“To hell with them.”
“Mike—tell me you love me. Please.”
“Allie,” he said reproachfully. “You know I do.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Her forehead was on his shoulder and her face pressed against his coat. “Even if I’m not—not a virgin any more?”
“Allie!”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Are you sorry?” he asked, piqued.
“Not if you aren’t.”
“Well, I’m not. We’re going to be married, aren’t we? Just as soon as we’re out of school.”
She smiled faintly. “That’s six years, isn’t it?”
When she said it that way it sounded even longer than it already was. It was something they had talked a great deal about. They had even started trying to save money. Raoul, Miguel knew, would be both amused and annoyed if he knew about it. But Raoul—Raoul was too busy with Becky, wasn’t he? Too busy making a—a cuckold out of his oldest son to be bothered with anything Miguel might be hiding from him.
Miguel decided to change the subject. “It’s eleven-thirty. Do you want to go? What time do you have to be in tonight?”
“Two. All right, let’s go.”
“We can stop at the Indian Drive-In for something when we get to Paly,” Miguel offered.
“No. I want to go to Frenchman’s Tor.” She looked up at him and smiled uncertainly. She looked wonderful in that deep-necked red dress, Miguel thought. She had such a marvelous body. Those perfect breasts and the rounded curve of her hips—the way her thighs were so firm and hard, like a dancer’s—He knew every part of her and just thinking about it made him feel strange and throbbing inside.
“I’ve got something to talk to you about,” Allie said. “Let’s hurry.”
“Yes,” he said, looking at her. “We’ll hurry.”
Lawt Higby and Florian caught them in the lobby.
“Hey,” Higby said. “Where are you two going?”
“Home,” Miguel said shortly. He had never liked Higby much, and he liked him less now that he was sharing Tom’s Florian with the Montezuma guy and his Buick Century.
Higby laughed suggestively. “Ill bet you’re going home,” he said.
Florian said, “We’re all going out to the Cliff House. Why don’t you come along?”
Allie, holding on to Miguel’s arm, said, “No, thanks. Not tonight.”
“Leave ‘em alone. They can get in a couple of hours heavy mugging if they leave now,” Higby said.
Miguel grabbed Higby’s arm. “How about minding your own business, wise guy?”
Higby looked back surprised. “Well, okay. No need to get sore about it, Mike.”
Miguel released him and turned to Allie. “Let’s go,” he said. They walked down Montgomery Street toward the parking lot. Miguel said, “I’m sorry about Lawt, Allie.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
They passed a newsstand. The headline on the Chronicle said, TENSION EASED. The Examiner said, PEACE IN OUR TIME—CHAMBERLAIN. Both papers carried a picture of the British Prime Minister being greeted by crowds of cheering Englishmen at
Croydon. His face looked haggard and he carried that ridiculous umbrella.
Allie said, “That frightens me, Mike.”
“All that junk in Europe?”
“Is there going to be a war, Mike?”
“Olinder says there is. Maybe not for a couple of years yet, but sure as anything there’ll be a war.”
Allie shivered slightly. “You sound almost as though you hope there would be.”
“I guess I’ve read too many air pulps,” he said, smiling at her. “You really want to fly, don’t you, Mike?”
“Fly and write. Nothing else matters much to me, Allie. Except you.”
“Oh, Mike. I hope you mean that. I’m so scared.”
“Why, Allie? What is there to be scared about?”
“Let’s get to the Tor quickly. Please, Mike.”
“All right, Allie. We’ll make it fast.”
They sat close together in the darkness, the car radio playing softly. Below, the lights of the valley spread out in a diminishing pattern. The green beacon light atop the big hangar at Moffett Field flashed alternately green and white.
“The Army is taking Moffett over,” Miguel said. “It’s going to be a basic flying school. That’s the second stage of training.”
“Don’t talk about the Army and flying, Mike.”
He laughed softly and said, “All right, Allie.”
“Turn the radio off?”
He reached forward and turned the knob.
“Now kiss me, Mike. Please.”
“With pleasure,” he said. He was aroused instantly by the insistent passion of her kiss.
“No, wait. I have to tell you something and it isn’t easy. Let me sit a minute.”
He waited, his brow knit in perplexity. Finally, he said, “Allie, what’s the matter?”
She drew a deep breath and said, “I think I’m going to have a baby, Mike. I think I’m pregnant.”
It took him a full minute to absorb the impact of what she was saying. Pictures of Mr. Wylie’s furious Scots face flashed through his mind. And Mrs. Wylie. And above all, Raoul. He felt as though an icy emptiness had moved into the pit of his stomach. It was another thirty seconds before he could speak.
“How do you know, Allie?” he asked hollowly.
She sat very still, not touching him. “I’ve missed two periods,’” she said, her voice low.
“Two—“ It came to him in a rush that he had been thinking exclusively of himself. Allie had been worried about this for a month and she had kept it to herself. He put his arm around her and pulled her against his chest. “Jesus, Allie, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. I’ve been irregular before—ever since—well, ever since we started.”
He swallowed hard and said, “Then you’re still not sure.”
“Pretty sure, Mike.”
“But not absolutely.”
“No, I guess not absolutely.” He could feel her relaxing a little against him. She was relying on him now, transferring the load of worry and fright to him.
“Damn,” he said, “let me think now.” The images of Mr. and Mrs. Wylie and Raoul came back into his mind, forcing coherent thoughts out. He took out a pack of cigarettes.
“What are we going to do, Mike?” Allie asked.
“Well—first off we have to be sure,” he said. “I guess that means you have to be examined by a doctor.”
“Oh, Mike!”
“It can’t be Doc Winthrop or any of the ones who know us or our families—“ His mind was racing now, trying to find a way out of the sudden maze. “We’ll have to go up to San Mateo or the city and find one. That’s the first thing.”
“When, Mike?”
“I guess not later than next week. If you haven’t come around by then, we’ll have to go up and get some doctor to look at you.”
“Oh, Mike—I’m going to hate that,” Allie said shakily.
“I don’t see what else we can do, Allie. We have to know.”
She looked at him steadily. “And if he says I am?”
“Why—“ Miguel felt trapped. “I guess we’ll have to get married, Allie. What else can we do?”
“Is that what you want?”
How could he explain that though he loved her and wanted her more than anything in the world, the idea of getting married at sixteen terrified him. Not only that, they would have to face Raoul and her mother and father. He couldn’t let her see how shaken he was.
“Yes, of course, Allie. It’s what we both want anyway.”
She buried her face in his coat and said, “Oh, God, I was hoping you’d feel that way, Mike. I was so frightened—so awfully frightened.”
A land of calm seemed to descend over him. “We’ll go up to San Mateo on Saturday,” he said. “You be sure to wear stuff that makes you look older. We’ll ge
t a doctor to look you over. Ill look one up.” He automatically slipped a hand inside her dress to cup her breast gently. It felt tight and distended to him, the way pregnant women’s breasts are supposed to feel, with the nipple small and erect. A wave of desire for her crashed over him. She was really his now. “Then,” he went on in a trembling voice, “if he says it’s true I’ll see Luis and borrow some money. We can get to Reno in four hours and get married.”
Allie was breathing in rhythm with the steady movement of his hands across her bosom. Her eyes were half-closed. “Oh, darling, oh, Mike—think—to sleep all night with you. To wake up and see you there beside me in the morning, Mike, Mike—“ He reached for the zipper of her dress and then stopped. “Is it all right? I mean it won’t do any harm?”
She shook her head and said in a barely audible voice, “No, no, it won’t do any harm.”
The next Saturday Miguel waited in the parking lot of the Medico-Dental Building in San Mateo. Allie had been inside for more than an hour. His breathing was thick and uneven. The sheltering dark was gone and he found to his dismay that he was terrified.
Other cars shimmered in the morning sunlight. Everything seemed unreal to him. He kept praying: Please, God, don’t let it be. Please, God—
Allie had done her best to follow his instructions. She had worn a suit and high heels and plenty of make-up to make her look older, but the effect had only been to make her look like a little girl playing dress-up. No matter what Allie did to herself she looked just over sixteen. Well, goddam it, that’s all she was. The wedding band from the novelty store hadn’t looked bona fide on her finger. It had just looked pathetic.
Even buying the ring had been an ordeal. The salesgirl had smirked at Miguel and he was sure she had known why he was buying it. Oh, God, how something so wonderful could lead to something so tawdry.
Miguel looked at the dashboard clock. She had been in there so long. But he had no idea of how long she had to wait or if she had to take a lot of tests or anything. Ignorance was hideous, he thought. It made you suffer three times more than you needed to.
The leaves were falling, red-gold in the autumn sunshine. People were walking by on the street. They looked so unconcerned. A woman with a little boy and a bag of groceries. She looked so ordinary. But she wasn’t ordinary at all. She wasn’t real and that made her extraordinary indeed. She was part of a dream he was having. A dream that he would awake from and Allie would be all right and everything would be just the way it should be. He kept wanting to pinch himself, hoping he wouldn’t feel it.
Allie had been terrific. All the way up from Los Altos she had been laughing and chattering away as if she were on the way to a party.
Miguel resolved that no matter what happened, ever, he would never fail her. Not Allie. She was everything to him. More important than school, more important than writing or flying or even Raoul.
He saw her come out of the building and walk toward the car.
Her head was down and she was crying.
It was going to be true, he thought. It was going to be true after all.
“Let’s get away quickly, Mike,” Allie said in a strangled voice. “Oh, God, let’s get away from this place.”
He started the car and drove out into the traffic on El Camino Real, heading south.
“He knew I wasn’t married,” Allie said. There were tears streaking her cheeks, smearing her make-up. “He could tell right away.”
“Well, what did he say, Allie? I mean everything.”
She shook her head and fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief. “Oh, Mike—I don’t know. The usual things, I guess. About staying off rough roads and being careful about things—“ She took out a booklet and a sheet of paper with the doctor’s name on it. “He gave me this stuff—diet and prenatal care, and—oh, Mike!”
She broke down completely and began to sob wretchedly on his shoulder. “What are we going to do—what are we going to do?”
“Well go see Luis,” Miguel said.
“I felt so awful,” she said brokenly. “He didn’t even want me to come back. ‘Just see your regular family physician, Mrs. Rinehart, that’s all.’ That’s what he told me, Mike. He called me Mrs. Rinehart and he didn’t believe it for a minute—”
“It’ll be true the next time you see some goddam doctor,” Miguel said through his teeth.
Allie lay down on the seat with her head on his lap. She kept crying softly. “I’m so scared, Mike.”
Miguel took a deep breath and said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Allie. Luis will lend me some money and well be in Reno by tomorrow night.” He put one hand on her cheek and said, “Let me handle this from now on, Allie. We’ll be all right.”
It was not until May 1947 that he spoke of that day again. He sat with Alaine on the terrace of the Gran Savoia in Rapallo. The sun was warm and the Mediterranean sparkling blue. There was a pair of racing sailboats tacking out of the harbor, their varicolored sails brilliant red and orange against the cobalt water. Rapallo’s white houses and pink villas rose tier on tier from the sea, set in dark green foliage.
Alaine wore a red-and-white striped blouse and tight black Italian slacks. The sun had burnt her blond hair, streaking it in a way that reminded him of Aldyth’s, and perhaps for that reason he told Alaine the story for the first time.
She heard him out in silence, toying with her vermouth.
“We went to see Luis all right,” he said presently. “We saw him that Saturday night.”
“He lent you the money?”
“As a matter of fact, no.” Miguel smiled ruefully at her. “It seemed he didn’t have enough in the house and since it was Saturday he had no way to get any until the following Monday” He shrugged. “It was like that. Not that we doubted for a moment that he would actually help us.” He was silent for a time and then he said, “Well, perhaps he did, in a way. He told Raoul.”
“Oh, Mike. He didn’t.”
“He sure did, friend. We didn’t know, of course. He called him after we left. He’d told us to just sit tight for a day or so and we’d be in good shape. We thought he meant one thing and he obviously meant something else. Anyway, I took Allie home and in the meanwhile Luis was telling Becky and maybe it was her idea to call Raoul. I never did find out about it exactly.” He moved his glass in slow circles on the enameled steel table.
The sailboats were almost clear of the headland now. Their bright sheets were like flower petals on the placid, sparkling face of the sea.
Presently, Miguel continued, thinking that even yet, the memory was painful. “Raoul didn’t waste any time at all. He called Allie’s parents and there was a synod about what to do with us. They decided we were too young to get married, of course—which we were. There was no denying that. But you see, we weren’t consulted about it. They decided in their own way. Oh, I guess it must have been pretty hard on Mr. and Mrs. Wylie. Maybe even on Raoul, too. But they were civilized as all hell about it. They decided that it had to be taken care of—and Mr. Wylie being a lawyer, I guess—he knew where and how. So by the time I took Allie home that night, it was all cut and dried.” He paused and finished his Cinzano slowly. “I never saw her again.”
“Mike—“ Alaine said sympathetically. “They couldn’t have done anything so cruel to a couple of kids.”
“They could and they did. They took her to some place in the city—I never did know where. I damned near went out of my mind.”
“But surely she tried to get in touch with you?”
He looked up at her before signaling the waiter for another pair of drinks.
“Yes, she did. I got a phone call about a month after that—around the end of October, I think it was. She’d sneaked to a telephone somewhere in this hospital or rest home—what the hell would you call a high-type abortionists place, anyway? The only thing I could get out of her was that they’d taken the baby—that was the way she put it—they’d taken the baby and it was all over. Oh, yes. She said that they’d hurt he
r. She must have been under sedation or something of the sort because I could hardly understand her. I kept yelling at her to tell me where the place was so that I could find it, and she couldn’t tell me. All she could say was that they’d hurt her and taken the baby.”
Alaine shook her head with a pained expression in her eyes. “How awful for you.”
“And for her. Hell, for her parents too. Think how we’d feel if something like that had happened to Dorrie? I couldn’t think at all about them and when somebody came and dragged her away from the telephone I just about went crazy. I had been at her house every day. The Wylies wouldn’t see me at all. Finally her father did, and he told me if he ever saw me out around again he’d see to it Allie never came back. I didn’t know that was what they had in mind anyway, so I did stay away—but after that call I came apart. I took off for the city to look for her. To look for her, for God’s sake, in a city of three-quarters of a million people! That will give you some idea of how a seventeen-year-old mind works.”
The waiter brought their Cinzano on the rocks and Miguel paid him before going on.
“Needless to say, I did not find her.”
Alaine said quietly, “Or you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Christ, I don’t know. That was 1938—this is 1947. A hell of a lot can happen in nine years. But they didn’t give us a chance to find out for ourselves, you see? That’s what drove the stake in. I guess I went a little screwy after that. It was almost a year before I started taking anyone else out—and I spent about as much time getting loopy drunk as any seventeen-year-old punk you ever saw. I developed quite a reputation as a screw-you hell-raiser.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Alaine said.
Miguel leaned back in his chair and squinted against the high, bright Italian sun. “I received a letter from her, too. In about December. She told me she was feeling fine now and that she was going to be traveling in Europe for a while. That’s all. It was a—well, resigned sort of letter. As though whoever had been working on her had convinced her that this was the right thing to do. Allie was like that, of course. In a way she was the greatest little conformist you ever could imagine. The letter was mailed from Norfolk, Virginia. She had relatives there. That’s the last of it. Whenever anyone asked about her, her folks would tell them she was abroad. It must have cost them more than they could afford, but they did have money. And it salved their pride to have her finish her education in Switzerland.” He laughed ruefully and added, “I was going to run away and get over there on a tramp steamer. How’s that for romantic, dumb, young youth? But I never heard from her again, so my beau geste was only an incomplete pass.”
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