“Do you think I’m sufficiently cultivated to hear it?”
“Maybe. Time will tell.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Let’s go see Mandy.”
“Who’s Mandy?”
“Jesus Christ! You mean I’ve never told you about Mandy either?”
“If you did, I don’t remember it.”
“Mandy Moran. Junior. She lives over in the dorm. Honest to God, Henry, I’ve actually never mentioned her?”
“I don’t remember it.”
“An egregious oversight, I assure you. You’ve got a treat in store, sonny. Last year Mandy and I did a lot of knocking around together, but this year we haven’t seen much of each other. I guess that’s why I haven’t thought to mention her. I don’t think she likes me much any more, to tell the truth, but I’m still madly in love with her, of course, in spite of being neglected. As a matter of fact, I have a standing project to go to bed with her. Come on. We’ll go over to the dorm and see if she’s in.”
“I don’t think so, Howie.”
“Why not?”
“Well, damn it, I don’t even know the girl, and besides that, you can’t go busting in on someone without an invitation or a date or anything at all.”
“Are you, for God’s sake, telling me what you can or can’t do with Mandy Moran? You don’t even know her yet, and already you’re telling me what you can and can’t do with her.”
“Oh, all right! I’ll go with you, just to get you off my back, but It’ll damn well serve us right if she has us thrown out on our asses.”
“That’s the spirit. Who knows? Maybe this will be the first step in despoiling you of your disgusting virginity. I’d consider it a rare privilege to be instrumental in your first tumble, sonny.”
“Oh, go to hell, Howie, will you, please?”
They walked up the hill to the girls’ dorm and were told by a superior female senior, the receptionist in the entrance hall, that Miss Moran was not in. Miss Moran was, the superior senior volunteered, working that night on the stage of the little auditorium in Fain Hall.
“We’ll go over there,” Howie said. “Come on, Henry.”
“Do you think we’d better?”
“Certainly I think we’d better. Why not?”
“If she’s working, she may not want to be bothered.”
“Oh, come on, Henry. You’re constantly making excuses. Are you afraid to meet a girl, for God’s sake?”
“Don’t be a damn fool. Some of us country boys might give a few lessons to a lot of guys with exaggerated opinions of themselves. Not to mention names, of course. What’s this Mandy doing in the little auditorium?”
“I’m not sure. Probably painting flats. She’s got an idea she wants to be a set designer.”
“For plays?”
“Hell, yes, for plays. What else do you design sets for? She’s a member of the Little Theater Group.”
“That sounds like a pretty good thing. Interesting, I mean. I might like to try something like that myself.”
“Well here’s your chance. You get on Mandy’s good side, she might be able to get you in.”
The little auditorium in Fain Hall was dark, but there was a line of light across the stage at the bottom of the drawn curtains. Howie led the way up a flight of shallow stairs to stage level and out of a small off-stage room onto the stage itself. It was a very small stage, really, but it gave the effect of echoing vastness, and there was no one on it, excluding Howie and Henry, but a slim girl in a sweat shirt and slacks. She was holding her chin with the fingers of her right hand and staring disconsolately at a flat on which she had, obviously, been daubing paint. There was paint on her clothes, paint on her hands, paint on her face, and even a little paint in her pale, short hair. Henry thought that she must surely be the loveliest girl in all the world, although she wasn’t that, and was a long way from it.
“Hello, Mandy,” Howie said. “Long time no see.”
She shifted the direction of her gaze from the flat to Howie. She did not change her disconsolate expression in the least. She had, apparently, merely shifted her attention from one unsatisfactory object to another.
“Has it been a long time?” she said. “I haven’t missed you.”
“Well, to hell with you.”
“To hell with you too, you crazy bastard.”
“I wanted you to meet my crony, but I can see I picked the wrong time for it.”
Her attention shifted again, from Howie to Henry. “Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” Henry said.
“Don’t you even want to know his name, for God’s sake?” Howie said.
“What’s his name?” she said.
“It’s Henry Harper.”
“I’m glad to know you, Henry.”
“Henry, this is Mandy Moran.”
“I’m glad to know you, Mandy.”
“How about going somewhere for a beer?” Howie said.
“You drink beer, Henry?” she said.
“All the time,” Henry said.
“I’ve written a long poem,” Howie said. “I’ll recite it for you.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said.
“It’s better than anything Eliot ever did,” Howie said. “It’s called The Dance of the Gonococci.”
“A shocker,” Mandy said to Henry. “Howie’s a real shocker. He works at it. You don’t look old enough to drink beer.”
“Cut it out, Henry said. “You have to be a certain age to drink beer?”
“Legally, I mean. What class you in?”
“Freshman.”
“God, I envy you. I really do. I’m a junior myself.”
“That’s what Howie said.”
“I feel like your mother.”
“Ask her to nurse you, for God’s sake,” Howie said.
“Don’t be crude, Howie,” she said.
“A couple of virgins talking to each other like that,” Howie said. “It’s disgusting.”
“Just because you couldn’t get any, Howie,” she said, “It doesn’t signify.”
“For God’s sake,” Howie said, “are we going for a beer, or aren’t we?”
“Wait’ll I wash,” she said.
She walked off-stage to a lavatory. Waiting, they could hear water running and splashing and considerable blowing.
“She washes like a goddamn porpoise,” Howie said.
“She’s lovely,” Henry said.
“Mandy? Well, so she is, when you stop to think about it. She’s so damn irritating, it’s hard to realize it most of the time. Crazy too, of course. A real nut if I ever saw one. So am I, however, so it doesn’t make much difference to me. Something happened to her as a child.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“It must have, that’s all. Nothing’s happened to her since that I know of.”
“Damn it, Howie, you shouldn’t say things like that about her. It’s not right.”
“Well, kiss my ass! Listen to the virgin freshman leap to the defense of his junior mother.”
“All right, all right. Get off my back, Howie.”
At that moment Mandy returned, and she had got some of the paint and had missed some. Her short, pale hair looked as if she might have run a comb through it two or three times.
“Where we going?” she said.
“We know a place,” Howie said.
“I know the kind of places you know,” she said.
“Relax,” Howie said. “You must remember that we have your freshman child with us.”
She took Henry’s arm and pulled it up under hers and held it tight against her slim body. He could feel her small breast against his wrist. She kept his arm clamped under hers, and he kept feeling the breast.
“Never mind what Howie says,” she said.
“I don’t,” he said.
“Where is this place you know?”
“I guess he means the one down on the river. We go there sometimes.”