thought of going to Andy and hitting him and hitting him until Andy babbled for forgiveness, until the air was clear between them. He thought of calling Helen and concealing his hurt and his hatred, calling her and asking her what happened. Her number ran through his mind like mountain lava. He went to the phone, and he picked up the receiver, and he started to dial the number and then put the receiver back into its cradle, and then he went into the sun porch again, and the sun was just as hot, and the sun illuminated an ugly, ugly day, and he wanted to cry.
He went into the living room, and he sat at the piano, and his mother came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel, her head cocked to one side, her eyes moist because her son was playing softly, the way she liked him to play.
When he left the house, he didn’t know where he was going. He walked aimlessly, and he decided to see Andy, and then he decided against it, and he decided to call Helen and went as far as the phone booth before changing his mind again. He went to see Reen because Reen was wise, and Reen was kind. But Reen had received greetings from the President of the United States, and the greetings told Reen he would be drafted in a few weeks, and Reen had headaches of his own, so Bud told him nothing.
What do I say to them, what do I say to either of them, what can I do, why did they do this to me? he thought. And he walked.
When he got home, his mother told him a girl named Helen had called. He rushed to the phone, and he started to dial, and again he didn’t know what he could say to her, and so he didn’t return her call. She called six times the next day. He did not speak to her.
At the end of May the boys gave a farewell party for Reen, and they presented him with a sterling-silver identification bracelet that night. The initials R.P.D. were inscribed on the face of the bracelet. The inscription “To the biggest and the best, from the Boys” was on the back. The boys drank a lot of beer and told a lot of stories and did a lot of reminiscing, and Andy came to Bud at about eleven o’clock, and Bud looked up from his beer and then turned away from him.