“Helen?”
“What?” she asked dully.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Yes. Yes, Buddy, you know that. Buddy, can’t we...?”
His arms were around her again. She saw his face above her, and then the face blurred, and she turned away, avoiding his kiss, and he drew back, surprised again.
“You want to go somewhere else?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Bud, this isn’t... isn’t what I want.” The words would not move out of her throat. She swallowed. “I wanted us to... to...” How could she explain to him? Couldn’t he see, didn’t he know? Didn’t he know that this was all wrong, that this would solve nothing?
“Helen,” he said, “my ship won’t be in dry dock long. After that, God knows where the navy’ll send us. Just because the war is over doesn’t mean they’re going to let us all out tomorrow, you know. Hell, it might be another year yet. So...”
She turned her face away from him and then began shaking her head, and he changed his tack instantly, and she recognized the falseness of his new approach, and her ears were dead to it even before it gained full momentum.
“I’ve thought about you a lot, Helen.”
“Really?” she said, the pain in her heart and in her mind, almost unable to bear his words because she knew they were false and she wanted them so desperately to be true.
“All the time. Aboard ship, in strange towns. I’ve always thought about you, and... and what we had together, and what a jackass I was. Helen, I was just a kid then. I know better now. I know the things that matter now.”
For a moment she believed him. She looked up, and her eyes were bright with the effort of believing, and her experience with Andy rushed up into her throat, burned there, begged to be told, and she said, “Really, Bud?”
“Sure, honey,” he said smoothly, pressing his advantage. “Come on, Helen. Come on.” He slid over on the seat, and he pulled her toward him roughly.
Her eyes lost their luster. “Bud,” she said slowly, “sometimes I wonder if you’ll ever grow up.”
“What?”
“Bud, will you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Go back to your ship, whenever you have to go back, and forget about meeting me here tonight, will you? Will you do me that one little favor? Pretend—”
“I don’t want to pre—”
“Pretend it was all over just when we thought it was all over, last spring outside Club Beguine. Do you remember that night, Bud? Bud, forget we ever knew each other, forget our paths ever crossed, can you do that for me? Just forget you ever knew anyone named Hel—”
“I don’t ever want to forget you.”
“Bud, Bud—”
“Why do you want me to do that?”
“Just do it, please.”
“Are you drunk, Helen?”
“No, I’m not drunk.”
“Then why don’t we take a little ride and—”
“I don’t want a little ride, Bud. That’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want? Name it, Helen, and I’ll get it for you.”
“Oh, Bud, please,” she said impatiently.
“What have I done wrong?” he asked plaintively, as if he couldn’t understand why his careful approach had failed.
“Go back to your ship, Bud.”
“All right, I will. But what about the meantime?”
“There is no meantime.”
“Why not?”
“Bud, for God’s sake, stop it! Stop it before I start bawling all over your pretty blue jumper. Please!”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing! Goddammit, you’re the stupidest male I’ve ever met.”
“What did I—”
“Bud, Bud, Bud, please shut up, please. Please.”
“I thought this was going to be a happy reunion,” he said. “So many months since we’ve seen each other, and instead—”
“You thought—”
“Instead you treat me like dirt. Well, I guess I know when I’m not welcome.”
“I guess you do,” she said tiredly.
“I’m not saying I understand you, Helen. Mind you, I’m not saying that. I thought—”
“I know what you thought.”
“Well—”
“You thought all you had to do was crook your little finger. And then all the hurt, and all the misunderstanding, and everything, everything would just disappear. We’d kiss and make up, just like the song says. Well, Bud, the song is wrong. You can’t do it that way. It’s no good that way. Bud, can’t you see that we have to—”
“Helen, you just don’t understand me,” he said.
“I understand you fine, Bud.” She paused for a long time. “Do what I asked you to, will you? Forget all about it.”
“I don’t want to forget all about it.”
“Then write to me. When you get back to your ship, write to me. I’ll be waiting for you to grow up. I want to be around when you grow up.”
“I’ll be nineteen next month,” he said defensively.
“A man,” she said.
“Look—”
“Write to me.”
“Sure,” he said dully. “A lot the hell good writing to you is gonna do.”
“It might do a lot of good,” she answered. “Come on, Tony is getting lonely.”
She stepped out of the car, not waiting for him, not looking back. She heard his door slam viciously. She stopped then, not knowing why she was stopping. He came up to her, and she stood before him, looking up at him. She reached up and touched his cheek gently, and her eyes were sadly puzzled, and she said, “It’s such a shame, Bud,” and he didn’t know what she meant.
Tony was half crocked when they reached him. He handed the near-empty pint to Bud, and Bud tilted it to his mouth savagely, drinking until Helen took the bottle away from him. She put it to her own mouth and almost drained it in a single swallow.
“This is a good night to get drunk,” she said. “Let’s have some beer, too. What do you navy boys call it, Tony? A boilermaker, isn’t it?”
“Boilermakersh!” Tony bellowed.
He staggered over to the beer keg with Helen, and they drew two glasses and then poured the remainder of the whisky into the beer. Bud watched them for a while and then asked the piano player if he could sit in, and the piano man — anxious to dance with a brunette who’d been ogling him all night — hastily relinquished the stool.