“It’s a long walk down to the river.”
“Quite a way, all right.”
“I have to be in by eleven.”
“We could have a couple of beers and come right back.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
“Well, by God, I’m glad you got it settled,” Howie said. “Am I included, by the way?”
“Suit yourself,” Mandy said. “You can come along if you want to.”
It took them almost half an hour to walk downhill from the campus and across town to the river, and it was about nine-thirty when they got there. They ordered three beers and drank them and ordered three more.
“Do you want me to recite my poem now?” Howie said.
“Not particularly,” Mandy said.
“Oh, let’s hear him recite it,” Henry said. “It’s better than anything Eliot ever wrote.”
“All right, Howie,” Mandy said. “Go ahead and recite it.”
“I’ll be damned if I will,” Howie said. “I know when I’m not appreciated.”
“Are you going to sulk about it?” Mandy said.
“To hell with it,” Howie said. “Nurse your child and leave me alone.”
They drank the second round of beers, and it got close to ten. Somehow or other Henry and Mandy got to holding hands under the table. When she drank from her schooner, she lifted it in both hands, and this made it necessary for her to release the one under the table temporarily, and during these times she would lay Henry’s hand on her knee and leave it there until she was ready to pick it up again.
“Maybe we’d better have another round of beers,” Henry said.
“I’m afraid it’s time to go,” Mandy said, “If I’m to be back by eleven.”
“It only took about half an hour coming,” Henry said.
“On the way back, we’ll be going uphill,” she said.
“That’s true,” Henry said. “We’d better go.”
They walked back across town and uphill. At a corner near Mrs. Murphy’s Poor House, Howie turned off by himself.
“Where you going, Howie?” Henry said.
“Home,” Howie said.
“Don’t you want to go with us?”
“To hell with it,” Howie said, and walked away.
“Do you suppose we hurt his feelings?” Mandy said.
“I hope not,” Henry said.
“So do I,” she said. “You never know what hell do when his feelings have been hurt.”
When they got to the dorm, they stopped in the deep shadow of a high hedge in front.
“Would you like to kiss me?” she said.
“I was just thinking how much I’d like to.”
“Go ahead and kiss me, then.”
He put his arms around her and kissed her, and she put her arms around him and kissed him, and after the first kiss they kissed twice more for a longer time each time. “I’d better go in now,” she said.
“I guess you’d better.”
“I liked you right away,” she said.
“Same here,” he said. “I liked you as soon as I saw you.”
“It doesn’t matter because you’re only a freshman.”
“I’m glad of it,” he said.
He went back to Mrs. Murphy’s Poor House and went to bed and thought about her. He didn’t see Howie again that night, or all the next day, but the next night Howie came into his room and talked for nearly an hour, and it looked like everything was going to be all right.
It wasn’t true, as Howie had said, that he was a virgin, but he had never felt for any girl the strange and disturbing mixture of lust and tenderness that he felt for Mandy. He had felt the former in numerous instances, satisfying it in two, and he had felt the latter for a particular girl in high school for six whole weeks on end, but he had not understood then that they could be compatible components of a single shattering emotional reaction. Mandy possessed, he learned in the weeks that followed, a fine capacity for passion, and it was only now and then that he wondered, for a moment at a time, if she had expressed before, or was even expressing now, the passion as freely with others as she did with him. He never asked, of course, because he was in no position to assume the right and did not, in any case, want to know. His major source of chagrin was that circumstances always prevented her free expression of passion from being quite so free as it might have been if circumstances had been more favorable.
In November, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday was to begin, he went over to the dorm in the afternoon to tell Mandy good-by. Most of the girls had already left, or were packing to leave, and the sitting room in which he waited was deserted except for himself. He felt very sad, as if he wanted to grieve for something unknown and to cry for no good reason. The holiday would be, after all, a very short one, only a few days, but it seemed to him to stretch ahead interminably. He waited and wallowed in his sadness for ten full minutes before Mandy came down from her room.
“Hello, Henry,” she said. “Have you come to say good-by?”
“Yes, I have.”
“I hoped you’d come, but I was afraid you’d gone without it.”
“I wouldn’t do that. You ought to know I wouldn’t.”
“Are you going to your aunt’s?”
“I guess so. There’s no place else.”
“When are you leaving?”
“I thought I’d go this evening. There’s a bus at six o’clock. When are you?”
“I? I’m not going anywhere. Did you think I was?”
“You mean you’re not going home?”
“No. It’s too far away for so short a time. I’ll wait until Christmas.”
“I’m not going either, then. I’ll stay here with you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to spoil your holiday.”
“I want to stay. Will you see me every day if I stay?”
“Isn’t your aunt expecting you?”
“I’ll write and tell her I couldn’t come. Wouldn’t you like me to stay?”
“Yes, I would, and if you do I promise to see you every day and every night.”
“It’s settled, then. I’ll stay.”
“We’ll have a marvelous time, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will. We’ll have the best time ever. I will, anyhow. I know that.”
“Is Howie going home?”
“He’s already gone. He cut his classes and went this morning. Everyone else at Mrs. Murphy’s has gone to 3.”
“Including Mrs. Murphy?”
“Well, no, not Mrs. Murphy, of course. She’s there.”
“Will you call for me tonight?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Come early. About seven-thirty. I’ve got to go back upstairs now. I’m helping my roommate pack.” They were still alone in the sitting room, and so she kissed him hard and held herself tightly against him.
“I’m so glad you’re staying,” she said.
“So am I,” he said.
When he returned at seven thirty, she was already downstairs waiting for him.
“What shall we do?” she said.
“I don’t know. What would you like to do?”
“Do you have much money?”
“About twenty dollars.”
“I thought we might go downtown and have dinner. Do you think that would be fun?”
“Yes. Let’s do that. While we’re having dinner we can decide what we want to do later.”
“I already know what I want to do.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“Never mind why. You keep thinking about what it could be and then let me know if you guessed.”
They walked downtown to a good restaurant and sat knees to knees at a small table for two. It was the last time they’d had dinner together in a restaurant, and it made Henry feel special and very rich, as if he had a thousand dollars in his pocket instead of only twenty. It took quite a while to get served, and quite a while longer to finish eating, and by the time they’d finished and had coffee and a cigarette apiece, it was nine-thirty, or nearly.