“You look like a cheap cunt.”
“Thank you,” she said, and rose suddenly and swiftly from the bed, and walked immediately to the lone dresser in the room where she began pulling out slips and bras and nightgowns and stockings, flapping each garment angrily into the air like a battle Hag.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I said.
(The words are familiar and clichéd, they suddenly reduce this love affair to the absurd, taking from it even its dullness, its lack of uniqueness. His face in closeup is clichéd, too, it expresses the emotional range of a stock company James Garner. He looks by turn indignant, terrified, self-righteous, and a trifle ill.)
“I’m going back to Boston,” Dana said.
“You just got here,” I said.
“Yes, and I’ll get back, too.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“You don’t own me,” Dana said.
“I don’t own you. but I thought you loved me.”
“I do love you, but you don’t own me.”
“Well, stop flapping your goddamn clothes around like that.”
“They’re my clothes, I’ll flap them however the hell I want to flap them, you silly bastard,” she said, and burst out laughing.
In bed there was no quarrel, there was never any quarrel.
(There is no film, either. There is no second Wat Tyler when he is in bed with her, no alter ego, no schizophrenic super-image hovering somewhere in the air-conditioned spectator darkness.)
The long limp line of her lying still and spent against the rumpled sheet.
I came out of the bathroom and was surprised anew by her, each fresh glimpse a discovery. One arm raised above her head, elbow bent, hand dangling, she lay on her side with eyes closed and lips slightly parted, distant, oh so distant from me and the apartment and Providence and the world, cloistered in whatever sun-dappled female glade we had led her to together. I stood with the bathroom door ajar behind me, one hand still on the knob, and watched her quietly, and knew something of her selfsame mood, felt it touch me from across the room to include me in a sweet and silent private peace.
The first time she blew me, I yelled when I came and the guy next door banged on the wall.
“Who taught you that?” I whispered later. “Max?”
“Oh no, sir,” she said. “That was my very first time.”
“Sure,” I said and smiled. Max could not have mattered less. We were still discovering each other, Dana and I. We were falling in love over and over and over again.
June
Dear Will,
I met a girl last night who said she knew you. (Actually, what she said was “Your brother and I are acquainted.”) Anyway, I gave her your address, and she said she might write. Her name is Margie Penner, are you “acquainted”? She seemed a bit fast, brother dear.
So now what? I swear, Will, I’m having the darndest time trying to keep up with your meanderings. You left Mississippi on the sixth of May, and this is only June 11th, so I guess you’re still in California. But when do you go into the pilot pool, and where is the pilot pool (Are enlisted men allowed to swim with you guys, hee-hee) and does this mean you’ll be going overseas before long? (Daddy says I shouldn’t ask you about when you’re going overseas because you can’t answer me, anyway, but how about a little hint, huh?)
I guess you’re just panting to know what’s new here in the Windy City, ho-hum. Iris and I went to see Vaughn Monroe at the Chicago Theatre Tuesday night, he of the gravelly tonsils and the lunar speed contest. He’s got a pretty good band, though I must say l’s reactions were largely glandular, swooning and flopping all over the place like a salmon going upstream to lay her eggs. (Oh my! Naughty naughty Lindy!) She’s been dating a boy who works in the grinder room at Daddy’s mill. Actually she met him here one night when we had some kids over listening to records and he came to deliver some papers Daddy had left at the office. He’s 4-F because of a heart murmur. It’s my guess that I is developing a heart murmur of her own, though, judging from the way she talks about him all the time. But V. M. gave him a little competition Tuesday night.
I am now busily reading A Tale of Two Cities in Classic Comics for a test coming up next week in Miss Lougee’s English class. (I think you had her when you were a junior, she’s the one with the long nose and the teaspoon figure, a charmer altogether.) She marks on a curve, and the highest grade on the last quiz she gave was a 47! I guess that gives some indication of the wisdom she’s distributing to us little adolescent minds, huh? Speaking of little adolescent minds, Dumbo, how about writing once in a while? I know you’re a very big officer now in charge of Air Force personnel, planes, landing fields, bases and parachutes (not to mention that big pool where you won’t let the enlisted man swim, shame on you!) but perhaps you will now and then think fondly of your bratty little sister back here in Chicago and drop her a line other than those change-of-address cards you’re always shooting off.
Guess who’s home?
And guess who went out with him?
Me!
And I won’t tell you who.
Your mysterious sister,
P. S. Who’s Ace Gibson, he sounds a dream! Bring him home on your next furlough! That’s an order!
6/12/44
Dear Will,
Remember me? I’ll bet you don’t. We met at Michael Mallory’s house one New Year’s Eve, and spent a little time together, remember? I guess you’re wondering how I got your address. Well, I’ll tell you.
The U.S.O. on Michigan and Congress has this system where girls who want to help out can give private parties in their houses. There has to be a chaperone, of course, and whoever's giving the party has to provide for refreshments and all that. It’s a very nice way for servicemen to meet people in a homey atmosphere. There are so many servicemen in Chicago these days. Anyway, I have a week’s vacation (I’m working at The Boston Store now, and my mother said it would be all right if I contacted the U.S.O. and arranged for such a party, which I did). But I was short of girls because I needed around a dozen, so I asked the U.S.O. if they could help me get some nice girls for the party, and they gave me a list of about ten names, three of which came. Well, one of the girls was an attractive little blonde, seventeen years old, with a very cute figure and blue eyes that reminded me of a fellow I had met one New Year’s Eve. We got to talking and her name turned out to be Linda Tyler. Anybody you know? It was, naturally, your sister, and when I told her I had once met you, she said you might like to hear from me, and she gave me your address. I hope she was right.
Well, well, so you’re a lieutenant now! That’s very exciting. What kind of airplanes do you fly? Your sister wasn’t sure. She said a P-38, I think. Is there such a plane? She also told me you’d be spending some time in California, you lucky thing. I’ll bet you’re as brown as a berry. I’ve never been to California. I’ll bet it’s very nice out there, though the weather here in Chicago is pleasant just now. Even got over to the lake for a little swimming the other day.
Before I forget, I’m not sure this will reach you at the address your sister gave me because she didn’t seem to know how long you would be in Transition Training before you were shipped overseas, so I’m just taking a chance sending this to you at the Santa Maria Army Air Base, and hoping it will be forwarded to you if you’ve already left there. There was a boy I was corresponding with in the Marine Corps before he got killed, and they were very good about forwarding his mail to him wherever he went, though he had an F.P.O. address, and I see that you don’t have an A.P.O. yet. Well, I’ll just hope you get it, that’s all. I’ll hope, too, that your sister was mistaken about your being sent across. Now that we’ve landed in Normandy, the war should be over soon, don’t you think?